III.

“I never see a pure, good face, Nor painting outlines ever trace, But he is near, his love is dear, Had I been earnest; he were here!” She veiled her dark eyes with her hand; I turned away,--“True love is grand,” I murmured, in an undertone; “Life gives no more than love of one.”

_Don’t marry odd sizes._ A tall man with a little woman looks awkward enough; but a tall woman with a little, tiny man is a misfit, surely.

See if you can’t find someone of your size, as the school-lads say in a wrestle. Pair off like soldiers in time of dress parade, with an eye to unity.

This caution relates to extremes, of course, and not to small variances. Some change and grow portly after marriage, but none get very much taller after twenty-four.

Just for the looks of the thing, pair off in uniform lines.

_Don’t marry a man or woman without a character._ Soon enough you’ll see the value of this caution. Character is a matter that grows through a lifetime, but enough of it crops out early to be noticed. One is known not only by his company but by his habits, his tastes, and his inclinations. It is said that some whole families are born fast; some thievish, some inclined to crabbedness, others mild, upright, honest, and reliable. It runs in the blood in some cases.

Suppose one is to marry for virtue, purity, and uprightness, he will seek it in the blood as much as he would look for quality in a racer.

If a woman loves a rakish “man of the world,” so called,--a name too often used to varnish a bad character,--she will very easily find him around the different bar-rooms of almost any crowded hotel in the city or village. He will be after marriage what he was before.

Tell me where a man goes, and I will tell you what he is. If he is fast, he will cultivate fast habits, live a rapid life, and earn that character very early. If these are the traits you are looking for, “inquire within” and you will find them. It may be a woman you are asking about, a girl for a wife, a life-long companion. Which are you seeking for? A dashy, fly-away dancer, or a domestic home-lover, and one whom you can trust with your keys, your secrets, your conscience? Look to her character. In either case, the man or woman has lived somewhere. Find out about it,--how long, how well, how faithfully.

A well-to-do widow, was crazy to marry a man that she fancied, and who actually refused to give more than his name and hotel, and no references. On careful inquiry such a person was known by no less than two to four names,--changed to suit circumstances. The spell was broken, the match ended.

Men and women often rush into matrimony as game is run into a trap, for the little tempting bait set to catch them (a catch-as-catch-can race). They marry and risk a life-long happiness on less actual information of each other’s real nature than a good horseman would exact of his carriage horse’s pedigree. This may do in the country, but never will answer in a city. Sense and reason dictate that men and women, to enjoy each other’s society, should see well to the match beforehand. A fine hand, a small foot, a becoming hat, a twist of the head, a simper, or a half-witty saying will do well in their places; but colors must _wash_ and _wear_ to stand a lifetime.

_Don’t marry a clown._ A silly fellow that jokes on every subject never did amount to anything, and never will. All he says may be very funny, very; but how many times can he be funny?

Fun will grow stale and threadbare; one cannot live by it. Life is a trip that costs car fare, wash bills, board bills, trinkets, notions, and actual outlays. Real providers are never clowns; the clownish fellow is a favorite in school-days. He is so cute, just as cute as a cotton hat, so cunning, so witty, so nice. Is he? Wait a few years, until his nice nonsense turns to active business!

_Don’t marry a dude._ Of all milk-and-water specimens, a dude is the lowest,--a little removed from nothing; a dressed-up model for a tailor-shop (sometimes it’s in woman form); a street flirt, a hotel-step gazer, an eye-glass ogler, a street strut; one who finds his enjoyment in the looking-glass--a masher.

Very many are called, but few are chosen. The many that are called are ridiculed. The time will come when a tailor’s suit and a fancy outfit will no more make one respectable than it would make a gentleman of a wooden Indian in front of a cigar-stand.

Men, real men of business, and men fit to marry, are not dudes, but manly, upright beings, with sense, integrity, and genius or industry; who come upon the stage of life as real actors in its affairs, not as “supes” and sham soldiers in “Pinafore” battle-scenes, where a few parade in fancy feathers as commodores for the amusement of spectators.

Life is too earnest to spend on silly, tawdry, fancy colors or showy clothing; and the one who has the less of it is the most likely to be marked for a gentleman, and the brand will be correctly designated. With women, no less than men, is this silly street-walking habit quite prevalent. A flirting woman on a public street is a sorry picture; even one who stoops to notice her must secretly know her measure. She deceives no one, for her character, like the dude’s, is so transparent that no one mistakes its meaning. The habit of going nowhere for nothing is as foolish as it is injurious.

Character grows out of little things. It may be that being seen with a disreputable person three times, or even once, will change the whole current of our career. Don’t practise the vices of dudes nor the habits of street flirts.

_Do not marry a boy or girl who is not good at home._ That is the golden test of duty,--to do one’s duty alone, away from the eyes of men and the notice of the world; to be good from a right disposition.

