Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1888-01-27

II
nothing more than ordinary surroundings,
/ but an attractive daughter carefully and
/ Christianity reared. From the outside world
j comes in a man with nothing but money .un-
less you count profanity and selfishnes and
fondness for champagne AMI general reck-
lessness as part of his pos ,Ssion. He has his
| coat collar turned up when there is no chill
in the ar but because il gives him an air Of
abandon, and eyeglass, not because he is near
/ sighted but because it gives a classical APP
Dearance, and with an attire s1mewh { load,
| a cane thick enough to be the cub o. Hercules
aud clutchel at the mid lie, his conversation
| inter.artle1 with French phrases ina,curately
| pronounced, and sweep Of manner ndcat-
ing that he was not born like most folks but
| terrestrielly landed. by arts earned Of the
| devil be insinuates himself into tie affec.
| tions Of the dau liter of that Christian home.
| All the kindred congratulate her on the al
most supernatural prospects. Reports come in
| that the young man is fast in his habits. that
| he has broken several young hearts, and that
he is mean and selfish and cruel But all
this is covered up with the fact that he has
| several houses in his own name, and has
large deposits at the bank, and more than
all has father worth many hundred thou
sand dollars and very feeble in health and
may any day drop of, and this is the only
son, and round dollar held close to ones
| eye is large enough to shut out great desert,
and how much more will several bushels Of
| dollars shut out
The marriage day comes and goes. The
wedding ring was costly enough, and the
orarge blossoms fragrant enough, and the
bsnediction solemn enough, and the wedding
| march stirring enough And the audience
shed tears of SYMPATHETIC gladness, supposing
that the craft containing the two has sailed
off on a placid lake, although God knows
| that they are launched on a Dead Sea, its
waters brackish with tears and CHASTITY with
CHASTITY faces of despair floating to the surface
and then going down. There they are, the
newly married pair in their new home. de
| turns out to be tyrant. Her Will is MOTH
ing, his will everything. Lavish of money
for his own pleasure, he begrudges her the
| pennies he pinches out into her trembling
palm. Instead of the kind words she left
| behind in her former home, now there are
complaints and fault findings and curses. He
| is the master and she the slave. The worst
villain on earth is the man who, having
captured a woman from her fathers home
and after the oath of the marriage altar has
| been pronounced, says, by his manner If not
in words; 81 have YOU now in my power.
What can You dol My arm is stronger than
yours NV voice is louder than yours. My
fortune is greater than yours. My name is
mighter than yours. Now crouch before me
like a dog. Now crawl away from me like
reptile You are nothing but woman, any
how. Down, you miserable wretch" Can
| halls of moasic, can long lines of Etruscan
bronze, or statuary by Palmer and Powers
and Crawford and Chantry and Canova, can
galleries rich from the pencil of Bierstadt
| and Church and Kenset and Cole and Crop
sey, could flutes played on by an Ole Bull
| or pianos fingered by a Gottschalk, or solos
warbled by a Sonntag, could wardrobes like
! that of Marie Antoinette, could jewels like
those of Eugene make wife in such
companionship happyi
ImDrisoned in castle! Her gold bracelets
are the chains of lifelong servitude. There
is a sword over her every feast, not like that
of Damoc!es, staying suspended, but drop
| ping through her lacerated heart Her ward
robe is full of shrouds for deaths which she
dies daily, and she is buried alive, though
buried under gorgeous upholstery. There is
one word that sounds under the arches and
rolls along the corridors, and weeps in the
falling fountains, and echoes in the shutting
OF every door, and groans in every note of
stringe1 and wind Instrument "Woel
Woew The oxen and sheep in olden times
brought to the temple of Jupiter to be sacri-
feed usel to be covered with ribbons and
flowers, ribbons on the horns and flowers on
the neck But the floral and ri5boned decora-
tions did not make the stab of the butchers
knife less beautiful, and all the chandeliers
you hang over such woman, and all the
robes with which you enwrap her, and all
the ribbons with which you adorn her, and
all the bewitching charms with which you
embank her footsteps are the ribbons and
flowers of horrible butchery.
AS to show how wretched a good woman
may be in splendid surroundings, we have two
recent illustrations, two ducal palaces in
Great Britain. They are the focus of the
best things that are possible in art, i'll litera-
ture, in architecture-the accumulation OF
other estates, until their wealth is beyond
calculation and their grandeur beyond de-
| nnn Of 40 q
set with gems that cost 2,500, O00, and the
walls of it bloom with Rembrandts and
Claudes and Poussins and Guidos and Raph-
aels, and there are Southdown focks in
summer grazing on its lawns and Arab steeds
prancing at the doorways on the first open
day at the kennels From the one castle the
duchess has removed with her children be-
cause she can no longer endure the orgies
of her husband, the duke, and in the
other castle the duchess remains con-
fronted by insults and denominations in the
presence of which do not think God or de-
cent society requires a good woman to re-
main. Alas for those ducal country seats!
They on a large scale illustrate what on a
smaller scale may be seen in many places,
that without moral character in husband
all the accessories Of wealth are to wife's
soul rehabilitation and mockery. When Abb
gail finds Nabal, her husband, beastly drunk,
as she comes home from interceding for his
fortune anu lil6, IL was uO Uudt
the old brute had possessions in Carmel, and
twas very great, and had three thousand
sheep, and a thousand goats" and he the
worst goat among them. The animal in his
nature seized the soul in its mouth and ran
off with it.
Before things are right in this world gen.
! teel villains are to be expurgated: Instead
of being welcomed into respectable society
because of the amount of stars and carriers
and medals and estates they represent, they
ought to be fumigated two or three years be
, fore they are allowed without peril to them
! selves to put their hand on the door knob Of
3. q moral house. The time has come when {
s masculine estray will be as repugnant to gooC
I society as feminine estray, and no coat Of
; arms or family emblazonry or epaulet car
5 pass a Lothario unchallenged among thu
2 sanctities of home life. BY what law of Goo
or common sense is an Absaom better than
) Delilah, a Don Juan better than Messalina
The brush that paints the one black mus
, paint the other black. But what spectacle
1t was when last summer much of watering
place. society went wild with enthusiasm
, over an unclean foreign dignitars who's
/ name in both hemispheres is synonym TO
profigacy, and princesses Of American societ
from all parts of the land had him ride j
: their carriages and sit at their tables, thong
| they knew him to be portable lazaretto,
charnel house of moral putrefactlon, hi
breath typhoid, his foot that of Satyr
and his touch death. Here is an evil tina
!, men cannot stop but women may. Keep al
; such out of your parlors, have no recogniti o
! for them in the street, and no more think @
allying your life and destiny with theirs thai
''gales from Araby" would consent to pas
1 the honeymoon with an Egyptian plague
i: All that money or social position a bad ma
I brings to woman in marriage is a splendi
l despair, a gilded horror, brilliant agony,
7 prolonged death, and the longer the marita
union lasts the more evident will be the fac
that she might better never have been born
Yet you and have been at brilliant weddings
where, before the feast was over. the bride
groom's tongue was thick, and his eyes CLASSY
and hia Stnfn q sfnrntnr o. he Naked rrla