A Woman of the World Part 13

Before you left us, I realized that you and my pretty secretary were finding matters of mutual interest.

Therefore, I am not surprised that you are thinking seriously of her as a future companion.

Rosalie is a charming, intelligent, warm-hearted, excellent girl, and there is no reason why she would not make you a good wife, save the one you mention--the difference in your creeds.

You are a Roman Catholic, Rosalie is a devout Protestant.

Were the cases reversed, and were you the Protestant and Rosalie the Catholic, I should say the chances of happiness were greater than as conditions now stand.

As a rule, the most religious man is more liberal than the religious woman. And when marriage between a Roman Catholic and a Protestant is the question, there is need of greater liberality on the part of the Protestant than on that of the Catholic.

Why? Because with the Protestant there is no consideration to be thought of outside of his or her own convictions and feelings.

With the Catholic, the power of the Church and the law regarding the rearing of the children in its faith walks beside the contracting party, sits at the table, and sleeps on the marital couch.

There is no happiness for the husband or wife who has entered into such a marriage, after the arrival of children, unless the laws of the Church are obeyed.

When the wife is a Catholic, the fact that she is a good woman and true wife satisfies the Protestant husband, as a rule, and he makes no objection to her carrying out the contract with her Church regarding the education of the children.

If they are as moral and good as their mother, he does not care what faith occupies their hearts or in what way they wors.h.i.+p G.o.d.

But to the mother this is a matter of vital importance.

Woman is by nature more devout than man.

Woman is by nature more tyrannical than man.

Take those two characteristics, and add to them the tendency of many women to bigotry and intolerance, and it makes the matter of creeds vital in marriage.

Rosalie is broader-minded than many women, yet she is devoted to the Congregational Church, and rarely misses attendance.

It will be an easy matter for her to accept your faith for yourself and to allow you to attend your own church, and she is, I am sure, broad enough to go with you occasionally, if you request it.

But when she becomes a mother, and the children's minds are unfolding, I doubt her willingness to have them brought up in any faith save her own.

To an unwedded girl in love, a child is a very indistinct creature.

To a mother, it is a very real being.

I have seen men as deeply in love as you are, with women as liberal-minded as Rosalie, become very unhappy after marriage through the opposite ideas of the wife regarding the education of children.

You must remember how much more closely a mother's life is entwined about her children, and how much more of their a.s.sociation usually falls to her than to the father.

This is especially true of daughters, and is true of sons up to a certain age.

You can understand, I am sure, how much more companions.h.i.+p a mother would find in children who accepted her faith and attended her church than in those whose spiritual paths led in another direction.

I know Rosalie realizes that a good life, not a certain creed, leads to the goal she seeks, after this phase of existence closes, and she does not ask you to change your faith. But while she would also believe her children were on the road to that goal, she would want them to walk through her path and by her side.

It will be hard to relinquish the woman you love, to-day, for the children who might not come to-morrow.

Yet I can give you the counsel you asked on this matter only from my personal observation of similar unions.

I should advise you to try an absence of some duration, and to forget Rosalie if you can, since you have not yet declared yourself.

Better a little temporary sorrow than a life of discord.

As you grow older your religion will, in all probability, gain a stronger ascendency over your nature, and the church to which you belong is very tenacious in its hold upon its members.

Rosalie is not of a yielding nature, and as I said before, she is more devoted to her church than most young women of the day.

The physical phases of your love blind you now. But these phases are only a part of the tie which must bind husband and wife to make love enduring through all of life's vicissitudes.

There must be mental companions.h.i.+p, and to be a complete union there must be sympathy in spiritual ideas.

The very young do not realize this fact, but it is forced upon the mature.

Marital love is like a tree. It first roots in the soil of earth, and then lifts its branches to the heavens. Unless it does so lift its branches it is stunted and deformed, and is not a tree. Unless it roots in earth it is not a tree, but an air-plant or a cobweb.

You want to be sure the tree you are thinking to make a shelter for your whole life, will have far-reaching and uplifting branches, and will not be merely an earth-bound twig.

Since your church permits no second marriage save by the door of death, do not make a mistake in your first.

Take a year, at least, of absence and separation, and think the matter over.

To Sybyl Marchmont

_Concerning Her Determination to Remain Single_

It is with genuine regret that I learn of your determination to send my nephew out of your life. Wilfred is a royal fellow, as that term is employed by us. He is what a man of royal descent in monarchies rarely proves to be,--self-reliant, enterprising, industrious, clean, and with high ideals of woman.

Eight years ago I declined a request of his for a loan, and told him my reasons--that I believed loans were an injury to our friends or relatives. My letter seemed to arouse all the strength latent in his nature, and he has made a remarkable record for himself since that time.

I have known that he was deeply in love with you for the last two years, and I had hoped you would listen to his plea. He tells me that you imparted your history to him, and that you say it is your intention to remain single, as you would not like to bring children into the world to suffer from the stigma upon your name. He has shown me your letter wherein you say, "I am not in fault for having to blush for the sins of my parents; but I would be in fault if my children had to blush for the blemish upon the name of their grandparents. I do not feel I could meet their questioning eyes when they asked me about my parents. I can better bear the loss of the personal happiness of a home and a husband's love."

Wilfred is just the man to protect you and to keep the world at a distance, where it could not affect your life by its comments. He regards your birth in the same light that I do, and would rather transmit your lovely qualities of soul and mind to his descendants than the traits of many proudly born girls who are ready to take him at the first asking: for you must know how popular he is with our s.e.x.

I can not believe you are insensible to his magnetic and lovable qualities, but, as you say, you have been so saddened by the sudden knowledge of your history that it has blunted your emotions in other directions. I can only hope this will wear away and that you will reconsider your resolve and consent to make Wilfred the happy and proud man you could, by becoming his wife.

_Never forget that G.o.d created love and man created marriage_.

And to be born of a loveless union is a darker blight than to be born in love without union.

But what I want to talk about now, is your determination to live a single life and to devote yourself to reclaiming weak and erring women.

You are young to enter this field of work, yet at twenty-four you are older than many women of thirty-five, because you have had the prematurely ripening rain of sorrow on your life. I know you will go into the work you mention with the sympathy and understanding which alone can make any reformatory work successful. Yet you are going to encounter experiences which will shock and pain you, in ways you do not imagine now.