The Brookhaven leader., 1888-01-19

ana CanOVa, can Saller1eS flcn from
the pencil OF Bierstadt and Church
and Kenset and Cole and Cropsey.
could flutes played on by a. Ole Bull,
or pianos fingered by a Gottschalk,
or solos warbled by a Sonntag, could
wardrobes like that of q Marie An
toinette, could jewels like those Of a
Eugenie make a wife in such a COM
panionship hSppyf
Imprisoned in castlel Her gold
bracelets are the chains Of a lifelong
servitude. There is a sword over her
every feast, not like that Of Damocles,
staying suspended, but dropping through
her lacerated heart. Her wardrobe 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 stringed and wind instru-
ment: ''Woe! Woer' The oxen and
sheep in olden times brought to the
temple of Jupiter to be sacrificed used to
be covered with ribbons and flowers
ribbons on the horns and flowers on the
neck. But the floral and ribboned deco
rations did not make the stab of the
butchers knife lees dcathful. 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 arc
the ribbons and flowers of q horrible
butchery.
AS if to show how wretched a good
woman may be in splendid surroundings
we have two recent illustrations, two
ducal palaces in Great Britain. They arc
the focus of the best things that are
possible in art. in literature, in architec-
ture, the accumulation of other estates
until their wealth is beyond calculation
and their grandeur beyond description.
One of the castles has a cabinet set with
gems that cost So, 100000. and the walls
of it bloom with Rembrandts and Claudes
and Pcuseins and Guides and Raphacls,
and there are Southdown flocks in sum-
mer grazing OIL lis laws 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 because she can no longer
endure the orgies Of her husband, the
duke. and in the other castle the duchess
remains confronted by insults and abom-
nations in the presence of which l do not
think God oT deceit society requires
good woman to remain. LIS for those
ducal country seats. They on a large
scale illustrate what on q smaller scale
may be seen in many places-that with
out moral character in a husband all the
accessories of wealth are to a wifo's soul
tantaization and mockery. When Abb
gail finds Nabal, her husband, beastly
drunk, as she comes home from inter
ceiling for his fortune and life. it was no
alleviation that the old brute had POSSES
siOns in Carmel, and ''was very greet,
and had three thousand sheep and
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
centeel Williams are to be expurgated
Instead of being welcomed into respecta-
bic society, because of the amount of
stars and garters and medals and estates
they represent, they ought to be fumi-
gated two or three years before they are
allowed, without peril to themselves, to
put their hands on the door knob of
moral house. The time must come when
a masculine estray will be as repuGnant
to good society az feminine estray, and
no coat of arms or family emblazonry or
epaulet can pass Lothario unchallenged
among the sanctities of home life. By
what law of God or common sense is an
Tnl
Juan better than Messalina? The brush
that paints the one black must paint the
other black. But what a spectacle it
was when last summer much of ''water-
ing place" society went wild with en-
thusiaSm over an unClean foreign di@ni-
tary, whose name in both hemispheres is
a synonym for profligacy, and princesses
of American society from all parts of the
land had him ride in their carriages and
sit at their tables, though they knew him
to be portable lazaretto. charnel house
OF moral putrefaction, his breath ty-
phoid. his foot that of Satyr and his
touch death. Here is an evil that men
cannot stop, but women may. Keep all
such out of your parlors, have no recog-
milton for them in the street, and no
more think of allying your life and des-
tiny with theirs than gales from Araby"
would consent to pass the honeymoon
with an Egyptian plague. All that money
or social position bad man brings TO a
woman in marriage is splendid despair,
a gilded horror, a brilliant agony,
a prolonged death, and the longer
the marital union lasts, the more evident
will be the fact 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 eye
CLASSY and his step stagger as lie clicked
glasses with jolly comrades. all going
with lightning limited express train to
the fatal crash over the embankment of
a ruined life and lost eternity.
Woman, join not your right hand
with such right hand. Accept from
such an one no jewel for finger or
ear, lest that sparkle of precious stone
turn out to be the eye of basilisk. and
let not the ring come on the finger of
your right hand lest that ring turn out
to be one link of chain that shall bind
you in never ending captivity. In the
name of God and heaven and home. in the
name of all time and all eternity for.
bid the banns. Consent not to join one
of the many regiments of women who
have married for worldly success with.
out regard to moral character.
If you are ambitious, oh woman. for
noble afIiancing, why not marry king.
And TO that honor you are invited by the
monarch of. heaven and earth, and this
day voice from the skies sounds forth: