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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10063 ***
+
+HAPPINESS AND MARRIAGE
+
+BY
+
+ELIZABETH TOWNE
+
+
+
+"The inner side of every cloud
+   Is bright and shining;
+I therefore turn my clouds about,
+   And always wear them inside out--
+To show the lining."
+
+--_James Whitcomb Riley_.
+
+
+"And I will show that there is no imperfection in the
+  present, and can be none in the future,
+And I will show that whatever happens to anybody
+  it may be turned to beautiful results."
+
+--_Walt Whitman_.
+
+
+
+1904
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.
+
+"Some dear relatives of mine proposed Ada as my future bride. I like Ada
+and I gladly accepted the offer, and I mean to wed her about the middle
+of this year. Is this a working of the Law of Attraction? I want to make
+our married life happy and peaceful. I long for a wedded life of pure
+blessedness and love and joy without even a pinhead of bitterness ever
+finding lodgment in our household. How can I attain this state of peace?
+This is what I now do: I enter into the Silence daily at a particular
+hour and enjoy the mental picture of how I desire to be when married. Am
+I right? Please tell me how to make my ideal real." Tudor, Island of
+Ceylon.
+
+The above letter comes from a member of the Success Circle who is a
+highly cultured and interesting looking native East Indian. We have a
+full length photo of him in native costume.
+
+He asks if "this is the working of the Law of Attraction." Certainly it
+is. Just as the sun acts through a sheet of glass so the Law of
+Attraction acts through the conventionalities of a race. Whatever comes
+together is drawn together by the Law. Whatever is held together is held
+by that same Law of Attraction.
+
+This is just as true in unhappy marriages as in happy ones. If two
+people are distinctly enough individualized; that is, if they understand
+and command themselves sufficiently; their attraction and marriage will
+bring to them only pleasure. If they are not distinctly enough
+individualized there will be a monkey-and-parrot experience whilst they
+are working out the wisdom _for which they were attracted_.
+
+When soda and sour milk are drawn together there is a great stew and
+fizz, but the end thereof is sweetness and usefulness. So with two
+adverse and uncontrolled natures; but out of the stew comes added
+wisdom, self-command and rounded character for each.
+
+When each has finished the work of helping the other to develop they
+will either find themselves _really_ in love with each other, or they
+will fall apart. _Some stronger attraction will separate them at the
+right time_--perhaps through divorce, perhaps through death.
+
+_All_ our goings and comings are due to the Law of Attraction. The Law
+of Attraction giveth, and it taketh away. _Blessed_ is the Law. _Let_ it
+work. And forget not that _all_ things are due to its working.
+
+This does not mean that the Law has no way of working _except_ through
+the conventionalities of a people. Many times the attraction is to break
+away from the conventional. _The stronger attraction always wins_--
+whatever is, is _best_ for _that time and place_.
+
+"Tudor" says he "enters into the silence daily at a particular hour and
+enjoys the mental picture of how he desires to be when married."
+
+His success all depends upon the _equity_ in that picture; upon its
+truth to the law of being.
+
+An impractical idealist lives in the silence with beautiful pictures of
+"how he desires to be when married." When he gets married there isn't a
+single detail of his daily experience which is like his mental picture.
+He is sadly disappointed and perhaps embittered or discouraged.
+
+It all depends upon the picture. If Tudor's picture contains a benignant
+lord and master and a sweet little Alice Ben Bolt sort of wife who shall
+laugh with delight when he gives her a smile and wouldn't hurt his
+feelings for a farm; who does his bidding before he bids and is always
+content with what he is pleased, or able, to do for her; if this is the
+style of Tudor's mental picture he is certainly doomed to
+disappointment.
+
+I have a suspicion that Tudor is a natural born teacher. His mental
+pictures may represent himself as a dispenser of moral and mental
+blessings. He may see Ada sitting adoringly at his feet, ever eager to
+learn. If so there will certainly be disappointment. East Indian girls
+may be more docile than American girls; East Indian men may be better
+and wiser lords and masters; but "Ada" is a Human Being before she is an
+East Indian; and a Human Being instinctively revolts from a life passed
+in leading strings. If Tudor continues to remind her that he is her
+schoolmaster she will certainly revolt; inwardly if not outwardly.
+Whether the revolt comes inwardly or outwardly harmony is doomed.
+
+The first principle of happy marriage is _equality_. The second
+principle is _mutual confidence_, which can NEVER exist without the
+first.
+
+I do not mean by "equality" what is usually meant. One member of the
+married twain may be rich, the other poor in worldly goods; one an
+aristocrat, the other plebeian; one educated, the other unschooled; and
+yet they may be to each other what they are in _truth_, equals.
+
+Equality is a _mental state_, not a matter of birth or breeding, wisdom
+or ignorance. The TRUTH is that _all_ men and women are equal; all are
+sparks of the One Life; all children of the one highly aristocratic
+"Father"; all heirs to the wisdom and wealth of the ages which go to
+make up eternity.
+
+But all men and women are more or less unconscious, in spots at least,
+of this truth. They spend their lives "looking down" upon each other.
+Men "look down" upon their wives as "weak" or "inferior," and women look
+down upon their husbands as "animals" or "great brutes." Men are
+contemptuous of their wives visionariness, and women despise their
+husbands for "cold and calculating" tendencies.
+
+Every man and woman values certain qualities highly, and in proportion
+as another fails to manifest these particular qualities he is classed as
+"low," and his society is not valued.
+
+This is the great source of trouble between husbands and wives. Each
+values his or her own qualities and despises the other's. So _in their
+own minds_ they are not equal, and the first principle of harmony is
+missing.
+
+The real truth is that in marriage a man is schoolmaster to his wife
+_and she is equally schoolmistress to him._ This is true in a less
+degree, of _all_ the relationships of life.
+
+The Law of Attraction draws people together _that they may learn_.
+
+There is but one Life, which is growth in wisdom and knowledge.
+
+There is but one Death, _which is refusal to learn_.
+
+If husbands and wives were equals _in their own minds_ they would not
+despise each other and _refuse to learn_ of each other.
+
+The Law of Attraction, or Love, almost invariably attracts opposites,
+and for their own good. A visionary, idealistic woman is drawn to a
+practical man, where, kick and fuss and despise each other as they will,
+she is bound to become more practical and he more idealistic. They
+exchange qualities in spite of themselves; each is an unconscious agent
+in rounding out the character and making more abundant the life of the
+other.
+
+Much of this blending of natures is accomplished through passion, the
+least understood of forces. And the children of a union of opposites,
+even where there is _great_ contempt and unhappiness between the
+parents, are almost invariably _better balanced_ than _either_ of the
+parents.
+
+I cannot believe that unhappy marriages are "mistakes" or that they
+serve no good purpose. The Law of Attraction draws together those who
+need each other at that particular stage of their growth. The
+unhappiness is due to their own foolish _refusal_ to learn; and this
+refusal is due to their contempt for each other. They are like naughty
+children at school, who cry or sulk and refuse to work out their
+problems. Like those same naughty children they _make themselves_
+unhappy, and fail to "pass" as soon as they might.
+
+Remember, that contempt for each other is at the very bottom of all
+marital unhappiness. The practical man despises his wife's impulsive
+idealism and tries to make her over. The wife despises his "cold and
+calculating" tendencies and tries to make him over. That means war, for
+it is impossible to make over _anybody but yourself_.
+
+_Because_ the man despises his wife's tendencies and she despises his,
+it never occurs to either to try making over _themselves_, thus helping
+along the very thing they were drawn together for.
+
+If Tudor's picture holds two people who are _always_ equal though
+utterly different; whose future actions are an unknown quantity to be
+taken as they come and each action to be met in a spirit of _respect_
+and inquiry, with a view to understanding and learning from it; if over
+and through all his picture Tudor spreads a glow of _purpose_ to
+preserve _his own_ respect and love _for her_, at all costs;--if this is
+the sort of picture Tudor makes in the silence he will surely realize it
+later.
+
+It requires but one to strike the keynote of respect and personal
+freedom in marriage; the other will soon come into harmony.
+
+You can readily see that all marital jars come from this lack of
+equality in the individual mind. If a man thinks he is perfectly able to
+take care of and to judge for himself he resents interference from
+another. On the other hand if he believes his wife is equally able to
+judge for _herself_, he _never_ thinks of interfering with her actions.
+Of course the same is true of the wife. It is lack of respect and
+confidence which begets the making-over spirit in a family, and from
+this one cause arises all in harmony.
+
+Individual freedom is the _only_ basis for harmonious action; not only
+in marriage but in all other relationships of life.
+
+And individual freedom _cannot_ be granted by the man or woman who
+considers his or her judgments superior to the judgments of another. A
+man _must_ accord his wife _equal_ wisdom and power with himself, else
+he _cannot_ free her to act for herself. A woman must accord her husband
+that same equality, or she _cannot_ leave him free.
+
+It is human (and divine) nature to correct what we believe to be wrong.
+Only in believing that the other "king (or queen) can do no wrong," lies
+the possibility of individual freedom, in marriage or out.
