The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1868-03-11
sTAUNTON, VIRGINIA, WEDNESDAY MORNING. MARCH H. Is
Friendships Of wives and Husbands.

Friendships of Wives and Husbands.
It is fitting, in the next place, to say some
thing Of the disappointment and wretched
ness which so many married men and womer
VIGOROUSLY experience in their relations will
each other. It may be useful to state tn,
principal causes Of this unhappiness, and te
give some definite directions in the way o.
remedy. Absence Of love, absence Of rea
son, absence Of justice, absence Of taste-in
] other words, harshness and neglect, Stiffness
and frivolity, vice and crime, vulgarity and
| slovenliness- ARE the leading and inevitable
creators of alienation, dislike and misery in
marriage. Whatever tends to increase these
tends to multiply separations AND divorces
between those who cannot endure each other;
and to multiply irritatiops, quarrels, sorrows
land agonies between those who may endure,
tout cannot enjoy, each other. In marriage
Ttfs intimacy is SO great and constant that the
4 Slightest friction becomes CALLING. Nowhere
besides is there such need Of magpanimoua
forbearauce in one, or else Of equality Of
worth and refinement in both. Glove does
not secure happiness in marriage, often the
contrary; reason is necessary" So said the
wise Jean Paul He also said: 1.-The best
man joined with the worst woman has great
! er hell than the best woman joined With the
| worst man." This is no doubt true as a
general rule, because woman is so much more
capable than man of self-abnegation, silent
patience, meek submission and flexible adj
justment to inevitable circums taEces. Prob
ably the women who keenly and chemically
suffer from unhappy marriages are far more
numerous than the kindred sufferers OF the
| other sex. This is because they are more
deeply susceptible to cruelty and Indifference
and to all the repulsive traits Of character !;
are less capable Of ignoring such things have
less Of absorbing occupation Of their own to
| absorb their attention, and are less able to
be absorbed in things beyond the personal
and domestic sphere. There are unquestion-
ably thousands Of married women whose ex-
perience is made living martyrdom by the
infdelitw, the tyranny, the coarseness, the
general odiousness and wearisomeness OF their
husbands In most cases, even where di-
yorce is wished, the shocking public scandal
and disgrace are too much; and they wear on
to the end. What misery delicate and con-
scientious women, of dedicated souls and pol
ished manners, who love everything that is
pure and beautiful are compelled to undergo
in their bondage to husbands, ignorant, I'M
interesting, ignoble, relentless domineering,
is not to be expressed. Their best weapons,
in such cases, if they knew it, are gentleness,
patience, persuasion, and the skillful use OF
every means to improve and uplift their un-
equal companions to their own level. The
Persian poet expressed rich truth when he
wrote, "Gentleness is the salt on the table OF
morals" It is tragedy that the good wife
of bad husband is so identified with him
that the penalty Of bis offences fall on her
head, often more terribly than on his. A
pure woman loving wicked man must ex-
pecs to have her affections ravaged by his
Sins; does not the lightning drawn by the
rod blast the innocent ivy entwining it. What
lacerating woes the gambler, the drunkard,
the forger, the adulterer, inficts on his wife !
And yet, profound as is the misfortune,
sharp as is the suffering Of such, it may be
doubted whether noble, sensitive, cultiva-
ted man, with yearning heart OF sottness
and peace, a capacious mind, full OF grand
aspirations, married, by some fatal chance, to
woman with petty soul, teasing and ty-
ranical temper, mendacious and rasping
tongue, whose taste is for small gossip and
scandal, whose ambition is for fashionable
show and noise, whose life is one incessant
fret and sting-it may be doubted it this
man S lot is not seyerer with his Unmatched
consort than hers would be with the worst
husband in the World. He had better marry
vinegar cr4et than such Tartar. When
weary and seeking to rest, to be reused up by
scolding; when searching for truth, or con
templatipg beauty, or communing With God,
or aspiring to perfection, or scheming some
vast good for mankind, to be aggravated by
abuse, insulted by false charges, dragged
down to petty interests which he despises, and
mixed up with wrongs and passions which he
loathes-these degrading injuries, these waste
full vexations, are what he must endure. No
wonder if he yehemently resents q treatment
so ineongrQous With bis worth. No wonder
if, vexed, hurt, goaded half to madness, he
gets euraged, and unseemly contentious en-
sue, followed by painful depression and re-
merseful grief. No wonder if he finds it
hard indeed to forget or forgive the infection
Of an evil so incomparably profound and
frightful There is, to high-souled man, no
wrong more hurtful or more difficult to par-
don than to have mean motives falsely ascrib-
ed to him, to be placed by misiaterpretation
on lower plane than that where he belongs
Every SUCH experience stabs the moral source
of life, and draws blood from the source it.
self. Husband and wife powerfully tend to
a common level and likeness. The higher
must redeem and lift up the unequal mate, or
live in strife and misery. If the lover takes
pattern after the superior one, the petty, friv-
olous, false, and fretful, becoming magnan-
imous, dedicated, truthful, and serene, it is
a divine triumph of grace, and the result
will be full of blessedness. But otherwise
wearing unhappiness is inevitable, however
carefully it be hidden, however hravely it be
| borne,
PERPETUAL Morton REALIZED heth-
Or mechanical perpetual motion is or is not
among human impoesibilities has long been a
disputed point, but what seems rsalization
Of this desideratum in physics, or comes SO
| near it as to leaye the mind at a loss and set
argument at defiance, is piece of mechanism
which belongs to DR.. Loomis of this city
This machine is about 20 inches in height,
and the main faature il verified whaol