The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1919-08-15

and l have to be particular. People
are watching US; and they are ready
to jump on US for things that they
readily excuse in girls and young
men. So it is no fault of the mature
virgin that she is prim and precise
that is the demeanor forced upon her
by critical and unfriendly world.
That world generally thinks, or
pretends to think, that woman gets
to be an old maid because she has
had no opportunity to marry. That
presumption is both erroneous and
unfair. Probably, all decent women
certainly, a great many indecent
ones-have, or have had, that oppor-
tunity. Some, no doubt many, re-
main single because they are not
what the young man termed ''keen'
for marriage. Chief Justice Simp-
son told me Of that person going to
young woman's father to ask his
consent to his marriage with the
daughter. On the fathers inquiring
what the young woman had to. say
about it, the lover exclaimed, ooh,
She's keen for it..
Every woman's heart has it's own
individual history. One may marry
purely for love. Another may prac-
tice the legalized traffic of selling
herself for money-as N. P. Willis
has it:
"Ah, honored we'll are charms to sell
When priests the selling do
Another may marry out of ambi-
ton for power or social position.
Another, (if she be a wealthy Amer
lean woman), will trade her money
and her body for an European title
of socalled nobility. Others, poor
things. marry just to escape the SOL
itude of celibacy. And it is said that
a woman sometimes marries a man
out of pure pity-athough l never
knew that sort of thing to occur. On
the other hand, there have been
many women who could not be
bought or dazzled, or be coerced by
any hardship or privation; who have
refused to bestow their hands ex-
cept where they have given their
hearts; and whose conscientiousness
and refinement of taste have revolt
ed against union with such men as
have offered them marriage. One
may have been bereaved by the
death of lover, and have never
known another she has thought fit
to replace him. One may have loved
a man, and afterwards found him SO
degraded as to set her against mar
riage with any man. One may have
loved a man who did not love or seek
her, and be unwilling to accept a
second choice. And then again-as
little as most men and most women
think it-there have been, and are,
women altogether averse to mar
IMAGE with any man Of any sort, and
resolutely determined to remain free
of all bonds.
Perhaps a lady has not had suf-
ficiently ardent lover (and that's the
kind wanted, you know, and hasn't
been so desirous of marriage as TO
be willing to help timid wooer on
like the lady whom the Scotch schol
ar, Robert Haldane, went ACQUIRING.
When she referred to his nice new
house, he edged his chair closer to
her, and stated that there was still
one thing lacking there. "And what
may that be, Doctor?" asked she, as
she went on knitting her stocking.
Then his heart failed him, and he
stammered, "A-a-sideboard,' ard
retreated. Or the lover may be too
deferential, as the Scotch girl
thought. Dean Ramsay tells us, that
a young man about to be married
said to the bride elect, "Well, Jennie,
haven't 1 been unco ceevil?'-mean-
ing that he had never tried to kiss or
otherwise caress her. To which she
replied, ooh, ay, man-senselessly
ceevil."
Women, until of late, have been
so excluded from employments, and
kept under repression, and, general
ly, so i'll educated, that the old maids
have been prevented from making
any great public record; but they
have been more worthy and more
conspicuous figures in the worlds
history than is generally thought.
There was Miriam. sister to Moses