The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1911-02-14

heroine 10 the altar steps, the curtain
fell. Presumably the wedding bells
sounded the knell OF all further 70.
mantle possibilities What lay be-
yond was an untrodden country. The
promised land had ben reached, but
he who had conducted his characters
to it's border did not enter with them.
We might interpret this in two
ways. We might suppose that the mar
riage state was pictured as perfect
happiness; and descriptions of per
feet happiness, such happiness as has
no history, do not interest readers.
Or we might imagine that the writer.
knowing the tangled, thorny condi-
ton of wedlock, it's dangers or its
monotony, thought it best to avoid
subject that was too difficult and peril.
Gus.
But the triumph OF realism changed
all that The novelist no longer
shrinks from dealing with the mar.
ried condition; he courts such a theme
and often begins where his predeces-
sor left off The wedding bells ring
up the curtain. Husband and wife,
and another man or another woman
these are the characters with which
novelist loves to embark on his ven
turous voyage. The result has been
good and bad; good when thoughtless
young people were reminded that their
real trial and testing comes after mar
riage; bad when the tale became sim.
ply record of the proceedings of q
divorce court.
In this world most things are of
mingled complexion; it is difficult to
unravel the good from the evil Most
young readers of today are sufficiently
acquainted with married life as seen
through the spectacles of the novel
writer. But those spectacles have
varied colorings.
On the whole fiction will have done
well if it has taught its readers that
neither the romance nor the diff
ficulties of life terminate with mar
riage. We may safely regard mar
riage as the closing of one chapter
of our lives; but it is equally the be-
ginning of another, and that other is
of grave Importance. There is never
a really final stage in life until the
end; every phase, every period, over
laps, and in a sense all are mutually
dependent The past journeys with
us. But marriage is unquestionably
the most definite transition that can
come to us-the greatest break with
the past, the most obvious dawn OF
new conditions. However we ap,
proach it-and we usually approach IT
in a state of rapture-there are diff.
ficulties and dangers to which the
rapture for a season blinds us. It
must be assumed that we come to It
! equipped with love and tenderness;
+ our equipment should also include a
deep wisdom. Can such wisdom be
possible to majority of the young
people who marry?
Is it not clear that usually they
have everything to learn, and can
only work out their salvation by ex
pertinent and experience, often pain.
full. They can never learn from other
peoples lessons; the days of early
love and courtship teach them little;
passion is a flare whose light dis
torts rather than illumines. Is it q
wonder that so many marriages emf
unhappily?
| The primary and essential condi
ton of marriage is that henceforwarC
two persons live continually together
That alone is a very severe test. Il
may be anticipated as a paradise; the
more glowing the expectation, the
more danger there is that the realiza
ton will not satisfy We are seldom
fully satisfied when we realize that
which we have eagerly expected
There are cases, happily, in marriage
when the real does not belle the hope
when love does not lose by the purg
ing of its passion, but has been ma
tured and strengthened by the years
OF experience. A very slight knowl
edge of the world teaches us that
this is not always so,
The two may find that they are con
genial only in part, while even tina
part grows less and less; they ma
find there are many points at which
they do not touch, or where they sim
ply jar upon and vex each other. Tn,
waning of passion, on one side or both
may lead to real or apparent coldness
the husband more or less consciously
emphasizes the fact that he is n
longer the lover, or the wife does no
exert her fascination as she did be
fore marriage. Asperities of tempe
pOma into NAV fraffu1nacc cuilzi