Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1882-11-02
HUSBAND AND WIFE,.
C1ara's Perplexing Doubts as to the
Effects OF Marriage on Her Gull
turoh Mind

Clara's Perplexing Doubts as to the
Effects of Marriage on Her Gull
tured Mind.
From Howel's "a Modern Instance"
They lived a very tranquil life, and
Clara had no grief of her own unless it
was that there seemed to be no great
things she could do for him. One day
when she whimsically complained of
this, he said: "Im very glad of that.
Let's trysto be equal to the little sacri-
fees we must make for each other; they
will be quite enough. Many woman who
would be ready to die for her husband
makes him wretched because she won't
live for him. Don't despise the day of
small things
eyes, but when every day seems the
day Of small thingsw she pouted.
every day is the day ofsmall things"
said Anterior, with people who are
happy. We're never SO prosperous as
when we can't remember what happened
last Monday"
ooh, but can't bear to be always liv-
ing in the present"
"It's not 50 spacious, 1 know, as eth
er the past or the future; but it's all we
have"
"Therep' cried Clara, "that's fatalism.
It's worse than fatalismw
''And is fatalism SO very bad?" asked
her husband.
"It's Mahomedanismw
well, it isn't necessarily a plurality
of wives" returned Anterior, in subtle
anticipation Of her next point, "And
it's really only another name for resig-
nation, which is certainly good thing"
Resignation? Oh, Idon't know about
that"
Anterior laughed and put his arm
round her waist-an argument that no
woman can answer in a man she loves;
it seems to deprive her of her reasoning
faculties. In the atmosphere of atfec-
ton which she breathed she sometimes
feared that her mental powers were real;
ly weakening, AS girl she had lived
what vague, were unq uestionably large.
She had then lad great interest-art,
music, literature, the syphony concerts,
Mr.. Hunts classes, the novels of George
Eliot and Mr.. Fisk's lectures on the cos
mic philosophy; and she had always felt
that they expanded and elevated exist
ence. In her moments of question as to
the shape which her life had taken since,
she tried to think whether the happi-
ness which seemed SO little dependent
on these things was not beneath the de-
mands of spirit which was probably i'm
mortal, and was certainly cultivated.
They all continued to be part of her life,
but only small part, and she would
have liked TO ask her husband whether
his influence upon her had been wholly
beneficial. She was not sure that it had
| but neither was she sure that it had not
She had never fully consented to the
distinctness with which he classified all
her emotions and ideas of these of wo-
man; in her heart she doubted whether
great many of them might not be those
of man, though she had never found
any of them exactly like his. She could
not complain that he did not treat her as
an equal; he deferred to her and de.
pended upon her good sense to an ex.
tent that sometimes alarmed her, for she
secretly knew that she had very large
streak of Stiffness in her nature. He
seemed to tell her everything and to be
greatly ruled by her own advice, espe
cially in matters of business; but she
could not help observing that he otter
kept matters involving certain mora
questions from her till the moment fol
deciding them was past. When she &C
cused him of this he confessed that i
was 80, but defended himself by saying
| that he was afraid her conscience nigh
sway him against his own judgement.