There is no safer rule to marry by than this: “She loves her mother, and isn’t afraid to work. She has a good name at home among her near neighbors. She is neat, sweet, and tidy. Seven days each week she is never off guard, always a lady.”

And of a man may it be said, “He is a man, take him all in all; he is manly, he is truthful; he loves his home; he treats his sisters and mother kindly. He is capable of good deeds, and incapable of mean ones. He has a good name.” He deserves success, and it will follow him. He is plain, perhaps, but man outgrows it. He is not a painting, an imitation, a counterfeit, but simply a man. He will do to marry; so will she, the last-named.

_Don’t marry from pity._ It may be akin to love, but the kinship is quite distant. Many a weak woman has so married, and only once regretted it--each and every day afterwards. A life-long regret must follow. What a cold respect is that compliment to any woman, “I took pity on her!” Away with such base uses of pity! Many a woman has had pity on a rakish man or a drunkard and married him to reform his nature. Better, far better, trust a child with a runaway horse or a mad dog. Danger seen and not avoided is criminal carelessness. Surely you can save one life, and its happiness, in such cases. One is quite enough to be sacrificed. Let bravery be shown by demanding a full surrender and reasonable atonement.

_Don’t marry for an ideal marriage only._ The girlish dream of marriage is so wide of the reality as to be dangerous. She is to grow up and go away, off to Italy, or some far-away clime of sunshine; there to be taught music and the classics. On some clear moonlight evening, in a summer-time, where birds sing all day long, near a brook or flower-garden, she is to be surprised by a creature of form and make and mental endowment that shall thrill her whole being into rapturous joy. They will go to the parlor, and there, by a grand-piano, she will unseal the pent-up currents of her heart, till tears flow from all eyes around her; there she will seem to hear the childhood melodies, the song of departed friends, the harmony of all the senses, mingling in one sweet welcome to her new-found happiness.

Her prisoned soul is no longer grovelling in common themes; all the latent power of her being is to burst forth in gladness; and music of the heart is to bear her up until the cottage walls are narrow, till flowers and falling water, brilliant company, ease and riches, smile upon her glad career.

She is to be lifted up, and raised to heights before unknown to mortals. He of whom she dreams of now is fit for Paradise. Finer and finer every day will his genius grow, and nearer to her liking every hour. There is just such joy and just such glory in a new-born love, that seems to reach a grander height each moment, as on eagle’s wings.

And this is but the generous dream that Nature gives, as a preface to a real life after,--so very, very different. The girl that twines her tender arms around her mother’s neck, and thrills with joyous pride in telling of the brilliant prize that’s offered her, thinks not of rainy days ahead. Perhaps it is just as well; who would begrudge her such half-hours of happiness? But, seeing sometime she must break the spell and know all, it may be safe to drop a hint in season, and say, This way lies safety, that way danger!

_Don’t marry a man of even doubtful character._ No matter how handsome or brilliant, a bad man has in him elements that are always repulsive; they are poison to his blood and his surroundings, and the only safe guide is his character.

No matter how many promises of reformation; you need not turn reformer for his sake. If you will take the risk, do it after he proves himself reformed, and be in no great haste about it.

No amount of spicing and seasoning can make tainted meat palatable, and no amount of promising will reclaim a character tainted with vicious habits once seated.

Young ladies who enter upon the reforming mission furnish more women and children for prisons, later in life, by their own misfortunes than any one class. Cases of reclaimed men after marriage are so rare as to be exceptional. It’s always a dangerous experiment.

_Don’t marry too cautiously as to perfection._ It has before been fully stated that men and women are human, and imperfect. That is, if you are hunting angels it’s a fool’s errand; there are none unpledged. If you look for tall, handsome, rich, manly, cultivated, talented, brilliant men, or pure, refined, fascinating, beautiful women, and one for each man the world over, the supply never equals the demand of either sex.

But to presume that the persons marked under head of “don’t marry” cover all the rest is unreasonable. There are thousands of noble women and men, possessed of sterling sense, strong bodies, affectionate natures, ability to conduct a home, become a genial companion, raise a family, shine in society, and bear their full share of life’s earnest work. Occasionally a man or woman will tower above their fellows, but, generally, the real difference is less than is often supposed. The great majority are good, and live and go to their reward unheard of outside of their neighborhood.

One has put it rather strongly in this, to many: “The lives of men and women, the best of them, are marred and ruined by uncongenial marriages. They mostly suffer in silence, ashamed to complain of the chain they cannot break. Men and woman cannot know what their sweethearts will be after marriage. I have known a sensitive man, a genius with a soul like a star, whose life was a pilgrimage over burning coals, because his wife was a coarse termagant. Many a gifted woman, fit to be a queen or an empress, is chained to a clod of a husband, whose forced companionship is to her the tortures of Inferno.”

_Don’t marry expecting all the virtues in one person._ If you do, the disappointment will be startling. There are no perfect characters. History gives none since the Saviour. Even Joseph was willing to punish his enemies.

