The Golden Censer Part 18

YOU WILL BE SAFER

as a married man. It seems to me that a virtuous, sober, christian, unmarried man should have twice the credit of a married man, for he is certainly exposed to thousands of extra temptations. Everything is natural in marriage. The builder has "builded wiser than he knew." At thirty-five he finds himself well along on the successful journey of life. His bachelor friend who has lived a selfish existence is poorer, has lost the charm of youth, and is skurrying around to get a wife who will be a queen and slave at the same time. His bachelor friend is

A LAUGHING-STOCK

among the last crop of young girls, who can recollect how he went with their married sisters, and he will be satisfied with nothing above eighteen, though his hair is dropping out, or frosting like a cold night in September. If he had not been so selfish he would have been married eight or ten years ago. Now

NATURE BEGINS TO a.s.sERT HERSELF.

The friends of his youth have formed the new ties that have come with the march of the years. The trees have their leaves, and cast a grateful shadow, cool and sweet. The bachelor is bare, and under his branches the hot and withering sun pours down unpleasantly. You are lucky to have escaped such a lot, for it is O, so lonesome and unsatisfactory to man!

It is not good for him to be alone. Now,

IN TALKING TO YOUR SWEETHEART,

there is one bearing alone which will bring forth good fruit. Be honest and sincere. Remember that the philosophers and sages of the centuries have been studying and marveling over the thing called Truth--why it is that it always a.s.serts itself--why it is that its parts always coincide with each other, as though they had first been put together! When you see cut stones unloading before the site of a building, you know by the marks on them that, when they are put together, they will make a fine-looking front, for the architect has copied them from the front of some building which has, sometime or other, been erected just as this projected structure will be. But here is

THIS QUARRY OF TRUTH;

you enter it without a human architect, hew out a stone, hew out another, and another, and soon a beautiful edifice arises, in the walls of which there is not a single peep-hole or blemish. Everything fits. So bear yourself toward your future partner for life that when you enter the quarry of your brain for her information, you also enter this quarry of Truth. The stones you now cut out will stand as the b.u.t.tresses of the walls!

HOW SHOCKING IF THEY ARE LIES!

Tell her, when you tell her anything at all, the exact truth. Be very careful about this. Tell her particularly about your money affairs. Your happiness depends more on food and clothes than you are now able to understand. But if you put in solid blocks of truth for the bas.e.m.e.nt, the finer developments of your life will join on with precision and effect. I know a young man who went in debt for a fine span of horses and wagon. His bride supposed they were his own, and he "let her suppose."

A WHOLE AFTERLIFE

of the veriest toil and the most honorable career never wholly expunged the blame which attached to him in both her mind and the minds of her people. It was so foolish in him! One little speech, and long years of bitter pride-wounding would have been averted. The young woman would have married him, just as quickly, for it is easy to make terms before marriage in this country. Do not promise to do things which depend more on events than on yourself. Do not promise to love your future wife always. She may prove unworthy of it. You may prove incapable of it.

INWARDLY MAKE UP YOUR MIND

to enn.o.ble yourself so that your affections will solidify. The companions.h.i.+p of a woman will do much to help you. Promise little by word of mouth--everything by actions. Then, as your days come and go, your character constantly comes more fully into the light, and that light is one of broad, pleasant, humanly love. Your wife will be sure to live happily, for you have built within her mind no extravagant expectations.

LOOK AT A CIRCUS POSTER!

See the absurd and ridiculous promises made upon it! Why do they dare so to humbug the people? Because, in no other way could they get people to ride ten or twelve miles through a summer drouth to hand over their money to the man who is anxious to get it! Here is a man in a chariot, with tigers plunging under his rein like the rays from the sun.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COURTs.h.i.+P.

"New hope may bloom, and days may come.

Of milder, calmer beam, But there's nothing half so sweet in life, As love's young dream."]

