The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-11-15
Home Interests--The secret OF Conjuaal Fee
licity.
From the New York Tribune.

From the New York Tribune
The consmmation at the hymeneal altar
is but the beginning of happiness. The
tender plant of conjugal love must be pro-
tected from injury, fed with the dews of
constant devotion, rooted in a strong, rich
soil, and for many and many a year re-
ceive careful culture before it bears its
choicest fruit. The Bible declares that o
man shall "leave his father and his mother
and cleave unto his wife, and herein lies
the truest wisdom for young married peo-
pie.
With the truly welded " counting days"
are never over, and the honeymoon lasts
from the bridal at the altar to the bridal at
the grave; nay, it has no end, for spiritual
union is immortal, and they who truly love
each other here must love each other for
ever. This perpetual honeymoon is not a
thing of accident or chance. 1t does not
come unsought; and there are many
qualities that will keep it away forever.
Selfishness, willfulness, petulance, indiffer-
ence are thorns that springing up choke the
seed, and it bears no fruit.
Where people choose each other on &C.
count of enduring qualities, and not for
riches, or beauty or rank, where calm,
unbiased Judgment lies below the tidal
waves of passion and the tickle glancing of
fancy, there will be constant, growing,
perpetual, ever-fresh delight.
Not to wander from our subject. Mar
ried souls must continue to be dependent
upon each other, or they will inevitably
grow apart and in proportion as the dis
lance between them increases conjugal hap
piness diminishes. 1t is not an unusual
occurrence for young and aspiring girl to
harness herself into family team where
she does nothing and can do nothing but
drudge from Monday morning to Monday
morning again, with the broom, the dish
cloth, at the wash-tub, the churn, and the
sewing-machine, with little or no chance
for the improvement of her mind,
and the cultivation of her social
nature. No wonder she sinks into mere
automaton, or lapses into dull and
moping melancholy. The husband, if he
has the will, can do much to keep up the
growth of her mind by conversations on
current topics, by reading the newspapers
to her as she sits at work, and by insist
ing that every now and then she leave the
domicil for day abroad in the city or at
the fireside of friend. Neither is it an
unusual occurrence for young man to
yoke himself into family team where
he must delve from Monday morning
to Saturday night that he may make
both ends meet, while the wife
leads a life Of comparative leisure, doing
little to make his burdens light and great
deal in the way of unnecessary expense to
make them heavy. 1t is very dull work
standing behind the counter all day selling
goods, or sitting in little dark back office
keeping books or looking after the details
of a heavy business with only glance at
the newspapers by way of recreation. In
such cases how much the wife can do to
make the hours spent at the fireside sunny,
and improving alike to heart and head.
If we only could forget ourselves and
work steadily for the happiness of those
who should be dearer to US than self what
double joy would be ours-the joy of self.
denial and the felicity of those whose lives
we so delight to embellish. And this, to
sum up all, is the grand secret of conjngal
felicity.