The Fairmont West Virginian. (Fairmont, W. Va.) 1904-1914, 1914-01-06

dy, while Jared waited until he W e 1
l62 before he became a family man.
NO hurry. you see. In those good old
Gays a man could get acquainted with
his girl before he married her, could
court and beau around from forty to
a hundred years, and still have six or
eight hundred years in which to raise
o nice family of children. Nowadays
IL a young fellow Tolls around a girl
two or three months her parents be-
gin to worry about the wedding pres
ents, and the neighbors say there
must be something doing.
In the early times a fellow had a
chance to get u start before he dug
up his wedding fee and took upon
himself the responsibility and cares.
of married life. He could ftddlcf
around Jbis girl for fifty orseYsnty-
fseyears without exciting qpkihd REL
marks from the mateh4maEerss and:
get on to all. her curves, as they used
70 say, before tying up. It's different
nov. A girl has only two or three
years Of maidenhood until some high. 4
geared youngster insists on taking
her away from her happy home ami
making her his wife. It's too bad.
Nearly every woman looks back on
the days of her courtship as the hap
piest of her life. Who shall say that
she was not better OFT when those
golden days lasted half a century?
There's another aspect to this
quest Of the longer life. AS mattera
are now. a man just begins to get
thoroughly efficient, and u woman
wise, when along come the disabili-
ties and weaknesses and pa:as OIL o.o
age, closely followed. by a funeral:-
That's not right. Well leave it u
any man of fifty. If one lad a. rca
sonable expectation of living to say
from six to nine hundred years after
he learned the ropes, how much more.
there would be in life than there is
how, when one is here today ana ~.
lleaven tmaybe). tomorrow! Jnst,
imagine for a moment how our ss-
sets us human beings would be In.
creased IL we still had with rs
Thomas a Beckett (make that Il little
IA" dear compositor), and Richard
the Lion Hearted, and Cromwell,
Shakespeare, Bacon, George Washing
tom Napoleon lafayette, Dean Swift
9nd the whole list of painters and
musicians of ages gone, not to men
tion Andy Jackson, Grant. Sheridan.
Robert L. Lee and Abraham Lincoln
Verify earth has been robbed of Il:
brightest jewels because the genera.
lions of men have allowed their lives
tc be shortened by war and disease
and o~ver-eating until we have come
to look on a man of seventy as old,
on n of eighty as very old, and OIL
one OF ninety as remarkably tenacious
Of life. We need to change our views
~ life, and quit expecting death i'll
our infancy. Fifty is,a good age u
marry at, and at rs one ought to
Ihaye his business or professional lift
! fairly established, Then far, eisE..
hundred years he should taste the
joys Of maturity Will" never d liint q!
what we now call old age. He would
In such a life have time for a variet:
Of things; for reading, travel, scien-
tific investigation. the mastery OF the
worlds languages, the appreciation
Of art and music, the understanding
OF government, and the study OF the
mysteries OF religion, without inter-
fering with his regular a%vocation, o.
hurrying him at any point. AS 1t IS
now a man gets just a taste Of all
these things, and then he must hike
for the Hereafter. 1t Is too bad. W.
Should. all help this long-life move
ment, and do what we can to restore
to mankind the years that we're his
during the period of which Moses
wrote. We can all help keeping
cheerful and having faith, while the
scientific gentlemen dig into the
bowels of fact and reason in their
search for the way in which mankind
shall yet master a few centuries oe
life, and make them his own--Galli-
polls Tribune.