The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-05-06

From the Louisville Courier-Journal.
 IGHT the cozy fire of affection upon
 the hearth before the flame of pas
 Al sion dies, is the advice of Jerome K.
 Jerome in his serio-comic essay upon love.
 Amid the noxious gases of this world says the author of Idle Thoughts" the fiercer flame must sooner or later flicker and die,
 but affection endures and increases. Upon the settling decks of the Titanic 1t was proven rather conclusively that the cozy fire burns with warmth greater, as well as more lasting, than that of the fiame it supplants. Numerous women who were upon their bridal trips survived the wreck. None of the brides was reported as pre- ferring to remain upon the ship and die with her husband. Mrs. Isidor Straus ex- pressed that preference, and was allowed to abide by her choice.
 Of course, the fact that youth clings more stubbornly to life-or is supposed to do so-may be urged in explanation of the willingness of all of the honeymoon ing brides to take to the lifeboats. But optimists will prefer to believe that the attitude of Mrs. Straus, as entrusted
 with that of the brides, illustrates the greater binding force of the marriage re- lation in age, and after a. happy life than at it's beginning. At the age which had been reached by Mir and Mrs. Straus most human beings have gotten rid or the illusions and delusions of their youth full and romantic days and look at life, and at one another. through clear glasses. But the habit of affection, like other hab- it's is second nature. As a French dram atist put it, MT. and Mrs. Straus "in- cluded in their common habits the habit of death." When the test came Mrs. Straus preferred. death to bereavement, and in declining to enter the lfeboat gave expression to that sentiment in a manner that left nothing unproven. This inci- dent of the sinking of the Titanic oc- casions a bit of literature that comes to notice as a by-product of the tragedy. Solomon Soils Cohen, a Philadelphian, contributes to the Independent the follow ing lines, under the title Together" T cannot leave thee, husband; in this arm Enrolded, l am safe from all alarm If God hath willed that we should pass,
 this night,
 Through the dark waters to eternal light, Oh, let us thank Him with our latest breath
 For welded life and undivided death."
 No statistics have ever been prepared
 to show whether the love of Romeo and
 Juliet in real life is as strong as the affec-
 tion of Darby and Joan in real life. It
 would be difficult to settle such dis
 cussion by statistics relating to the pref
 erence for death expressed unanswerably
 by surviving married folk after the termi-
 nation of the marriage contract by the
 deaths of one party to it, or by the
 deaths of widows or widowers attributed
 to grief. But the statistics of the Titanic
 disaster come readily to hand and are un-
 deniably in favor of the theory that the
 ties are stronger between happily mar
 ried persons who have spent long span
 of years together than between young
 persons who are yet held merely by the
 mutual attraction that caused them to
 decide upon marriage.
 Only the cynic-and let 1t be borne in
 mind that the term means a 'snarlng dog''-will criticise the brides who entered
 the lifeboats Tt must remembered that some hope still existed among those on the ship when the lifeboats were being filled with women, and that many hus- bands treasured their wives with the as- sertion that help might yet come or with the statement that the ship could not sink.
 Perhaps the needless sacrifice might have been made by some of the brides if all of them had thoroughly understood that the death of those who remained aboard the
 steamer was inevitable. But, leaving that
 question open, and admitting that there there are many arguments in behalf of any individual. even a bride. who chooses not to die when 1t Is unnecessary to do so and death is unavoidable, there re- mains the fact that Mrs. Stratus pre-
 ferred that whatever the fate of those on