+
+The man or woman who knows he or she is believed in and trusted is very
+careful to _deserve_ that trust. Did you know that? The sure way to have
+your wishes consulted is to exalt and appreciate the other party. Did
+you know that a man or woman will cheerfully sacrifice his or her own
+opinions in order to retain the respect and love of the other? But if he
+thinks the respect and love of the other party is growing less he will
+give free reign to his own desires.
+
+Married people "grow apart" for the one reason that they find fault with
+each other. Of course it begins by their being disrespectful to each
+other's faults, but it soon develops into disrespect of each other. From
+"looking down" upon a husband's faults it is only a few short steps to
+looking down upon _him_. His faults keep growing by recognition, and his
+good points keep shrivelling for lack of notice, until _in your_ _mind_
+there is nothing left but faults. From trying to make him over you come
+to despair, and give him up as an altogether bad job.
+
+And there isn't a grain of sense in all this madness. Stick to the TRUTH
+and you will get rid of the madness and the friction, too. The truth is
+that your husband, or your wife, would be an egregious _fool_ to follow
+your judgments. You don't know beans from barley corn when it comes to
+the actions of anybody but yourself. The One Spirit which enlightens
+_you_ as to _your_ actions is also enlightening your other half as to
+_her_ actions; and do you suppose this Spirit is going to favor _you_
+with better judgment about your other half's duties, than it has given
+_her?_ I guess _not_. Don't be presumptuous, my boy. Do you own little
+best, and _trust_ your other half to do hers. Trust that she _is_ doing
+the best.
+
+And above all trust the One Spirit to run you both.
+
+If you do this your wife will _rise fast_ in your esteem. And the higher
+she finds herself in your esteem the harder she will try to please you--
+and rise higher.
+
+And, girls, don't forget that the shoe fits equally well the other foot.
+Either man or wife can bring harmony out of chaos simply by _respecting_
+the other half _and all his or her acts_.
+
+A marriage without "even a pinhead of bitterness" is a marriage without
+a pin-point of fault-finding, mental or oral.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+A TALE OF WOE.
+
+"Why is it that, in more than two-thirds of families the wife and mother
+bears not only the children but the burdens and heartaches? The husband
+supplies the _money_ (generally not enough), the wife has the care of a
+growing and increasing family, the best of everything is saved for
+'Father' and he is waited on, etc. If the children annoy him he goes to
+his club; if the wife dies, why there are plenty more women for the
+asking. Thousands of women are simply starving for Love and men are
+either willfully blind or wholly and utterly selfish. You possibly know
+that this is quite true. Another thing that has caused me many a time to
+question everything: During the Christmas holidays many times I have
+seen half-clad, hungry, shivering little ones gazing longingly into the
+wonderful show windows, wanting probably just one toy, while children no
+more worthy drive by in carriages, having more than they want. Love,
+home, mother, everything; on the other hand hunger, want, blues (many
+times), and both God's children. Let us hear what you have to say about
+this." B. B.
+
+Why does the mother in two-thirds of the families bear not only the
+children but the burdens and heartaches? _Because she is too thoughtless
+and inert not to_. It is _easier_ to submit to bearing children than it
+is to rise up and take command of her own body. It is easier to carry
+burdens than to wake up and _fire_ them. It is easier to "bear" things
+and grumble than it is to kick over the traces and _change_ them. To be
+sure, most women are yet under the hypnotic spell of the old race belief
+that it is woman's duty to "submit" herself to any kind of an old
+husband; but that is just what I said--women find it easier to go
+through life half asleep rather than to _think_ for themselves. Paul
+says a woman is _not_ to think, she is to ask her husband to think for
+her. (At least that is what the translators _say_ Paul says. Privately,
+I have my suspicions that those manly translators helped Paul to say a
+bit more than he meant to.) It is _easier_ to let her husband think for
+her even when she doesn't like his thoughts. So she uses her brain in
+_grumbling_ instead of thinking.
+
+People who don't think are ruled by _feeling_. Women feel. They feel not
+only for themselves but for other people. They shoulder the burdens of
+the whole family and a few outside the family. They do it themselves--
+because it is _easier_ to feel than to think. Nobody walks up to a woman
+and says, "Here--I have a burden that's very heavy--_you_ carry it
+whilst I go off and have a good time." No. The woman simply _takes_ the
+burden and hugs it and "feels" it--and _prides herself on doing it_. And
+maybe the thing _she_ hugs as a burden is no burden at all to the other
+people in the family. My dear, women as a rule are chumps. They'd rather
+feel _anything_ than to _think_ the right thing.
+
+Now I'd like to know if you think a woman who has made herself round-
+shouldered and wrinkled and sour-visaged over burdens--_anybody's_
+burdens, real or fancied--is such a creature as attracts love or
+consideration from _anybody_. Of course she is not. It is no wonder she
+receives no love or consideration from her husband or anybody else. She
+has made a pack mule out of herself for the carrying of utterly useless
+burdens that nobody _wants_ carried and the carrying of which benefits
+nobody; and now that she has grown ugly and sour at the business she
+need not feel surprised at being slighted. And she need not blame folks
+for slighting her. _She_ assumed the burdens; _she_ carried them; _she_
+wore herself out at it; it is all her own fault. It was _easier_ for her
+to feel, and grumble, than to wake up and THINK, and change things.
+
+Nobody who _thinks_ will carry a single burden for even a single day. He
+knows that fretting and worrying and grumbling only _double the burden_
+and accomplish nothing.
+
+Woman has _built herself_ for bearing children and burdens. When she
+gets tired of her bargain she will _think her way out of the whole
+thing_. In the meantime the harder the burdens grow the more quickly she
+will revolt and make of herself something besides a burden bearer.
+
+It is all nonsense to talk about the men being "willfully blind or
+wholly and utterly selfish." No man _wants_ a burden-bearing, round-
+shouldered, wrinkled and fagged-out wife. No man respects or loves a
+woman who will "submit" to bearing unlimited burdens or babies either.
+And if a woman "submits" and yet keeps up a continual grumbling and
+nagging about it, a man simply despises her.
+
+What every man _hopes_ for when he marries a woman, is that she will be
+a bright, trim, _reasonable comrade._ If she is even half-way that she
+will get all the love and consideration she can long for. But in three-
+quarters of the cases of marriage the woman degenerates into a whining
+bundle of _thought-less_ FEELINGS done up in a slattern's dress and
+smelling like a drug-shop. Her husband in despair gives up trying to
+understand her, or to love her either.
+
+The woman in such a case is apt to suffer most. Why not? _She makes it
+the business of her life to "suffer."_ She _prides_ herself on how much
+she has had to "suffer," and "bear." She cultivates her "feelings" to
+the limit. A man thinks it "unmanly" to _give way_ to "feelings." So he
+uses all his wits to keep from doing so, and to enable him to hide his
+own disappointment and make the best of life as he finds it.
+
+A man uses his best _judgment_ when he meets disappointment. A woman
+trots out her "feelings" and her best pocket-handkerchief, and calls in
+the neighbors. So the woman gets the lion's share of "sympathy"--which
+means that all the other women get out _their_ best handkerchiefs and
+try to imagine just how _they_ would "feel" if in her place.
+
+Of course there _are_ exceptions. I _have_ heard of men who wept and
+retailed their woes; and I have heard of women with gumption.
+
+The woman who wrote the letter at the head of this chapter is a feel-er,
+not a thinker. She looks at the forlorn, bedraggled specimens of her own
+sex and "_feels_" with them, never THINKING that the women themselves
+have anything to do with making their conditions. She "feels" with the
+woman because _she_ is a woman. Being an unthinking creature she cannot
+"feel" for the man at all.
+
+Woman is the weaker creature for no other reason than that she lives in
+her "feelings."
+
+Man is the stronger for no other reason than that he uses his wits and
+his will to _control_ his feelings. "B. B." has seen children gazing
+into shop windows. Immediately she imagines how _she_ would "feel" if in
+their places. She does not stop to THINK that in all probability the
+simple act of gazing into the window may bring more real joy to those
+children than the _possession_ of the whole windowful of toys would
+bring to some rich man's child. She does not _think_ that life consists
+not in possessions or environment, but in the _ability to use_
+possessions or environment. If she were an Edwin Abbey or a Michael
+Angelo she would gaze on our chromo-bedecked walls and work herself up
+into a great state of "feeling" because we had to have such miserable
+daubs instead of real works of art. If she saw us gazing on an Abbey or
+Angelo picture she would weep tears to think we couldn't have such
+pictures instead of those hideous bright chromos on our walls. It would
+never occur to her that we might be privately comparing her Abbeys and
+Angelos with our chromos, _and wondering how anybody could possibly see
+beauty in the Abbeys and Angelos_.
+
+About nine-tenths of women's so-called "sympathy" is just about as
+foolish and misplaced as that. If "B. B." would go up and get acquainted
+with some of those small youngsters she sees gazing into the shop
+windows she would find some of her illusions dispelled. She would find
+among them less "longing" than she thinks, and more wonder and criticism
+and pure curiosity--such as she would find in her own heart if she were
+gazing at a curio collection.
