Around the World with Josiah Allen's WifeHolley, Marietta
General
Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife
Holley, Marietta
Women travelers -- Fiction
"But, as I say, matrimony has difficulties enough when Love heads the
procession and Wedded Bliss plays the trombone in the orkestry."
She looked real interested as if my words wuz awful congenial to her.
And whilst watchin' her sweet face growin' brighter and sweeter, I
thought of another thing that I thought mebby she had been worryin'
about and that I could comfort her up in, just as I would want our
Tirzah Ann comforted under like circumstances, and I got real eloquent
talkin' about this before I got through.
Sez I: "Of course, my dear, there wuz some talk about your pardner
havin' his eye on your proppity, but I wouldn't let that worry me, for
I've always said that if I wuz a rich, handsome young woman, I would
just as soon be married for my money as my beauty. They're both
outside of the real self, equally transitory, or in fact, the money if
invested in govermunt bonds is more lasting. For the national system
is fur more firm and steadfast than the physical.
"Fifty years hence I spoze the money will all be safe and gainin'
interest, so if that is what a woman is married for she will keep her
attraction and even increase it. But fifty years hence where will her
beauty be, if she wuz married alone for that? Where are its powerful
attractions? All gone. If she had nothing but the beauty of snowy brow
and brilliant eye and clustering locks and perfect features.
"But beauty that looks from the soul through the face. Ah! that is
another thing! That still remains when the dusky hair is changed to
white, when the glow is turned to shadows in the eyes, when the lithe
form is bent. That is a bit of the eternal, and forever young like its
Creator. You have got that beauty, my dear, as well as proppity, so
don't worry."
I felt real eloquent, and I could see by her looks that I wuz
impressin' her powerfully and givin' her sights of comfort in her
tryin' place.
But I knew that eppisodin', though interestin' and agreeable, devoured
time, and I knew that I must hold my eloquent emotions back and let
Common Sense take the reins and conclude my remarks, so I sez:
"I hope from the bottom of my heart that your pardner is a good man,
one that hain't too uppish, and is willin' to chore round the house a
little if necessary, and set store by you in youth and age, and that
you and he will live happy and reign long over a peaceful and happy
land."
I see her companion in the distance comin' slowly back as if not
hardly dastin' to interrupt our conversation, and I sez, "Good-by, my
dear, and God bless you. Give my respects to your pardner and Queen
Emma, and if you ever come to Jonesville I would love to have you make
me a all day's visit, and I'll invite the children and kill a hen and
make a fuss.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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