The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-01-24


Roadway that your attempt to stop him
would be very much like running up
the track with wheelbarrow to stop
q Hudson river express train. What
wine or whisky, but to logwood, and strychnine
and nux vomica. ALI these poisons have kindled
their hres In his tongue and BRAIN and all the
tears OF wife weeping cannot extinguish the
flames. Instead of marrying man to reform
him, let him reform first, and then give him time
to SEQ whether the reform is to be permanent.
Let MIN understand that if he cannot do without
his bad habits for two years he must do without
you forever.
Avoid union with one supremely selfish, or SO
wound up in his occupation that he has no room
for another. You occasionally find man who
spreads himself widely over the path of life
that there Is no room for anyone to walk beside
him. He is not the one blade of a
scissors, incomplete without the other
blade, but he is q chisel made to cut
his way through life alone, or file full of rough
ness, made 60 be drawn across society without
any affinity for other files. His disposition is a
lifelong protest against marriage. Others are
80 married to their occupation or profession that
the taking Of any other bride is case of big
amy. There are men severely tied to their
literary work, as was Chatterton, whose essay
was not printed because of the death of the
Lord Mayor. Chatterton made ont the follow
ing account: Lost by the Lord Mayors death
in this essay, one pound, eleven shillings and
pounds and five shillings.a Then he put what he
had gained by the Lord Mayors death opposite to
what he had lost and wrote under it. "And glad
he Is dead by three pounds, thirteen shillings and
s1xpence." When man is as hopelessly liter
airy as that, he ought to be perpetual celibate;
his library, his laboratory, his books are ali the
companionship needed Indeed, some of the
mightiest men this world ever saw have not pat
ronized matrimony. Cowper, Pope, Newton,
Swift Locke. Walpole, Gibbon, Hume, Arbuth-
0f "A
would have helped. The right kind of a wife
would have cured Cowper's gloom, and given to
Newton more practicabiity, and been relief to
Lockes overtasked brain. A Christian wife
lief in Christianity. But Dean Swift did not de.
serve wife. from the way in which he broke
the heart Of Jane Waring first. and Esther John
son afterward, and lact of all 'Vanessa" The
great wit of his day, he was outwitted by his
own cruelties.
Amid so many possibilities of fatal mistake
am not right in urging you to seek the IN
erring wisdom of God, and before you are infat-
uatedf Because most marriages are fit to be
made convinces us that they are divinely ar
ranged. Almost every cradle has an affinity
toward some other cradle They may be on the
opposite sides of the EARTH but one child gets
out OF this cradle and another child gets out of
that cradle. and with their first steps they start
for each other. They may diverge from the
straight path, going toward the north, or SOUTH
or east, or west They may fall down, but the
two rising facing each other. They are approach
ing all through infancy. The one ali through
the years of boyhood is going to meet the one
who is coming through all the years Of girlhood
as to what is best concerning them and
the changes of fortune may for
time seem to arrest the two journeys; but on
they CO. They may never have seen each other.
They may never have heard of each other. But
the two pilgrims who started at the two cradles
are nearing After eighteen twenty or thirty
years the two come within sight At the first
glance they may feel dislike, and they may
slacken their step; yet something that the world
calls fate, and that religion calls providence.
urges them on and on. They must meet. They
come near enough to join hands in social ac
quaintance. after while to join hands in friend
ship, after a while to join hearts. The delegate
from the one cradle comes up the east side OF
the church with her father. The delegate from
the other cradle comes up the west aisle of the
church. The two long journeys end at the snow
drift Of the bridal veil The two chains made out
of many years are forged together by the golden
link which the groom puts upon the third finger
of the left hand One on earth, may they be one
in heaven!
But there are so many exceptions to the gen
eral rule of natural affinity, that only those are
safe who pray for a heavenly hand to lead them
Because they depended on themselves and not on
God, there are thousands of women every year
going to the slaughter. In India women leap on
the funeral pyre of dead husband. We have
worse spectacle than that in America-women
innumerable leaping on the funeral pyre Of liv-
ing husbands.
Avoid all proposed alliances through news
paper advertisements Many women, just for
fun, have answered such advertisements. and
have been led on from step to step to catastro
phe infinite. All men who write such advertise
ments are villains and lepers-all, without
single exception. All! All! Do you
answer them just for fun? will
tell you a safer and healthier fun.
Thrust your hand through the cage at
menagerie and stroke the back of cobra from
the East Indies. Put your hand in the mouth
Of Numidian lion to see if he will bite. Take
glassful of Paris green mixed with some delight
full henbane. These are safer and healthier fun
than answering newspaper advertisements for a
wife.
My advice Isl Marry man who is a fortune
in himself. Houses. lands and large inherit
ances are we'll enough but the wheel of fortune
turns so rapidly, that through Some investment
all these in a few years may be gone. There
are some things however, that are a perpetual
fortune-good manners, geniality of soul, kind
ness, intelligence sympathy, courage, perse
verance, industry and whole-heartedness Marry
such a one and you have married fortune,
whether he have an income now of fifty
thousand dollars year or an income of five
hundred dollars A bank is secure according to
its capital stock, and not to be judged by the de-
posits for day or a week. man is rich
according to his sterling qualities, and not
according to the vacillaton of circumstances,
which may leave with him a large amount of
resources to-day and withdraw them tomorrow.
If man is worth nothing but money, he is poor
indeed If "a man have upright character. he is
rich. Property may come and go, he is indie
pendent of the markets. Nothing can buy him
out nothing can sell him out He may have
more money one year than another, bat his
better fortunes never vacillate.
Yet do not expect to find a perfect man. If
you find one without any faults, incapable Of
mistakes, never having guessed wrongly, his
patience never having been perturbed, immacu-
late in speech. in temper. in habits. do not marry
him. Why2 Because you would enact swim
die. What would you do with perfect man.
who are not perfect yourselfl And how dare
you hitch your imperfection fast on such snper-
natural excellence? What companion you
would make for an ANGEL In other words there
are no perfect men. There never was but one
perfect pair and they slipped down the banks of