vorce open more frequently from following the one theory than
the other? If we were to adopt the notion that marriage is really a
tremendous act of naturalization, of absolute surrender on one side or
the other of the deepest sentiments and hereditary tendencies, would
there be so many hasty marriages--slip-knots tied by one justice to be
undone by another? The Drawer did not intend to start such a deep
question as this. Hosts of people are yearly naturalized in this country,
not from any love of its institutions, but because they can more easily
get a living here, and they really surrender none of their hereditary
ideas, and it is only human nature that marriages should be made with
like purpose and like reservations. These reservations do not, however,
make the best citizens or the most happy marriages. Would it be any
better if country lines were obliterated, and the great brotherhood of
peoples were established, and there was no such thing as patriotism or
family, and marriage were as free to make and unmake as some people think
it should be? Very likely, if we could radically change human nature. But
human nature is the most obstinate thing that the International
Conventions have to deal with.

ART OF GOVERNING

He was saying, when he awoke one morning, "I wish I were governor of a
small island, and had nothing to do but to get up and govern." It was an
observation quite worthy of him, and one of general application, for
there are many men who find it very difficult to get a living on their
own resources, to whom it would be comparatively easy to be a very fair
sort of governor. Everybody who has no official position or routine duty
on a salary knows that the most trying moment in the twenty-four hours is
that in which he emerges from the oblivion of sleep and faces life.
Everything perplexing tumbles in upon him, all the possible vexations of
the day rise up before him, and he is little less than a hero if he gets
up cheerful.

It is not to be wondered at that people crave office, some salaried
position, in order to escape the anxieties, the personal
responsibilities, of a single-handed struggle with the world. It must be
much easier to govern an island than to carry on almost any retail
business. When the governor wakes in the morning he thinks first of his
salary; he has not the least anxiety about his daily bread or the support
of his family. His business is all laid out for him; he has not to create
i