Women Not Gone to the Dogs
He had met a beautiful girl and one day having dined with her family and talked with the young lady herself after dinner he came out of the house and was amazed to discover that the sun was gone from the sky. In a confused manner I enquired of her father what had become of the sun. He politely replied, "It has gone down." A new heaven and a new earth surrounded him. They were married and lived happily ever after. It was not Mrs. Burnett "and her lesser fraction." An humble home was paradise to him with the right girl. Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox without it. Sometimes I think that the rich face greater problems in the matter of marriage than even the poor. Such a wedding based on affection goes far toward nullifying the phrase "lottery of marriage." An American girl can marry an English Duke if her father has money enough. In this country the prevalent sanctity of marriage can be attributed chiefly to the fact that among the rank and file, husbands and wives have generally married each other for love. Perhaps this statement would not apply to the smart set in some commercial cities. This young man did his best. He became the president of the Pacific Bank of San Francisco and the first Governor of California. And as for a young woman she will become quite a heroine, in hard outward conditions, if her affections are entirely satisfied. Having spirit and courage and health she often becomes quite a prop to the prosperity of the household. She does not need to be supported in idleness by her husband. As between the two, it is often the case that she can earn about as much as he can. A young lady has just become a bride who had been receiving a larger salary than her own father ever earned. In new countries, under pioneer conditions, that is true today, which was distinctly a fact in early New England, that a marriage was a partnership, which made for thrift. Of course affection works out her sums by different rules.
Shall the Union Survive
Chinese wives are valued by their weight. French marriages have been generally happier than the English owing to the comparative ascendency which the French wives possess over their husbands, or better, the equality we find that exists between them.
There is a proverbial prejudice in an English establishment against the interference of a woman in the husband's conduct of his private affairs. This is that one matter in which any theorist can prove his position, for in solving the problem it is natural to him to count the hits and not the misses. He arrays unquestioned facts and depends on those who follow his recital to jump at the conclusion he desires. It was suggestive to notice that Governor Burnett, when presenting such a fine specimen of feminine attractiveness, that while showing us that he was overwhelmed by it, did not directly describe the girl, but made us infer what the facts were by the situation and by the results she brought about. To make you appreciate the Lady of the Lake, Scott alludes to her in attitude and grace and lets the reader's mind supply the picture.
Lights in Their Dwellings
It is astonishing to notice what heroic young women have been doing in meeting rather hard conditions occasioned in part by the high cost of living. Give the girl all round confidence, imagine her susceptibilities and energies to be happily employed, and she will undertake a temporary encounter with poverty with bravery. The one she has chosen among men has to meet it whether he will or no. In addressing themselves to that problem, by united enterprise, some young people have passed their most joyous years. We find here the magic spell which transforms a house into a home. Musicians rarely give their best exhibition when singing or performing in a hostile atmosphere. It is so with women. Happiness is never an accident. There is no such thing as an accident. Everything has a cause if we can find it.