That to be hated, needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft familiar with its face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”
When our dear girls have strength of character sufficient to say in response to such a query, while lifting frank honest eyes: “Shall I answer your question honestly? then I must say, it is very offensive to me; for I know it does you harm, and I know as well that I cannot breathe the fumes of it even for an hour without physical harm to myself.”
There is not one young man in a hundred, who would not rejoice in the courage of such a girl, and ten chances to one, he would be telling his companions of the brave stand she had made, and exulting in it.
Young men of high attainment and noble purposes, there is still something for you to do, to transmit the best to your progeny. Make the noblest in you still nobler, root out the weeds, attain greater heights every year, seek nobler companionship among books and men, choose for your mate the woman whose desires and ambitions are like your own, and your children will be a blessing to you and the world, and may well “rise up to call you blessed.”
To the other class of young men, we have only to say, there should be before them many years of rooting and weeding and killing out, and hard preparation, before they should dare ask any good women to be their wives. Aye, more, before they should even dare to ask a woman like themselves, for think of the double inheritance of such unfortunate children as might be theirs; and think again how the world is cursed with such disinherited humanity now.
The motto
“Without halting, without rest,
Pushing better up to best,”