American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1876-04-22

The Rachel mourning, comfortless,
OGod once moro that face to seei
My little darling, come to mel
-HarPer's Magazine for april.
MARRYING FOR LOVE.
Edward Featherby was the richest
person in Athol. And the fact of his
being rich was the most annoying fact
in his existence. The Featherby family
had been wealthy during the three gen.
erations of its known history. Riches
might take wings when in the possession
of Smith. Jones, or Robinson, but they
remained true to the Featherbys. But
money could not keep them out of the
limits of that great bankrupt court,
Death, and hence Edward Featherby
came into possession of q fortune of two
millions on his twenty-first birthday
his father having died three years pre-
viously.
We are all familiar with the maxim
that it is our duty to look after the
pence, the dollars being able to care for
themselves. The principle holds good
among larger figures; a moderate m
come needs careful nursing; q million
viii care for itself and its owner.
In all Athol County there was not to
be found more unassuming young
man than Edward Featherby. What
he might have been had he been the
son of poor man, we can not conjec-
ture; but filing a. position where envy
could not touch his heart, he was full
Of good feeling towards every body, and
was as natural in tone and manner as
one could be.
The society in Athol was exclusive,
though not aristocratic. 1t was SO di-
vided into sets that the steps between
the lowest and highest were numerous,
though the actual difference between
the two was very small. But the lines
were drawn tightly, and the walls OF
partition between Jew and Gentle were
not more real than the barriers each
little clique piled against the clique be-
low it.
It was six years since Featherby came
into his property. He had graduated at
Yale when twenty-four, had spent a year
in Europe, and was now but just return
ed from a years wandering in the far
West of his native land.
II to most of us fortune had been
given when we were in the twenties, we
could have made it give us pleasure and
pleasant visions ahead; but it was not
doing this for Featherby. His life was
bitter and purposeless because of his
wealth. He had reached that stage in
his existence when he desired to be
judged and loved for the manhood that
was in him, and not for his dollars; but
there had come ovor him a constantly
increasing feeling that people were real
ly bowling and smiling at his two mil
lions, though they seemed to be acting
As II friendly to him.
In the way of educating mankind
yes, and womankind, fear-we do not
appreciate at its full value the modern
novel. As to what the young man and
maiden are taught in the classroom
we can affsrd to be comfortable
they will soon forget it. But the
stories which they carry to their cham
beers, are lessons that are apt to leave
indelible marks behind them. The
novel is bit of life being enacted be-
fore us, and oftentimes its effect is a
thousand times more potent because
the hero and heroine are but ink and
paper, instead of flesh and blood. The
modern novel deals with the heart
strings. Whatever the song, the refrain
Is always love. II the theme of the
book be murder, forgery, gaming, OF
only idyllic life, the thread that holds il
Is sure to be love. Search the heart OF
your daughter, my dear madam; probe
deep for the moral lessons you have
been teaching her these eighteen years
you viii but have your labor for youl
pains. She has built world of hel
own and peopled it with men and wom-
en- of novels; and her own life is moi
rs you have made it, but is as Scott
Dickens and Trollope have given it to
her.
Edward Featherby's life had been
nodded into its present unsatisfactory
ness because of steady course of novel.
reading. And the result of his reading,
as it most wildly impressed itself upon
his mind, was this one fact: that to be
loved for ones self, man must either
be poor or a rascal.
In all the novels the rich young man
was sought after for his riches; the
villain was loved because he was no,
like other men; the poor young mar
was loved because of himself. And the
woman who loved the poor man to-day
was ready to turn to the wealthy one
and marry him on the morrow. In al
life, as Edward Featherby looked at life
the rich young man was the least TO be
envied.
That he should be thinking of love
and marriage was entirely natural. He
had reached the age when his friends
were taking to themselves wives, and il
was q matter-of-course that he should
contrast his own empty life with their
everfowing cups. His heart was hun.