The majority of men and women are good and pure and fair-looking. The numbers who go to the bad are few compared to the good. Take the country population, and ninety per cent will be good; and sixty per cent of all cities are people of fair characters.

It is a mistake to think that most people are bad because the bad ones get so often chronicled in public journals. The good, like the virtuous, live and die and demand no praise of their virtue. The great mass of men are sensible, and honest and upright and sober, and worthy to marry.

_Don’t break a marriage abruptly._ This is the wrong way to break a bad match. It intensifies affection. It leads to elopement, or that slow canker in a girl’s nature ending in melancholy, or insanity.

Love is a plant so tender that to uproot or transplant it may touch a vital part. There are ways enough to change its current; but of all food to increase its growth, give it a little opposition. Tell a child to leave something alone, and he sulks to touch it. Tell a girl that the man she admires is distasteful to her relatives, and she half despises them from a simple motive of resentment. Lead her by reason to see with her own eyes, and she will be convinced.

The great London actor, Garrick, played the drunkard to disenchant a girl, and succeeded. Her parents might have tried it a lifetime and failed. Human nature is queer. It will lead when the way is enticing. It will magnify discoveries, but they must be discovered in the right manner. Remove not the prop till the safety of the structure is secure without it.

_Don’t oppose one’s marriage choice suddenly._ Should a girl fall in love with one of bad character, it is best not to call him so at one breath; but say, “What are his habits? Is he good enough and worthy of so pure and comely a person as you are?” Let this task be performed by some girl of same age and class as the one you seek to change. Let them be often together, and find ways of expressing the objections by this method--coming from a classmate, a friend, a chum or companion--and your object may be easily accomplished. A proposed absence without showing why, a long journey with genial company, may have the desired effect. At least use one caution; see that the girl knows the real habits and character of the man you are opposed to her marrying. It will do more than all the urging, scolding, coaxing, or threatening.

_Don’t marry for spite._ Why should you? If the one whom you loved most has deceived you and taken another, it will be folly to try to punish him by hanging yourself, or committing a double suicide in a loveless marriage.

You will learn this lesson all too dearly when it’s over. Life is too short for those who love it and are well mated; but many a miserable marriage has made one or the other wish for death a million times, to be rid of its burden.

You are the one most interested. You will find out, after the knot is tied, that there are many conditions in life better and easier to be endured than a silly marriage to spite some one. You will spite them better by showing what a noble choice they had missed when they took another in your place.

_Don’t propose on a wash-day, in the rain, at breakfast, or in a tunnel._ There is no room for fainting in the former, and a narrow chance for time in the latter.

Many ladies have singular notions on how proposals should be accepted, and to such any rudeness is extremely shocking. A very modest fellow, in deep anxiety, took up his fair lady’s cat, and said, “Pussy, may I marry your mistress?” when the young lady replied, “Say yes, pussy, when he gets brave enough to ask for her.” More than likely this brought the young fellow to his senses. It certainly brought matters to a crisis.

Most young people talk to each other as though a tall stone wall stood between them and they must find a door in it. Strange enough, the difference in views vanishes at the merest mention of each other’s sentiments.

_Don’t mitten a mechanic_, simply on account of his business. If he is worthy, never mind his business. He can grow out of it, and will grow out of it. Collier was a blacksmith, Wilson a shoemaker, Andrew Johnson a tailor, Peter Cooper a glue-maker, Grant a tanner, and Lincoln the humblest of farmers. In this country it is not a question what a man was, but what he is; not even what he is, but what he may be, and what he is capable of yet attaining.

Many a girl has turned away a mechanic and married a rich loafer, only to find in good season that the mechanic was at heart a gentleman, with growing possibilities, and the loafer remained such for all time.

Advice is seldom heeded in such matters, but it may do to mention it. The true test of manhood is seen in the mettle of boyhood. If you wish to forecast the future, study the past history of your subject. If one is selfish, tyrannical, and overbearing by being rich, he will be a bad man to marry. If, on the other hand, he is pleasant, kind, genial, and forbearing, loves his kind, is attentive to his mother and sisters, and has made friends and character in early life, he is not very likely to change his notions later. There is often more manhood in a poor one-armed man than a rich athlete.

_Don’t marry a man too poor._ It is the height of folly to mate, and attempt to raise seven children on what will bring up three indifferently. Have a little discretion. Think that eating, dressing, etc., cost something, and no one can live happily without some of these common comforts. If they cannot buy them single, it is folly to double one’s misery by marrying in the jaws of starvation. It is suicide: it is worse,--it is double suicide, and may lead to pauperism and crime and disgrace.

_Don’t marry where the woman is older than the man._ Men are restless creatures and exacting. They expect grace, beauty, and refinement; they prefer youth to age, generally. At least it is the fashion to marry a wife some years younger than the husband. Women mature earlier; they have less expectancy of long life, and on an average live seven to ten years less, and show age at fifty more than a man does at sixty-five. Of the two, a woman should look smaller and younger and better than a man. This accords with the belief of all refined people.

