Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I: Including His Answers to the Clergy, His Oration at His Brother's Grave, Etc., Etc.Ingersoll, Robert Green
Religion
Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I: Including His Answers to the Clergy, His Oration at His Brother's Grave, Etc., Etc.
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
It is mostly so in marrying. They stop courting when they get married.
They think, we have won her and that is enough. Ah! the difference
before and after! How well they look! How bright their eyes! How
light their steps, and how full they were of generosity and laughter! I
tell you a man should consider himself in good luck if a woman loves
him when he is doing his level best! Good luck! Good luck! And
another thing that is the cause of much trouble is that people don't
count fairly. They do what they call putting their best foot forward.
That means lying a little. I say put your worst foot forward. If you
have got any faults admit them. If you drink say so and quit it. If
you chew and smoke and swear, say so. If some of your kindred are not
very good people, say so. If you have had two or three that died on
the gallows, or that ought to have died there, say so. Tell all your
faults and if after she knows your faults she says she will have you,
you have got the dead wood on that woman forever. I claim that there
should be perfect equality in the home, and I can not think of anything
nearer Heaven than a home where there is true republicanism and true
democracy at the fireside. All are equal.
And then, do you know, I like to think that love is eternal; that if
you really love the woman, for her sake, you will love her no matter
what she may do; that if she really loves you, for your sake, the same;
that love does not look at alterations, through the wrinkles of time,
through the mask of years--if you really love her you will always see
the face you loved and won. And I like to think of it. If a man loves
a woman she does not ever grow old to him. And the woman who really
loves a man does not see that he is growing older. He is not decrepit
to her. He is not tremulous. He is not old. He is not bowed. She
always sees the same gallant fellow that won her hand and heart. I
like to think of it in that way, and as Shakespeare says: "Let Time
reach with his sickle as far as ever he can; although he can reach
ruddy cheeks and ripe lips, and flashing eyes, he can not quite reach
love." I like to think of it. We will go down the hill of life
together, and enter the shadow one with the other, and as we go down we
may hear the ripple of the laughter of our grandchildren, and the
birds, and spring, and youth, and love will sing once more upon the
leafless branches of the tree of age. I love to think of it in that
way--absolute equals, happy, happy, and free, all our own.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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