Symmetry, strength, grace, health,—these are admirable qualities in a man. From the remotest ages they have been the marks of heroes. Secondary though they are to moral and mental qualities, they should be ever highly valued. A manly man! Nature designs such to be the sires of future generations. No danger that we shall fall to worshiping physical beauty again. The only fear is that in this lank, puny, scrawny generation of ours, we shall, out of vanity, underrate such beauty. Let it be ever remembered that this is the ideal, from which any departure is deterioration.
THE ENGAGEMENT.
When our grandmothers were engaged, the minister rose in his pulpit on Sunday morning, before the assembled congregation, and proclaimed the 'banns,' stating that if any one knew just cause or lawful impediment why the lovers should not be married, he should state it there and then. Sometimes a great hubbub was created when some discarded suitor rose, forbidding the banns, and claimed that the capricious maiden had previously promised herself to him. Perhaps it was to avoid such an uncomfortable check on the freedom of flirtation that the ancient custom was dropped.
Certain it is, that to be 'engaged' sits very lightly on the minds of both young men and maidens now-a-days. We know some of either sex who make it a boast how often they have made and unmade this slender tie. It is a dangerous pastime. 'The hand of little use hath the daintier touch,' and they who thus trifle with their affections will end by losing the capacity to feel any real affection at all.
Undoubtedly there occur instances where a woman has pledged herself in all seriousness, and afterwards sees her affianced in a light which warns her that she cannot be happy with him,—that the vows she will be called upon to pronounce at the altar will be hollow and false. What is she to do?
We are not inditing the decrees of the Court of Love. Here is the advice of another to her hand:
'First to thine own self be true,
And then it follows, as the night the day,
That thou canst ne'er be false to any man.'
CONCERNING LONG ENGAGEMENTS.
They are hurtful, and they are unnecessary. Is love so vagrant that it must be tied by such a chain? Better let it go. True love asks no oath; it casteth out fear, and believes without a promise.
There are other reasons, sound physiological reasons, which we could adduce, if need were, to show that the close personal relations which arise between persons who are engaged should not be continued too long a time. They lead to excitement and debility, sometimes to danger and disease. Especially is this true of nervous, excitable, sympathetic dispositions.