Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1870-11-03
THE SWEETS OF MARRIED LIFE.
In What they Consist, and How to
T Preseve Them.

f..M Preseve Tncm.
From the London Saturday Review,l
Marriage, which most girls consider
the sole aim of their existence and the
end of all their anxieties, is often the
beginning Of a set of troubles which none
among them expect, and which, when
they come, very few accept with the dig.
nifty of patience or the reasonableness OF
common sense. Hitherto the man has
been the suitGr, the wooer; it has been
his meter to make love, to utter extrav-
agant professions, to talk poetry and
romance of an eminently unwearable
kind, and to swear that feelings which,
by the very nature of things, it is impos-
sible to maintain at their present state
of fever heat, will be as lasting as life
itself. and never know subsidence or
diminution. And girls believe all that
their lovers tell them. They believe in
the absorption of the mans whole life in
the love which at the most cannot be
more than part of bis life; they believe
that things will 90 on forever as they
have begun, and that the fire and feryor
of passion will never cool down to the
more manageable warmth Of friendship
And in this belief of theirs lies the rock
on which not a few make such pitiful
shipwreck Of their married happiness.
They expect their husbands to remain
always lovers. Not lovers only in the
best sense, which Of course all happy
husbands are to the end of time, but
lovers as IN the old fond, foolish, court
ing days They expect . continuance
of the romance, the poetry, the exaggeT-
alton. the aetits soins, the microscopic
attentions, the absorption ofthought and
interest. the Capitalization of his happi-
ness Ia her society, just as in the days
when she was still to be won, or, a little
later, when, being won, she was new IN
the wearing. And as We said before,
wife's first trial, and her greatest, j. when
her husband begins to leave off this kipd
of feryid loye-making, Gpd settles down
into the tranquil friend instaad.
LOVE MUST BIZ FREQUENTLY EXPRESSED.
II is in the nature of most women 10
require continual assurances, Just as II
is with children; and a very few believe
in a love which is not frequently eK-
pressed; while the ability to trust in the
vital warmth of an affection that has lost
its early feverishness is the mark OF
higher wisdom than most Of them pos
sess. To n axe them thoroughly happy
a man must be always at their feet; and
they are jealous Of eyeYthing-even oil
his work--that takes him agay from
them. or gives him occasion fer thongli
and interest outside themselves. They
are rarely able to rise 10 the hight oi
married friendship; and if they belong
TO a reticent and quiet-going maa-sa
man who says love you, once tor
ali. and then contents hinself with liy-
ina life OF loyalty and kindness, and
not talking about it,-they fret at whai
they call his GOODNESS, and feel them
selves shorn Of half their glory aud
more than half their dues. They refuse
TO believe in that which is not daily re
heated; they want the incense Of hattery
the excitement Of love-making, and i
these desires are not minlstered TO BY
their husbands, the danger is that they
will get some one else 10 understand
them. and feed the senfimeatalit which
dies of inanftion in the quiet serenity OF
home. Moonlights and bouquei Of the
earliest AoEers carefully arranged aud
teuderly presented, and the changing
lights on the mountain tops, and the ex-
ouisite song Of the nighdngsle-at two
O'clock in the morning all the rest
of those vague and suggestive delights
which once made the meeting places .oi
souls. and furnished occasion for de
iicious rawlings. become by time ana use,
aud the wearing realities Of business and
the crowding pressure Of anxietiesi
puerile aad annoying to the ordinary
Englishman, who "a not poet By nature,
when all the world was young, b.
reason Of his own youth, and the fever