_Don’t marry a crank._ This class of men will be wordy and persuasive. They tell all sorts of stories of life,--how the world is mismade; how they could improve upon this thing or that; how marriages should be made between blondes and brunettes; how, with their philosophy, society would reach perfection.

Such men are invariably tyrannical. They are exacting to the last degree; they have neither faith, hope, nor charity, but run in one groove. They distrust the powers that be, and generally mount some hobby, and forever prattle about the rights of free love or the wrongs of government. Avoid them as you would a tramp.

_Don’t marry fine feathers._ Chesterfield was _well up_ on manners, and gave his son this rule, among his twenty-one maxims to marry by: “Let not the rustling of silk entrap you into matrimony.” Fine clothing has a certain fascination to many. Some choose a wife by the becoming effect of a tasty garment. Some select a fine dancer; others rely upon a small hand or a petite form. These points may be all well noted, but they are but parts of a greater whole that should govern a wise selection.

_Don’t marry a “masher”--man or woman._ A regular professional flirt will never settle down to love one woman or one man. Habits once formed will cling to them in after-life. They are like runaway teams--liable to take fright and go when least expected.

Civil attention, by a lady or gentleman, to the other sex is natural and courteous, but the thought that every fair lady is common prey is repulsive. The traveller who avoids all vacant car-seats but the nearest to a handsome young woman, and forces his conversation against her will, has an eye to his business of one more conquest; but the too often insulted woman who complains of over-attention from gentlemen is generally one who walks much unattended and shows some willingness to be not wholly unnoticed.

_Don’t marry without love._ It will be plain enough after a while. You will not mind it at first, perhaps, but the time will come when, by a song, or a face, or a voice, or a form, you will awake as from a dream, to find you have chosen carelessly. It will be too late then. A loveless marriage may stand throughout a honeymoon. It may last in youth, but not when storms and trials come in after-years. It lacks that something which words do not well express,--continuity, heart-bound devotion, and endurance.

No matter how plain each or either may be, if they love each other they will overlook little things, and live patiently and happily to the end. But once, at least, must come this joy and glory of wedlock, that seems to be the wise design of Nature,--a love for one another. It endures through age and trouble, and is a more lasting tie than all others together.

_Don’t marry an idle spendthrift_; one whose money comes without effort at first, and goes as rapidly, will one day come to want as certainly as waters reach their level. Nature has fashioned us all for work,--work of mind or work of body, mental or physical labor,--and with it comes strength of muscle and of will. Listless life of idleness, without motive, without aim, is open to every form of temptation.

It is not a crime to be rich, or to be poor. It is a crime to be listless in a busy world. He would be disgraced who, standing on a wharf, saw a drowning crew without offering relief. He would be a coward who would not defend a woman in distress; yet all around us are the needy, helpless, drowning, starving, whom it is our duty to rescue and lift up in life; and marriage is the place where society is born, and grows and ripens into use.

_Don’t marry a stingy man_; of all narrow, mean men, he is worst who has money, and has no will to do good with it. A “dog-in-the-manger” man, who can improve his town, his church, his neighborhood, and does not, is a drone in life’s hive and deserves no success.

One who is poor and has no means is excusable; one who locks and buries treasures deserves the Bible sentence of him who hid his talent in the earth--to be taken from him and placed with the active one’s talent.

A narrow, selfish, stingy man will count your pennies spent, and postage used, and clothing worn, as wasted. One must live in constant dread of such a creature--we need not name him man; it would disgrace the term. A miser’s wife lives a loveless life.

_Don’t marry too hastily._ Some rush into matrimony like a steam-engine going to put out a fire, as though one moment lost would be eternal defeat, and the first there gain the highest prize. Many a one has repented more leisurely and in sorrow for such conduct. But of all things, marry at a good opportunity.

_Don’t be too slow about it._ Girls who give up the society of all but one, and turn their homes into special receptions for one person, will be worried to death in a year or two, if things move too moderately.

Brace up and proceed to business, or release your claim and let some one else have an opportunity. Long engagements lead to lovers’ quarrels; they, in turn, fail to make up sometimes, and then follow scandal and gossip over broken ties; and later two go down to their early sleep disheartened, ruined by a trifling neglect and a reasonable inventory of prospects. You will see it all plainly when it is over. It will be a “might have been” then, sure enough, but too late.

_Don’t marry a silly girl._ It’s something of an art to select a sensible person, but many are captivated by frivolous sayings and coquettish acts of simpering school-girls and marry them. They make better playmates than wives. They are generally shallow, nonsensical, and superficial. They seldom learn anything; a tittering girl is wearisome in real life. They are ever unstable as water and changeable as wind; get some one that you can rely upon in confidence.

