The Russellville Democrat., 1880-01-15
COURTSHIPS.
A Dissertation Upon Whether They should
 he Short Long.


 1 A Dissertation Upon Whether They should
 be Short or Long.
 Ought engagements be long or short? It has often been said that nothing helps so much to steady young man as the i being engaged to the girl whom he loves and for whom he works to preparea suit | able home. The solieitude of David | Copperiield's friend Traddles to buy bits | of furnittlre-fiower-p and such like flor the house where he and his be- l trothed were to dwell, was pretty ] thing. and much to be commended, but, on the other hand, it is undeniable that ] long engagements have their drawbacks, i especially if the young people see much of each other during the period of pro- bation. In this ease much or the bloom l Is taken off the poetry of courtship. and no less gliding of the prospects of mar riage. There may be great deal to say against the policy of wedding in haste, but young people who take each other for better or for worse, in all the allusions Of mutual trust and admiration, go through time of ecstacy unknown to those who marry quite rationally. The honeymoons of such pairs are halcyon epoehs to be remembered all life long and if the after periods seem dull and loveless by comparison, yet it is some thing to have lived for however brief time up to the highest ideal of felicity. Besides there is no little sweetness in having faced the first hardships of life together. If a young couple have to en- counter poverty, and if they encounter it side by side, Tightening all their labors by sharing them and diminishing their troubles by mutual consolation and en- couragement, they forge links which must bind their hearts closer and closer together like to see snug young man stacking up money i'll the bank against the wedding day, while his future wife looks complacently at the operation as who should say: ''rhomas must earn good many more pounds before he can furnish house good enough to lodge me-" but like still more to see young husband and wife who have feathered their little nest together. It is pleasant to hear smiling woman remark: "We had nothing at all when we married; but see now how cosy we have made our house." This means that there has been steady hard work on the one side; thrift and scf-denlal on the other-in fact union. After all the yoke of marriage is an apparatus that should sit on two pairs of shoulders and there is nothing very seemingly ill seeing a girl wait to wear her own part of 1t until 1t has been nicely padded with quilted satin.
 Looking at the matter from less ele- vated point of view, iong engagements are rather tiresome in restricting the liberty of glrls. Miss Jenny, who is go- ing to marry MT. Simpson when that pushing divine gets living, is obliged in the meanwhile to deny sherself many pleasures, less Simpson should take offense. She must eschew balls; she must take care that nobody makes love to her; and for this purpose she is obliged to let all chance corners be speedily informed of her engagement Unhappily, the symbolism of rings is but little understood. else the chance-comers might discover the fact for themselves by looking at the second finger on Miss Jenny's hand. If Jenny has no sisters to talk of her betrothal, and if her mother does not accept timely hints te mention it on every necessary occasion, the girl is rather embarrassed for words in which to convey the news delicately to strangers. She cannot allude to Mir. Simpson as "Johnny"-that would be too familiar; she cannot speak of him as simpson for this would sound strange but if she refers to him frequently as "Mr. Simpson, strangers might draw undesirable inferences from her appar- ent familiarity with person thus coldly specified Then the engaged girl has to put up with great deal of chafI, which is only pleasing for q while aud after ward becomes intolerable. When curates are mentioned her friends look at her, as if she must needs feel an interest now in the whole body of the lesser clergy. She is supposed to have embraced strong views on the dispute between High Church and broad ditto; she is appealed to as an authority when questions about ycstments or alter candles are discussed; she cannot praise or blame a sermon without being accused of establishing mental comparisons between the dis course at issue and the one which MT. Simpson might have delivered from the same text. Then, again, the trials of matrimony are frequently commended to her impatient attention by way of parental rebuke. "Ah, my dear, you will find out that l was right when you are a wife yourselfW and so forth; or a snub is put on her too nasty wish to con i slider herself free, by the reminder that ! snt IN iiot lhdIlitQ ytN, anu tiisit tiitIt iS many slip between cup and lip Some times Simpson is held up to her as bogey; My dear, l don't think Mir Simpson would quite approve of you | wearing that cherry ribbon;" "Jenny, dear, I think Mr. Simpson would pe sadly greived if he heard you express those opinions" or, Jenny, am sure Mir, simpson would not think it proper that you should play croquet with Capt Mall let" There is enough in all this to make a girl sit down and scream Simpson, on his side, has to suffer disagreeable things from his unsettled status as an engaged man. So long as he was paying court to Jenny, her parents, who favored his advances, took care to treat him as an honored guest. He had the choicest bits of muffin at tea; he was placed in comfortable seats near the fire; his ser mons were always pronounced in family chorus to be the most touching and saintly. Flattered by all this worship, Simpson would imagine that he was a being of no common clay; but, on be- coming one of the family, he is soon made to feel his descent into ordinary humanity. Paterfamilias no longer thinks it necessary to fetch up that extra bottle of wine after dinner in his honor
 he re-esconces himself in the snuggest armchair, leaving Simpson in small