Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1870-02-10
LONG ENGAGEMENTS.

elderly and experienced ladies the subject
of Long ENGAGEMENTS, you will find That
they will shake their heads steadily and at
once pronounce an unequivOcal verdict OF
disapprobation. Like the celebrated CO.
loniai Judge, they are perhaps not 30 happy
in their augmentation as in their decision,
but they fall back upon their verdict as
characterized by the most impregnabie
wisdom. If you come to investigate their
reasons they candidly avow themselves
empires; their opinion is merely gen.
eyalization of limited individual expert
er YES. 1t will be found, however, that the
British mothers reasons generally resolve
themselves into two; first, they say that
II an engagement is indefinitely prolonged
the daughters health Is apt TO suffer very
greatly and next they say that the long
engagement has an inherent tendency TO
disfntegration-that it is apt to resolve and
come to nothing. The subject is matter
of considerable practical Importance, and
may repay an attempt at calculation.
OF course extreme instances are 10 De
avoided But these instances should De
avoided both on the one side or on the
other. Sometimes very brief is worse
than very long engagement. MOST pco-
pie have heard in their time some queer
stories of very short engagements. l re-
member the case Of gentleman who was
going out as missionary. do not think
that he was going al tresco among. the
sayapes. but rather, | should think, TO
some district where Europeans can live
very comfortably despite the surrounding
prevalent heathensm. believe that IT Is
an understood principle, for reasons easily
ineligible, that missionary is best mar
ried. This gentleman had neglected, how.
ever, TO the very last, to provide himself
with such necessary adjunct to his labors.
He was taking tea with nice family, and
he announced that he had to depart for
the East the day after the morrow, and
also the unsatisfactory state Of his personal
arrangements. A young lady who was
present rather liked him as an individual,
and greatly sympathized with him as
missionary The result, which may be
stated in an abridged form, simply was
that the young lady who saw him one day
married him the next, and sailed away
with him to India on the third. We do
not wish to bode i'll for this interesting
young coupe, but we are sure that terrific
paper might be written on hasty marriages.
Now let me give case in point Of, the
other side of the question. Several long
engagements of truly venerable charac-
ter have come to my knowledge. There
was man in Australia who was engaged
to lady in England for twenty years.
The lady pleaded that she could not leave
her mother / wonder, by the way,
whether she had ever asked her mother.
am not sure that young ladies always
fully,understand their mothers on these
points. The gentleman allowed the plea,
and languid, semi latonic correspond.
cnce went on. One fine morning the
gentleman was surprised by letter from
his ancient friend, informing him that her
mother was now departed this life and
that she was ready to come out and marry
him. This WAS rather serious demand
to make upon a middle-aged man while
cracking his egg at breakfast. But he
considered that he had given his accept
ance, and did not fail to honor the draft
In the most businesslike way.
Here is another case OF quasi long en-
gagement character. A clergyman was
walking in beautiful park to note a
famous castle and the surrounding land
scape. At sudden turn Of the walk he
met lady, whose face, though somewhat
changed by time, he remembered well 1t
was that of lady to whom the parson
had been engaged twenty years before.
They had loved each other greatly then,
but, according to their notions of living,
there did not appear the most fOrlOrn
chance of union. Under these circum-
stances the lovers agreed that they would
postpone matters indefinitely, and that
each should be considered at liberty.
The lady went out to India rs a specula-
ton, and ropped into good thing. The
gentleman stuck with pertinacity to his
curacy, and remained on the same spot for
the whole twenty years Then, after such
long parting, they at last met again, in
this accidental way, in the great "shOw"
park. She was widow, with an only
child, rich, and was handsome still. Walk
ing slowly beneath the swinging chestnut
boughs, they discussed old friends,
old times. And then the pars0n
said that he proposed to forget
those past twenty years. to erase them.
as If they had never been, and to re-
. vert once more to the old days Of their
engagement. And the lady said, in mid
phrases meaning much, that she had no
objection. And the long engagement re-
vived in the form Of very short one.
1t may be said that we are looking upon
the subject in an empiric way, citing OPP
posite instances and not laying down
principle. 1t would be easy to make a
wide-sweeping generalization-ifwe could
only see our way to 1t. But the subject
must be taken in cases, and the cases must
be decided on their merits. 1t Is subject
for that noble science of casuistry, which,
once diligently pursued both by Romanist
and Puritan, seems now relegated into the
region of ethical curiosities. The only
general consent on the subject Is that
adopted by mothers, who look upon long
engagements with an ill-disguised aver.
sion and when they take you into their
confidence and tell you how vexed and
anxious they are about their girls, and
enlarge on that dispirfting hopelessness,
which is kind of shadow to long engage.
ments, 1t is difficult not to sympathize
with their troubles and be persuaded by
their rhetoric. A great deal Of satire Il
often lavished upon worldly mothers
But In. this so.called worldliness good
mothers are often unworldly and unselfish.
They only want to know for certain what
Is really for the true good of their girls,
and they will be sure to do it.
There Is generally . considerable
amount of poetic interest about young
engaged pair. But in long engagement
they frequently discount their raptures at
1c.~ At "a nth .~~>lA~.