_Avoid slovenly dressed girls or heedless men._ Life seems very short sometimes, but if ill-mated it may be a long and tiresome life. A woman with shoes run down, a man with slouched and battered hat, reckless of neatness, will grow worse, and seldom better.

Trifling as it may appear, the tidy dress, the tasty every-day apparel, the ladylike appearance, and general style of man or woman, go a long way to form character. Beecher was right in saying that “clothes do not make the man, but they make him look better after he is made.” The same rule is true of women.

_Don’t expect too much in marriage._ The story pen-pictures and fashion-plate models of men that we see and read about are always exaggerated. Not one man in a million would equal their description. Men are plain flesh-and-blood creatures; women are not angels. They build their hopes too high who expect otherwise. Take the handsomest person you know and ten years’ wear will dull the edges; and of all faded features, the once very handsome show change the soonest. There are many little odd-faced fellows who grow up to be fine manly men. The growth from boyhood or girlhood to youth, and youth to manhood or womanhood, and so on to old age, is marvellous. It takes a keen sense of foresight to measure the future of many boys and girls by their beginning. There is no rule safer than choosing a good form, a good brain, a good temper, and a good character, and waiting for the other developments.

Endure what cannot be cured, and don’t wish your wife or husband were as handsome as some neighbor or as rich as some nabob. Youth and good qualities are riches. It may be he is richer by far than the very one envied. The richest are not always those who own the most--many of these are poor indeed, and often miserable.

_Don’t marry a fop._ Vanity in a woman is bad enough, in men it is intolerable! A man-milliner, a namby-pamby female male, a walking model for ready-made furnishing-stores, may think himself exceedingly stunning, but to a real lady or gentleman he is a nonentity. Such husbands never could be satisfied with the admiration you would give them; they would weary your mirrors and try your patience. What are they good for, anyway? There is room for women and room for men, but a half-woman or a half-man is never great. They are not very likely to marry at all, and less likely to make home happy.

_Don’t expect everything of one person._ Some expect to marry love, beauty, talent, riches, and affection all in one. It is unreasonable; you will never find it, and may as well give up looking in good season.

“Waukeen” Miller was requested to rewrite an article sent to a New York magazine and returned this pithy reply: “I can’t re-copy it. I can’t do everything. What do you expect of a man, anyway--to be a genius, an inventor, and a writing-teacher? No, I can’t bother my brains with copying worth four to six hundred a year at the highest.” This covers the whole subject in a sentence. But it is well to add that Nature is sparing of her gifts. To one she allots beauty, to another strength, to another wisdom, to a third courage, to a fourth ability to acquire riches, to another that to write and speak, to teach, to manage, to paint, or to control armies: all are not alike, and to no one belong all virtues.

_Don’t expect too much of a wife._ If she is beautiful, that will be her pride and ideal. If plain, she may make it up a thousand times in goodness, gentleness, industry, virtue (the plainest are the least tempted). Earnest in her duty, she may be of all women the most suited to your station. If talented, she will devote herself to it. You cannot own beauty, talent, domestic drudgery all in one.

“Looking for angels, are you?” said an advanced maiden in the country. “Well, you’ll not find ’em fit for kitchen work; and, while I think of it, how would you look by the side of an angel, you brute you?” and he subsided.

No, they are not much suited to kitchen work, the so-called angels; but many a mother who has brought up a large family as her own kitchen maid, without servants, who has braved the hardships of poverty and privation, has led a life but little lower than the angels, after all.

_Don’t marry and cross your husband._ While on this division, don’t cross your wife just at dinner-time. After the cares of business he is tired, fretful, and she is of similar humor. To make a dispute is much easier than to make a coal fire. Wait!

Don’t flash up and speak back, and irritate by quick answer. Wait!

If man or woman could only wait in seasons of anger, all would blow over and harmony return like spring flowers, that are not always in blossom.

Don’t both speak at once, nor both get angry at once, nor both be too determined at once. No one is ever convinced by angry tones. It is horribly repulsive to talk so; besides, you will both be sorry for it very many times. Wait, and let your judgment mature after dinner; quarrel, if you must, in whispers; that is the new fashion. Try the newer form.

About ten thousand new divorces could be prevented each year by observing these rules of common sense and reason. When will married people and unmarried people, and lovers and neighbors, learn how pleasant peace is, and how awkward it is to quarrel together?

One man pounds his finger with a tack-hammer and blames his wife for it a month later; one man’s goose gets in a neighbor’s garden and is killed--perhaps served him right--and yet they are sworn enemies for five years later; and not until some child is rescued from a burning building or a mad dog, by the enemy neighbor do the two know how pleasant and useful it is to dwell in harmony.

Families who have been estranged for years are some day--ah, some day!--called to look into the sightless eyes that once flashed in anger, or lay away in its earthy home the form they shunned for some trifling answer in a passion. If we knew how soon, how cautious we would be! Life is so short to quarrel and make up in; they who quarrel may never make up.

