“You, young, loving creature, who dream of your lover by night and by day—you fancy that he does the same of you? One hour, perhaps, your presence has captivated him, subdued him even to weakness; the next, he will be in the world, working his way as a man among men, forgetting, for the time being, your very existence. Possibly, if you saw him, his outer self, so hard and stern, so different from the self you know, would strike you with pain. Or else his inner and diviner self, higher than you dream of, would turn coldly from your insignificant love.”

“Insignificant love!!” I like that. More especially when out of ten couple you meet, nine of the wives are as far above their husbands, in point of mind, as the stars are above the earth. For the credit of the men I should be sorry to say how many of them would be minus coats, hats, pantaloons, cigars, &c., were it not for their wives’ earnings; or how many smart speeches and able sermons have been concocted by their better halves, (while rocking the cradle,) to be delivered to the public at the proper time, parrot fashion, by the lords of creation. Wisdom will die with the men, there’s no gainsaying that!

Catch a smart, talented, energetic woman, and it will puzzle you to find a man that will compare with her for goaheadativeness. The more obstacles she encounters, the harder she struggles, and the more you try to put her down, the more you won’t do it. Children are obliged to write under their crude drawings, “this is a dog,” or, “this is a horse.” If it were not for coats and pants, we should be obliged to label, “this is a man,” in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred!

“Insignificant love!” Why does a man offer himself a dozen times to the same woman? Pity to take so much pains for such a trifle! “Insignificant love!” Who gets you on your feet again, when you fail in business, by advancing the nice little sum settled on herself by her anxious pa? Who cheers you up, when her nerves are all in a double-and-twisted knot, and you come home with your face long as the moral law? Who wears her old bonnet three winters, while you smoke, and drive, and go to the opera? Who sits up till the small hours, to help you find the way up your own staircase? Who darns your old coat, next morning, just as if you were a man, instead of a brute? And who scratches any woman’s eyes out, who dares insinuate that her husband is superior to you!

“Insignificant love!” I wish I knew the man who wrote that article! I’d appoint his funeral to-morrow, and it should come off too!!