The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1870-02-11
LONG ENGAGEMENTS.


That broke up our society upon the stanislaus
LONG ENGAGEMENTS.
Ifyou should happen to discuss with
elderly and experienced ladies the sub.
ject ofLong engagements, You will find
that they will shake their heads steadily
and at once pronounce an unequivoca
verdict of Interpretation. Like the eel
ebrated, colonial judge, they are perhaps
not so happy in their augmentation as
in their decision, but they fall back upon
| their verdict as characterized by the
most impregnable wisdom. If you
come to investigate their reas ons, they
candidIy avow themselves empires
their opinion is merely a generalization
of limited individual experiences. II
will be found, however, that the British
mothers reasons generally resolve them
selves into two first, they saw 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 ten
dency to disintegFation-that it is apt
to resolve and come to nothing. The
subject is Amatter OF considerable prac-
teal importance, and may repay an at
tempt at calculation.
OF course extreme instances are to be
avoided. But these instances should be
avoided either on the one side or on the
other. Sometimes a very brief is worse
than very long engagement. Most
people have heard in their time some
queer stories of very short engagements.
remember the case of a gentleman who
was going out as a missionary. I do
not think that he was going al .freSco
among the savages, but rather, should
-. a
can live very comfortably despite the
surrounding prevalent heathenism. /
believe that it is an understood princi-
pie, for reasons easily Ineligible, that
a missionary is best married. This gen.
tleman had neglected, however, to the
very last, to provide himself with such
q 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 per-
sonal arrangements. A young lady who
was present rather liked him as an in
him as missionary. The result, which
may be stated in 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 in
teresting young couple, but we are sure
that terrific paper might be written
on hasty marriages.
Now let me give case in point on the
other side of the question. Several
long engagements of truly venerable
character have come to my knowledge.
There was a man in Australia who was
engaged to lady in England for TWEEN
ty years. The lady pleaded that she
could not leave her mother. ] wonder,
by the way, whether she had ever asked
her mother. aa
lam not sure that young ladies al
ways fully understand their mothers on
these points. The gentleman allowed
the plea, and a languid, semi-Platonic
correspondence went on. One fine
morning the gentleman was surprised
by letter from his ancient friend, in
forming 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 acceptance, and
did not fail to honor the draft in the
most business-like way. ...
Here is another case of a quasi long
engagement character. A clergyman
was walking in beautiful park to note
a famous castle and the surrounding
landscape. AT sudden turn of the
walk he met lady, whose face, though
somewhat changed by time, he remem-
bered 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 notion of living, there did
not appear the most forlorn chance of a
union. Under these circumstances the
lovers agreed that they would postpone
matters indefinitely, and that each
should be considered at liberty. The
lady went out to India as a speculation,
and dropped into a good thing. The
gentleman stuck with pertinacity to his
curacy, and remained on the same spot
for the whole twenty years. Then, af-
ter such long parting, they at last met
again, in this accidental way, III the
great "show" park. She was widow,
with an only child, rich, and was hand
some still. Walking slowly beneath the
swinging chestnut boughs, they dis
cussed old friends, and old times. And
then the parson said that he proposed
to forget those past twenty years, to
erase them, as if they had never been,
and to revert once more to the old days
of their engagement. And the lady
that she had no objection And the
long engagement revived in the form Of
very short one.
1t may be said that we are looking up
on the subject in an empiric way, citing
opposite instances and not laying down
a principle. 1t would be easy to make
wide-sweeping generalization-if. we
could only see our way to it. 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
casnistry, which, once diligently pur-
sued, both by Romanist aud Puritan,
seems now reIegated into the region of
ethical curiosities. The only general
consent on the 81 bjeet is that adopted by
mothers, who look upon long engage
ments with an ili-disguised aversion !;
and when they take yon into their con-
fdence aud tell. you how vexed and
anxious they are about their girls, and
enlarge on that dispirited hopelessness,
which is a kind of shadow to long en-
gagements, it is difficult not to svmpa-
thiEe with their troubles and be per-
shaded by their rhetoric. A great deal
of satire is often lavished upon worldly
mothers But IN this so-called worldIi-
ness good mothers are often ginworidly
and unselfish- They only. want to
know for certain whatsi is really for the
true good of their girls, and they will
be sure 10 do it.TPieadjity PGQeTs,
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After Louisville butcher had sold a