The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1875-03-06


kind which can never hope to grasp legal
subtleties, and which can see only one side
ut time; that his temperament is active;
and that his passion goes for travel and
adventure rather than to personal display,
intellectual achievements, or social ambi-
ton. The trap was baited for his father,
who held his destiny in his hand, with all
sorts of shadowy advantages accruing from
this family connection; aud the poor lad
goes MANNED for life as the result.
So it is with the pahon, who should
have been a soldier, but who is bound to
take the family living destined for him
from his birth; SO with the merchant,
whose manifest destiny was medicine, but
who had to go into the city rather than
the classroom, because fortunes come from
figs that are never made from pills; and
so with the doctor, who, to his dying day,
will not have conquered his repugnance to
pathology and his horror of the scalpel,
but who, had he only been put into diplo-
macy, would have given the world another
Talleyrand and the great Prussian for
midable rival. All Of these men are
MANNED and crippled for the whole of the
term allotted to them, because Of the traps
and bats that seemed to promise such good
things to those who ruled their future for
tunes, and only fulfilled ruinous ones.
Then there is the question Of marriage.
With what bats soever the various traps
are filed by which the choice of profess
sion is determined, they are as nothing
compared to those wherein marriage is de-
cided. One might imagine that and es-
teem-not one or the other, but both
should be thought the primal necessities for
the good success of this grave convention.
We are solicitous that the dwelling house
which is to last for life is carefully built
up on sure foundations; but we let the
comradeship, which is to last for life, too,
come by haphazard, and we are not at all
solicitous to make this as solid as the four
walls wherein it is inclosed We marry
one we neither love nor esteem, because a
trap was flung in our way baited with
wealth, position, title; we never think of
the moments when the human companion
ship Of the husband or the wife we have
chosen shall mean everything, and these
golden glittering bats nothing. We for
get, that is, that the trap has both teeth
and empty spaces, and that gold and lux
ury and high-sounding title, how pleasant
soever they may be at odd moments, are
not things wherein the heart can live.
Other traps are baited with beauty; and
the bait is swallowed grecdily; as il there
were no such destructive elements as old
age, and no such deadening effect as habit
as if one years splendor is to be joy enough
for lifetime, and the gray gloom to fol-
low is not to count. Then there is that
nameless charm which We try to express
by Fascination. This does not necessa.
rily include moral esteem or personal re.
spect, sympathy of disposition, likeness Of
nature, conformity Of habits; it is 'fasci.
nation" nothing more or less, and the hap
piness or misery of life is founded on
this misty vapor, this unstable wreath Of
rose-colored cloud, to share the fate Of all
things founded on appearance only, and
clouds instead Of solid marble.
No vicarious experience gathered from
the history of the past does the smallest
good by way of warning to those treading
the matrimonial path. Traps are lying
open for them by the dozen, and they see
their friends who are few steps in ad.
vance fall deliberately into them; but who
takes heed? Each man, as well as each
woman, believes in his absolute wisdom 50
far as choosing the right person for life s
comrade goes, and Is sure that things
which went badly for Jones, and that
ruined Brown, ought to turn out well for
him, Smith, and to wear quite different
aspect when transferred from Lily to Rose
and from james to John.
But, beside these more perilous traps,
there are others encountered in our prog
ress through life which do US no small
mischief if VIC fall into them, and, If Of
less grave consequence than those we have
been handling, are still annoying aud dam
aging enough Take the various social
traps laid for us at all corners, and then
see what service Of peril this daily life
of ours becomes. Take for one instance
the undesirable people to whom we are
introduced, We innocent Of all causes Of
undesirableness, the mutual friend being
the sinner, from his desire to do the Doubt
fuls service at our expense. The trap
laid for US Is one so artfally concealed,
there Is no possibility Of discovering Il,
aud we walk into il as blindly as Il was
We should. When we find out
that we have been thus entrappcd, il is too
late TO repair the damage done. We have
TO put up with our bruised selfrespect;
and the scars made in our repute BY this
contact with undesirables win remain for
a longer time than we shall probably care
TO reckon. For years after, those shame
less aud disrepntahle Doabtf,ls 20 about