The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-02-02
INCOMPATlBiliTY.
The Serious Mistake That Lies at Il
Root of Welded wrstchednsss.

The Serious Mistake That Lies ut the
Rect of Welded wretchednsss.
Said a brilliant woman, whom not
one OF the refined coterie who heard
her thought of calling immoral" AT
eighteen I married, of my own foolish
will, man of dfty, who adored me.
At twenty had learned that 1t would
be sin to waste my full young life
| the only life 1 could know this side Of
the grave-in so monstrous a union.
He was good man, and, according to
his lights, a model husband. / could
! not but respect him, but we had not
one emotion in common. We were
wholly incompa tible in feeling, SEN
tlment-in nature. Upon this ground,
and this alone, 1 obtained divorce"
Tear away sentimental verbiage and
this woman's case stands thus Her
husbands ideas and tastes were not. to
her apprehension, fayora bic to the de-
velopment of what she sketched as the
life she ought to lead. Her individual
happiness outranked all other consid-
erations in her mind. The marriage
vow, uttered of her own free will, be-
cause she then fancied that she was
forwarding her selfish interests by the
union, became rope of sand when in
clination veered to another quarter.
There is an extreme of altruism
which is fanatical. Bald egoism of the
type here avowed can never be any
thing but contemplate.
1t is sound If homely wisdom to make
the best of a bad bargain. Our repre-
sentative Incompatible made the worst
Of one that, to dispassionate Judges was
only doubtful. CarIyle's caustic re-
minder to the complaining egoist that
"there is no act of parliament to the
eject that thou shouldst be happy"
comes intelligently here. The appel
liant at twenty, against her eighteen
year-old self, was by her own confess
sion incapable OF standing In her lot
and conquering circumstance In de-
manding that everything in her en-
vironment should be suspicious to her
growth in the direction indicted by
wilful Imagination, she testified to her
inability to bear and to perform what
Providence or fate or her own ill-judged
desires had brought TO her
Wedlock is not Eden any more than
men and women are angels while wear
ing the garment of mortality. The
united pair, turning from the altar. al
belt one in name, and for the time, in
heart, are no more made perfect in pa
thence and wisdom than in holiness and
in happiness. How they fare in the
novel state, entered upon with unoues-
tioning eagerness will depend as much
upon the discipline of temper and will. !
and the practice of the every day Rraces
OF mercy, goodness and truth, as If each |
had continued to lead an existence de- |
tacbed from the other, and been COM
peeled 70 defer TO the whims of blood rel |
atiyes, and to consult to wishes of |
chance associates
The serious mistake that lies at the |
root of this form of welded wretched- !
ness is the fatuous belief in one an |
others perfection. without which ballad |
makers and romance writers tell us
marriage is mockery. Nobody can
live up to a standard as false as it is
mlsehievous- Husbands and wives are
as fallible as if they had never been in
love, and hoped, through love, to find
terrestrial heaven. There is a nobler
use than the pursuit of personal happi-
ness for the mutual affection which.
thanks to Him who implanted it, Yields
but slowly TO the pressure of crucial
disappointment 1t i. refined. strength
ened by sustained effort to rise superior
to the disposition to seek out infirmi-
ties and to punish wrong doing. With
each victory over selfish ease and de-
sire II approximates the love that to
gentlest long suffering adds belief and |
hope In all good and gracious possibili-
Harland, in Hsrper's
Bazar