+
+I remember a large family of very small boys that I used to "feel" for,
+very deeply. Poor little pinched, ragged looking fellows they were, and
+always working before and after school hours. I gave them nickels and
+dimes and my children's outgrown clothes, and new fleece lined gloves
+for their blue little hands. They kept the clothes hung up at home and
+the gloves stuffed in their pants pockets. And one day I discovered that
+every one of those small youngsters had a _bank account_--something I
+had never had in my life! They lived as they _liked_ to live, and I had
+been harrowing my feelings and carrying their (?) burdens for nothing.
+
+This world is _not_ a pitiful place. It is a lovely great world, full of
+all sorts of people, every one of whom _exactly fits into_ his
+conditions.
+
+And the loveliest thing of all about this bright, blessed old world is
+that there is not a man, woman or child in it who cannot _change_ his
+environment if he doesn't like the one he now occupies. He can THINK his
+way into anything.
+
+A real, deep, tender feeling will prompt one to do all he can to
+alleviate distress or add to the world's joy. _Real_ feeling prompts to
+action. But this sentimental slush which slops over on anything and
+everything in general is nothing but an imitation of the real thing. To
+sympathize to the extent of _acting_ is good; to harrow up the feelings
+when you cannot or will not act, is simply weakness.
+
+"Feeling" is subject to the same law as water. Take away its banks and
+it spreads all over creation and becomes a stagnant slough of despond.
+Confine it by banks of _common-sense_ and _will_ and it grows deep and
+tender and powerful, and bears blessings on its bosom.
+
+The professional pity-er is adding to the sum total of the world's
+misery.
+
+The world is like "sweet Alice Ben Bolt"; it laughs with delight when
+you give it a smile, and gets out its pocket handkerchief to weep with
+you when you call it "Poor thing!"
+
+Then it cuts its call short and runs around the corner to tell your
+neighbor what a tiresome old thing you are anyway.
+
+Never you mind the tribulations you can't help, dearie. Just wake up and
+_be_ the brightest, happiest, sweetest thing you know how to be, and the
+world will-be that much better off.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+TO BE LOVED.
+
+
+"I desire to attract love from the Infinite or somewhere,
+that I may not be starved for it, as I have been
+ever since I married. My husband sneers at the New
+Thought, and in fact at nearly all that is best in me."
+
+Caroline.
+
+
+And yet this woman has children to love her. She thinks she is in need
+of being loved; but what she really needs is _to love_. Being loved is
+the _effect_ of loving. A loving man or woman can never want for love.
+Others turn to them in love as naturally as flowers turn to the sun.
+
+In order to be loved you must _radiate_ love. Instead of trying to
+attract the love of others, seek to _give_ your love to others,
+_expecting nothing in return_. After a time you will find the unexpected
+coming to you spontaneously.
+
+Learn to love by loving _all_ people and _things_, and especially all
+things you find to do.
+
+This same Caroline wants to "rise above drudgery." What _is_ drudgery?
+_It is simply unloved work_--nothing more nor less. _Any_ work which is
+looked down upon, and which is done with the hands _whilst the heart and
+mind are criticizing it_, and running out after other things,--_any_
+work thus done is drudgery. Work done with the hands _and a small and
+unwilling part_ of the mind, is drudgery. To her who _respects_, and
+_loves_, and does with a will what she finds to do, there is
+no drudgery.
+
+Let the woman who longs to be loved begin to _love_, by practicing on
+her work. To quit calling it "drudgery"; to put _all_ her mind and will
+and _soul_ into _each_ piece of work as it comes; is the first and
+longest step toward loving it. It is an easily demonstrated fact that we
+learn to love anything we persist in doing with a whole-souled will.
+
+To love our work enlarges our capacity for loving people, and the more
+we love people, _and the more people we love_, the more radiant
+we become.
+
+It is the radiant lover whom all the world loves. Do you know that love
+and the lack of love are governed by "auto-suggestion"? It is _natural_
+to love, as every child does. But as we grow up we keep saying to
+ourselves (this is auto-suggestion, you know) that we "don't like this,"
+and we "don't like that," until really we _shut up_ our love and live in
+a continual state of "don't like"--a state which in due time develops
+into _hate_--hate for self as well as others. "Don't like" does it all.
+
+Now _cultivate_ love by auto-suggestion. Keep saying, "I _like_ this,"
+and "I like that." _Hunt_ for things to like, and even tell yourself you
+like things when you don't _feel_ that you like them at all.
+
+Feeling is a _result_ of suggestion. Nothing easier to prove than that.
+A hypnotist can, by suggestion, make you feel almost anything, whether
+it is true or not. He will say, "You feel sad," and straightway you will
+feel so. Then he will say, "You feel happy," and you do. Your feelings
+are like a harp, and your _statements_, or auto-suggestions, are the
+fingers which pick the strings. Take good care to play the tunes you
+_want_--to say you _like_ things, or love them. Then you will quickly
+respond and _feel_ that you like or love them. Keep _practicing_ until
+you love _all_ the time. Then you will _be_ loved to your
+heart's content.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE PHARISEE UP-TO-DATE.
+
+As long as you continue to hug the delusion that you are "not to blame"
+for the unpleasant things in your conditions you might just as well
+profess the old thought as the new. The very fundamental principle of
+mental science is the statement that _man is a magnet and able to
+attract what he will_. To repudiate this statement is to knock the props
+out from under the whole philosophy. Better stay an old-thoughter and
+let Jesus suffer for your sins and those of your relatives and friends.
+At least Jesus _took_ the sins of the world to bear, all of his own free
+will. There is some comfort in letting Jesus do what he chose to do.
+
+But you have turned away from Jesus as a scapegoat. You refuse to lay
+your burdens on him who offered to bear them; and you refuse to bear
+them yourself. Instead you distribute them around among your relations
+and friends and then fret your soul because they won't accept your
+distributions. Of course you excuse yourself by acknowledging "your
+share of responsibility" for the unpleasantness of conditions, but if
+you will examine carefully you will find that your portion of the
+responsibility includes most of the _good_ things in your conditions,
+whilst you have portioned off almost _all_ the responsibility for the
+_bad_ things among your protesting--or indifferent--relatives. You
+always say, "_I_ try so hard," but you never balance that with, "_He_
+tries so hard,"--"_They_ try so hard." You get all the I-try-items in
+your own pile and the don't-try-items in other folk's piles. "_If_ it
+were not for Tom and Dick and Harry and Fan you would do wonders--_if_
+they'd only treat you with _half_ the consideration other people give
+you, or half _they_ give other people!--_if!--if!_"
+
+I wonder why they don't indeed! It is just because you are you, _and you
+attract your own particular kind of treatment_. To all intents and
+purposes Tom, Dick, Harry and Fan are a punch and Judy show and _you
+pull the strings_. When other people pull the strings there's a
+different sort of show. YOU are the motive power in _all their treatment
+of you_. Not a tone or look or act of theirs in your direction but _you_
+are responsible for; it was _you_ and no other who drew them to you;
+and it is you and no other who hold them there.
+
+Now don't say, "I don't see _how_!" Of course not--_you haven't wanted
+to see how_--you've been too intent justifying yourself. And anyway, it
+takes an open mind, and some time, and much _faith_ to enable us to see
+the _principles_ of things. We have to _act_ as if they were so, a long
+time before we see that they are. If you had _acted_ upon the principle
+that you are a magnet and that _all_ that comes to you comes by your
+attraction, you'd have long ago had your eyes opened to "see how." And
+you'd have made progress and _changed your conditions_.
+
+_If you are ever going to be a magnet you are one now._ If you are ever
+going to be able to attract to the hair's breadth whatsoever you will
+_then you are doing it now_. There will be no miraculous change in the
+running gear of this universe to enable you to attract what you want.
+
+_What you now are in essence and working principle you have always been,
+and you will always be--the same yesterday, today and forever--a
+self-made_ MAGNET, _working to the hair's breadth_.
+
+ONLY BY CHANGING THE QUALITY OF YOUR MAGNETISM CAN YOU CHANGE YOUR
+ENVIRONMENT AND ATTRACT DIFFERENT TREATMENT FROM TOM, DICK, HARRY
+AND FAN.
+
+Sweetness within brings sweetness without. You have been more or less
+bitter and self-justifying within, and Tom, Dick, Harry and Fan have
+danced to the strings you pulled.
+
+As long as you think _you_ try and they don't; as long as you think
+_your_ judgment superior to theirs; _your_ ideals loftier and worthier;
+_your_ ways better; you will get from them responses of carelessness,
+bitterness, lack of consideration, selfishness.
+
+_You_ are inconsiderate of _their_ ideas, ideals, judgments and ways;
+_in self-preservation_ they are inconsiderate of yours. If you had your
+way they'd be pretty little putty images of _your_ ideals, judgments,
+wishes, ways and feelings. The Law of Individuality prevents your
+imposing yourself on them. You think you are finding fault with _their_
+"lack of consideration"; _you are really condemning the law of being_.
+
+If you are ever to be a magnet you are one NOW. _All_ that comes _is_
+"your fault." If anything different comes it will come through _your_
+change of mental attitude and action.
