FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65  
66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   >>   >|  
e perplexity home with him. When you tell me he ought to leave it all at the store or bank or shop, you might as well tell a storm on the Atlantic to stay out there and not touch the coast or ripple the harbor. RESPECT SELF-SACRIFICE. Remember, he is not overworking so much for himself as he is overworking for you and the children. It is the effect of his success or defeat on the homestead that causes him the agitation. The most of men after forty-five years of age live not for themselves, but for their families. They begin to ask themselves anxiously the question: "How if I should give out, what would become of the folks at home? Would my children ever get their education? Would my wife have to go out into the world to earn bread for herself and our little ones? My eyesight troubles me; how if my eyes should fail? My head gets dizzy; how if I should drop under apoplexy?" The high pressure of business life and mechanical life and agricultural life is home pressure. Some time ago a large London firm decided that if any of their clerks married on a salary less than L150--that is, $750 a year--he should be discharged, the supposition being that the temptation might be too great for misappropriation. The large majority of families in America live by utmost dint of economy, and to be honest and yet meet one's family expenses is the appalling question that turns the life of tens of thousands of men into martyrdom. Let the wife of the overborne and exhausted husband remember this, and do not nag him about that, and say you might as well have no husband when the fact is he is dying by inches that the home may be kept up. BE LOVABLE. I charge also the wife to keep herself as attractive after marriage as she was before marriage. The reason that so often a man ceases to love his wife is because the wife ceases to be lovable. In many cases what elaboration of toilet before marriage, and what recklessness of appearance after! The most disgusting thing on earth is a slatternly woman--I mean a woman who never combs her hair until she goes out, or looks like a fright until somebody calls. That a man married to one of these creatures stays at home as little as possible is no wonder. It is a wonder that such a man does not go on a whaling voyage of three years, and in a leaky ship. Costly wardrobe is not required; but, O woman! if you are not willing, by all that ingenuity of refinement can effect, to make yourself attract
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65  
66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

marriage

 

question

 

families

 

pressure

 

husband

 

ceases

 
married
 

children

 
effect
 
overworking

thousands

 
attractive
 
charge
 

reason

 
elaboration
 

lovable

 
LOVABLE
 

overborne

 
exhausted
 

remember


martyrdom

 
toilet
 

inches

 

Costly

 

voyage

 

whaling

 

wardrobe

 

required

 

attract

 

refinement


ingenuity

 

creatures

 

slatternly

 
appearance
 
disgusting
 

fright

 

perplexity

 

recklessness

 

ripple

 

harbor


education

 

SACRIFICE

 
RESPECT
 

eyesight

 
troubles
 
homestead
 

defeat

 
success
 
agitation
 

Remember