Daily Union And American

LONG ENGAGEMENTS.
BY ANNA CORA RITCHIE.

"When the heart surrenders, confirm the
blushing promise quickly at the altar's foot!"
is the adjuration of every enamored suitor.
eager for the climax of the wedding ring.
But the maiden who reflects will respond
with no hasty "amen" to that fond prayer.
Reflects! does not King Oberon still walk
the earth, performing as fantastic and amazing
feats with his magical flowers as in the
days of Bully Bottom? And 'did woman
ever reflect after the fairy monarch had stolen
upon her slumbers and pressed the juice
of his purple blossom upon her folded lids?
The portals of her heart opened with her
eyes when the latter have once received that
mystic flower's touch, and the eyes take in
and the heart enthrones the being first looked
upon.
Let him wear what shape he may, he is
transformed and glorified to her vision by
Love's glamor. That moment reason is un-
ceremoniously thrust out of doors. In vain
she clamors to be heard, and warns the in-
fatuate fair one against precipitancy-in
vain she reminds her that her happiness is
more easily perilled than man's that her
susceptibilities are keener-that her suffer-
ings will be greater-that her risks are a
thousand fold more numerous. Love fashions a fool's cap out of his madrigals to bind
it upon Reason's brow, and from that hour
she passes for folly.
Goldsmith's Citizen of the World quaintly
remarks that "marriage has been compared
to a game of skill for life; it is generous,
then, in both parties to declare that they
are sharers in the beginning. In England
I am told both sides use every art to con-
ceal their defects from each other before
marriage, and the rest of their lives may be
regarded as doing
penance for their dissimulation."
Is this a malicious slander or a rudely
expressed truth? Are not lovers all the
world over zealously engaged in cheating
each other? Does not the very state of
mental exaltation, produced by an absorb-
ing affection, give birth to an unpremeditated
deception? Nay, has not love, in the
dawn of its existence, a beautifying in-
fluence upon the whole constitution of
man's soul? Are not common place minds
elevated and rendered poetic by its refining
power? What, then, must be its effect upon
spirits of finer mold?
The period of an open, prosperous be-
trothal is the blossoming season of life. The
sun of a pure passion calls forth the fairest
flowers upon every tree, and the air is filled
with melody of birds caroling joyful prom-
ises from the branches. In the sunshine of
bright illusions--the exhilarating atmos-
phere of alternate hopes and fears-the
heart glows, and swells, and takes in all
creation with unwonted tenderness; the
dullest prospects are tinged with orient
hues; the simplest incidents communicate a
thrill of joy; nature puts on her gala dress
to welcome the enamored pair wherever
they wander, and shakes down odorous
tributes upon their heads from every bough.
And it is well. It is better the soul, even
when love is misplaced. to give a boundless
devotion for an object worthy of the whole
wealth of the heart.
The man of her choice is always a hero to
a woman who loves heartily, and her fond
fancy invests him with an abundance of cap-
tivating attributes, which possibly have not
the most shadowy existence out of her ima-
gination. On the other hand, Shakespeare
tells us that to men "women are angels
wooing." But O! the bitter disenchant-
ment if in the glare of Hymen's torch the
ideal charms vanish away, the mantle of
glory falls from the hero's shoulders—and
the "angel," at whose shrine the lover
devoutly worshipped, stands before him a
most terrestrial being full of failings, wants,
caprices, inconsistencies?
Unconsciously his eyes must then forget
The gentle ray
They wore in courtship's smiling day
his voice must lose
The tones that shed
A tenderness round all they said—"
the roses of her bridal chaplet must wither.
and leave a martyr's crown of thorns upon
the brow they encircled.
The probation of a long engagement is
the surest talisman against this rude dissolv-
ing of the spell that surrounds lovers. Dur-
ing the interval the various phases of char-
acter are revealed by unforeseen chances—by
life's inevitable mutations: and, being dis-
covered at this blissful period when no life
shackle makes endurance compulsory, even
grave faults and temper-trying peculiarities
are readily tolerated and excused. Mental
angularities are worn away and rounded off
to a graceful smoothness, by the attrition of
constant association. Their souls become
attuned to the same key. The indispensable
lesson of mutual forbearance is conned be-
sides,
Love has leisure allowed him to build his
temple upon the rock of perfect trust, which
no storm can shake. The flashing flames of
enthusiasm, by which its shrine was illum-
ined at consecration, is gradually replaced
by that steady, holy light which fiercest gales
cannot extinguish. Good spirits have whis-
pered to the wife elect that she will need
Martha's executive hands and Mary's ap-
preciating soul to keep those altars swept
and garnished, and have murmured in her
partner's ear that he must reign within those
walls with Solomon's wisdom and Jacob's
patience. Thus, the prolonged betrothal
is often the prelude to a harmonious union,
and no harsh music disturbs its life-long
melody.