+
+It will not do to throw it on "Karma" either, and say you are receiving
+now the unpleasant things deserved in a previous state of existence. The
+mills of the gods grind slowly but they are not so dead slow as all
+that. What you thought and did in a previous state has determined your
+parentage and childhood environment in this. But the pangs you suffer
+today have their roots in yesterday or day before, or the year before
+that. Cause and effect trip close upon each other's heels--so close that
+the careless or ignorant observer misses the trip. He exaggerates the
+_effect_ if it be an unhappy one, and goes nosing for a bigger cause
+than the real one. How could _his_ little slip of this morning, or
+yesterday, be the cause of this _terrible_ evil which has befallen
+him?--and he slides completely over the real cause. _And keeps on
+repeating it_.
+
+Self-righteousness, by blinding your eyes to the truth, is the direct
+cause of the most gigantic and the most subtle miseries of the world.
+These awfully good people who fully realize how hard they have always
+tried to do right, are the unhappiest people in the world--unless I
+except Tom, Dick, Harry and Fan, the victims of these self-righteous
+reformers. No, I can't even except these; for they at least generally
+succeed in having their own way in spite of the would-be reformer. But
+what so utterly disheartening as continued _lack of success_? And the
+self-righteous one never succeeds. It is hard, _hard_, to be so wise and
+willing, with such _high_ ideals (the self-righteous one in» strong on
+ideals), and _never_ to succeed in making Tom, Dick and Harry conform to
+them. Do you see why Jesus said so often, "Woe comes to the Pharisee"
+--the self-righteous? And why he called them hypocrites? Of course they
+are unconscious of their hypocrisy--self-righteousness blinds them to
+the truth; they think _others_ are to blame for most of the
+self-righteous one's own hard conditions.
+
+The self-righteous one is doomed to a tread-mill of petty failures. He
+goes round and round his own little personal point of view and
+learns nothing.
+
+It is by getting at the _other fellow's_ point of view that we learn
+things--about him and ourselves, too. When the self-righteous one wakes
+up to the _fact_ that the world is _full_ of people whose points of view
+are _just exactly_ as right and wise and ideal as his own; and begins to
+_feel with_, and PULL WITH these other people, instead of against them;
+when he does this he will find himself out of the treadmill to _stay_.
+As he shows a disposition to consider _other_ people's ideals and help
+others in the line _they_ want to go, he will find the whole world eager
+to help _him_ in the way _he_ wants to go. The self-righteous one works
+alone and meets defeat. The one who, recognizing his own righteousness
+_in intent_, yet forgets not that _others are even as he,_ is the true
+friend and _be_-friended, of all the world.
+
+Now don't let this homily slip off _your_ shoulders. We are _all_
+self-righteous in spots, and none of us is so _very_ wise that he cannot
+by self-examination and readjustment learn a lot more.
+
+Each soul _in its place_ is wisest and best. Don't _you_ try to get into
+the pilot house and steer things for Tom, Dick, or Harry. Stay in your
+own and steer clear of the rocks of anger, malice, revenge, _resentment,
+re-sistance,_ INTERFERENCE and _immoderation_.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+SO NEAR AND YET SO FAR.
+
+"Help me to make things go forward instead of backward. I want to be
+neat and attractive, with a good head of hair, a good complexion and
+good health. I want to help my husband so he will fall in love with me
+to make home beautiful, attractive and comfortable. I want bright eyes
+and freedom from that careworn look. Oh, I want to draw my husband
+nearer to me." (From a Taurus woman, aged twenty-seven.)
+
+Isn't that pitiful? And heaven knows--or ought to--how many poor women,
+_and men, too_, live with that same dumb longing to get nearer and be
+chums with somebody. That cry touches my heart, for I lived years in the
+same state.
+
+And, oh, how I struggled to draw others nearer to me. How I agonized
+and cried and prayed over it. How I worked to make home attractive. How
+I cooked and washed and scrubbed, sewed and patched and darned to
+please! How I quickly brushed my hair and hustled into a clean dress so
+as to be neat and ready when my husband came in! And how I ached and
+despaired inwardly because he frowned and found fault! How I studied
+books of advice to young wives! How their advice failed! How I _tried_
+and TRIED to get him to confide in me and make a chum of me! And how the
+more I tried the more he had business downtown! Oh, the growing despair
+of it all! And the growing illnesses, too! Oh, the gulf that widened and
+widened between us! Oh, the _loneliness_! Oh, the _uselessness_ of life!
+
+I _had_ to give it up. I wasn't enough of a hanger-on to sink into a
+state of perpetual whining protest, or to commit suicide. When I was
+finally _convinced_ that I _couldn't_ draw him nearer I gave it up and
+began to take notice again, _of other things_. I _let_ him live his life
+and I took up the _"burden"_ of my own "lonely" existence.
+
+And the first thing I knew my "burden" had grown _interesting_, and I
+was _no longer lonesome_. I began to live my life to _please myself_,
+instead of living it for the purpose of _making over_ the life
+of another.
+
+The _next_ thing I knew my husband didn't have so much business
+downtown, and he had more things he wanted to tell me. I found we were
+nearer than I ever dreamed we'd be.
+
+You see, I had become _more comfortable to live with._ I had quit
+_trying_ to draw him nearer, and behold, _he was already near_.
+
+In the old days I lived strenuously. I hustled so to get the house and
+the children and myself _just so_, that I got _my aura_ into a regular
+snarl. My husband being a healthy animal, felt the snarl before he saw
+the immaculateness; and like any healthy animal he snarled back--and had
+business downtown. He responded to my _real_ mental and emotional state,
+responded against his will many times; and I did not know it. I supposed
+him perverse and impossible of pleasing. I _knew I_ had tried my best
+(according to my lights, which it had not occurred to me to doubt), but
+it never entered my cranium that _he_ had tried, too. I looked upon the
+outward appearance--my immaculate appearance, met by fault-finding or
+indifference I Poor me! Perverse he!
+
+Poor Martha, troubled about many things, when only one thing is
+needful--a quiet mind and faithful soul. History does not state if
+Martha had a husband. If she did, he was perpetually downtown. And Jesus
+preferred Mary, the Comfortable One, to Martha. Poor lonesome Martha!
+And she tried _so hard_ to please.
+
+I used to know a woman who never did a thing but look sweet. She was
+pretty and sympathetic and _cheery_. Her husband and six children
+idolized her, and fairly fell over themselves to please her and keep the
+home beautiful for her. There was physical energy galore lavished
+_gladly_ by the family, in doing what is commonly considered the
+mother's work.
+
+And there was apparently nothing whatever the matter with that woman,
+who was always sweet and pretty as a new blown rose, and looked not a
+day over twenty. She was simply born tired and wouldn't work. Of course
+the neighbors said things about her; but nobody _could_ say things _to_
+such a sweet tempered, cordial and pretty woman. And there'd have been
+razors flying through the air if anybody had dared hint to that husband
+or one of those children that mother was anything less than perfection.
+The family explanation was that "mother is not strong."
+
+But that mother did more for that family than all the others put
+together. _She made the atmosphere_, and she was the life-giving sun
+around which husband and children revolved, and from which they received
+the real Light of Life--the power which develops the good in us.
+
+The mother's main business in life was that of _appreciating_. She was
+the confidante, the counsellor, the optimistic teacher, and the
+appreciative audience for six children and a husband, besides a lot of
+neighbors who carried their troubles to her. She performed more mental
+work than it takes to manage a billion dollar trust. She kept six
+children, not only out of mischief, but _happily busy_ at all sorts of
+household and outdoor work which it was well for them to know. They
+learned to keep house and farm by keeping them, whilst she sat by and
+enthused and directed their efforts. She made them _love_ it all. She
+helped them over the hard places in their school work and enthused them
+to do better work. They carried off the school prizes under her
+admiring eyes, and ran straight to lay them in her lap and receive that
+proud and happy smile of hers.
+
+Her husband worked like a slave _with the heart of a king_. She thought
+him the best, bravest, brightest of men, and told him so a dozen times a
+day, besides _looking_ it every time he came in range of her big, loving
+brown eyes and smooth, rosy cheeks.
+
+I never heard of an unkind word in that family, and those six children
+grew up into splendid young manhood and womanhood. Their mother is still
+the blessed sun of their existence. She is prettier, healthier and
+happier now, and so proud of her fine children.
+
+And she is _up-to-date._ She has studied and read with her whole family
+and is interested with them in the world's present events, art,
+literature and religion.
+
+Do you think that woman ever complains of loneliness, or "tries so hard"
+to draw husband or children "nearer"? No. She long ago chose the "one
+thing needful"--_a faith-full heart_. Her physical strength would not
+bear much strain without depressing her faith-full-ness; therefore she
+left the physical labor out, _as less important_. To her the _Life_ was
+more than meat or raiment, so she ministered to the Life--to the joy of
+living. A stronger woman, physically, could have ministered more
+efficiently to the physical side without neglecting the "one thing
+needful." This woman chose the better part and stuck to it; and
+_results_ prove her righteousness.