Here is a pyramid of elephants four elephants high! Here is the acrobat in the midst of the smoke and blaze of an Armstrong cannon, beginning some flight to a far-off trapeze, or swing, in the air! It is somewhat different inside.

THE CHARIOT OF TIGERS

is an enlarged rat trap with two sleepy, disgusted overgrown cats in it--cats which do not thrive well in this cold land, and which do not smell any too sweet and clean. The pyramid of fine-looking picture-elephants is an ugly live elephant or two standing on a beer-keg or two, which is a wonderful feat for elephants, of course, but not an entertaining one to human sight-seers; and as a final swindle, the cannon act is a man on a spring disguised as a wooden cannon, who is thus hoisted a few feet into the air, where he catches hold of his swinging bar and completes the usual act of an "aerial acrobat." "Fi on't!" as Hamlet says; "reform it altogether!"

DO NOT "BILL YOURSELF TOO STRONGLY"

before your divinity. She would love you if she thought you were just a common man, like George Was.h.i.+ngton or Abraham Lincoln; so, if you tell her you are poverty-stricken and prodigal, and it be true, then she will think that she had rather have a demi-G.o.d, poor as Job's turkey, than a common young man, like your brother or your friend, with all the gold of King Plutus! Bring to her an honest heart, and you will, indeed, bring treasures before her, and she would have no right to complain, even were she so inclined. Love does not seem to be a matter of volition--

OF "WANT TO, OR DON'T WANT TO."

"No man or woman," says Arthur Helps, "was ever cured of love by discovering the falseness of his or her lover. The living together for three long rainy days in the country, has done more to dispel love than all the perfidies in love that have ever been committed." Just think of that during all the time of your courts.h.i.+p. Dread the "living together,"

and when you come to stand the test, the test will not be too great for you. A young man, truly, doesn't need to be married, as a full-grown one does. But

IN ORDER TO REAP WE MUST SOW.

Our bachelor friend of forty wants to reap just as badly as you, but his fields will be waste while yours will be growing. When you get your life insured at twenty-one they charge you about ten times what the risk really is. Why? Because, although they have not the least idea that you are going to die now, they know the mortgage is on your life, and the dues, when you pa.s.s fifty, would, in justice, be higher than mortal man would pay. Therefore they even it up.

YOU LAY ASIDE A SURPLUS

for your old age, and, until lately, the courts held you could collect that surplus, if your contract were not completed to the end of your existence. Thus, in marrying, you are following the wise ordinance of G.o.d. You are choosing a blooming, healthy young woman while you are yourself fresh enough to attract her love and hold it. You are living as a married man while you might, probably, live with more strictly selfish personal comfort up to thirty-five as a single man; but you are,

AFTER THIRTY-FIVE,

immensely better off than the single man, and you will, besides, always be given a better place in society than he, because society likes to see every member in its ranks doing his duty like a man and helping to bear the burdens as well as reap the benefits which our system of living deals out to those who partic.i.p.ate in it.

IF YOU HAVE THE CONSUMPTION

and the young lady also have that disease, consult the physicians of your families. A very learned man, in a series of papers in the _Atlantic Monthly_, some years ago, refused to forbid such marriages entirely. Put yourselves especially under the care of your doctors, and follow their advice implicitly. If the young lady, alone, is consumptive, extend your engagement and wait for events. If you yourself are thus tainted with disease, I have little hesitation in saying that it is not manly to get married until you are entirely out of the reach of pecuniary want without your labor, and even then there are other considerations of nearly equal importance which should lead you to frequent conferences with your family doctor.

YOU THUS SEE THAT "LIFE IS REAL,

and life is earnest." If you are healthy, thank G.o.d for it, and sing merrily while you build the nest which will hold the mate in warmth and comfort. After the harbor of refuge is built, the s.h.i.+p will find a pleasant and ever-welcome anchorage during the big storms outside.

Take the daughter of a good mother.

[Ill.u.s.tration]