Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1869-11-24
The Deoal1est Fee q MaRxa0h IAfe-The
| RsaA % Perditiea-Bl ighsed Lives


FROM me chicago Tribune.
Harmless ffirtations are the sauce piquante"
with which young people season their daily tare,
and 20 long as the paroles concerted are possess
ed OF common sense, 80 long will they not do
harm. Girls who love. and love again, are not
easily injured in their affections, aud men do
not die Of broken hearts. They live and suffer,
and II does them good. "Men have died and
Digestion more TeS ihely or n of f spleen AZ fan
in real estate. SO long Is fxtation Is confined To
the unmarried, it can do no harm until it ceases
to be a Irritation and becomes intrigue;
mony it is q deadlier foe than the plague.
1t is TO the woman address myself, because she
has the Inest power, and can do the most harm
ceiyed with heartfelt words OF welcome by the
wife and mother, with caresses by the children.
She stands within the sacred Threshold of home
the home she Is about to deyastate--and they see
only the angel, not the demon disguised beneath.
She is q cherished guest; the wife Is busy with
her house and children; has but Indifferent
health: looks pale and careworn, for the baby is
cross, and Bridget cannot do everything. The
husband is young looking and handsome; the
advent of a baby every year does not impair
his constitution. The guest Plays; he loves
when their first baby came. The guest is
sprghtly and entertaining. Why doesn't Mary
try to make herself agreeable to him in that
then signs, and suddenly bursts into tears, he,
cause she is alone in the world" The man
would be q prodigious fool if he were not a real
villain. He knows this womans whole body is
not worth his true wife's little finger, but he
fs in the power of the siren. They gloss over
their wiekedness with the usual clap-trap
about . afinities," and the papers record
OF the broken-hearted wife, shamed by the
worlds pity; Of the little children left to
its charity, there IS not much to say. They
would gladly sink into oblivion forever
The man would be ultimately punished
by remOrse, if society would let him alone;
'.but there are extenuating circumstances" it
says. Either his wife was too cold for a man
OF his temperament and had no sympathy with
HIM, or he was her superior, and there was
nothing i'm common between them. So, when
he is ready to return and give up his infatuation,
She must be ready to receive him, and make il
all up. Yes, If she is good, true woman she
will, and let God take care of the consequences;
but for the woman who would leave her home i'm
that way, there is no return from the infatu-
alton. Her own and every other door is barred
against her, and she sinks down! down! Why?
Because there is that IN the heart OF every woman
that condemns her to death. The outraged pu-
rity of her soul avenges itself. 1t Is her own
hand that stones her.
No woman can carry on a Irritation with
married man that is not criminal. No married
woman can Hirt innocently, even with a Young
man. 1t is the first step toward unbalancing
his character. Through her he sees other
women, and forms an estimate. The young
girl who enters family and wins the affections
OF the husband and father knOwingly-and she
cannot do it Otherwise-has entered on the road
to perdition. There is a punishment for the
1
who steals and mars life's best treasures
Every woman has the first best right to her own
husband. He is hers, in sickness and in health,
to love and to cherish, as exclusively as she
should be his. He Is to provide for her, honor
her, and love her. He Ia her protector against
all the adverse circumstances of life. No other
woman has any right to the same attentions and
endearments and q wife has q perfect right
to resent such intrusion. A man who saw an
other mans arm around his wife's waist would
consider IT a case for court, or an exercise for
pistol shooting Women, with keener sensibili-
ties and finer natures, feel it deeper. 1t
touches the heart. A certain sensible friend
OF mine says there are two things she will
never allow anybody to NEEDLE with-her
husband and her sewing machine. Such
hirtations are unworthy Of true manhood or
womanboOd. They blight the lives that were
created in the original of God, and make the
innocent suffer for the guilty. Mothers would
no well to see that their daughters are not
mentally grown on the morbid books in which
somebody is always represented as falling in
loye with somebody's elses husband or wife, and
"a soul union pictured which is only intended
TO veil the incarnation Of lust. There are enough
men and women to fall by the force OF circum-
stances, or the depravity of original sin without
educating any to it. 1t is we'll enough to pull our
OK or ass out Of the pit, but we do not want to
dig pits for them to fall into.