The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-11-20

omlnously. Now, kind hearted people, I re-
spect your sympathy, but what is the matter !?
Why are you making all this ado? Do you
really mean that you would have him marry
her? Marry her in the gloom of that cloud
which darkened his being? Marry her, when
between his soul and hers there could be no
reel communion 1t is true, that before he
was able to read his or her inner history, he
deemed her allsuficient; but, discovering his
mistake, he would do her irreparable wrong, if
he should allow her to go on, unknowing and
unsuspecting the discovery-irreparable wrong,
to fulfil his promise to the letter. when he cannot
to the spirit-irreparable wrong, to stand up be-
fore God and man, and solemnly promise love
till death, knowing that at the very moment
the life OF love is gone. Alas! you would con-
sign her to a fate compared to which the pros
pect of death is but a pleasing hope, to the
cherries, dreary, desolate doom of an unloved
and unloving wife. He is not to be blamed.
The fault, if fault there be, is hers, not his.
She knew that he was devoting himself to
study, and rising above his former rank, and
she might have done the same. The way was
open to her, as to him. But she preferred to
go to huskings, and cuttings, to take care of
the children, and do the dairy work all very
well, and quite proper, only she must abide by
the consequences.
! But, in fact, what harm is done? Her hap
piness is not destroyed. This little incident is
but pebble against the tide In a years
time, the rosy cheeks, the muscular arm, the
1.-THE figure, and the strong, elastic spirit, will
bless the heart and cheer the home of some
thriving young farmer and President and all
his Cabinet may yet be chosen from the healthy,
rudy faces that will gather every morning round
her wholesome and plentiful table. Spare your
pity. Of this happy home she will be the Gen.
tre and light, and stay. In this, her appropri-
ate position, her faculties will be brought into
full play, her abilities shown to the best advan.
tage. Her many and active duties will develop
vigor of mind and of body. Keen intelects and
iron nerves, for many generations, will rise up
and call her blessed. Joined to one whom she
could not appreciate, nor by whom be appre-
ciated-placed in a sphere for which she was
untitled, and which she could not adorn-her
joyous, bounding, bouyant life would be check
ed, and the poor country minister's wife, ha-
raised, careworn, pale, and meek, would go no
pleasure tour so swiftly as her own pathway to
the tomb.
am aware that this is only the bright side
of the picture. Every woman does not take the
matter so easily. 1t does not follow, however,
that the gentleman is any more at fault, or that
the lady is any more aggrieved. She may be
only less sensible and humble. Instead of do
ing with all her might whatsoever her hand
finds to do, the rich and petted Ida, after part
ing from her equally rich and petted Mortimer,
grows languid and languishing, weeps much,
seems to have lost all interest in affairs of the
world, listens attentively to discourses turning
upon the instability of all earthly friendships,
but turns deaf ear to music, except of the al
Penseroso" key. Doting friends mourn over
the crushed affections and broken heart of the
dear girl.
/ know I am naturally cruel Having no
superfuity of heart myself, am apt to make
too little allowance for excess of it in others.
But, with all sincerity and kindness, do be-
ieve that in nine cases out of ten it is the pride
that is mortified, rather than the heart that is
broken. Ida knows that, to all intents and
purposes, she has been weighed in the balance,
and found wanting. There may be no real
s Hftfs p hfE resaieeg So Shs pax Rs vastly
But, however that may be, she knows that she
stands before the world as one who has given
her all, and the gift has been rejected. Bsrkis
is not wilin'.
Now, if scorn and disdain were her style, you
would hear nothing of sighings and meanings
but she is not of that caliber, so she becomes
gentle, pensive and interesting. do not blame
her for her sorrow. l do, indeed, think it would
be better for her to consider that the man who,
after six months or year of acquaintance, is
not profoundly impressed with sense of her
superiority, cannot be man whose name she
will be honored in assuming, and his memory,
therefore, is unworthy regret. Still, if she
choose to look at it effectively rather than
subjectively, from the worlds point of view
rather than her own, very WELL / only insist
that she shall not insist upon our taking her
wounded selflove for broken heart-her dis
appointment in not becoming the jeweled mis-
tress of a brown-stone palace, an army of negro
servants, and a coach and six, for the agony of
misplaced affections For look you. Ida's
anxious parents, in view of her faltering tread
and dropping form, call family council The
decree goes forth that she musi travel, and
anon they bear her hither and thither; dip her
in the surf at Newport; nauseate her with the
waters at Saratoga; deafen her with the roar
of Niagara enervate her with the yoluptuous
airs of the South tone her up with the breezes
of the Alleghanies. After undergoing these
sundry processes Of resuseitation, the whole
business is "done up" in the twinkling Of an
eye, by the sudden entrance upon the stage of
rich, handsome, mustachioed cavalier, who is
smitten by the " most musical, most melancholy
charms of the fair sufferer, and not olsen
chanted by the excellent name that papa bears
on Wall street. Mirth and gayety are rein
stated, bridal veil closes the scene, and the
cracked heart is just as good as new.
4
/ have, however, great faith in moping ones
self to death out of spite or stubbornness false
shame. If / am wrong, | am sorry-or glad
perhaps | ought to be glad. At any rate, | am
in just that state of mind in which | ought to
be, under the circumstances. If have injured
any ones feelings by my unbelief, most hum
bly, beg pardon. l dare say shall die of unre-
Quilted love myself, some day. It.would be no
more than strict poetic justice. Doubtless
God might have made better berry than
strawberry but doubtless God never did"
Doubtless there might be such a thing as dying
for love- but doubtless there never Tor seldom
was. Not that / suppose all marriages are
mercenary. Far from 1t. But people marry
for thousand things-money not only, but
y-genius-because others do
because j. is respectable, convenient, DC.
Some of these motives ass b;ectionable-some
the yorn-opt bodies of her father and mother
in the grave, sees no prospect before her but
unremitting toll, loneliness, poverty, and death
in the dreary end, and marries the kind old
physician who has tended her parents without
| prospect of reward; who has been the witness
of her assiduity, yatchfulness, generosity good
cheerful sense, and real worth, ald feels that
she would shed upon his widowed hearth some
thing of the light of other days, 1 am far from
blaming beT. She is not false to her noblest
nature, although perhaps, in the dreams of her
early and happy girlhood, his was not the arm
she looked to lean on. He will love her with
fatherly love; she will return it with grateful
affection, and therefore her walk in life will be
higher, her ends nobler, her benevo!ence more
expansive, her womanhood better developed,
though the ecststic glow that flushed her morn
ing sky, when