_Don’t marry in fun._ Be in earnest about a matter of so much moment. It may seem funny to a lot of girls out on a sleigh-ride to call in some one and wind up an escapade by a double wedding; but few of such marriages ever end well.

Sudden and ill-considered matches are mismatches. You may have a mother, a sister, or a family to consult; then the old-fashioned way is the best. It’s a left-handed marriage at best that will not allow the forms used for ages to strengthen its solemnity.

Let the world know by open dealing that you have married above any secrecy, elopement, or underhanded fashion. Be brave enough to follow the form of society in a manner that concerns every neighbor and every relative.

Marry at home or at church, in good form, without display; marry according to the best usage of the best people, and you will reap some benefit from the sensible conclusion.

_Don’t marry without an eye to comfort._ A man that expects to live thirty years or more with a partner will investigate his likes and dislikes; so should a woman. Are you ready to attend a cattle ranch and brave the frontier? Then look the matter clearly in the face at the first hint of the man’s proposal who expects it.

Do you prefer the city to the country? Look to the earliest opportunity. Can you endure a soldier’s absence, or wait for an explorer? or will you prefer a domestic relation that brings you both under one roof daily? These questions should be answered soon enough to prevent regret, remorse, or separation. The greatest of all dangers in marriage is the color-blindness of lovers: they never use but one color--rose color--till a few weeks after the wedding.

_Don’t spurn a man for his poverty._ “Prosperity is the parent of friends; misfortune is the fire by which they are tried.” One may be poor by an honest failure, another may be rich on ill-gotten gains. The first the lord of honor, the last a prosperous knave.

“I would give it all willingly and work by the day if we could be placed back where we were, and be free from the worry and dread and anxiety,” said a rich man’s wife to a waiting friend by her sick bedside.

Who does not know of poor, plain boys who endured the poverty of youth, struggled with their studies, carved out a fortune as from flinty marble, and enjoyed it in maturer years, all the more for the effort it cost them, all the more likely to last and continue to bless other generations?

Franklin commenced poor with a penny loaf; Greeley was homely and awkward. Few would have looked for Lincoln’s rise. Giddings and Collier and Garfield all started low on the ladder, and ended high in honor and worthy of any woman’s affection.

If we could only get near enough to Genius to comprehend its superior worth; if we could reverence talent and admire integrity and take true measure of prospective greatness, what a fortune we would possess!

Like high-priced lots in large cities, the discoverers of rare locations seldom knew the value of their purchases. It takes time for development; more time in genius and character than we are always ready to wait for; but the far-seeing are always rewarded, so with the prizes of matrimony.

_Don’t marry and expect a husband to be wealthy while young._ Only the older men should be looked to for high financial standing. In a hopeful country like ours, few are rich under fifty, seldom under sixty.

Young men who earn their education, and begin and learn a business are barely partners at thirty or thirty-five. It takes time to prosper. Several mistakes may be made. Scarcely a wholesale house in New York or Boston has run on twenty years without a failure. Failure is the rule, success the exception. Patience, pluck, and perseverance win the victory, but they who spend freely in the forenoon have little left in the evening. Those who save early double in like ratio later on.

_Don’t marry in opposite religious views._ If possible, marry near your own belief. This may seem strained, but the story of divorces will confirm its wisdom. Children and parents very often disagree on religious subjects. The farmer’s “Betsey and I are out” controversy, “was a difference in our creed. And the more we argued the matter, the less we ever agreed.”

It is pleasant to agree on a subject so vital in families, more especially so in Protestant and Catholic families, where education is sometimes controlled by church government, and marriages are held illegal in one church if not solemnized by its forms and between regular believers in its faith and doctrines.

_Don’t marry a duke_, or any man who travels on his title. The most of such men are very common, and the most of young people who seek their company are sold, deceived, and seriously disappointed.

They expect a fortune to begin with, and will be the most exacting of all mortals. This is a mere matter of birth and surroundings. Novels tell many beautiful stories (pretty visions) about brave and noble dukes and their princely palaces, attentive servants, and flower-arbors. Experience tells far different stories.

The history of nine out of ten of such unnatural unions is a record of a half million or so squandered on a petted daughter to satisfy a mother’s ambition, and ending in misery entailed by the dearly bought purchase. Don’t marry so much out of rank as to be a burden, or carry a burden.

_Do marry a man that you can look up to_, and see that he can do likewise. There are plenty of farmers, mechanics, merchants, conductors, doctors, lawyers, and men of general business, who are worthy, trusty, generous, noble, and will make excellent husbands.

Seek them out from their character, their conduct at home, their treatment of sisters and mothers, their devotion to business and adherence to principle. Show them that you trust them. Be ready to marry. Become accomplished and useful. Make yourself worthy of a home, and know how to manage it with skill and kindness. Loving natures are not long neglected. The worn-out belles and women who fade and wither, and die snappish and single, were insincere, or lacked some quality of winning manners.

