Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 May 1887 — How to Be Happy, Though Single. [ARTICLE]

How to Be Happy, Though Single.

We lately wrote a” book which has been most favorably received, called, “How to Be Happy, Though Married;” but we think that quite as much might be said on the possibility of single blessedness. Thousands of women, and even men, cannot marry for one reason or another. Bet them cultivate the contented state of mind of that old Scotch lady who said, “I wadna gie my single life for a’ the double anes I ever saw. ” People may admire the marriage state, and yet have their own good reasons for not entering it. Under the dying pillow of Washington Irving there was found a lock of hair and a miniature. Who will Say that a man or woman ought to marry who treasures up such and thinks of all that might have been ? -— ■— Impecuniosity is another reason for denying one’s self the luxury of a wife. A mistake may, of course, be made as to the amount of money necessary for marriage. There are those who could drive a coach-and-two, but waiting for a coach-and-four, "they are carried into the desolation of confirmed bachelorism. That man, however, is much to be pitied who leads a pure life and whose “I can’t afford it” is no mere excuse. Let him continue to work and economize, and before very long he will have—“A guardian angel o’er his life presiding, Doubling his pleasures, and his cares dividing.” To this angel he should be true in anticipation, remembering how Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, advised her unmarried sons to keep themselves pure, so that all the blessings of a virtuous home might one day be theirs. What is one man’s meat may be anothers man’s poison. To some persons we might say, “If you marry you do well, but if you marry not you do better.” In the case of others marriage may have decidedly the a ivantage. Like most other things, marriage is good or bad according to the use or abuse we make of it. The applause that is usually given to persons on entering the mfttrimqpiarstagFTs* “to say JthaJeast, premature. Let us wait to. see how they play their parts. And here we must protest against the foolish and cowardly ridicule that is sometimes bestowed upon elderly men and women who, using the liberty of a free country, have abstained from marrying. Certainly some of them could give reasons to* spending -their KyeA outside the tenipleM Hymeii that are far more honorable than the motives which induced their fool-de-tractors to rush in. Some have never found their other selves, or circumstances prevented the junction of these selves. And which is moreJapnorable, a life of loneliness or a loveless marriage? There are others who have laid down their hopes of wedded bliss for the sake of accomplishing some good work, or for the sake of a father, mother, sister, or brother. In such cases celibacy is an honorable, anti may be a praiseworthy state. CasselPs Magaziiie. .