The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1885-08-21
FIRST LOVES.

at the time, when We were under its III
fuence. it was either a delightful or
dreadful reality, as the case may have
been
As we sit in the twilight Of life and look
| back upon the events Of the morning. skip
ping the long intervening day and recall
ing only the time when we had First
Love. We cannot help wondering 10 our
selves why 50 vast majority of sufferers
never marry their irst loves
Certainly We are generally very young.
and not very WISE when the First Love
| season" comes on. Perhaps the object is
too young, or too poor or his family are
Objectionable, or we are supposed to be
able to do much better, as the phrase is,
or there are fifty other reasons, all urged
the bud, and it all goes off But it puz-
zles rs, in these our sober years. to COM
prehend why all these objections always
attach themselves to first love only, and
not to all or any of the successive lovers
who present themselves.
As we march on in life we find our
parents relaxing in obduraey, and recon-
mending to our favorite attention admirers
whom we ourselves do not admire at
all and we see them trying to overcome
obstacles and endeavoring to arrange mat
tiers with an energy which we never saw
them display in what we venture to think
were much better causes.
Certainly now and then, very rarely,
remarkable coincidence will happen. The
young barrister who went to India to seek
his fortune left behind him a beloved OBJ
,ject. to whose parents he was one of the
quite impossibes' His ladylove was
fair, fragile young girl, and he hardly
ever expected to see her again. In seven
teen years he returned, a grey haired man
"a Judge-and with handle to his name
The fair, fragile young girl was hand
some woman OF seven aud thirty. and still
single. They are now Sir William and
my lady; but that was very solitary
instance, for neither of them had married
during those seventeen years. People
and. as for her she was set down as very
likely TO be an old maid. People won
dered such handsome. agreeable creature
had never married. and rumor whispered
a suspicion of disappointment in early
life. When it all came right, ii was looked
upon a delightful romance.
Widows. perhaps. are more liable to
marry their first loves than single woman;
but then there has been an interregnum OF
a asaggiags de eoareha7,cs most probably, and
he has come back to find her rich. or she
IS struggling on in poverty, and he has
made his fortune and is proud to lay IT at
her feet.
But the history Of first loves might fill
a book No love of after life is ever con
Quoted on the same principle. We look
back with a sort Of tender interest on the
episode and on the manner in which it was
conducted There was nothing mereenary
about. Allwas pure and genuine and gush-
ng,-not perhaps, always, quite open and
above board. but of course that only deep
ened the interest. II our parents: had said
My dear, if you can make up yonr mind
to be poor mans wife, take him. we
should not have been half so keen about it,
1t was the opposition that was part of the
charm. 1t was the stolen meetings that
were so enchanting and the tumbled little
bits of paper rolled round the stalks of the
flowers that were so precious.
What would a letter. with penny
stamp upon it. coming by the common
post. have been, compared to the surrep-
titious happiness of the crushed notes, or
the screwed-up little bits of paper?
But, alb. well-a-day! The dream is all
over. We have had the complaint, bat
tied through the fever, and live to tell our
story with 9 laugh. We have got through
ourselves. but we cannot stamp it out,
as the doctor says Younger generations
are cropping up fast around us, and we see
them catching it one after the other, and
we smile with sort of watehful interest,
as if we could recall tender "reminiscences
if we liked: but We can only say, it cannot
be helped They must have it once in their
lives poor things, They viii not have it
again-this tiresome first love: SO they
must just live it down, as we did,-Er-
dmiaer.