Before and After

1910

The young Prince Tsai-Tao, during his visit to America, welcomed criticism of Chinese customs, and retorted politely with counter criticism of the customs of the United States.

The prince, at a fashionable luncheon in New York, sat beside a lady prominent in a rich and rather fast set.

"Prince," said this lady, "I think it's dreadful that in China a bride never sees her husband before the wedding day."

"Well," said the prince, with a grin, "here in America you never see him after it."

Unwilling Brides

1896

If there is a person on earth entitled to sincere commiseration, it is an unwilling bride — a girl who has given her hand, without her heart, in marriage; and more especially is she to be pitied if her heart, unhappily, has been prepossessed by another. Can any prospect be more dreary than that which lies before such a bride? What has she to look forward to, what to expect, what to hope? Linked not for a day, but for life, to one with whom she has no sympathy — who is no more than a stranger, save that in law and in fact but not in soul, he is her husband!

Is it not dreadful to contemplate? How much more so to experience! It is natural and it is proper that parents should desire that their daughters should marry well, and it is reasonable that they should prefer for them husbands in comfortable circumstances.

But when it comes to the exercise of compulsion in the selection of a husband — to commanding a daughter to relinquish an engagement or an attachment on which her whole soul is fixed, and to marry a man towards whom she feels indifference or dislike — that is a very different matter.


Why Men Become Bald

Men become bald more frequently than women because of the closeness of the hats they wear, which keeps the head too hot, induces perspiration and weakens the hair. The boys of the famous Blue Coat school in London, who never wear hats, never become bald late in life.

The Arrangement of Cut Flowers

1874

The London Gardener says that of all the various mistakes made by persons in arranging flowers, the commonest is that of putting too many in a vase; and next to that, is the mistake of putting too great a variety of colors in one bouquet. Every flower in a group should be clearly distinguishable and determinable without pulling the nosegay to pieces; the calyx of a cove pink should never be hid by being plunged into the head of a white phlox, however well the colors may look.

Sweet peas never look so well in the hands as they do on the boughs over which they climb, because they cannot be carried without crowding them; but put them lightly in a vase with an equal number of mignonette, or rather, ornament a vase half full of mignonette, with a few blossoms of sweet peas, and you get a charming effect, because you follow the natural arrangement by avoiding crowding of the blossoms, and putting them with the green foliage which they want to set them off.

Few people are aware, until they try it, how easy it is to spoil such a pleasing combination as this; a piece of calceolaria, scarlet geranium, or blue salvia, would ruin it effectually. Such decided colors as these require to be grouped in another vase, and should not even be placed on the table with sweet peas.


Laugh and Be Healthy

The physiological benefit of laughter is explained in the Archiv fur Psychiatrie: The comic-like tickling causes a reflex action of the sympathetic nerve, by which the caliber of the vascular portions of the system is diminished, and their nervous power increased. The average pressure of the cerebral vessels on the brain substance is thus decreased, and this is compensated for by the forced expiration of laughter, and the larger amount of blood thus called to the lungs. We always feel good when we laugh, but until now we never knew the scientific reason why.