Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1884-09-19

marching out again with clean-shaven
faces, looking vastly the younger for
the operation. And only a few weeks
since Chicago was honored by . visit
from a long-haired gentleman, who
vowed forty years or so ago to follow
the custom of Samson, to-wit: to let no
razor come nigh his head until Henry
Clay should be elected. Obviously the
man was set free from his VOW by the
death of his candidate, but such is the
respect accorded to VOWS that many re-
gard them al binding although the con-
ditions on which they were built have
vanished.
Others, ON the contrary, regard q
vow IS q restraining bond of q very
elastic character indeed, especially
when it interferes with their desires.
This gutta percha popularity pertains
to VOWS of reformation, New Year re-
solves, pledges of total abstinence. etc.
Rip Van Wrinkle, though he had
"schwose off," yet compromised with
his vow by agreeing mot to count this
time" Benedick, when he found his
VOW OF celibacy too great a strain upon
him in the presence of his Beatrice's
charms, disposes of it fearlessly and
finally with the plea: "When I said 1
would die a bachelor, 1 did not think 1
should live till 1 were married." Often
we have the letter of the vow evaded
with some specious reasoning. and the
spirit then broken with impunity. For
instance, a modern Rip, who might
have given Jefferson q point or two,
vowed that he would never drink anoth-
er drop of liquor as long as he had q
hair on his head. A few hours later he
was met coming out of a barber's shop
with a poll as hairless as that of q babe,
IMPLYING the condition of innocence in
which he returned to his cups again.
The vows of perpetual widowhood or
maidenhood are usually regarded as
meant to be broken as lightly as they
are made. Still some sophistry is occa-
sionally brought into play to avoid the
too-merited imputation Of fickleness.
AS, for instance, in the case of a widow
who had pledged herself not to marry
again till the grass was green on her
husbands grave, and was found by the
sexton three months later planting some
grass seed on the mound and fastening
its termination with daily applications
from a watering-can, that no time
might be lost in freeing her from her
unlucky promise! Voltaire tells in n
of his romances of a widow who vowed
she would never marry again "as long
as the river flows by the side of the hill"
Finding, however, a few months later,
that she was not so inconsolable as she
thought, the lady begins to look about
for some means of freeing herself from
her vow, and finds it in a clever en-
gineer, who turns the river from it's
channel so that it no longer elbows by
the side of the hill" The matter thus
happily compromised with the unseen
powers supposed to be looking after the
keeping of VOWS, the lady loses no time
in exchanging her weeds for a bridal
veil. But this story is probably pure
fiction, a romance through which Vol
taire bears unwilling witness to the in
genuity Of the sex that he was only too
ready to villify. Not less ingenious was
the damsel who, having made a pledge
that she would never marry a certain
lover ION the face of the earth," accom-
panied him on the following day down
into the recesses of a cave, where a min
lister and a ring were in waiting, and
the two were welded, not "on the face
of the EARTH" but under it.
In the life of Erasmus an instance is
given of q sailor who in a storm vowed
q life-sized etiigy to St. Christopher if the
ship should get safely to land, whereat
the wise man was greatly amused. A
modern biographer Of the great scholar
comments on this superstitious custom
as obsolete, but it is by no means so.
The smaller shrines in Europe to-day
are supported almost wholly bv votive
oferings--that is, g~ifts-brought in in
fulfllment of VOWS or pledges. And a
long chapter might be written concern
ing historical pilgrimages and benefices
caused in similar manner. AS late as
1867 a lady OF Madrid vowed when she
was ill that should her health be restored
she would walk from Madrid to Rome
on foot, a journey which she afterward
successfully performed with no apparent
harm to her physical condition. Some
of these vow made during illness are
naturally forgotten; since
"When the devi was sick the devil a monk
would be.
But when the devil got well the devil q monk
was ne;
and methods of evading the too painful
literal performance of the pledge are
usually within reach, as the lady found
who vowed to make q pilgrimage bare
foot to a certain shrine, and went there,
it is true, and without shoes and stock
ings, but riding comfortably in a sedan
chair the while.
A church, at Poole, England, was
built during the present century by Sir
Edward Doughty, as he had vowed to
do, when his son lay apparently dying,
should the child be restored to health
again, The boy did recover to the
amazement of all, and the church was
accordingly built. When the Infanta
Eulalie, Of Spain, lay very i'll her moth
er, Queen Isabella, vowed not to build a
church, but to make a pilgrimage to
Barcelona, and there offer a gift to the
patron saint of the city. And this
Queen, albeit she was rather Indifferent
concerning the minor morals, and GER
tain Of the major ones also, fulfilled this
vow with the most praiseworthy pune
tiliousness possible.
Damsels disappointed in love often