The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1871-12-08
A Few Words ON Marriage.
by OLIVE HENRI.

Blau, sunny ilSht, tiO Happy
smile on your fair, youthful face-I
want you to listen TO me for one mo-
ment / have something 10 say 10 you.
So recall your thoughts from the land
of day dreams, and lay aside your hem.
ming, and tucking, and patchwork,
and give me your attention. You can
afford to cease your stitching for short
time, if it is so near the day OF your
wedding, when what | have TO say to
you is about that event in your lite
so full of mportance-that event
upon which the future of two beings
depends.
Of course you love the man with
whom you are so soon to stand b efore
the ALTAR will not question that
but is it a full, deep, reasoning love?
Is the love that is given in return,
love that has its well-spring in a true
aud thorough appreciation Of yourself?
Harry may be all devotion now he may
seem to see in you little less than that
which is angelic. But yOu know that
you are not an angel, only an ordinary
young lady, and sooner or later he will
discover that you have lost your wings
that, in fact you never had any and
you-you have invested him with every
chivalrous attribute, and your fond
fancy has woven charms and thrown
them about his mind and person that
belong no more to him than wings do to
you. And what are you TO do when all
these romantic Authorizations melt
away in the realities which a few
months or years of married life bring?
when you have learned to know each
ot bap
each become a part OF the other?
Doubtless you each have an honest
desire to make the other happy, and to
be happy yourselves; but thousands be-
fore you have had the same intention.
and have failed in their endeavors,-so
there are chances that you too may
miss your happiness. | Go not want 10
fill your mind with forebodings, 10 give
the future tinge Of gloom, to make
you distrust yourself but | do want to
question you, that you may know your
self whether or not you have thought
earnestly OF the step you are about TO
talle,-f you understand Onehalt Of
the weight of responsibility you are
about to assume, and have any conf
dence in your own strength 10 meet
and perform well and efficiently the
duties you will find awaiting you in the
path OF the years which lie before you.
Unless your affection for the man you
are about to marry transcends every
other afiection-unless deep down in
your heart you feel that his is the hand
of all others in which you are to place
your own, to rest there evermore,-you
are committed to an act for which, some
time, you will weep. Unless you feel
that III his being are elements which
call forth your souls sweetest music,
that IN his nature are chords to which
respond all that is harmonic and best
III years, do not unite your 1 nth his.
If you do, feeling that be cen you
there IS nothing common, nothing in
sympathy, can you reas onably expect
TO be happy?
Harry may be wholly unlike you, and
possess traits Of character which would
not make you happy as his companion,
and yet some other woman might find
her JOY therein. And so it may be
with you. Have you never been with
people who seemed to call out every
discordant element in your nature?
and with others at whose touch al that
is lovely ana harmonious awoke2 I'm
less you feel that you can sympathize
with the man whose wife you are to be-
come, that you can help him to de.
velopment of all that is best and mob
lest in him, and that your own powers
will brighter and expand under his
touch; you are falling far short of Sc
curing your highest good and happi-
ness-falling far short of making the
matrimonial state what God designed it
to be.
Oh, my dear girl, want you TO find
much of sunshine and brightness in the
years that lie before you but unless you
fully appreciate the man with whom
your future years are to be spent, and
be fully appreciates and understands
you, you will find many rough and rug
ged pieces, and gloomy clouds where
sunshine might have been. have sent
men and women who have lived to-
gether for decade of years, longer per
haps, who have not as just appreciation
Of each other as the person may nave
who has spent one day in their society.
1t Is sad thing, yet nevertheless it is
true. They married, perhaps, without
reason or Judgment, and so have missed
their happiness.
They may love each other well, a.
we'll as it is possible for persons to love
whose mental organizations are wholly
unlike, but that love was not by any
means sufficient to secure life from sor-
row and grief arising from associations
with each other. think ! know a
young girls heart. 1t is so easy TO for
get caution--so easy to let love overmas-
ter prudence and judgment-so easy to
omit to look beneath the surface when
the heart is held in bondage-when
youth and JOY and gladness are smiling
upon you. Would that one half Of the
romance and poetry that lend their
charm to courtship were carried beyond
the altar!
Perhaps Harry will come tonight,
and while seated by his side you will
think it the most impossible thing in
the whole world for his eyes ever to
look into your own with less worship
ping tenderness, or his voice ever to
erect Won with less love. tbyilled accents