Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1883-01-22
SENSE AND SENTIMENT
Love in hut with water and a crust,
Is-love forgive us-cindcrs, ashes, dust.

SENSE AND SENTIMENT.
Love in a hut with water and a crust,
Is-love forgive us-cindcrs. ashes. DUST
[ expect the young ladies of the
..household" will hold up their hands
in horror when they read my text,
and declare that / am dreadfully sor-
did and unsentimental and vote me
an old fossil that has outlived youth
full romance and sentiment. Well,
it is no matter if they do consider me
as old as Methuselah if they only let
me preach my little sermon and
heed it.
There is a good deal written now
adays about girls selling themselves
-bartering their youth, beauty or
whatever charms they may chance to
possess, for wealth and position.
Now / am convinced that three
fourths of this talk is arrant nom
sense, without more solid foundation
than the sentimental story paper or
dime novel. There are, of course,
occasional instances where girls ale
dazzled with the prospect of wealth
and the social position that wealth
gives It's possessor, yet the instances
where girl will discard the man
whom she loves and marry a man re-
pugnant to her, for financial reasons,
are rare, even in this luxury-loving
generation.
On the other hand the cases where
girls rush blindly into matrimony,
when the object of their choice has
nothing wherewith to support them
and barely manages as a single man
to support himself, are as common
as cases of measles. In fact, it al
most seems sometimes as if there
were matrimonial epidemics that come
around about as often as the measles
and are about as contagious.
l believe in matrimony with all my
heart / do believe that true mar
riage is productive of more happiness
than any other state can afford and
/ also believe that unwise and i'll as
sorted marriages are productive of
more misery than you, my dear ro-
mantle young lady, can have any
conception of. Ibelieve this because
1 have seen practical illustrations of
its truth too many times to entertain
doubts about it.
A young girl meets one of the op-
posite sex; both are young and sus-
ceptible each eXerts all their powers
of pleasing, unconsciously it may be,
and the result is they ''fall in love-"
or fancy that they are in love with
each other, when it may be only
passing fancy that both will out
grow.
1t does not matter so much if they
are not too hasty in taking vows
upon themselves that, later on, may
become intolerable to them. If it be
genuine affection, and not mere
passing fancy, it will not grow less
by waiting; and in either event it is
safer not to be hasty.
But true love is not the only con-
dition of happy marriage, though
no marriage can be happy without it.
Unhappily we mortals are not etheri-
al enough in our natures to live on
smiles and caresses alone. Our
practical wants will assert them
selves, and the old problem of "what
shall we eat, and wherewith shall we
be clothed?" has to be worked out
by every family. If the larder is
empty the smiles will cease altogeth-
er, for the old adage is truer then we
are apt to think, ''when poverty
comes in at the door love flies out of
the window" though not altogether
true but want is a crucial test which
only genuine affection will bear.
If a man loves a woman he has no
right to ask her to marry him unless
he can give her comfortable home.
He need not have a great deal of
money, if he has its equivalent, the
ability to earn money; but the girl
who hastily, or deliberately, marries
man without fortune, who is too
lazy or too incapable to support her
in reasonable comfort. will find too
late that she has sacrificed sense to
sentiment.-Lucy B. Boyce iu the
Freeman.