_Do marry a President._ That is the correct form now. It’s so romantic. Waive all the hints of other objections,--age, love, spite, money, and the like. Get a President,--just for the position, you know!

Then all the little jewels and diamonds and presents will come rolling in like flowers to a favorite singer. All little objections vanish in the presence of a President. He must be suited to any condition of beauty, genius, or intellect. Don’t refuse a President’s offer; you may never get but one such in a lifetime.

_Do marry a plain man._ Just a plain, common-sense man; be he banker, lawyer, doctor, farmer, builder, merchant, so he is a man; for manhood is at a premium to-day in home life! The world is full to overflowing with brilliant men. Public offices are public trusts, and all that such responsibility implies, and there are women in stations where the word home has very little meaning, and other women who long for the quiet and comfort of true domestic life away from the cares of office and the demands of lofty stations.

Two of the things that lead to greatest misery of the masses to-day are over-ambition and reckless marriages.

_Don’t coax a woman to love you._ If you wish to win, that is certainly the wrong way. If they have any notion of it, you are in the opposite direction of success.

Women despise a fawning, cringing nature. “Fortune and women, born to be controlled, stoop to the forward and the bold.”

A far more sensible way to win will be by indifference. Show enough willingness to reassure her, and enough courage to act manly.

Ten to one you have mistaken her temper by lack of frankness. Nothing is more touching than truth. If you are really bent on marrying and have told the right person the whole story, earnestly and truthfully, the answer should be decisive.

Keen dealers seldom banter; they may hesitate, they may explain their wants and wishes, they never parley very long or express much anxiety to strike a bargain.

_Winning a wife or a lover is a rare art._ To be worthy of either is the first essential. It is better to be worthy of it than to be President and unworthy.

It must be consoling even to a jilted lover to feel that he is superior to the one successful. The next thing to being worthy is being ready. Many a youth begins driving, sleighing, and dressing for society who pays his clothing bills by instalments, and whose salary is wholly unequal to his outlay.

Fairness demands that a girl in marrying should better her condition. How can one expect her to marry into misery?

Chesterfield quotes an old Spanish saying of great force and aptness: “It is the beginning that costs in everything. The first step over, the rest is easy.”

_Don’t marry recklessly._ Before two or more men form a partnership, they learn each other’s means of furthering the business to be engaged in; the confidence that each is worthy of, the skill, attention, etc., each can give, and the prospects of a mutual agreement and prosperity.

Without some inquiry on these vital requisites, no company concern would be founded. It would be a foolish investment to purchase goods and fit up stores or warehouses without some forecast of results; and yet this is precisely in the line of marriage.

Partnerships are business marriages. It is not best to be too cool and calculating about it; one caution may let another take the venture and draw the premium. But some common-sense may as well be mixed with a matter so vital as a life-long engagement.

Firms are limited to a few years; marriages are unlimited save by death, or divorce, for over a third of a century, on an average. While it is very difficult to tell whom to marry,--for no one can foresee your circumstances,--still, it is well to mention a large class that no one should marry, at least till all others are no longer accessible.

If one could foresee the extent of happiness depending on this selection of partners, if he would take a simple business caution and investigate enough to be considerate, he might save society from disgrace and himself from lasting misery. For the fact is, that the most glaring of all our American evils is the looseness of marriage ties, and the misery it entails on domestic relations.

If these hints or reminders should induce one woman to avoid a bad marriage, and one man to contract a good one, or save a long quarrel, or keep families in harmony, or help some poor bashful fellow to gain his Yes by a sensible proposal, the time in reading will be well spent, the trifling cost will be a splendid investment.

ROMANTIC MARRIAGES.

Caroline Crofton had completed her course at Vassar, one of its earliest graduates, and one of the most brilliant in her class of thirty odd young New England, graceful, gifted, and generous girls, that have long been noted for their purity of principles and perfection of character. She was smaller than her classmates, an only daughter of Judge Crofton, whose manner and training marked him as a classical, refined, and upright gentleman, and a dignified and just judge.

All that culture could impart, or character add to the graces of nature, was bestowed upon Caroline, who never assumed the fashion of shortening her name by fancy contractions. Carline was the shortest way of calling her, and this was not a favorite with her mother. From her father she inherited the qualities ascribed to her, while her mother, like a clinging vine wound around the oak, was of a trusting, lovable, nature, of darker hair and eyes than the Judge; and the two mingled in the daughter, and formed a slender figure and a graceful form, an ardent, lovable character, as one could easily discover.

Diligent by nature and proud of her progress in early studies, Caroline had entered Vassar’s advanced classes and employed all her energy to excel in each department.

She literally lived in her books for four full years, to the exclusion of modes, society, or even the newspapers; her one ambition seemed ever to be excellence, and when the graduating day arrived, and the long row in white were seated in breathless awe to read their papers and receive their reward, something more than a common interest was awakened.

