St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1879-12-05
Toadstool or Mushroom.

at has been profoundly remarked,
saws Every Saturday, "that the true
way of telling a toadstool from mush-
room is to eat it. If you die it was a
toadstool, if you live, it was a mush-
room. A similar method is employed
in the selection of a husband marry
him; if he kills you he was a bad hus-
band if he makes you happy he is a
good one. There is no other criterion.
The proof of the pudding is in the eat
ing thereof. Some young men that
seem unexceptionable, indeed, very de-
sirable, when they are single, are per-
fectly horrid as soon as they get mar
ried. All the latent brute there is in
the heart comes out as soon as deli
cate and sensitive being seeks her
happiness in his companionship. The
honeymoon lasts very short time, the
reception and the rounds of parties are
soon over, and then the two sit down
to make home happy. If she has mar
ried a society man, he will begin to get
bored he will yawn and go to sleep
on the sofa. Then he will take his hat
and go down to the club and see the
boys, and perhaps not come home till
morning. If she has married man
engrOssed in business he will be tagged
out when he comes home. He may be
sickly man that she must nurse, and
morOse man that she must seek to
cheer; a drunken man that she must
sit up for; violent man that she fears !;
vulgar man for whom she must apOl-
ogize a fool whom she soon learns to
despise; in fact there are thousands of
ways of being bad husbands. And the
worst of it is, that the poor silly women
are apt to admire in single men the
very traits that make bad husbands,
and look with contempt or ridicule up
on those quiet virtues which make
home happy. Men with very little per-
sonal beauty or style, often make wives
happy-and sometimes the most ele-
CANT and stylish prove quite the re-
verse. The number of ways of being a
bad husband is most as great as being
ugly. No one can tell from the de-
meanor of single man what sort of a
husband he will be. Meantime she
must marry somebody. Eat it: if you
die it was sort of tOadstoOl; if you
live, it was soft of mushroom"
From a mere worldly point of view
|
pie will first give themselves to the
Lord and to his service with undivided
hearts, and seek the instruction of Gods
holy word, the inward guiding of the
Holy Spirit, and the counsel of honest
and judicious Christian friends, they
are quite likely to discern the difference
between toadstOol and mushroom
without eating it. The people who get
into trouble in married life are usually
those who are rash and wilful, and de-
termine to bave their own way or else
those who by tight lacing and other ac-
cursed practices have wrecked theil
health and destroyed their mental and
physical stamina and so cannot take
care of themselves, and "must marry
somebody and have not strength
enough to say no, and dare not refuse
one offer for fear they will never have
another. These tight laced, dried up
dyspeptic ''ladies" who are mature al
sixteen and faded out at twenty-five
and who cannot do hard days work
to save their lives, are themselves about
as much like tOadstools as most of the
young men can be. They are designed
for immediate use and need to be la
beled "perishable," like a carload o
peaches, and disposed of at once befor,
they are too far gone. Hence, will
them it is now or never; while tn,
woman who dresses properly, live
healthfully, and serves God, can earl
her bread almost anywhere, and grow
handsome and lOveable every year til
she is thirty or forty years old, and i
: in no sort of hurry to "marry some
body" and so eat a toadstooi in tn
hope that it may prove to be a mush
roOm.-The Christian.