+
+The foolish woman looketh upon the outward appearance and is troubled
+over _many_ things. She wears herself out trying to keep the _outside_
+immaculate and grieves her heart out because she misses the one thing of
+great price, the _joy of loving and being loved, of trusting and
+being trusted_.
+
+Do you know that we are _never_ far away from _anybody_? We are close,
+_so close_ to our husbands; our children; our friends; _even to our
+enemies if we have them;_ and to those we never saw or heard of. _We are
+all One. Your_ soul is MY SOUL TOO. Only our bodies are at all
+separated, and they are separated _only as the harbor is separated from
+the sea_. Our bodies are but inlets of One Great Soul; and they are but
+the smallest part of ourselves. Is it then not foolish to _try_ to draw
+another nearer? Why, we are _now_ so near we _can't_ be nearer; we are
+_One_. Why strive to do what is _already_ done?
+
+Ah, you see, we work from a false hypothesis. We are so concerned with
+the many things on the _outside_ that we lose sight of _inside truths_.
+
+_Take your husband's nearness for granted_. Be not troubled over the
+many things of appearance. _Have faith in him_. If there is any "drawing
+nearer" to be done see that _you_ draw near to him _in faith and love_.
+Instead of mentally or verbally sitting down on his motives, words or
+acts, _try to feel as he does, that you may understand him_.
+
+AS WE GEOW IN UNDERSTANDING OF ANOTHER WE GROW IN LOVE AND REALIZATION
+OF OUR NEARNESS TO THAT ONE. _In proportion as we dislike or are
+repelled by any person_ OR HIS ACTIONS, _in that proportion we fail to
+understand him_.
+
+As one human being is revealed to another the sense of nearness grows.
+Now do you imagine that distrust and censure will help a soul reveal
+itself? Of course not. But if you can be comfortable and indulgent to a
+man, and especially if you can cultivate a real admiring confidence in
+him, he will unfold his very heart of hearts to you. It is _you_ who
+must come near in faith and love, if you would find your husband near
+to you.
+
+To sum up:
+
+1. You and your husband ARE close together--so close you are _One_.
+
+_2_. If you would _feel_ the truth of this you must come to your husband
+in faith-full love, and you _must not allow yourself_ to condemn or
+judge, verbally or mentally, his revelations of himself. You must
+vibrate _with_ him where you can, and _keep still in faith_ where you
+can't understand him and meet him.
+
+3. You must persist in thus doing, until faith and love and
+understanding become the habit of your life.
+
+4. The same rules apply if you would feel your nearness to any other
+person, _or to all persons_.
+
+Every man is in embryo a good and thoughtful and loving husband. A wise
+wife will give him the loving, full-of-faith, appreciative atmosphere
+which encourages development.
+
+"We are all just as good as we know how to be, and as bad as we dare
+be." _And we are all growing better_. Why not chant the beauties of the
+good instead of imagining it our "duty" to eternally bark against
+the bad?
+
+It is said there cannot be a model husband without a model wife, and
+_vice versa_. True. Then if yours is not a model husband _don't assume
+that you are a model wife fitted to judge and admonish him_.
+
+Be still and get acquainted with him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Make it your _first_ object in life to cultivate a serene and faith-full
+heart and aura.
+
+As a means toward this end cultivate a _full_ appreciation of whatever
+and whoever comes near you. Cultivate the spirit of praise; and _trust_
+where you cannot see.
+
+Second, take _good_ care of your body and personal appearance. Allow
+plenty of time for bathing, caring for your hair, nails, teeth, and
+clothing. Wear plain clothes if need be, but DON'T wear soiled or ragged
+ones. And don't ever put a pin where a hook or button ought to be. No
+man can continue to love a woman who is slatternly.
+
+Third, allow at least an hour _every_ day for reading and meditating on
+new thought lines, _and for going into the silence. Let nothing rob you
+of this hour, for of it will come wisdom, love and power to meet the
+work and trials of all other hours. Remember the parable of the ten
+virgins and take this hour for filling your lamp, that you be ready for
+the Unexpected. Only in such hours can you lay up love, wisdom and power
+which will enable you to make the best of the other hours. Let not
+outward things rob you of your source of power_.
+
+Fourth, unless you wish to fall behind the world's procession see that
+you spend some time every day in reading the best magazines and
+newspapers, taking pains to skip most of the criminal news. Read
+optimistically and cultivate a quick eye for all the good things. Take
+the _best_ magazines even if you have to leave feathers off your hat and
+desserts off your table. If you can find an _interesting_ literary club
+it might be well to join it and do your part of the work. But see that
+you do not _rob_ the Peter of your energies to pay the Paul of club
+ambitions.
+
+And fifthly comes your housework. This is the juggernaut department
+which grinds many a woman to skin and bones--and her husband discards
+the remains! When it comes to housekeeping a woman has need of all the
+love, wisdom and power she can muster in her hours of silence. Even a
+five room flat or cottage is more than one woman can keep _spotless_ and
+allow time for anything else. Many things _must_ be left undone. The
+wise woman simplifies to the last degree compatible with comfort.
+Useless bric-a-brac is dispensed with. "Not how much but _how good_," is
+her rule when buying. A few good things _kept in place_, are better than
+a clutter of flimsy things which pander only to an uncultured esthetic
+taste--and make work. _Order_ is the wise woman's first law in
+housekeeping; cleanliness her second, which is like unto the first in
+importance. She lets extra rooms, furniture and fallals go _until she
+can pay well to have them cared for_. The same rule obtains in her
+kitchen and her personal dress.
+
+The wise woman thinks of comfort and allows time for the _joys_ of life,
+wherefore _all_ her life is a pleasure.
+
+The foolish woman is ground under the wheels of routine. To her,
+housework is a stern "duty" which comes _first_, and to which body,
+mind, personal appearance, happiness, the joy of living, all must be
+sacrificed.
+
+Lastly, firstly, and all the time, the wise woman is guided in what to
+do and in what to leave undone, by the Spirit of Love; whilst the
+foolish woman is guided by the Spirit of Appearances.
+
+Note the order in which I have written these needs of life; an exact
+reversal of the usual order. Housework _last_, and the Spirit of Comfort
+first. The tendency of every woman is to lose _herself_ in troubling
+over the many things of her household. If she would be happy, useful,
+young and growing she MUST turn her life the other side up.
+
+The best way to begin, the only successful way so far as I know, is by
+MAKING time for the hour of reading and meditation and silence. She must
+_take_ the time, by sheer force of will--take it until it grows into a
+habit which _takes her_. Out of this hour will come first peace and
+self-control; and gradually she will find unfolding out of this peace
+and control, the wisdom to know what to do, and how; and what _not_ to
+do. From this unfolding comes the ONLY power which can make new thought
+practical to the individual case.
+
+Are you satisfied with yourself and your condition? Then pursue your old
+ways.
+
+Are you dissatisfied with yourself and surroundings? _In order to change
+them_ YOU _must change_--_that which was first with you must become
+last_ AND THE LAST MUST BE FIRST.
+
+Be still and know the I AM God of you; and, lo, all _things_ shall be
+added. But the _things_ must be last, not first.
+
+Seek ye _first_ the kingdom of Good in yourself, _and to be right with
+it_; and all things shall be added. All things shall be added to YOU,
+not to _other things_.
+
+Be still until you find yourself--your wise, loving, joy-giving Self
+which dwells in the silence and is able to do whatsoever you desire.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+MARRIAGE CONTRACTS.
+
+"That article of yours, 'So Near and Yet So Far,' has worried me to an
+extent I am ashamed of. To my 'judgment' that article is disingenuous.
+It is not so much that you jumped on that poor soul with hob-nailed
+shoes, but that you formulated the 'jump' quite as the husband might
+have done. That is, if _she_ would repent and change her course, she
+would soon find that _he_ was all right, and--inferentially--all the
+trouble was of her making. Not one word on the other side! You even
+quote your own experience _against_ her. My dear, _did_ you really find
+that your 'trouble' was of your own making, and _did_ you really change
+ANYTHING except your own amount of distress during the process of
+disintegration? Marriage is the only contract which society does not
+promptly admit to be broken when either party refuses to fulfill his
+obligations--as agreed to. And in view of the custom of ages, and the
+instinct in woman formed by such custom (when instinct makes the
+establishing of Individuality the _very_ hardest thing in life for a
+generous woman), I think that your implication against the woman, trying
+with all the light she's _got_ to keep her side of that very one-sided
+contract is simply--cruel! I wish I could get at that girl and tell her
+that her _only_ chance for happiness is through the paradox 'Whoso
+_will_ not lose his life _cannot_ find it.' Whoso will not 'let go' of
+the love which his five per cent judgment claims as his only _righteous_
+chance, cannot inherit that which the ninety-five per cent would attract
+if the five per cent were 'offered up' to the spirit. This is the first
+time I have ever disagreed with your point of view." Jane.
+
+That article, "So Near and Yet So Far," has brought forth volumes of
+comment, most of it highly favorable, and nearly all of it from women
+themselves. But among the writers were three critics, and among the
+critics one of the brightest women I know, whose letter appears above.
