RISING EARLY AND MARRYING EARLY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11200, 21 October 1899, Page 7 (Supplement)

RISING EARLY AND MARRY ING EARLY.

J. — | Luther said that to rise betimes and to | marry early are two things which no wise | man ever regrets doing. As to the first a f friend of the writer's, who is anything but \ a fool, got up a few mornings ago with a | look of wretchedness quite pathetic upon his | face. "I mistook my watch," he said, in I answer to anxious inquiries, " and have got f up an hour too soon." If there are early ; risers who are " stupid all the forenoon and | conceited all the afternoon," it would surely ; be better for them to remain in bed until I they were "done;" until the stupidity and : conceit had left them. Of course, the early | bird does catch the worm, but it is the early worm that it catches. In this, as in all other things, we should " turn to scorn J the madness of extremes." As a rule it is | better not to get up until the world is aired 1 and the servants have finished their dusting. The Iron Duke's advice that when a man i turns in bed lie should turn out is excellent for a young soldier or any other youth, but it is not good for everyone. Should a mother, who has been kept awake half the night by a teething infant, turn out whenever she turns, or a literary man who finds that his best thoughts.come to him the hour before lie rises in the morning? . . . Do not excite your brain with mental work i before your usual time for sleep, have a good I conscience, and at least an hour of beauty sleep before twelve o'clock, and you will be able to rise, if not with the lark, certainly long before the sluggard has nerved himself to make the awful plunge of bed. Xor is it true, as Luther says, that a wise man never regrets marrying early. An Irish peasant, who had plenty of mother wit as well :'.s national wit, came by bitter experience to think with Lord Beaconsfield that " early marriages are to be deprecated, espsiiiilly for men." The particular Pat referral to. who had taken to himself a wife when was only 19, said, "I'll niver piny ,i-in so young if I wor to live to the age Hi' Metii'.isaleh!" And he kept his word; he was 80 when he married a second time. . , . Certainly, if a man puts of! marriage very long he is liable to fall into that habit of celibacy which like other bad habits is hard to break away from. In this habit he will probably remain until he is about 60 years of age, when a great desire will seize him to know what marriage is like, and In l will propose right and left to everything in petticoats until at last he is picked up. not for himself, but for his money or his position, or because someone is tired of Miss" and wants the novel sensation of putting "Mrs." before her name. It is not natural for a young girl to marry an elderly man. A father said to his daughter. " When it is time for you to many, I won't allow you to throw yourself away upon one of these frivolous young fellows I see about. I will select for you a staid, sensible middlea<>ed man. What would you say to one about 50 years of age?" "Well, father," replied the ingenuous girl, " I would prefer, if it is the same to you. two of 25."— the author ofHow to be Happy Though Married." I