Sacramento daily record-union., 1888-10-27
PLEASANT WORDS.
Sensible Ladies VIII be Happy Though
They are Unmarried.

If it is possible, as we tried to show in {
former book, to be happy though married
almost as much might be said on the pos
sibility of single blessedness. People may
admire the marriage state, and yet have
their own good reasons for not entering it.
Under the dying pillow of Washington
Irving there were found lock of hair and
a miniature.
| Who will say that a man or woman
ought to marry that treasures up such me-
morials, and thinks of all that might have
been? Some have never found their other
| selves, or circumstances prevented the
junction of these selves. And which Is
more honorable, life of loneliness or y
loveless marriage? There are others who
have laid down their hopes of welded bliss
for the sake of accomplishing some good
work, or for the sake of father, mother,
sister or brother. In such cases celibacy
Is an honorable and may be praiseworthy
state.
AS there are 100000 more women than
men in England, it is obviously impossible
that every woman should have a husband.
Are all the women who cannot get married
superhuous? Certainly not There are
plenty of superfluous women, and of super
tluous men also. But you will not always
find them among the unmarried They
are superiluous women who give them
selves to idle pleasure and morbid fancy,
and despise the activities of the age into
which they are born; who are so lacking
In principle that they will accept any man
In marrlage-an octogenarian, an imbecile,
or rake-if his establishment be satisfac-
tory; who, anchored in the haven of a
husbands love, and surrounded by the evi-
dences of his practical thoughtfulness, be-
come stepped in selishness and make their
whole life a hot pursuit of folly and fash
ion, interested only in the whim of the
hour
Let the estimate of women be changed,
so that she may be valued for what she IS
in herself. If she is worthless as woman,
she will be worthless as wife and mother.
Let her training be such that, whether
married OF single, she shall have character,
ability to stand alone, with value in her
self. Then she will enrich society, and
whether wife, mother or celibate, she will.
in no true sense of the word, ever become
a superAuous woman"
Many girl looks on marriage as a voca-
ton, who has never thought of the duties
it involves; and | think for woman to
fail to make and keep home happy is to
be failure" in a truer sense than to have
failed to catch husband. If some of
their married sisters make old maids the
subject of ridicule, these 'unappropriated
blessings" may well ask as it not better
to be laughed at for not being married
than never to be able to laugh because you
are married? An Irish magistrate on one
occasion asked prisoner before him if he
were married" No" "Then," replied |
the magistrate, otis fine thing for your
wife,"
The lives of many unmarried people are
unhappy because they have failed to find |
an object in life, but when they are more
fortunate, their love and powers may be |
drawn out quite as much as those of the |
married by interesting work. They are
married to some art or utility, or instead |
of loving one they love all. When this
last is the case they go down into the
haunts of evil, seek out the wretched, and |
spare neither themselves nor their money |
in their praiseworthy enthusiasm for hui
manity. Employment is a perennial fire
proof joy" that will always make people |
happy, though single-"The Fire Talents |
of Vomdn" published by Scribners