+
+And she says that article is to her disingenuous. Of course it is, for
+she has not yet arrived at the point of _giving up her own way_. She is
+still a Pharisee of the Pharisees--on the surface. She is proud; she
+_knows_ she has done her best to bring things right--according to her
+judgment of right; and she _does hate_ to acknowledge her foolishness!
+She will "hold fast her own integrity" as long as there is a shred of it
+left! Don't I know? Didn't I do exactly the same thing? Of course. But
+the pressure of the great spirit of love, wisdom, justice, was too much
+for me; I _had_ to give up my judgment; I _had_ to acknowledge that
+there _must_ be the same spirit expressing in my husband's judgment; I
+_had_ to let go, be still and get at _his_ point of view. Jane, too,
+will have to do it. And the fact that that article "worried her to an
+extent she is ashamed of," is the proof. When Truth presses her point we
+worry until we can hold out no longer; then we give in.
+
+One of the other two critics writes that over that article she "shed
+the first tears in over seven years." Then she asks me if I don't think
+I was a "little hard on the Taurus woman," and goes on to reveal plainly
+that her tears were those of _self-pity._ Don't I know? Haven't I shed
+quarts of such tears? Of course. But not more than an ounce or two were
+shed after I gave up my own way. But this second critic is arriving just
+as I did, and as Jane will--arriving all unconsciously to herself. Her
+letter sounds like a chapter from my own thinking of a dozen years ago.
+She gives a bird's eye view of her husband--no, of her husband's
+_faults_; she tells how she reads new thought literature on the
+sly--just as I did; and she winds up with this _piece_ of good advice:
+
+"I will say to such, live your own life as God intended you to,
+regardless of the fact of your husband. Be brave, hope, will and pray.
+Dress, look sweet. If your husband tells you he doesn't care how you
+look but to not come near him with your foolishness, as mine does, why,
+let him live his life in his own way, make home attractive for your own
+sake, read good books; and in time books will be your chum."
+
+The third critic, too, is full of self-pity, though she does not mention
+her tears; and her letter is a long portrait of her husband's faults.
+She wants a little encouragement to leave him, but she is afraid he will
+go to the dogs if she does. So, like a generous woman, she sticks to him
+and makes the best (?) of a bad bargain.
+
+Jane says my article was "cruel." Dearie, it was--as the surgeon's knife
+is cruel. But it is the truth, and it hurts but to make way for healing.
+The woman who blames has in her eye something worse than a cataract.
+The woman who sheds tears over her "fate" is moved by the "meanest of
+emotions." She attracts "cruelty," not only from that article, _but from
+her husband._
+
+It takes _two_ to quarrel, _and either one can stop it_. It takes _two_
+to maintain "strained relations," and _either one can ease the strain_.
+The principles I tried to elucidate in that article are as applicable to
+a man as to a woman. But it was a woman, a Taurus woman, who asked me;
+therefore I talked straight to her. And _I_ am a Taurus woman who has
+been through the same mill; and I wrote not from a hardened heart but
+from one made tender by experience and the Spirit of Truth. My point of
+view "might have been the husband's" _if_ the husband had been an
+unusually just one. And I must say the husband's point of view is more
+apt to be _just_, than the wife's; for the reason that a woman is more
+apt to be blinded by _emotional self-interest._ In proportion as man or
+woman is ruled by emotion his judgment is distorted. _As a rule man's
+judgment_ is straighter than a woman's. But judgment is a shallow thing,
+based upon _already revealed facts._ Woman's intuition goes to the heart
+of things and flashes facts into revelation. Women as a rule _see
+farther_, but are apt to misjudge what is _close at hand._ Only as man
+wakes in woman and woman in man do right judgment and love commune. Why
+not judge with the husband, as I _feel_ with the wife? Is any man
+_totally_ depraved?
+
+Jane feels abused because she thinks _I_ think that in family strains
+the woman is more at fault. _In a sense_ I do. _Women cannot only make
+and unmake empires but they DO make or fail to make harmony_ _at home_.
+Why, men with all their power are mere rag babies in the hands of women
+of _tact_. Women are the _real_ power in the world--the power behind the
+throne. If only they would develop that particular kind of power instead
+of coming around in front of the throne to lay down the law!--instead of
+measuring their _man_-strength against man. Real _woman_-strength will
+move the most stubborn of men. If I "blame" the woman _(I blame neither,
+any more than I blame a child for childishness)_ it is because _I know
+she is the ruling power_. Her responsibility is determined by her
+real power.
+
+And above all a Taurus woman may rule her home--_and does_. Either she
+rules by force--for she has more than her share of the man in her--and
+makes war and trouble for herself and others; or she learns her lesson
+and rules by _loving tact_; in which case her husband rises up and calls
+her _blessed_. The _woman who knows and rules herself_ is the woman of
+Proverbs XXXI, 10th to 31st verses. Her husband is honored among men
+_because he is honored at home_; and because he is honored he _lives up
+to it_. Why, girls, you hold your husband's destiny in the hollow of
+your hand, in a far greater sense than any man holds a woman's.
+
+But as I said before, _it takes two to make an unhappy home and either
+one can bring harmony out of discord._ Any ordinary woman can do it _if
+she will_. And any extraordinary man can do it quite as well as an
+ordinary woman.
+
+This is not a question of what "society" admits; it is a personal
+question between one man and one woman. It _is_ a partnership, whether
+society so admits or not. And the failure of one of the partners to
+live up to the expressed or implied agreement does not justify the other
+party in the misdoing of her part _as long as they live together_. Does
+one theft or murder justify another? No! Neither does a neglectful
+husband justify a scolding or spiteful wife, nor _vice versa._
+
+Two people marry _first_, for the happiness of love; and second, for
+home privileges. No matter whether love flees or not, _as long as they
+keep up_ the home-privileges partnership it should be done in the spirit
+of harmony. Remember, it takes _two_ to destroy harmony and _either one
+can restore it_. If marriage is not a love contract let it at least be a
+harmonious business contract. If you can't, or won't, _adjust yourself_
+to your husband, then leave him. Don't stay and half-do your part of the
+business and cultivate hate and contempt. It's hell. _Get out_.
+
+I have known several couples who lived years in comparative happiness
+after love had flown; who were kind to each other, considerate,
+business-like. The wives made pleasant homes and the husbands came and
+went at will. In their spare time the wives developed their personal
+interests and "lived their own lives," as critic number two advises.
+When the husbands took cranky streaks the wives simply made light of it
+to themselves, and forgot it as soon as possible. They lived on as
+comfortable terms as if the wives were simply _first-class_ hired
+house-keepers; little crankisms were all in the bargain. Eventually
+every one of these couples separated, and nearly all the parties are now
+_happily_ married. _And every_ _couple parted amicably_; each being
+_satisfied_ to terminate the old partnership.
+
+To me a divorce is not a disgrace, but a family row _is_. And I suspect
+that most divorce _rows_ are worked up to _drown guilty consciences_.
+Neither has done his best by the other, and he knows it; so he raises a
+great row to fix attention on the other's shortcomings that his own may
+escape observation.
+
+Until a man and woman have succeeded in living up to their home
+privileges in a manner befitting honest and intelligent man and woman,
+_they can't be sure that they are not fitted for a real loving union_.
+Friction over small things obscures vision and judgment, and hate hides
+the lovableness that _must_ lie in every being. Get rid of the rowing
+over little things of every day life, and you will be able to love as
+much as your marriage will permit; _and you will be free to dissolve the
+entire partnership if you desire_.
+
+Did I _really_ change anything? _Yes_. Is it "anything" to bring peace
+and quiet pleasure and comfort and appreciation where their opposites
+were wont to hold bacchanale? _Yes_.
+
+No woman who _honestly_ tries the course I have endeavored to outline
+will ever doubt that she really accomplishes _something_; neither will
+she regret.
+
+Here is a word every married woman will do well to heed as long as she
+lives with her husband: _If you can't have your way without a fuss, then
+try his with a good will_.
+
+Peace be unto you; peace, which is the foundation for _all you desire_.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+SOME HINTS AND A KICK.
+
+"And now, Elizabeth, let me suggest something. Punch up the _men_ a
+little in the matter of cultivating cleanly habits, etc. Women are
+preached to eternally on these matters and the men wholly neglected. It
+would be a 'new thought' to take to the men a little and might assist in
+making more of them fit companions for the sweet and cleanly women they
+delight in associating with. The absolute neglect of the masculine sex
+by writers on these subjects causes them to think that nothing in the
+way of the aesthetic is expected of them. It is a wrong to the men not
+to en-me and make me his chum as well as his wife. Help courage them to
+aspire to a common plane with woman in the matters of purity and
+cleanliness. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, but no more so in the
+case of woman than of man. It is time for equality to be recognized in
+this matter as in all others." Carrie.
+
+It is funny how many women squirm when reminded that it is they who set
+the pace in the home! We are always longing for power and a field of
+effort, and then when a 20th century prophetess arises and tells us we
+_are_ all but almighty, and shows us how to direct our almightiness to
+accomplish results, we--well, we squirm. One would think some of us are
+a little bit ashamed of the pace we have been setting, of the things we
+have been accomplishing with our almightiness! You know, our first
+impulse when we see an error in our own selves is to sound the trumpet
+and charge upon the error in the other fellow. Is this why Carrie wants
+the men scolded?
