Year: 1879

| A -GOOd th1nS from Col. lngersOll.


In recent lecture at Chicago Bob
Ingersoll discoursed thus on love /:


Love is the only thing that will
pay 10 per cent. interest on the
outlay. Love is the only thing in
which the height OF extravaganza is
the last degree of economy. 1t is
the only thing, / tell you. Joy is
wealth. Love is the legal tender of
the soul and you need not be rich
to be happy. We have all been
raised on success in this country
always been talked with about be-
ing successful, and have never
thought ourselves very rich unless
we were the possessors of some
magnificent mansion, and unless
our names have been between the
putrid lips of rumor we could not
be happy. Every little boy is striv-
ing to be this and be that. 1 tell
you the happy man is the success
full man. The man that has won
the love of one good woman Is a
successful man. The man that has
been the Emperor of one good
heart, and that heart embraces all
his, has been a success. If another
man has been the Emperor of the
round world and has never loved
and been loved his life is failure.


1t won't do. Let US teach our
children the other way, that the
happy man is the successful man,
and he who is happy man is the
one who always tries to make some
one else happy. The man who
py, that marries her as much for
her own sake as for his own; not
the man that thinks his wife is his
property, who thinks that the title
to her belongs to him-that the
woman is the property of the man
-wretches who get mad at their
wives and then shoot them down in
the street because they think the
woman is their property. 1
tell you 1t is not necessary to be
rich and great and powerful to be
happy. A little while ago L stood
by the grave of the old Napoleon
magnificent tomb of gilt and gold,
fi5 almost for a dead deity-and
gazed upon the sarcophagus of
Black Egyptian marble, where rest
at last the ashes of a restless man.
l leaned over the balustrade and
thought about the career of the
greatest soldier of the modern
world. l saw him walking upon
the banks of the Seine, contempla
ting suicide. l saw him at Toulon
i saw him putting down the mob
in the streets of Paris-I saw him
at the head of the army of Italy
saw him crossing the bridge at
Lodi with the tri-color in his hand.
| saw him in Egypt in the shadows
of the pyramids. [ saw him conquer
the Alps and mingle the eagles of
France with the eagles of the crags.
l saw him at MarengO--at Ulm and
at Austerlitz. l saw him in Russia,
where infantry of the snow and the
cavalry of the wild blast scattered
his legions like winters withered
leaves. l saw him at Leipsic in de-
feat and disaster-driven by mil
lion bayonets back upon Paris,
clutched like wild beast, banished
to Eiba. l saw him escape and re-
take an empire by the force of his
genius. 1 saw him upon the fright
full field of Waterloo, where chance
and fate combined to wreck the for
tunes of their former king. And 1
saw him at Helena, with hands
crossed behind him, gazing out
upon the sad a1d solemn sea.


l thought of the orphans and
widows he had made-of the tears
that had been shed for his glory,
and of the only woman who ever
loved him, pushed from his heart
by the cold hand of ambition. And
1 said would rather have been q
French peasant and worn wooden
shoes, 1 would rather have lived in
a hut with vine growing over the
door, and the grapes growing pur-
pie in the kisses of the autumn
sun, l would rather have been that
poor peasant, with my loving wife
by my side, knitting as the day
died out of the sky--with my
loving children about my knees
and their arms about me, would
rather have been that man, and
gone down to 5he tongueless silence
of the dreamless dust than to have
been that Imperial impersonation
of murder, known as Napoleon the
Great. 1t is not necessary to be
rich in order to be happy. 1t is
only necessary to be in love. Thous-
ands of men go to college and get
certificate that they have no eddca-
tion, and that certificate is in Latin,
and they stop studying, and in two
years to save their life they couldn't t
read the certificate they got. 1t is
mostly so in marrying. They stop
counting when they get married.
They think they have won her, and
that is enough. All! the difference
before and after. How well they
looked! How bright their eyes (!
How light their steps and how full
they were of generosity. l tell you
a man should consider himself in
good luck If a woman loves him
when he is doing his level best.
| Good luoki Good lucki