The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1881-08-12

fections. Nothing is changed In life it is
only an additional tie. His departure is
consequently a mere simple separation
while the departure of young girl to
become a wife in few hours is a real
desertion with all its duties and feelings
about it. In one word, the son is a sap
ling which has always grown apart from
the trunk; while the daughter has, on
the contrary, formed an essential portion
of it, and to detach her from her place is
to mudlate the tree itself You have sur
rounded her youth with unspeakable
tenderness exhaustless tenderness of
your parental and maternal hearts; and
she, inreturn, has appeared to pour forth
upon you both an equally inexhaustible
gratitude; you loved her beyond all the
world, and she seemed to cling to you
with proportionable affection. But one
day, an ill-omened day, man arrives, in
vited and welcomed by yourselves; and
this man of your own choice carries off
to his domestic circle your gentle dove,
far from the soft nest which your love
had made for her. On the morrow you
look around you, you listen, you wait,
you seek for something which you can
not find. The cage is empty; the trlneful
linnet has flown; silence has succeeded to
its melodious warblings; it does not come,
as it did only on the previous morning,
fluttering its perfumed wings about your
pillow, and awakening you by its soft
caresses. Nothing remains but painful
calm, painful silence, a painful void
The chamber of the absent darling offers
only that disorder which is so melancholy
for mother to contemplate; not the joy
Gus and impatient disorder of occupation,
but that of abandonment Maidenly gar
ments scattered here and there; girlish
fancies no longer priced; chairs heaped
with half-worn dresses; drawers left par
TALLY open and ramsacked to their reno
test corners; a bed in which no one has
slept; crowd of charming tlifes which
the young wife despises, and which are
Uttered over the carpet, like the feathers
dropped by the linnet when the hawk
made the timid bird its prey Such is
the depressing right which wrings tears
from the mothers heart. Nor is this all.
From this day she occupies only the
second place in the affections of her de-
parted idol; and even that merely until
the happiness of maternity shall have
taught her for whom she weeps to assign
to her one still lower. This man, this
stranger, unknown few months, it may
be but a few weeks previously, has
assumed a right over those affections
which were almost entirely her own; a
few hours of f1eeting, and it may even be
of assumed tenderness, have in a great de-
gree sufficed to efface twenty long years of
Watchfllness, of care, of self-abnegation
and they have not only rent away her
right to be the first and best beloved, but
they have also, deprived her of the filial
caresses, the gentle attentions, and the
adorned presence of the hearts idol,
whom she has herself given to him for
life. Nothing is left to the mother but the
attachment ofrespect If she loves him,
she leaves her home without regret to fol-
low his fortunes to the end of the world;
if she does not love him, she will still
perform the same duty with resignation.
Nature and law alike impose the obliga-
ton on her, and her own heart must de-
eide whether it will constitute her Joy
or her trial; but in either case the result
to the mother is the same. Nor can
that mother reproach her with this pain
full preference, for she has reared her in
the conviction of the necessity of mar
riage; she has herself offered to her its
example in her own person; heaven it
self has pointed it out as a duty whose
omission is culpable; and, therefore, far
from venturing to wish that the lost one
should restore to her all the tenderness
which time and habit may enable her to
withdraw from her husband, the mother
is bound, on the contrary, to pray that
they may every day become dearer to
each other, even at the expense of her
own happiness. This misfortune is the
mothers last blessing.