Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1875-07-15

| ICING oho VI l1looe Jew 10 III -IllS age
dare still to believe in love, and in its aw,
/ full influence for good or Tor evil, at the
very outset of life. But it is not the whole
! OF life-nor ought to be. no al.
The prevention Of so-called g impru
dent'' marriage-namely, al impecunious
! One-and the forcing on Of another which
had nothing in the world to recommend
1t except money has often been the ulti
mate ruin of young man, who would
have been a good man had he been a hap
Ply man, had he married the girl he loved.
And In instances too numerous to count
| have girls-through the common but con-
| temptble weakness Of not knowing their
| own minds, OF the worse than weakness of
| being governed by the minds of others in
| SO exclusively personal matter as mar
| Tlage-driven honest fellows into vice, or
else into some reckless, hastya union,
whereby both the man himself and the
poor wife, whom he never loved but only
married, were made miserable for life.
Generally speaking men get over their
loVe-sorrows much easier than women
| naturally, because life has for them many
| other things besides love, for women al
most nothing. But still one does find oc-
| caslonally 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 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 had his hearts desire and
married his first love-
Which nobody does, they say; certainly
almost nobody; yet the world wags on
and everybody seems satisfied, at least in
public; nay, possibly in private too, for
time has such infinite power for healing
or hiding. There is nothing harder than
lava stream grown cold.
Those of us who have reached middle
age without dropping-who would ever
drop ?-the ties of our youth move about
encircled by dozens of such secret his
tories, forgotten by the outside world
half forgotten, perhaps, by the very actors
tnerein-with whom we, the spectators,
had once such deep sympathy & Now we
sometimes turn and look at 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
reddening cozily over a good dinner. or
sharp and eager over business greed ::
worn and wrinkled with nursery cares, or
sweetly smiling in grand drawing room,
ready to play its .A .'t ~.
petty part, GE if
With a little hoard of maxims preaching
down daughters heart: 4gf..s.-.......
a sort of gathering up of fragments which
those who are weak enough or strong
enough still to believe Id love will think.
far worse than any scattering. 4 Vi H.
The young will not believe US when we
tell them that their broken hearts may be
mended-ought to be, since life is too
precious thing to be wasted over any one
woman, or man either. 1t is given us to
be made the most of, and this whether we
ourselves are happy or miserable. The
misery will not last; the happiness will,
II only in remembrance. No pure Joy,
however fleeing, contains any real bit
terness, even 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 its cherished
woe, which it deems amatter Of conscience
to believe eternal.
1t will not be eternal; but best not to say
so to the sufferer. Best to attempt neither
argument nor consolation, only substitu-
ton. Hard work, close study, sudden
plunge into the serious business of life,
that the victim may find the world con-
tains other things besides love, is the
wisest course to be suggested by those
ng-suffering, much-abused beings, par
ents and guardians. Love is the best
thing-few deny that; but life contains
many supplementary blessings too; hon
orable ambition, leading to a success
well earned and well used, to say moth
ing of that calm strength which comes
into a young mans heart when he has
fought with and conquered fate by first
| conquering himself, the most fatal fate
of all
Commonplace preaching thist Every
body has heard it. Strange how seldom
anybody thinks ofacting upon it! In the
temporary madness of disappointment a
poor fellow will go and wreck his whole
future, and when afterward he would fain
build up new life, alas there is no ma
terial left to build with r. -.----
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 q stout heart and
an honest pect-self-respe not
| SplfiShneSS-tOr III, most selfish creature