St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-08-03
TALK.

Our obituaries and proceedings over mon
eyed deaths are ludicrously exaggerated and
grossly insincere, as general thing, but our
weddings are the most laughable evidences
of our hypocrisy
Did anybody ever witness marriage with
out tears on the side Of the high contracting
and not infrequently yulgarly maneuver-
Ing parties to the business? Why tears are
part of the programme no one knows, bat
they are the regulation offering on these oc-
casions, and the cynic smiles as he observes
them, for he knows that the lachrymal she'd
ders are not often candid enough to own that
they are tears of joy, but rather those
OF vague sentiment over matri-
monlal chances, uncertainties and
all that sort of thing which the
average woman is always equal to encounter
ing as bride, and as mother in law--if there's
enough money for the indemnity. That's
the rub my fiery and impulsive Candide,
you, who rake over motives and established
traditional regulations with that insurgent
disposition spoken of Sunday or SO agone.
| We know, and everybody else knows that
the samanawne 6onuna is marriage for women,
and the failure to achieve it is deemed a
| filter provocative for weeping than success
full accomplishment. And yet when the
| GROWING exhibition of triumph comes Off
when Jennie, and Hattie, and Squattie are
sick of envy, the victors begin to cry, and
pirate of missing, and loneliness
you understand what the English mean when
they say-all that sort of rot
That is of nOisome insincerity, and they
know that you know it, as Bobingersoll an
nounces his orthodoxy lecture, yet the farce
goes bravely on, and few people care to ana
lyze the make believe tears
The matrimony of civilization may be
likened, therefore, to crocodile which
weeps and weeps, securing its victim, offer
ing, or what you will the while. The farther
we get from first conditions the less honesty
there is in our methods. If words, as Tai
lyrand declared, were invented to conceal
ideas, then ceremonials and forms and de-
vices were started by social sophistry to
overlay motives, to disguise the original
non-parleying and brusQuerie of barter,
and to insinuate that sentiment
alone was the controlling agency.
The most mercenary marriage I ever
knew of, was declared by the managing
mother-in-law to be one of exceptionally
disinterested devotion, and she spoke of the
giving up of her daughter with pathetic
suffusion of the eye, which was consum-
mate piece of acting, when every one knew
that the match was as deliberate a plot as
the assassination of the Car Alexander II.
Yet, such is the force of our hypocrtical
social usages that we must needs deplore
what we inwardly rejoice at having accom-
plished. Perhaps it may not be so much
concession TO custom, as some twinge Of
conscience--some slight assumption of the
feeling which should be dominant if the terms
Of the trade were not in plain view. But to
play at regret and deprivation when it is just
what we wanted is one of the
prominent features of our social
system. We assume virtue when we have
it not-indeed, when we have no use what
soever for it. tits just matri-Daoney with us,
and crying over it does not make it counter
felt with our world.
l wonder why human nature is so contra
dictory. Why women are not perfectly will
ling, even anxious to have it proclaimed and
quoted that they have made the best financial
match of the season, just as any brilliant ac-
QUESTION of capital is known in monetary
| circles
The dear successful creatures are only too
happy in showing the. results of their fortu-
nate coup in fine clothes and equipages,
which by this curious contrarity of feeling
| speak of, they wish you to believe came
into their possession by the most beautiful
and disnterested play of spontaneous
sentiment OF course you believe them.
You know it is so-that poets and play
wrights, and romances and that old institu-
ton human nature, have invariably put
Cupid on 'change-in fact that commercial
ways are his only legitimate and recognized
beat, and that only cranks and dolts hold to
| any dissenting theory. Still it is queer the
| irreconcilable divergence between sentiment
and reality when it comes to the main
chance. "All we want is little more hearth
| is the regularly Occurring remark of Mrs.
Skewton, but the fnessing old lady makes
very sure of Mr.. Dombey first. One thing
is very-even sadly noticeable in all our
dreary0 human ways in such matters-that
the veriest imposter, the most arrant hum
bug ever bent on the put-up matrimonial
racket will attempt Difference to the
| mysterious and unmanageable affinity
| 'yclept love, nor have the hardihood to call
their successful sordidness by any other
name. This shame-facedness proves the ex-
istence of an inherent law of natural selec-
/ 4 .foIo 4
or profitable evasion.
1t makes the insincere bushwhackers I'M
comfortable even when the matrimonial
maurauding has paid uncommonly well.
The whole process was directed by single
hearted love-a trifle irregular perhaps but
genuine after all, and you look blandly re-
ceptive as they tell you the clumsy, self-con-
victing lie without the faintest perceptible
consciousness that the intimation is pretty
dizzy, which is slang word just adequate
| to express such situation of mutual false
hood in speaker and listener.
''Why,'' says Mrs. Harris, 81 have bit of
reading that will fit in here, and am glad
too, for we are not often rapport, whatever
that is-but then everybody uses it, and 1
presume it is safe for me.
You viii regard Mr.. Wemmick's wedding
| in Great Expectations as one of those appar-
emily impromptu affairs which greenhorns
love and congenital simpletons believe in.
Yet, for all the seemingly fortuitous collu-
| sion of Mr.. Wemmick's plans, there was one
| significant give-away, if Pip had been versed
| in symbols.
! =" was considerably surprised to see Wen
mick take up fishing rod and put it over his
shoulder. why, we are not going ishingi''
said /. ''No," returned Wemmick, shut
| like to walk with one.''
| l thought this odd; however, / said moth
/ ing and we set off We Hent toward Gam