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Show JA Letter from a Self-Made Merchant Mer-chant to his Son. Of course you're In no position yet to think of being engaged even, and that's why I'm a little afraid that you may be planning to get married. Hut a twelve dollar clerk who owes $52 for roses needs a keeper more than a wife. I want to say right hero that there always comes a tlmo to the fellow who blows $52 at a lick on roses when ho thinks how many staple groceries gro-ceries he could have bought with the money. After all, there's no fool like a young fool, becauso In tho nature of things he's got a long time to live. I suppose I'm fanning the air when I ask you to bo guided by my Judgment Judg-ment in this matter, because while a young fellow will consult his father about buying a horse he's cocksure of himself when It comes to picking a wife. Marriages may be made In heaven, but most of the engagements arc made In the back parlor, with the gas so low that a fellow doesn't really get a square look at what he's' taking. While a man doesn't sco much of a girl's family when he's courting he's apt to see a good deal of It when he's housekeeping and while he doesn't marry his wife's father there's nothltfg In the marriage vow to prevent the old man from borrowing money from him, and you can bet If he's old Job Dashkam he'll do It. A man can't pick his own mother, and when he chooses a father-in-law who plays the bucke'tshops he needn't bo suprlscd If his own son plays the races. Never marry a poor girl who's been raised like a rich one. She's simply sim-ply traded the virtues of the poor for the vices of the rich without going long on their good points. To marry for money or to marry without money Is a crime. There's no real objection to marrying a woman with a fortune, but there Is to marrying a fortune with a woman. "While you are at it, there's nothing like picking out a good looking wife, because even the handsomest woman looks homely sometimes, and so you get a little variety. Hut a homely one can only look worse than usual. Reality Reali-ty Is only skin deep, but that's deep enough to satisfy any reasonable man. (I want to say right here that to get any sense out of a proverb I usually Unci that I have to turn It wrong side out.) Then, too, if a fellow's bound to marry a fool, and a lot of men have to If they're going to hitch up Into a well matched team, there's nothing like picking a good looking one. I believe In short engagements and long marriages. I don't sco any sense In a fellow's sitting around on tho mourner's bench with tho sinners after he's really got religion. Tho tlmo to size up the other side's strength Is before tho engagement. Some fellows propose to a girl before they know whether her back hair match and then holler that they're stuck when they find that she's got a cork leg and a glass eye as well. They start out on the principle that married people have only one meal a day and that of fried oysters and tuttl frulttl ice cream after tho theater. Naturally a girl's got her better nature na-ture and her best complexion along under thoso circumstances. Rut tho really valuable thing to know Is how she approaches ham and eggs at 7 o'clock a. m. and whether she brings her complexion with her to the breakfast table. And these fellows makes a girl believe that they're going to spend all the time between 8 and 11 o'clock p. in. for tho rest of their lives holding hold-ing 1 10 pounds In their lap and saying that it feels like a feather. Tho thing to llnd out is whether, when one of them gets up to holding a ten pound baby in his arms for llvo minutes, min-utes, he's going to carry on as if It weighed a ton. |
