Familiar Talks

LONG COURTSHIPS

R. JOSEPH ADDISON, in one of those exquisite essays enjoyed by readers of English classics, tells of the grief of the club on hearing the news that a member much beloved had passed away. Sir Roger De Coverley had been a knight of the olden time. He had been the idol of a country neighborhood, had loved his horse and his hounds, had served his God and his country, and a gallant, simple-hearted gentleman, had bravely fulfilled his duty till life's latest day.

Mr. Addison, quoting a letter purporting to come from Sir Roger's butler, quaintly remarks that as he has made his will on a very cold day, he left a thick frieze coat to every yeoman in the parish, and to their wives a warm cloth ridinghood. Old-fashioned pictures show these riding-hoods, which were finished with quilted capes, warm enough to be an offset to the coats bequeathed to the men. But it was not Sir Roger's thoughtfulness for his rural friends that impressed the reader of an old brown leatherbound volume the other day, so much as an allusion to the lady he had courted during forty years. To her he left an ample fortune, although she had never bestowed upon him her heart and hand.

Long engagements seldom turn out happily. Yet long courtships have been known to give great delight to the

faithful lovers who were contented thus to show their regard for one another. In a certain shire town in the South, for fifty years, once a week, at precisely the same hour, a courteous gentleman drew rein at the door of a beautiful woman. They were in the twenties when his worship of her began, and the frosts of time were thick upon their heads when he paid his last call. She died first, and he followed her to the grave in the character of chief mourner, and survived her less than a year. Every one in the county recognized the relation of these friends as confidential and intimate, every one knew that once a week they passed an hour or two together, and, years before the end, every one ceased to speculate as to why they did not marry, whether they ever would, and what changes would be made should the two faithful lovers become husband and wife. The secret of their determination not to marry was never disclosed, but they appeared to secure a reasonable amount of contentment from their polite and ceremonious courtship.

A similar instance was known to a wide circle in a Northern State. Near a university town resided a family of beautiful sisters, five in number. Four of the sisters married at an early age, one remained a spinster, and, throughout a long life, received the exclusive homage of a neighbor, who, like herself, appeared to prefer the independence of single blessedness. The gentleman was invariably the lady's escort at social functions, he dined with her once a week, and was always included among the guests when she had formal company or held receptions. His calls upon her were marked by the peculiarity that, summer and winter, they were made at five o'clock in the afternoon, and that it was his custom to take leave at exactly half-past six. The two appeared entirely contented in their friendly intercourse, they read the same books, knew the same people, had heard the same jests and the same anecdotes year after year, and were an agreeable and amicable pair of comrades. A delicate flavor of romance hung about their friendship,

and so long as they lived they seemed entirely satisfied to remain outside the pale of united family life. They did not seek to be husband and wife, they were merely ceremonious lovers who hesitated, for some reason, to go beyond the days of courtship.

One wonders sometimes, in cases like these, what came between the lovers and the final word. In a farming locality in western New York, there stands a little cottage quite by itself among fields and gardens. Roses clamber over it, and honeysuckle makes its veranda fragrant in the summer, and birds build their nests in the eaves. Here, living by herself, a little old lady, who was once a fair young girl, has spent the years of a tranquil and contented life. She once had a weary heartache, but it ceased to throb, and scarcely robbed her cheek of its bloom many years ago. For five years she had received the constant attentions of a suitor whom her parents liked and of whom she approved. She was twenty-two and he several years older when, without a word of explanation, he left the neighborhood and was not heard from for a long time. Some ten years passed before a report came back to the village of his marriage in California. The girl's parents died; she remained by herself. Fifty years after her lover's departure, she found, by accident, under a sliding panel in a desk, a piece of folded yellow paper that, in sheer perversity, had slipped itself out of sight. It was the letter in which he had asked her to be his wife, and to which, of course, she had not replied. So fate had intervened to prevent the married happiness that might have been hers. The moral is, that five years is much too long for courtship if anything permanent is to come after it.

Why should not every marriage continue to be in essentials a courtship? Why do lovers allow themselves to grow prosaic and suffer the commonplace to blot out the beautiful and attractive phases of life that belong to courting days? The girl who is expecting her lover, makes a special

toilet that she may look her loveliest when she receives his calls, and the man takes pains to be at his best when he enters her presence. Why should husbands ever omit the little attentions that before marriage they were wont to lavish on the ones they adored? A husband has not ceased to be his wife's faithful lover, and he ought to remember that the wife prizes compliments and courtesy just as she did when she was a sweetheart. Naturally, when people have common interests and common anxieties they grow close together and take their loyal affection for granted. Yet affection thrives on demonstration, and a little gift, an unexpected pleasure, a bit of a surprise now and then, make wedlock the happier. If every marriage could continue to be as full of respect and tenderness as if it were courtship still, there would be little heard about domestic infelicity.

WOMEN WHO LIVE IN DREAD

B

ROADLY speaking, nervous women may be divided into two classes-those who are really nervous, and those who imagine themselves to be so. Naturally, the second class is always in danger of drifting into the first, and very likely the woman who suffers from imaginary disturbances is more to be pitied than she whose maladies have an actual basis. The imaginative woman has nothing tangible on which to rest her ailments, but she nevertheless finds life a burden, and makes it so to other people. One has only to give the reins to a vivid imagination, and to be intensely self-centered, in order to fancy that she is a prey to every ill to which flesh is heir. To whichever class you belong, you will gain an immense victory over the trouble by eliminating the element of fear. To live in dread of some ill that may never materialize, to have the sense of a sword hanging over one's head suspended by a hair, to dread an epidemic, or poverty, or burglars, or a mouse in the closet, or a thunderstorm, and to let the dread get dominion over you, is to be worse off than you would be were you locked in a prison house.

Fear is largely under personal control in its beginnings, but if it secure an entrance into the mind, nothing is more difficult to rout. Where is the cure to be found for it? I think only in the words of our Lord himself: "Fear not, little flock; it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." That is, to give you a royal dominion over all things base, mean and lurking; over all furtive things, over all things that sap the strength and take the courage away.