The Portland daily press., 1874-09-04
London Letter from Prentice Mulford, in the San
Francisco Buletin.]
The Sort Of Bridegroom an Old Bach.
elOr Makes.

1 am still married, and intend remaining so
for some months to come. But marriage is
fearful and risky business. No one knows
what may turn up on either side. Temper
and temperament are such peculiar things.
However, all as yet is quiet on the Potomac.
The marriage service has never been fully
written ont. People who marry don't know
what they are promising. The bond should
read: "You promise to take this man or this
woman for life; you must not after this walk
or talk with any other woman, ii you are
man, or any other man, if you are woman,
save in the most circumspect and guarded
manner; you must not become interested in
any other woman; if you are interested you
must not show it, you must consider your
wife or your husband as the Incompatible
man or woman in the universe; there must
be none other like unto him or her; if there
be, or you think there be, you must If possi-
BILE not believe it, or try not to believe it; you
must now be wholly devoted to each other;
you must also now lay aside all remembrance
of your old flames; you must get rid CT the
idea that you ever had any regard for them !;
if you had, you must try and make yourself
believe you had not, and if such notion will
stick to you, you must never mention it to
each other, or there will be a row."
Young man and young woman! you think
that the divine intoxication of eourtship is to
last forever. You think it is always going to
be an ecstatic pleasure to trudge mile
through mud and rain to buy Seraphine Ann
paper of pins. But this state of things
can't last. It's too high pressure. 1t must
cool down. When you are married, and she
is yours and you are hers, and the novelty of
the affair is over, and you are fairly settled
down into sold married folks" then comes
the test. Then, if you have been a grabbed
old bachelor, full of little whims, habits and
peculiarties, as is the fretful porcupine of
auills, then will come the tug of war. Don't
You recolect how, when single, and you came
home after some tedious business, heated.
tired, irritable, and oisgusted with thebworld,
and got alone in your room, that you used to
fling books and blacking-brushes about, and
swear and thrash around for an hour or two
before you simmered down into comparative
cal al.uness? Well, matrimony won't cure this
at least at first. But you mustn't cut up
so now. Even temporary raving maniac is
not a D. -oper or a pleasant person tor any
voung W., ,man to be shut up alone with.
And r. on .antering, she sees trouble written
on your face. .and asks you '.What's the mat
ter p, and YOU reply, "Oh, nothing" because
you don't want to be spoken to, and, above
all things, it annoys and irritates you to be so
interrogated, and she sun persists IN asking,
ssWhat's the matter?" and still you try to
saw. "Ob. nothing" as m idly as you can,
only it won't be said mildly, and it comes OH
your tongue as pistol-shot, and you would
Just then like to bite somebody's head OIL.
Oh, won't you at such time wonder wnere
the amiability, the oil, the sugar, the money,
the sunshine of courtship has all gone 10
And how will you feel, you who have peen
accustomed to go in and out OF your we
bachelors den without inquiry or hinderance
How will you feel as you start to 60 out tol
the purpose of getting drink around the
corner, to hear her say, -'Where are you GO
ing?'' and this dozen times day, and ev-
ery time it is asked you must stand and rack
your brains for new lie. And those girls on
the opposite side of the street who are always
at the window, aud with whom, before mar
riage, you carried ON sort OF optical nrta'
tion, which, to be sure, went no further than
the eyes-how do you feel now as You catch
yourself still looking into those windows and
find your wife regarding you in peculiar
l'uanner, and you know that she knows tna'
you know how she knows all about your 60
ings on at those windows!
But have learned great deal during my
short matrimonial career. would not have
remained single if only for the information I've
gained. / know now, in the first place, tn al
ones wife is never in the least wrong. II
there's row, it's you, all you, every bit your
fault, You may labor by the hour trying to
make her own up that there being one pound
avoirdupoise or sixteen ounces of blame be-
tween you, you are willing to take fifteen
ounces of that blame, provided she will but
shoulder sshe remaining ounce, and she won I.
When She sa,-s she will be only five minutes
ssstns Tsen shs 5ssay to sbs re i AZ
teen minutes more for atsing on .ne I'M, una
touches. She may never be eonsiuerea rea,,s
dressed until fairly out of t. nouSe nhano ams
round the corner, and even then "e onShe0 ondHor
are that she's forgotten gloves or ""'''Ne'
Chief
If there was bed room a mile long, an.
her entire wardrobe could be packed in
band-box, still you'd find portions of tha
wardrobe scattered along the whole mile of
dressing-room. She's nice thing to look at
when put together, but this wonderful crea-
ton is evolved from a chaos interminable Of
pins, ribbons, rags, powder, thread, brushes,
combs and aces.
If there were seven thousand drawers in
your room, and you asked but for one to be
kept sacred and inviolate for your own private
use, that particular one would be full OF hair
pins, ribbons and soiled cuffs. Some pro-
vision, some protection in this matter, should
be inserted in the marriage service.