Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1888-02-03

through IL: Captain, what does this mean.
Did you not promise 70 take this ship to
Southampton, England = YES says the
captain, Il but have changed my mind and /
have found | can do better. and am going
TO take charge here. / shall send back TO YOU
all the letters | got while managing that ship
and everything got from your ship, and it
will be all right You tell me that the worst
fate for such captain as that is too good for
him But it is Just what a man or woman
does who promises 60 take one through the
voyage of life, across the ocean Of earthly
existence, and then breaks the promise. The
sending back of all the letters and rings
and necklaces and keepsakes cannot make
that right which is in the sight of
God, and ought TO be in the sight of man,
an everlasting wrong. What American
society needs to be taught is that bethrothal
Is an act so solemn and tremendous that all
men and women must stand back iromi t
until they are sure that it is right, and
sure that it is best, and sure that
no retreat will be desired. Before that
promise of lifetime companionship any
amount Of romance that you wish, any
ardor OF friendship any coming and going.
But espousal is n gate n golden gate, which
one should not pass, unless he or she expects
never to return. Engagement is the porch
OF which marriage is the castle, and You have
no right in the porch if you do not mean to
pass into the castle
The trouble has always been that this
whole subject of alliance has been relocated
to the realms OF frivolity and joke, and con-
adered not worth sermon or even q serious
paragraph. And 50 the massacre of human
lives has gone on an the devil has had it his
own cruel way and what is nightly needed
is that pulpit AMI platform AMI printing
press all speak word of unmstakable and
thunderous protest on this subject of iu-
Unite importance. We put clear out into thin
poesy and light reading the marital engage
mentS of Petrarch and his Laura, Dante and
his Beatrice, Chaucer and his Philippa,
Lorenzo de Melici aud his Lucretia, Spsnser
and his Ros1lind, Waller and his Saachar-
issa, not realizing that it was the style of
| their engagement that decided their happi
ness or wretcheiness. their virtue or their
proaig ICY All the literary and military
and religious glory of Queen Eizabeth's
reign cannot bot out from ono of the
most conspicuous pages of history her in
famous behavior toward Seymour and
Philip and Melville and Leicester and
others. All the ecclesiastical robes that Dean
Swift ever rustled through consecrated
places cannot hide from INTEL gent p ople of
all ages the fact, that by promises of mar
rage which he never fulfilled, he broke the
heart of Jane Waring after an engayement
OF seven years, and the heart OF Stella after
an engagement of fourteen years, AMI the
poetic stanzas he Dedicated to their excel
lences only make the moro immortal his own
rerfidy.
But suppose should make mistake
| says some man or woman, land | find it out
after the engagement and before the mar
| riage| My answer is, you have no excuse
for making a mistake on this subject There
are many ways of finding out all about the
character and preferences and dislikeS and
| habits OF man or woman, that if you have
not brain enough to form right Judgment
in regard to him or her, you are not so fit a
| candidate for the matrimonial altar as you
are for an idiot asylum Notice what society
your especial friend prefers, whether he is
| industrious or lazy, whether she is neat or
slatternly, what hooks are read, what was
the style Of ancestry, noble or depraved, and
If there be any unsolved mystery about the
person under consideration postpone all
| promise until the mystery Is solved.
JackSon's Hollow. Brooklyn, was part of
the city not built on for many years, and
| every time crossed it said to myself or to
others, why is not this lan1 built on9
| found out afterward that the title to the
| land was in controversy and no one wanted
to build there until that question was de-
| cided Afterwarl | understood the title was
settled, and now buildings rle going up all
over it. Do not build your happiness for this
world on character, masculine or feminine,
that has not a settled AMI undisputed title to
honor and truth, and sobriety and kindness
and Righteousness.
Oh, woman, you have more need to pause
before making such an important promise
than man, because il you make mistake it
is worse for you. If man blunler about
promise of marriage, or go on TO an unfortu-
nate marriage he cal sDen1 his evenings
away, and can go to the club or the Repubi-
can or Democratic headquarters and absorb
his mind in city or State or national elections,
or smoke himself stupid, or drink himself
Ar,,t,I P,ttN ln,,, 10 II, If
treat for you, oh woman, and you could not
take narcotics or intoXcants and keep your
responsibility. Before You promise, pray
and think and study AMI advise. There will
never again in your earthly history be a
time when you so much need God.
1t seems to me that the world ought to
cast out from business credits and from good
neighborhoOds those vino boast of the number
of hearts they have won, as the Indian
boasts of the number of scalps he has taken.
If a man will lie to a woman and a woman
will lie to man aboutso important a mat
ter as that of a lifetimes welfare, they will
lie about bill of goods and lie about financ2 g
and lie about anything. Society to-day is
brimful of gal ants, and man milliners, and
carpet knights, and co1uetteS AMI those most
God forsaken of all wretehes-h rts. And
they go about drawing rooms and the parlors
of watering places, simpering and bowling,
and scraping and whispering, and then re-
turn to the club rooms if they be men, or tc
their special gatherings if they be women, tc
chatter and giggle over what was said tc
them in confidence. Coniign punishment is
apt to come upon them, and they get paid il
their own coin. | could point You to a score
whom society has let drop very hard in re
turn for their base traffic in human hearts
As to such men, they walk around in their
celibacy, after their hair is streaked with
gray, and pretending they are naturally
short sighted when their eyes are so old in
SIN that they need the spaot lclas of a sep
tuagenarian, an eyeglass about No. 8, an
think they are hewitchjng in their stride anG
overpowering in their glances, although they
are simply laughing stocks for all mankind
And if these base dealers in human hearts b,
females, they are left after while sevsrel }
alone, striving in very desperation ant
agony Of cosmetics to get back to the at
tractiveness they had when they used to bras
how many masculine affections they haC
slaughtered. ForsaSen of God and homes
men and good women are sure to be all sucl
masculine and female trilers with human
and yet immortal affections. Oh man, oil
woman, having plighted your troth, sticl
to it
And here my idea widens, and have tx
say not only to those who have made a mis-
take in solemn promise of marriage, but t,
those who have already at the altar been pro
nounced one when they are two, or in diver
sity of tastes and likes and disikes ar
neither one nor two but a dozen-make tn
best you can Of an awful mistake And herr
let me answer letters that come from eyery
State of the American Union, and from
across the sea, and are coming year aftel
year from men and women who are terrific
ally allianced and tied together in a hare
knot, very hard knot. The letters rul
something like this: "What ought l to dc
my husband is a drunkard" My wife is
| rod Lob aud N.il not cto nf hon
HMy companion is ignorant and hates book
and revel in Them II like music and
piano sets my husband crazy" 81 am fon
of social life and my companion is a recluse.
: II am trying to be good and my lifelong rs
/ sociate is very bad What shall doY" Ny