Absence Inspires Love

1874

But Not Always!

"A man should absent himself from his family at least six hours a day," remarks a well-known lady writer, "if he wishes to secure its happiness and its own."

This signifies, we presume, that uninterrupted domestic intimacy is fatal to peace and affection. Newly-married couples will hardly be able to comprehend the philosophy of such a notion. And yet, "too much of a good thing," even, "is good for nothing!" And excess of happiness possibly may render happiness itself unenjoyable.

Satiety is a sad foe to satisfaction. We do not believe, nevertheless, that this absence is indispensable to the life of love. Small absences naturally tend to keep alive that exciting suspense which is conducive to the perpetuation of affection; but when those absences become regular they lose their exciting force. There is no state of suspense in them, under these circumstances; and it is suspense that is the exciting cause in the premises.

Mutual sufferings endear those who love each other. Mutual hopes and mutual fears stimulate the mutual passion; and unexpected separations, however temporary, inspire both; while separations that are frequent and anticipated become commonplace, and inspire neither.

Chasing Rainbows — Happiness Out of Reach

1907

Folks to Whom Happiness Is Always Just Out of Reach

How many people go through life deluded with the conviction that if they could only get a little more money, get into a little more comfortable position, own a little better home, or if they could only get over the particular trouble that is annoying them at the time, they would be happy.

I know a man who had a very hard boyhood, suffered great poverty, who is now fifty years old, and he has always honestly relieved that if he could only get the particular thing he was after or get over the particular difficulty that was annoying him at the moment he would be perfectly happy, but he is the same anxious, restless, expectant spirit today as when a youth.

He has been quite successful and has done some very remarkable things, but he is invariably in hot water. There is always something that nettles him or destroys his happiness, and, although he is a well meaning man, he has made his family, his employees and everybody about him very unhappy because he is always fretting and worrying, always borrowing trouble. — Success.

To A Cow (poetry) – How Canst Thou Be So Satisfied!

1878

TO A COW.
Why, cow, how canst thou be so satisfied!
So well content with all things here below,
So unobtrusive and so sleepy-eyed,
So meek, so lazy, and so awful slow!
Dost though not know that everything is mixed,
That naught is as it should be on this earth,
That grievously the world needs to be fixed,
That nothing we can gain has any worth,
That times are hard, that life is lull of care,
Of sin and trouble, and untowardness.
That love is folly, friendship but a snare!
Pretty cow, this is no time for laziness!
The cud thou chewest is not what it seems!
Get up and moo! Tear round and quit thy dreams! — D. L. PROUDFIT.

—Daily Star, Marion, Ohio, Jan. 25, 1878, p. 1.


It is said that at three years old we love our mothers, at six our fathers, at ten our holidays, at sixteen dress, at twenty our sweethearts, at twenty-five our wives, at forty our children and at sixty ourselves.


The daughters of Jefferson Davis are at school in Germany.