Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1902-11-22
NOT ALWAYS TO THE STRONG.
Something About the Victors in Life's
Great Battle.

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Great Battle.
Ny friend is going to be married. She
is not going to marry very strong man
and for that reason we have all shaken
our heads and looked sober, as wise peO-
pie will who have pet theories. There
are some theories which we shall never
have chance to test in our own eXpell-
ence, and we are therefore the more anX-
lous to have other people abide by them
We have all thanked our stars that my
friend IS strong and of buoyant dls'
position. Heaven knows she Will need u
be! And that there is enough laid by to
keep the wolf from her door for a long
time. Certainly We shall all be put a III
tie out OF countenance if that wolf never
makes his appearance.
SO we 20 about shaking our heads and
looking as If we We're preparing our
selves for funeral instead of wedding
Meanwhile my friend goes about with
her head high and smiling. She wants
none of our pity. She knows well enough
what she is about. And somehow she
sets me wondering
She sets me wondering about the men
whom the world calls Sickly, and about
the women with high courage to marry
them.
Health is an excellent quality that
rightly enough holds our admiration.
But in the modern strenuous cult thai
physical perfection is the ideal virtue and
physical weakness the cardinal, are we
not likely to lose sight of some vital
truths? 1t is not always these physically
weak men, after all, who accomplish the
least in the world. They have made
some women proud to be their wives.
There was, for instance, Robert Louis
Stevenson-brave, happy X. s. s., VINO
was. always busy about his 'own par
tlcular business of learning to write. "
even TO the end. He worked away, fac
ing his wasting sickness with sunshiuy
acceptance, and weaving those wonder
III! tales when it was an uncomfortable
pain to move And the woman who
helped him face death, and by whose as
sistance his work was done-Was she
sorry to be there?
There was John Richard Green. His
work, too, was a battle against fearful
odds Of lllhealth. He married at 10,
"hen he was broken in health and pros
poets, with only time enough and
strength enough left for the fulillment
or his iIfes meaning-the writing of his
histories. And she to whom he whis-
pered the last glowing periods of his
oook; who wrote night and day that she
might help him finish his life's work,
even upon his deathbed-was she sorry
TO he there, sorry to have him die 'oy-
ing as well as ''workingy'
There was Sidney Lanier, the sweet
singer of the South. He fought the
grim dragons of poverty. sickness and
death, and al 80 he lost the battle. But
It was not defeat Poor and unknown
though he died, nor vet as famous as he
VIII be, he had done his work. His four
teen years of happy married life and mu-
sic ana poetry and poverty and sickness
were worth century of some mems
ilFeS. And did one woman regret hav-
ing shared those last years?
University settlements and neighbor-
hood guilds are the fruits OF the life of
one of these "sickly' men. Arnold
Toynbee went to live in the Whtechapel
district of London Hampered as he
was by ill-health, he carried love and
culture to the wretched and ignorant
and when he was cut down at 81. his
example and his teachings bore fruit in
Ioynbee hall, noble memorial to his
memory and the first of the university
settlements. He lived" says Il bog
rapher, ito show how much may be done,
nay, how much may be enjoyed by a
man whom society would think poor
and by a man whom the strong would
call weak.
My friend isn't going to marry a man
with so frail a hold on life as these had.
Neither is he a genius. So perhaps the
case doesn't fit at all. But ut any rate
it sets me wondering if, after all a man
with a soul and not much body to speak
of isn't of rs much account in the world
as man with body and no soul worth
mentioning.