Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1893-12-28

Nh''a' W HEY are very much at
N tached to each other, are
they not?" asked | of a
81 friend as we drove past a
B newly married couple
@ strolling leisurely up the
avenue the other day.
well, l don't know" replied he re-
dectively. II think should say semi
attached. See there!''
looked juss in time to see the hus-
band run up the steps Of his club, while
the wife, with rather a forlorn smile,
signaled passing omnibus.
"Semiattached sounds too much like
semidetached, replied pensively, and
my friend, who is charmingly cynical,
finished the thought with:
"Sure to become SO. and a good job
when it results in unattached. Saves a
world of worry and bother.
Now, was my friend right or wrong?
do not know that | could decide, or
rather ! have decided so many times,
first on one side Of the question and then
upon the other, that | will not reveal my
present conviction if can help it, but
simply put the question before you, to
be decided by each man or woman ac-
cording to his or her individual expert
ence, observation or inner light.
Is it better to be thoroughly attached
to some person of the opposite sex, or
to be thoroughly unattached, or having
been attached to become semiattached
and finally altogether detached, which
is, of course, very different thing from
being unattached?
Evidently Tennyson considered de-
tachment better than unattachment, for
he sang:
rTis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
But as he was not laureate of America
l don't know that we are bound by his
| ipsi dixit, and for one question it.
To be attached-that is, to be thor
oughly and avowedly in love with some
one who is also in love with you and
bound to you by some outward and Wis
ible tie, so that other people leave you
quietly in possession Of your own prop
erty, is certainly most blissful and
soothing condition.
! | will even go so far as to admit that
his condition in its perfection is the
most satisfactory condition of which
mortality is capable.
But thenl You have no doubt occa-
sionally blown soap bubbles and watch
ed them float away in the sunshine.
Was ever anything more glorious, more
perfect in form, in color, in airy grace
of motion, than soap bubble floating
in the sunshine of summer day? d
But should you like to invest your en-
tire fortune in pipes and soap and wa
ter7 Should you like to give up your
friends and your home and arrange all
the details Of your life solely with ref
erence to the manufacture of soap bub-
bles?
Of course not But why? Is not the
first reason, and the prominent reason,
their evanescence? Is not their delicate
brilliancy very byword for glittering
insecurity Do we not talk of bubble
schemes and bubble hopes and bubble
promises7
Well, the condition have specified,
the condition we will call the attach
| ed, the full fruition of successful love,
is even more glittering, more glorious,
more ethereal, in its charm and more
evanescent in its duration than the soap
bubble. You have only time to say,
"Ah, this is the perfection Of happi-
ness'' before some flaw, some cloud,
some discord, comes to mar that perfec-
ton which alone is happiness.
The moment you lose absolute perfec-
tion you lose content. and there is no
happiness without content. To be at
tached, then, is to have now and again
the conviction that you are perfectly
happy, and good many more thou
sands Of times the conviction that you
are wretched. Somebody said, Fear
has torment, but he made great mis-
take. Fear has excitement and interest
and the necessity for action, which is
always blessing, but love, if you
please, has torment, and plenty of it.
The woman who loves has, as it were,
given general invitation to all the
aches and pains and smarts and worries
and doubts and suspicious and jealous
les and heartburnings of which the hu-
man soul is capable, ard they are like
poor relations ns-they accept the slightest
invitation to come and are impervious
to all hints to go. If dislodged from one
room, they promptly take mp their quar-
ters in another. You may neglect OF
slight them all you choose. you may
even forget their existence for time,
but when you least expect Or wish fo1
them there they are, and there they
stick, or if by some rare good fortune
they have to go 4 the scent Of the roses
will hang round them STILL" You new
er can forget how long they were in
mates; you never can cease referring to
them.
The old story of Scissors has deer
foundation The man and his wife quar-
relied bitterly as to whether something
was cut with scissors or a knife. The
! quarrel was made up, they kissed again
with tears" and all was well, when ths
wife remarked:
But, darling, you arc convinced now
that it was scissors. aren't your" Why,
/ supposed you d given in that it was a
knifer' exclaimed he, and at it they went
again, until he pushed her into the
well, and she sank with her hand thrust
above her head and the first two fingers
working liks pair of scissors. What
I mean by quoting the story here is that
the suspicious and jealousies and resent
ments of love are never forgotten, al.
though they may ts hidden, or ever
driven outside the door, or drowned in
the WELL On the very next occasion
they thrust themselves above the sur.
face, crying, Scissors'' and the ole
battle is to be fought over again.
If any man or woman were perfect
the case would be different, but love
although magician to make common
things appear like glorious things, ii
not deity to make them actually so
The fairy gold is far more radiant thar
earthly gold. but some day you perceive
that it is only leaves and twigs. no