The record-union., 1897-02-14

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custom and afterwards supplanted the
names of the saints instead of the
maids History does not state whether
| this was the reason of the discontinue
ance of the custom or not Another old
| time custom was to boil an egg hard,
carefully remove the yoIk, fill the open
| ing thus made full of salt, then eat the
whole egg shell and all. You We're
supposed to do this just before retir-
| ing, and you were not allowed to take
| d drink of water afterward; neither
We're you supposed to speak to any one.
You were assured if you followed these
directions faithfully, that you would
| dream of your sweetheart to whom
| you would be married before the year
was out
The valentines this year are prettier
| than ever before, while the so-called
| comic ones, which, after all, were
| neither comic nor witty. but vulgar in
| the extreme, are beautifully less. A
| valentine can be anything, from an ar
dent love letter to the most fiorid ef
| fusion of the statiener'S art bristling
| all over with Cupids, or again it may
| be a simple bleeding heart pierced by
| a knife, with this touching sentiment
| underneath:
If you love me as | love you,
NO knife can cut our love in two.
OF course every one knows that all
valentine senders are not in love; nor
are all valentine Senders lovers, and yet
| upon that day the postman's ring
gives very echo to the throne where
hope is seated in the youthful breast.
! After all is said and done it's a good
| thing to be young, to be hopeful to have
lover sentimental perhaps, foolish
certainly, but when were youthful lovers
! ever otherwise?
Youth is the halcyon period of our
lives. It's the period of golden day
dreams and exalted ideals of ambition
| and noble purposes in life. Only too
quickly do the day dreams disappear in
dark clouds of disappointment, and our
/ ideals crumble before our eyes-but
there. l didn't mean to preach or to
get pessimistic; pessmism is only an
other name for indigestion in a woman
and gout in a man. Indigestion may
mean a weak stomach, but gout always
means too free indulgence in the good
| things Of this life. It's all very we'll to
enjoy the good things of this life with
moderation, but moderation is almost
physical dmpoSsibility with the average
man; he rushes at things head long; he
/ wants all the good and the pleasure at
| once, and when he finds it pallng on
| him he rushes straight away at some
| thing else, and SO on from one extreme
to the other until at last he becomes old,
and crusty and gouty-a dreadful ex-
ample. But how many people take
warning by dreadful examples? It's
| only experience that teaches. A child
| is never afraid of the fire until it is
| burnt; so it is all through life: it's ex-
perience, hard, cold, bitter experience
! that teaches us caution. Yet they say
that hope springs eternal in the human
breast. What miserable old world this
would be without it, Disappointment
seldom bring despair to the young; they
have their lives before them; it's upon
the shoulders of the old that despair
lays a heavy hand because their lives
lie in the past. Yet hope, the irrepres-
sible, springs up even here and golden
future may yet lie before even these.
That's one of the splendid things of hav-
ing hopeful disposition, of making the
very best of things and of being able to
see the speck of gold, no matter how
tiny, even in the darkest clouds.
Apropos of valentines and lovers, let
me tell you what sort of a man the
average woman likes. First of all she
likes a manly man; she likes the weak
points in his character so cleverly con-
cealed that she forgets all about them;
this doesn't mean that he should pose
as a saint; she is apt to become suspi
cious of him then, and woman can't
love a man unless she has perfect and
complete confidence in him. Above all
things she likes man upon whom she
can implicitly rely in all things of this
life, resting secure in the knowledge
that his superior judgment will guide
him Alright. She likes a man that she
can look up to: a man who has broad
ideas, who is kind to his mother and
sisters, because she knows instinctively
that this man will make the best hus-
band. Faulty he may be, but a woman
in love will idealize him and make a
demigod of even the commonest clay
She will see noble traits in him that the
outside world, not being in love, quite
fail to recognize. If a man is clever
enough, he will not find it difficult to
keep UP this ideal day dream all through
his courtship no matter how long that
period may be. They say love is blind
and that lovers cannot see and that the
best side only of a persons character is
shown before marriage; its the intimate
acquaintanceship afterward that brings
out the imperfections. Happily woman
is so strangely constituted that even
after the imperfections are all shown up
and she sees her erstwhile ideal as he
really is she can still weave around him
a romantic halo and see in the man
stripped of all his little captivating ar
tifces. the firm, true lover of her happy
girlhood days, in fact her ST. Valentine |
BESELENA.
SIX MONTHS