Such are the days when young men of wealth and ambition, and poorer men with an eye to the beautiful, come in and listen to the overdrawn pictures of school-girls’ first productions.

The theme of Caroline Crofton was “Pioneers;” how they had founded our government in the little log school-houses of New England, in the sixteenth century; how they had established their town meetings and voting precincts; how they had gradually driven back the Indians (“noble redmen”) from the rich, fertile valley of the Mohawk in New York, cleared away the underbrush from the fertile plains of Northern Ohio and Pennsylvania, and boldly evaded the massive pineries of bleak, cold Northern Michigan; dauntlessly, fearlessly, and bravely establishing schools and churches in the very midst of Indian huts and wigwams, taking their lives in their hands, to improve and populate a great and growing nation; and how wonderfully they had all prospered.

In her vivid and graphic picture of a fruitful theme (a theme learned from books and stories), she dwelt on the part that mothers had borne, and brothers were bearing, in this tide of prosperity and improvement, till tear-drops came fast to the earnest eyes of the old gray-haired professors, who were judges, and many a mother’s heart leaped with joyous pride at the mention of brave sons battling with the Western wilderness, for their sons were among them.

Caroline Crofton could feel the hush of silence, always such applause as is irresistible; she could feel the emotion, and conveyed that emotion to her audience; she forgot herself, forgot her hearers, and read with a girlish animation born of deep-seated belief in the grandeur of the theme she advocated. Round after round of applause greeted her conclusion, and she staggered to her seat literally overcome by the brilliant effort which resulted in a handsomely inscribed medal as first of her class of Vassar.

Whether the influence of that essay on the mind of Caroline, or its greater influence on Cyrus Arthur (a newly arrived resident of Vassar) was the most potent means of a quick acquaintance between them, is not well known to the writers; certain it is that an early friendship soon refined into affection, and meagre inquiries into his character being satisfactory to Caroline, he was promptly admitted as a suitor at the dignified household of Judge Crofton, on the banks of the beautiful St. Lawrence. The Judge was led to believe that a long acquaintance had ripened between schoolmates, when in fact it was a love at first sight affair, and on very little consideration.

That these young and ambitious lovers enjoyed all that is allotted to their class is forever a secret, for their after-life reveals but little of its mystery. Their after-life was a struggle for bread first, and position soon after. They really put off living, very foolishly.

Cyrus Arthur was a large, strongly built, dark-haired, handsome fellow, of considerable assurance in the social gatherings, and generally managed to lead off with the dances and parties from his size and commanding way more than from any merit of talent or real goodness in himself; one of the village leaders who gained favor by fine looks and outward appearance; one of the petted class of forenoon brilliants whose afternoons are often more shaded.

There was a smile of serene contentment and half-satisfaction on the haughty face of young Arthur as he offered himself to the Judge’s daughter in that manner assumed by generals in battle. He obtained his prize, and she obtained her ambition. He married beauty, she married a leader. Her highly colored future was a life of intellectual greatness; his first pride was of conquest, then of distinction.

A large man in a small place may be a little man in a large city.

In good season they were married, of course; and of their courtship little need be said, for it was all unromantic.

Arthur’s father was a merchant of limited means, and the younger having high notions of going West to grow up with the country, early settled in a lumber-making city of North Michigan, where he took his fair young companion, who soon realized that her rose-colored romance of brave pioneers was not a living reality.

Dreams are one thing, real life is another; work was scarce in the big overgrown city, but plentiful in the pineries; and after the first day of married life wore into weeks, and living expense came around with painful regularity, the new couple were forced to economize, then look for employment, which they first found in tending store and camp, cooking for a large lumber-ranch; certainly far less refining than the vision of a Vassar schoolgirl’s essay had pictured.

But they prospered, and by dint of close saving, always coming from the wise counsel of the weaker one, they became managers, then owners, of a portable saw-mill and a ranch, and gradually a store building partly paid for.

From the letters home, showing their thrift and economy, gradually came small sums lent to the far-away idol of the staid old Judge’s household. Cyrus was surprised and delighted one day to find a large bill of goods sent on to fill up their store and give them a start in their hard beginning.

It was the work and influence of that little brainy wife, whose tender hands had grown harder by cooking, mending, and working for forty or more robust workmen, and the reward it brought and the encouragement to both. With a well-stocked grocery and comfortable surroundings, Cyrus began to look the world in the face quite complacently, and take matters easier. Meanwhile, the silent ambition of Caroline determined, if growing up with the country meant anything, she would fathom its mystery, and she continued to delve and save, and plan and execute, and encourage her husband in his extensive contracts.

Here was a profit on forty laborers, a margin on their payment in goods, a rise in lumber, and a golden opportunity to buy vast tracts of pine timber at very low figures in cash payments. Drawing on her savings the little wife advised wise investments.