The Andrew County Republican. [volume] (Savannah, Mo.) 1871-1876, 1875-07-23
Broken Hearts Mended.

lOVe-SOrrOWS much easier than women
naturally. because life has for them MANY
other things besides love, for ONE al
most nothing. But still n does find Oc-
~casionally a man, prosperous and happy,
kind to his wife, and devoted to his chill
dren, in whom the indelible trace of some
early disappointment is that one name is
never mentioned, one set OF associations
entirely put aside. He is a good fellow
a cheerful fellow too; he has taken up the
fragments of his life and made the very
best of them. Yet sometimes you feel
that the life would have been more COM
plete, the character more nObly developed,
if the man had mad his hearts desire, and
married his first love.
Which nobody does, they say certainly
almost nobody vet the world wags OH.
and every body seems satisfied, at least in
public; nay, possibly in private too, for
time has such infinite power of healing or
hiding. There is nothing harder than a
lava stream grown cold.
Those of us who have reached middle
age without drOpping-whO would ever
drop?-the ties of our youth. about
encircled by dozens of such secreShisto-
ries. forgotten by the outside ~wOrld-halt
forgotten, perhaps, by the very actors
~therein-with whom we, the spectators,
had once such deep sympathy. Now we
sometimes turn and look at a face which
we remember as a young face. alive with
all the passion of youth, and we marvel to
see how commonplace it has grOwn-red-
dening cOzily over a good dinner, Orsharp
and eager over business greed worn and
wrinkled with nursery cares, or sweejly
smiling in a grand draWin9-rOOm, ready
to play its
With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a
daughters heart"
a sort of gathering up of fragments which
those who are weak enough or strong
enough still to believe in love will think
far worse than any scattering.
The young will not believe us when We
tell them that their broken hearts may be
mended-Ought to be, since life is too pre-
ciOuS a thing TO be wasted over any one
! woman, or man either. 1t is given lis to
Dc made tie most of, and this whether we
ourselves are happy OF miserable. The
misery will not last; the happiness will,
if only in remembrance. No pure joy,
however fleeing, contains any real bitter
ness, eve when it is gone by.
But time only will teach this. At first
there is nothing so overwhelming as the
despair of youth, which sees neither be-
fore it nor behind: refuses to be laughed
out OF, or preached out OF. it, cherished
woe which it deems a matter Of con-
science to believe eternal.
1t Will not be eternal; but best not to
say so to the sufferer. Best to attemp
neither argument nor consolation. only
substitution. Hard work, close study, a
sudden plunge into the serious business
of life, that the victim may find the world
contains other things besides love, is the
wiSest course TO be suggested by those
long-sutfering, much abused beings, pa
rents and guardians. Love is the best
thing-tew ,lany that; but life contains
many supplementary blessings too: hon
Orable ambition, leading to a success well
earned and well used, TO say nothing of
that calm strength which comes into a
young mans heart when he has fought
with and conquered fate by first conquer
ing himself. the most fatal fate Of all.
Commonplace preaching this! Every
body has heard it. Strange how seldom
any body thinks of acting upon it! In
the temporary madness of disappointment
a poor fellow will go and wreck his whole
future, and when atterward he would fain
build up a new life, alas! there is no ma
terial left to build with.
Therefore it is the duty of those older
and wiser, who, perhaps, themselves have
waded through the black river and landed
safe on the opposite shore, to show him
that it is not as deep as it seems, and that
it has an opposite shore. He may swim
through, with the aid of a stout heart anu
an honest self-respect-selfrespect not
sellishness-f0r the most selfish creature
alive is a young man in love, except to-
ward the young woman he happens TO be
i'm love with. Not seldom the very best
lesson Of life-bitter but whOleSOme-iS
taught to a young man by a love disap-
pOintment.
Not so with women, they being in this
matter passive, not active, agents. So
few girls are "in love nowadays. so
many set upon merely getting married,
that ! confess to a secret respect for any
heart which has in it the capacity of being
- broken" Not that it does break, unless
the victim is too feeble physically to fight