The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-12-26
AN OBTIMIST'S OUTLOOK.
Traditions of Sturdy Manhood and Pnre
WOmanhood Will Be Maintained.


The pessimlsts have so long had it their
own way and have been able to justify
their lamentations so well by pointing to
the divorce courts and the scandal OF mod
erD fiction, that the easily led world was
beginning to believe not only that mar
riage is failure, but that the whole social
state is deliquescent. 1t has occurred to
some one to challenge this conclusion by
an appeal TO the sound part of society, and
get the testimony of wives on this subject.
The result, appearing from time to time in
an English periodical, promises TO be over
whelmingly in favor of happy marriages.
We know that the great mass OF society is
always sound, or it could not hold to-
gether. 1t is the exceptionally discon-
tented who are oftenest heard, and
it is the exceptionally unfortunate
or vicious who attract most atten-
ton. The complaints of the one and
the visible and Haunted misery OF the
other furnish US sufficient spectacle OF a
world gone wrong, and sufficient illustra-
tions for those who adopt depressing theo-
ries, and apparently enjoy the prospect of
pretty nearly universal unhappiness. The
wise know, indeed, that no one is happy at
all times, and that no one escapes suffer
ing, and that the experiment of two lives
lived as one, though of natures own devils
ing, is not always successful. Iet III the
great mass it is reasonably successful, and
is at any rate condition better for human
ity than any other that has been tried.
Writers are apt to Judge both the morals
ard the contentment of men by the
congested cities, just as our travellers
| used to represent the empires of China
and Japan as utterly immoral from
their experience OF the seaboard
cities. But even in the cities it is
I ,Nn1 @f l. IL.
pessimists base their theories of the mis-
cry of life ana the misfortune of marriage.
The fairly contented and the reasonably
happy are silent; the mass of domestic life
| is unreported. And this is why the mod
| ern newspaper, which reports day by day
| the accidents and the unusual in life as
news, is such an untrue reporter of the
| actual state of society and will be such a
poor guide to the historian who refers
to it alone for his estimate of the social
| life of the last quarter OF the nineteenth
century. 1t is more misleading than the
Satires of Juvenal. But when we go out
of the cities and large towns into the
country and among the small villages,
either in England or America, where
there is less rivalry in ostentation, and
less strife for luxury and less congestion of
i'll living and poverty, the civilization of
| these latter days makes very good show.
Considering the actual frailties of human
nature, and the natural hardships of any
| state of Development growth and decay.
| it is really wonderful to see how happy
and cheerful the world is how much kind
ness there is and helpfulness and content
ment. 1t cannot be that the fundamental
conditions of life are all wrong, and that
the coniugal and family relations are
| makeshifts or in moribund state. |
| lately made little tour in the west and
south of England as a mere spectator of
! the ordinary popular life. doubtif there
| have ever been in the world communities
| happier, better ordered and cared for
| than there. l will not say there are not
| too many public houses; that there
| is great chance for youthful ambition or
| change of condition; and could no doubt
have brought away stories of individual
discomfort and misery enough to make a
dsagreeable volume. But am sure that
life in the main there is wholesome and
| prosperous, or at least enjoyable, and as
free as humanity can be, in our present
state of ignorance, from great evils. [ did
not see Sir Richard Granville at Stow, nor
did | meet Charles Kingsley at Bideford
or Clovelly Court, but | am sure that there
remains in this region ma jority OF people
who think as they did about religion and
honor and the domestic virtues; that
there are enough, at any rate, of such to
keep up the old English traditions of
sturdy manhood and pure womanhood.-
Charles Dudley Warner, in Harper's Maya
zine.