Year: 1866

Choosing wife is no such puzzling enigma
as it used to be, before lights of modern science
shone across the nineteenth century of ours.


IF you marry an angel and discover afterward
that she is something very far removed from
the supernatural, you have only yourself to
thank for it. You may have read the dormant
existence of those very repellant traits of char
acter which broke upon you like thunderbolts,


in conformation of the pretty head, the shape
of the polished forehead, the curve of the state
ly neck. You may have seen the fash of tenn
the iron will of the square chin. Nature in.
scribes her character plainly enough in the face
and brain, and if you take not the troubls to
read the signs and tokens, why, you have only
to make the best Of the bargain. ....-..'.


Nor do we believe in long courtships. Jacob
must have been a most remarkable individual
not to have got heartily tired of Miss Rachel
long before these fourteen years ordeal had
transpired, and we have no proofs that Rachel
was not waning into confirmed old maid while
Jacob was earning her. Don't wait to make
your fortune, young lover! If you are not rich
enough in money, you have stores of strength
and youth, and warm fresh love; and with these
gone you would be poor indeed, though you re-
veled in the wealth of William b. Astor, A
man never falls in love but once He has bis
fancies, lkings, friendships, based on genuine
esteem, but the celestial fame comes only once
in lifetime. Therefore if you love woman
and she is worthy of your affection, marry her,
and trust to God and your own strong right arm
to bring the world to recognize the wisdom of
your choice ~.


AS for all the current nonsense about select
ing wife, our shrewd opinion is that it is only
nonsense. Fancy young gentleman prying
into his inamorata's house before breakfast to
ascertain whether or not her collar is pinned cor
rectly Or her hair brushed geometricaly straight.
Picture him descending upon all sorts of GER
tain and uncertain hours to find out whether
she had made bread or played the piano, and it
there is any dust on her centre-table. If he has
not judgment enough to make his selection
without any such extraneous aids, we opine that
his intellect can scarcely be of the very highest
order.


Yet there are some keen disappointments in
this business of matrimonial choice. A man
who marries pretty girl under sort Of transit
tory enchantment is very apt when the honey
moon is over, to discover that she is only NOR
tai after all, and considers himself rather 10 the
light of a wronged individual. The pretty girl,
too, begins to see that her lover is neither more
or less than man; it is possible that she has
her moments Of grave reflection on the subject.
Thus it requires considerable amount of phi
losophy to survive the first months of matIimo-
ny without what are called "lover's quarrels."
Yet there is love enough and broad enough and
deep enough to bear up all imperfections and
shortcomings on its restless current Now and
then we chance on marriage based on just
such love this, a union whose links brighten
as the years 60 on, and are cemented more
strongly in the world "whcre there is neither
marriage nor giving in marriage" .....-


While there are summer and winter, seed
tiri2 and harvest, there will be perpetual re-
petition of the sweet old store of love and court
ship. 1t is as it should be. Let there be no
false modesty, no misplaced hesitation on the
subject God meant his children to be happy
in the spring time of their lives; shall we hide
away the good gifts of love and appreciation
which he has given US? ~,