From a review of Miss Chapman’s “Marriage Questions in Modern Fiction.”

LIFE is meant to be pleasant, and would be, if it were not for those mistaken ideas of what is pleasant, which make all the mischief. The power to appreciate what is noble and beautiful gives more delight than any quantity of champagne; and the power comes of cultivation, but the discipline is severe. As one knows more of life one perceives how, through all their confusion of mind, the fathers of the Church laid hold of an essential truth when they insisted on the necessity of subduing the flesh. The great human heart suffereth long and is kind, and its purest love is rooted in discipline,—the discipline of self-denial and self-sacrifice. It is not indulgence but self-restraint, duty, and the joys of duty—never enough extolled—that round a life make the glory of its heyday, the music of its evensong, the peace of its decline. An excuse for self-indulgence is at the bottom of all laxity of principle in social relations. Those who would make of marriage a mere fugitive arrangement may deceive themselves in regard to their motives; but it is pretty certain that they are, for the most part, people to whom the recurrent excitement of passion is as dram drinking to the dipsomaniac, as dear a delight and as disastrous. This is shown in their attitude toward each other, first of all, and then toward the children. With regard to each other, they are prepared from the first to change their minds, for change of feeling begins from the moment that we admit the possibility; with regard to the children, they are abominable. They would relegate the most humanizing influence in our lives to public institutions! The proposition comes well to show us the worth of their theories from the humanitarian point of view, just now when the terrible result of barrack Schools for children is occupying public attention, and even boards of guardians are being moved by pity to put the pauper children out to board in families, that they may escape the brutalizing effect of being herded together and uncared for in so far as their affections are concerned. Men and women who do not delight in “the sweet trouble that the children give” are not agreeable either to know or to think about; but one would just like to ask what these people propose to do with the time that should be given to the little ones? They cannot all be occupied in arts and crafts making masterpieces.

  And the children themselves. Occasionally a child in a family is misunderstood; one knows what happens then: but that is the exception. What would it be though in the state nurseries? And what would be the future of the wee creatures who had never known a mother’s good-night kiss, never ridden on a father’s knee; who had no sweet memories of winter evenings by the fireside when Daddy told tales, of frosty mornings when he took them out to feed the birds,—of any of those tender recollections which remain through life, latent, it may be, most of the time, but still within reach; hallowing influences which resume their sway at critical moments, and save us from the enemy? And as age came on, what would become of the parents themselves? Fathers, whom no son or daughter loved; mothers, without an arm to lean upon. Those who do honestly believe that we should be happier if the discipline of marriage were relaxed must be totally blind to all consequences but the one that would immediately result.

  The introduction of a few examples of the working of special facilities for divorce, and the practical outcome of retrograde ideas in regard to the relations of the sexes, would add to the value of the next edition of Miss Chapman’s book. An illustration is always worth more than an argument. The woman whose heart does not melt with tenderness merely at the thought of little arms stretched out to her in the first dumb recognition of her love should be spoken of compassionately as one who is grievously afflicted, one who has been deprived of the greatest good in life. The delight of a young pair in their children is one of the most heavenly things on earth, but these “reformers” would rob us of the spectacle. And all for what? An extra number of lovers if we like!

  Great good has been done from personal motives, and, therefore, the personal does not necessarily imply the petty or the pernicious; still it is well to know the origin of people’s opinions before we allow ourselves to be influenced. You cannot take a man or woman seriously whose whole attitude is determined by one little personal experience, like a certain well-known scientific gentleman who was making a crusade against the monstrous pretensions of women, and influenced some of us considerably, until it leaked out that the poor man was under the thumb of a terrible little termagant of a wife at home, whom even the cook did not dare to oppose.

  The history of man as a proprietor does not inspire confidence in his disinterestedness, and women would do well to be wary when their interests are under discussion. Any argument which does not recognize the spiritual aspiration of the human race is not worth considering. The tendency of divorce is to degrade marriage to the physical plane entirely, and there “the true heart’s seraph yearning for better things” finds no satisfaction. Greater facility for divorce means more self-indulgence for those who are that way inclined, and more misery for the rest,—especially the women and children. I have recently seen some piteous letters from a place where it is becoming the rule for husbands to divorce elderly wives, and without making adequate provision for them either, in order to marry younger women. At a public dinner the toast of the guest of the evening, a married man, was coupled with the hope that the “obstacle” to his union with the girl of his heart might soon be removed, and was drunk with cheers. It seems incredible, yet the statement was made by one who spoke in the tone of an earnest person. We must have more information on the subject. But, in the meantime, in view of what is happening around us, and of what may happen, Miss Chapman’s work is one to study. The temptation is to quote from it; but taking solitary passages is unsatisfactory, for however much one quotes, short of the whole, there is always more one would like to mention. It is, as I said before, a book to possess, especially for young people who would arrive at the highest ideal of marriage, parenthood, and citizenship; for teachers, and for open-minded people who would know the trend of the times, and see for themselves in what direction our much-maligned modern women are steering. Miss Chapman strikes the new note of the day, even if she does not play the whole tune, and it is impossible to read her essays without having one’s moral education helped on enormously. In embracing her principles one feels that one has struggled up from a lower to a higher stage of being.