+
+Well, _don't_ they get scolded? What are their wives and daughters and
+sweethearts for but to scold 'em or coax 'em into cleaner ways of
+living? No use to talk to men as a class, about anything but politics.
+Don't you know that Adam couldn't even taste an apple until Eve coaxed
+him? Adam is a great theorizer; he will gaze at an apple and tell you
+that he ought not to eat it, and _why_ not; he will even amble long and
+wishfully about that apple; but it takes _Eve_ to wake in him the
+_living impulse_ to take it. Just so with matters of personal neatness.
+He knows--oh, yes, knowing is his long suit!--he knows he "ought" to be
+neat; and he thinks he wants to be; but unless Eve and the serpent come
+along he hasn't the _living impulse_.
+
+And Eve must not lose sight of the serpent, however far away the dove
+may fly. Eve must use wisdom and tact, as well as example; if she would
+have Adam accept her standard of cleanliness she must see to it that her
+example is _beautifully_ clean instead of _painfully_ so. There are men
+who are careless about their persons simply as a matter of relief from
+the painful cleanness of their surroundings.
+
+Then there are Adams who are careless for lack of interest in pleasing
+Eve. In these cases you will find that Eve has little or no interest in
+pleasing Adam; or that she overdoes the matter of trying to please, and
+frequently dissolves in tears and precipitates countless reproaches upon
+luckless Adam.
+
+Then there are Adams who are careless from petty spite--with shame I say
+it. And with greater shame I say, you will find their Eves are spiteful,
+too; probably more spiteful than the Adams; for Eve, you know, is
+generally smart enough and ambitious enough to outdo Adam in any line of
+endeavor--especially in the use or misuse of the tongue.
+
+In matters of niceness it is Eve who sets the pace. Adam is built for
+strength; Eve for beauty and adornment. It is _natural_ for Eve to set
+the pace and for Adam to follow, in all matters of detail and niceness.
+Whether Adam follows with good grace or ill depends upon Eve and the
+serpent. If Eve is wise as the serpent in her, and harmless as the dove
+in her, she can lead Adam a _willing_ captive to heaven or hell.
+
+Now will you rise again and--squirm--because I attribute to Eve all
+power over Adam? Will you say I excuse Adam's transgressions and come
+down hard on Eve? I suppose so. But the very fact that you resent the
+imputation is proof that in your heart of hearts you know I have hit
+_very close_ to the mark. When an arrow flies wide we are merely amused
+at the poor marksmanship; but the closer the arrow strikes to the center
+the more excited we grow--either with resentment or admiration,
+according to our sympathies.
+
+In matters of cleanliness, niceness and adornment Eve sets the pace; and
+if her pace is a graceful one and _not too fast_ Adam follows. In due
+time he _acquires the habit_ of doing the little ablutions and adornings
+Eve has taught him.
+
+If your Adam is _very_ careless about these matters you may depend upon
+it that when he was growing up his mother was either dead or careless or
+tactless; and you may safely suspect that Adam in his previous state of
+existence was a forlorn old bach. So be gentle with him, for it will
+take time to correct the faults of such an Adam.
+
+But don't give up, Eve, dear. Be gentle, but be firm and persistent. Use
+your ingenuity in finding ways to make Adam _want_ to please you; and if
+you can look back over a year or two and see that he _has_ improved in
+_some_ respects at least, that there are even one or two little tricks
+of niceness which have become almost if not quite habitual, then hold a
+little praise meeting and rejoice. Praise him for learning, and praise
+yourself for what you have succeeded in teaching him. And if your
+success has come _without friction_, if you have inspired Adam to _want_
+to please you, then glorify yourself exceedingly--_all to yourself, of
+course_. If you let Adam know you are managing him even for his own
+good, he will show his independence by going back to his old
+tricks--just as _you_ would do if in his place. If there has been
+friction, or lack of success, let it wake you up to use henceforth _more
+of the wisdom and love which is in you_.
+
+Now this little homily is written ostensibly to women; but all my men
+subscribers will read it and applaud. _I wonder how many of them will
+see that every word of it is as applicable to themselves, as to their
+mothers, sisters, sweethearts, wives_? Every Eve is Adam at heart, and
+every Adam is Eve; and what in sauce for Adam will prove equally
+effective with Eve. Adam and Eve are both green, and growing. They are
+the two halves of a ripening peach, brought together by the Law of
+Attraction or Love because at this stage in their development _they
+fit_. You will be inclined to doubt that every Adam's nature fits his
+Eve's, but I say unto you judge not according to outward appearance but
+judge righteous judgment. Now listen:--Every human being has his
+manifested good points and his _latent_ good points. The manifest good
+points of a man are the Adam of him; the _latent_ good points--the weak
+places in him--are the Eve of him--the interior as-yet-undeveloped part
+of him. The strong points, the good points, of a woman are the Eve; the
+weak points, where she is as yet undeveloped, are the Adam or interior
+nature of her.
+
+If it were not for personal attractions, particularly the attractions of
+one man and one woman, the _latent_ parts of both men and women would
+remain forever undeveloped and their strong points would continue to
+grow stronger. In time (supposing the race did not die out), there would
+be two classes of people utterly different and at variance with each
+other--two opposites with no understanding or sympathy for each other.
+
+Attraction brings together opposites; the strong, steady man falls in
+love with a frivolous butterfly; a handsome woman attracts a homely man
+and _vice versa;_ a strong, capable woman marries a sickly, incompetent
+man--and supports him; a sentimental woman is attracted to a
+matter-of-fact man who develops her common sense by pruning her
+sentimentalities; an artistic temperament is drawn to a phlegmatic; a
+sanguine to a bilious; a mental to a vital; an active man marries a lazy
+wife, or _vice versa_; a bright man marries a stupid girl; and so on
+and on.
+
+Man and wife are a rounded whole in which the man manifests what is
+latent in the woman, and the woman supplies that which in the man is as
+yet undeveloped. Just as Eve coaxes, or scolds, Adam into habits of
+neatness; as Adam coaxes, scolds or drives Eve into having his meals on
+time, thus developing her self-command and _promptness_; so they act and
+re-act upon each other to develop a thousand latencies of which they,
+and the onlookers, are more or less unconscious.
+
+The foolish Adams and Eves fret and strain against these processes of
+development, and bewail their "mistake" in marrying; not seeing that the
+association is really benefiting both. The wise Adams and Eves reduce
+the friction _by kindness_, by _co-operation with each other_; Adam
+_tries_ to please Eve, Eve tries to please Adam, and both are kind about
+it, wherefore in due time their _appreciation_ for each other grows, and
+mayhap their love grows with it. If love wanes instead of growing at
+least they are _friends_, and can _part_ as friends if they so desire.
+
+Someone has well said that without a model husband there can be no model
+wife. I believe it. As long as man and woman are held together by love,
+attraction, or "conditions" (in its last analysis it is _all_ the Law of
+Attraction, or _God_) they are literally _one_, no matter how hard they
+kick against the oneness; and neither man nor woman can _alone_ be a
+model, any more than one side of a peach can be _entirely_ ripe and
+sweet and the other side entirely hard and green.
+
+So when I speak to Eve about tact and kindness I speak to _the Eve in
+Adam_ as well as in Eve herself.
+
+And what I say of the attractions of man and wife applies equally well
+to other family relationships, to friendships, to acquaintanceships and
+even to our relationship to the people we pass on the street or _the
+heathen we never saw_. Every person who touches us even in the
+slightest degree, _is drawn by the law of attraction because we need him
+to bring out some latency in ourselves, and because HE needs us to help
+develop some latency in him_. IT IS OUR OWN HIGHEST DESIRES (the god in
+us) WHICH CONSTITUTE THE ATTRACTION.
+
+"Oh, but _that_ can't be," you exclaim, "because So-and-So brings out
+only the _evil_ in me. He makes me feel _so_ hateful and mean." Let us
+see, dearie. _The hateful and mean feelings are due to your RESISTING
+that which his influence would bring out of you._ For instance, you were
+late at your appointment with him. Of course you _thought_ you had a
+good excuse; but if promptitude were _one of your strong points_,
+instead of one of your latencies, you would have been on time in spite
+of that excuse--if it were your _habit_ to be on time you'd have swept
+aside a much greater hindrance before you would have allowed yourself to
+be behind time. Now So-and-so is naturally prompt and, having had some
+experience with you he knew you were not; so when, he having arrived
+fifteen minutes ahead of time as it is _his_ nature to do, _you_ came
+tripping in fifteen minutes late--smiling confidingly as you excused
+yourself (he, having spent the half hour in cultivating a grouch at you
+for not being as prompt as himself)--he, of course, looked sulky and
+answered shortly. Then you pouted and finally _worked yourself_ into
+quite a temper over his inconsiderateness and crankiness because of that
+paltry little fifteen minutes he had to wait. He _worked himself_ into a
+temper because you were not on time; you _worked yourself_ into a
+temper because he wasn't "nice." All that working was your
+individual doings.
