The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1903-04-22
Choosing a
Wife
A Man Can't Pick His Mother.
but He Can Pick His
Sons Mother
From Letters From a Ser Mode Nor
chant to HIS Son." BY George Horace
Lortmer. by permission Of Sn'du, Nay
ndrd 6 Co., Publishers, BoSton

; OF course you're In no position yet to
| think of being engaged oven, and that's
why I'm n little afraid that you may
be planning to get married. But q
twelve dollar clerk who owes $52 for
roses needs a keeper more than q wire.
1 want to say right here that there al
WAYS comes a time to the fellow who
blows $50 at a lick on roses when he
thinks how many staple groceries he
could have bought with the money.
After all, there's no fool like a young
fool, because in the nature of things
he's got a long time to live.
1 suppose I'm tanning h air when 1
ask you to be guided by my Judgment
In this matter, because while a young
fellow will consult his father about
buying a horse he's cocksure OF HIM
self when 1t IN to picking n wife.
Marriages may be made In heaven, but
most engagements are made In the
back parlor, with the gas so low that a
fellow doesn't really get a square look
Mt what he's talking. While a man
doesn't see much OF n girls family
when he's counting he's apt to see a
good deal of 1t when he's housekeep-
ing, and while he doesn't marry his
wife's father there's nothing In the
marriage VOW to prevent he old man
from borrowing money from him, and
you can bet IL he's old Job Dashkam
he'll dc 1t. A man can't pick his w
mother, but he can pick his sons moth
or, and when he chooses a father-in-
law who plays the bucketshops he
needn't be surprised If his own son
plays the races.
Never marry a poor girl who's been
raised like a rich one. She's simply
traded the virtues Of h poor for the
vices of the rich without going long
on their good points. To marry for
money or to marry without money Is a
crime. There's no real objection to
marrying n woman with n fortune, but
there is to marrying n fortune with a
woman
While you are at 1t, there's nothing
like picking out n good looking wife,
because even the handsomest woman
looks homely sometimes, and so you
get q little variety. But n homcly one
can only look worse II n usual. Beau
ty is only skin deep, but that's deep
enough to satisfy any reasonable man.
q want to say right here that to get
any sense put Of a proyerb / usually
out.) Then, too, IL q fellows bound
to marry a fool, and a lot Of men have
to If they're going to hitch up into a
we'll matched team, there's nothing
like picking a good looking one.
I believe in short engagements and
long marriages. 1 don't see any sense
In a fellows sitting around on the
mourner's bench with the sinners
after he's really got religion. The
time to size up the other sides
strength is before the engagement.
Some fellows propose to a girl be-
fore they know whether her front and
her back hair match and then holler
that they're stuck when they fnd that
she's got a cork leg and a glass eye
as well.
They start out on the principle that
married people have only n meal a
frutti Ice cream after the theater. Nat
ur0lly a girls got her better nature
and her best complexion along under
those circumstances. But the really
valuable thing to know Is how she ap-
proaches ham and eggs at Z o'clock
a. NJ. and whether she brings her COM
plexion with her to the breakfast ia
BILE. And these fellows make a girl be-
lieve that they're going to spend all
the time between 8 and IL o'clock
p. M. for the rest OF their lives holding
40 pounds, live weight, in their lap
and saying that 1t feels like a feather.
The thing to find out is whether. when
one Of them gets up to holding a ten
pound baby In his arms for FIVE min
utes, he's going to carry on as II 1t
weighed o ton.