Year: 1870

4 VI l/OhS I<nSdSCuICutS, you Will lIlO tiidt
| they will shake their heads steadily and at
once pronounce an unequivOcal verdict of
disapprobation. Like the celebrated CO.
lonial judge, they are perhaps not SO happy
in their augmentation as in their decision,
but they fall back upon their verdict as
characterized by the most impregnable
wisdom. If you come to investigate their
reasons, they candidly avow themselves
empires; their opinion is merely gen
eralizatiOn of limited individual expert
ences. 1t will be found, however, that the
British mothers reasons generally resolve
themselves into two; first, they say that
if an engagement is indefinitely prolonged
the daughters health is apt to suffer very
greatly; and next they say that the long
engagement has an inherent tendency to
disintegration-that it is apt to resolve and
come to nothing. The subject is a matter
of considerable practical importance, and
may repay an attempt at elucidation.


OF course extreme instances are to be
avoided. But these instances should be
avoided both on the one side or on the
other. Sometimes very brief is worse
than very long engagement. Most peO-
pie have heard in their time some queer
stories of very short engagements. | re-
member the case of a gentleman who was
going out as n missionary. / do not think
that he was going al fresc0 among the
savages, but rather, | should think, to
some district where Europeans can live
very comfortably despite the surrounding
prevalent heathenism. | believe that it is
an understood principle, for reasons easily
Ineligible that missionary is best mar
ricd. This gentleman had neglected, how
ever, to the very last, to provide himself
! vvff, c,,nh a1i in of 70 hi lah hove
| He was taking tea with nice family, and
he announced that he had to depart for
the East the day after the morrow, and
also the unsatisfactory state of his personal
arrangements. A young lady who was
present rather liked him as an individual,
and greatly sympathized with him as a
missionary. The result, which may be
stated in an abridged form, simply was
that the young lady who saw him one day
married him the next, and sailed away
with him to India on the third. We do
not wish to bode i'll for this interesting
young couple, but we are sure that's terrific
paper might be written on hasty marriages.


Now let me give case in point on the
other side of the question Several long
engagements of a truly venerable charae-
ter have come to my knowledge. There
was man in Australia who was engaged
to lady in England for twenty years.
The lady pleaded that she could not leave
her mother. | wonder, by the way,
whether she had ever asked her mother.


| am not sure that young ladies always
fully understand their mothers on these
points The gentleman allowed the plea,
and languid, semi-Platonic correspond
ence went on. One fine morning the
gentleman was surprised by letter from
his ancient friend, informing him that her
mother was now departed this life and
that she was ready to come out and marry
him. This was rather a serious demand
to make upon a middle-aged man while
cracking his egg at breakfast. But he
considered that he had given his accept
ance, and did not fail to honor the draft
in the most busineSs-li like way.


Here is another case of quasi long en-
cagement character A clergyman was
walking in beautiful park to note a
famous castle and the surrounding land
scape. At a sudden turn of the walk he
met lady, whose face, though somewhat
changed by time, he remembered well. 1t
was that of a lady to whom the parson
had been engaged twenty years before.
They had loved each other greatly then,
but, according to their notions of living,
there did not appear the most forlorn
chance of a union. Under these circum-
stances the lovers agreed that they would
postpone matters indefinitely, and that
each should be considered at liberty
The lady went out to India as a specula-
ton, and dropped into good thing. The
| gentleman stuck with pertinacity to ms
curacy, and remained on the same spot foI
the whole twenty years. Then, alter suck
. long parting, they at last met again, il
this accidental way, in the great "show


park. She was widow, with an only
child, rich, and was handsome still. Walk
ing slowly beneath the swinging chestnut
boughs, they discussed old friends
old times. And then the parsor
said that he proposed to forge
those past twenty years, to erase them
as if they had never been, and to re
vert once more to the old days of thei
, engagement And the lady said, in mllC
, phrases meaning much, that she had NJ
, objection. And the long engagement re
vived in the form of very short one.


1t NAV be said that we are looking upol


the subject in an empiric way, citing op
posite instances and not laying down
, principle 1t would be easy to make ;


wide-sweeping generalization-ifw We coult
I only see our way to it. But the subjec


must be taken in cases, and the cases mus
he decided on their merits 1t is subjec
I for that noble science Of casuistry, which


once diligently pursued both by Romans
!, and Puritan, seems now relegated into tn


region of ethical curiosities. The onl,
), general consent on the subject is tina


adopted by mothers, who look upon Ion!
y engagements with an ill-disguised aver


sion; and when they take you into thei
! confidence and tell you how vexed ant


anxious they are about their girls, an'
n enlarge on that dispiriting hopelessness


which is kind of shadow To long engage
), ments, it is difficult not to sympathlz


with their troubles and be persuaded b,
4 their rhetoric. A great deal of satire


often lavished upon worldly mothers
q Rut i'm this so-called worldliness goo


mothers are often unwordly ana unsel1sf
! They only want to know for certain wha


is really for the true good of their girls
~ and they will be sure to dolt.


There is generally considcrabl
v amount of poetic interest about youn
c engaged pair. But in long engagement


they frequently discount their raptures a


a long date and with a heavy sacrifice


Among friends and in the family the smil
G of interest at the outset is exchanged for TIN
o smile of pity in the issue. A girl feel


irritated and indignant when she know


that she is pitied. There is often som


amount of affectation about an engage
r girl. which is sometimes amusing, an


sometimes absurd. She is apt to retire


like stricken deer, to some lonely glad


i'm the drawing-room, where she consider
t. general society as mere intrusion, and a


men, except the object, as mere non
II entities. She will exemplity that selfish
n ness which in nine cases out OF ten belong
IS To love. Her own home will have ior ne


subordinate and decreasing lnteres
T. She will lose the fresh love OF nature an
}" the keenness of her zest for study. lie
d mind will be obviously unsettled. lie