+
+But it all resulted in your resolving that if ever you had another
+engagement with that man (you'd take good care not to if you could help
+it, though!) you'd be _on time_ if it killed you. Of course you didn't
+tell him so. And _he_ resolved that the next time he made an engagement
+with you he'd know it, but _if_ he did he would make up his mind to be
+_on_ time instead of ahead of time, and he'd not care if you
+_were_ late.
+
+So you see, the Law of Attraction accomplished its divine purpose in
+attracting you two to make that engagement--it waked in you a
+_resolution_ toward promptness; and it waked in him a _resolution_ to be
+_on_ time rather than _before_ time in future, and to be civil if you
+happened to be late--since you are only a woman and can't be expected to
+appreciate the value of promptness!
+
+This is the way all our associations in life work together for good _to
+develop our latencies_, to strengthen our weak points. _The wiser we are
+the less emotion we waste in resenting the developing process--the more
+readily we see the point and take the resolution hinted at._ You see you
+and your friend had had other such experiences as the one described--you
+had been late before when So-and-so condoned the matter and said
+nothing. _He let you off so easily that you never thought of resolving
+not to be late again._ You _felt_ that he had been displeased but you
+depended upon your niceness to make it all right again, and it never
+occurred to you to call yourself to account and _resolve_ that it
+should not happen so again. You were _too heedless_ to take a hint, so
+you had to have a kick.
+
+You may set this down as a rule without exceptions: _That all the kicks
+you get from relatives or friends come after you have ignored repeated
+hints from your own inner consciousness and them_. You have gone on
+excusing yourself _without correcting the fault_ (perhaps without seeing
+it) until the Law of Attraction stopped hinting and administered a kick.
+And if _one_ kick will not cause you to develop that weak point the Law
+of Attraction will bring you other and yet harder kicks on the same
+line. _You will attract_ worse experiences of the same sort.
+
+It is this very law which makes married folks (or other relatives or
+friends) quarrel. Adam refuses Eve's _hints_ about neatness, and Eve
+kicks--harder and harder. Eve refuses Adam's hints and he gets to
+kicking. _It_ ALWAYS _takes two to start the kicking_, AND EITHER ONE
+CAN STOP IT. _A frank acknowledgement of error and a_ RESOLUTION _to
+mend your end of the fault no matter what is done with the other end;
+then a pleasant expression and_ NO MORE WORDS;--this will stop the
+kicking. _And in proportion as you learn to take the_ HINTS _you
+attract, you will cease to attract kicks_.
+
+By all of which I am reminded of that old testament statement that '_the
+Lord hardened the heart of Pharoah_.' The "Lord" or "Lord God" of the
+old testament is what I call the _God in us_, or the Law of Attraction
+in us; and the "God" of the Bible is The Whole--the God _over all_ as
+well as _in the individual_. It is the _God in us_ which attracts to us
+our experiences, _in order to teach us wisdom and knowledge_. Pharoah
+was not _wise_ enough to let those people go, so the God in Moses gave
+him a hint--which he failed to take. Wherefore he attracted a gentle
+kick in the way of a plague. This dashed his ardor a bit and he gave
+permission for the Israelites to go; but he was only _scared_ into doing
+it; and after the plague was called off he was not wise enough to keep
+his word--here was a great lot of valuable slaves which he _could_ keep,
+and why shouldn't he?--his word was easy broken and all's fair in
+business; so _his heart hardened_ and he held the Israelites. So he
+attracted a harder kick; which failed to accomplish its purpose. Kick
+after kick came, each a bit harder than the last; each scaring Pharoah
+for the moment, but _none convincing him_. He still thought it _right_
+to hang onto his slaves if he could, and he had the courage of his
+convictions. A man of such splendid courage seems worthy of a better
+fate. Pharoah had the courage of a Christ, coupled with the ethics of a
+savage, whose only law is his own desire of possession. Because he could
+not take the hint and _see his mistake_, he attracted a series of kicks
+increasing in power until one finally landed him in the Red Sea. Perhaps
+a glimmer of the truth reached him as the waters rolled over. But his
+soul goes marching on and his mistakes are still re-incarnating here
+on earth.
+
+Is Adam kicking, Eve? Take a hint before he kicks harder. Is Eve making
+things warm for you, Adam? Take care you jump not out of the frying pan
+into the fire. Are circumstances plaguing you, Everybody? Take the hint
+lest worse plagues arrive; learn wisdom and avoid the Red Sea.
+
+Be not wise in thine own conceits. _Lean_ not upon thine own
+understanding, but in _all_ thy ways _and thy neighbor's ways_,
+acknowledge that the One Good Spirit leads, and He shall direct thy feet
+in paths of peace and pleasantness.
+
+The proof of foolishness is unrest and friction.
+
+The proof of wisdom is peace.
+
+_Be still and know the Lord thy God, and learn from what He draws to
+thee_.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE HEART OF WOMAN.
+
+"My wife has fallen in love with another man. She keeps house for me and
+I am trying to show her all the love I can but it seems to have no
+effect upon her. I love her dearly and desire to win her back. What
+should be my attitude toward her and toward the man?" A.J. (who is one
+of many who have thus written me.)
+
+Goodness knows! _Be_ good and you will know. In other words, be just to
+all three before you are generous to anybody. Of course that is not easy
+to do, but it is possible; and it is the only thing you can never be
+sorry for afterward.
+
+First, get down to first principles. There are three INDIVIDUALS
+concerned--three separate and complete beings, each with his inherent
+right of choice. Nobody _owns_ anybody else; nobody "owes" anybody else
+anything in the way of "duty." Each individual stands on his or her own
+two feet and makes an effort at least to go where he or she will find
+the most happiness.
+
+Every one of these three Individuals has made mistakes--he or she has
+thought happiness was to be found in this place, or that. He or she has
+made the choice and trotted on his or her two feet to this place or
+that, only to find happiness was not there as he or she supposed. _We
+don't always know what is for our happiness_. But goodness knows!--and
+_all_ our mistakes work together for ultimate happiness.
+
+In the truest sense there are _no_ mistakes; a mistake being simply a
+case where things failed to come out as we calculated. _They came out
+right nevertheless_. That is, they came out right for our enlightenment.
+By them we grew in wisdom and knowledge. Next time our judgment will
+be better.
+
+The wife in this case no doubt thinks just now that her marriage to
+A.J., was "all a terrible mistake." If so she is making another
+"mistake." That is, she is thinking what "ain't so." Whatever
+experiences she has had with A.J. were drawn to her by herself, for her
+own enlightenment and development. They were all _good_.
+
+It _may_ be that she and A.J. have gained from their association all
+there is in it. Doubtless the wife thinks a separation and a new
+marriage would make her supremely happy. May be it would. May be her
+judgment is right this time.
+
+On the other hand it may be wrong, as it has been oft before. Many a
+woman has jumped out of the frying pan of one marriage into the fire
+of another.
+
+_Only time will tell_. If this new love is the "soul mate" she thinks,
+the attraction will be all the stronger and steadier in a year or two
+from now. If he is not the soul mate she thinks him, the attraction
+will wane.
+
+I know women who, under similar conditions, have elected to wait; women
+whose consciences would not allow them to leave a kind husband or young
+children for the sake of gratifying their passion for another man. _I
+have known these same women to despise a year or two later, the men they
+had thought themselves passionately and everlastingly in love with_.
+They have never got over thanking whatever gods there be that they were
+saved from that rash step. I have known _many_ cases of this kind, and
+have received many letters of fervent thanks from both men and women who
+followed my private counsel to _let time prove the new attraction_
+before severing old ties and making new ones.
+
+And I must say that _not one_ who waited but has said to me, "I am
+_glad_ I waited"; _whilst many who did not wait have bitterly
+regretted_.
+
+A love affair is emotional insanity. Lovers are insane; not in fit
+condition to decide their own actions. The state of "falling in love" is
+moon-madness. For the time being the lover's sense of justice, his
+reason, his judgment, is distorted by _reflections from another
+personality_. This is especially so in the woman's case, for the reason
+that she is generally a creature of untrained impulse, instead of
+reasoning will.
+
+There is that recent case of the beautiful and beloved Princess Louise
+who ran away from her royal husband. She thought she loved Monsieur
+Giron so devotedly that she could bear anything for the sake of being
+with him. And surely she was miserable enough in her old environment.
+But when it came to the reality she could not bear the consequences. She
+wanted her children; her proud spirit winced at the snubs she got; she
+longed a little for the old life; and familiarity with her soul mate
+revealed the knowledge that he was not _all_ soul. She flunked miserably
+and went home to her sick child. You see, she was literally love-_sick_.
+Her mind was disordered; a life spent with her soul mate loomed to her
+so large and dazzling that all other things were as nothing. She
+couldn't for the time being see straight. She was literally insane.
+
+If she had only _waited_ until the new wore off her passion! Waited
+until she saw things in their proper proportions and relations to each
+other; until she was _sure_ she could _live the life_ made inevitable by
+her change.
+
+That is the trouble;--love-sick-ness _blinds her to the truth_. When she
+wakes up by _experience_ of the truth, _she wishes she hadn't._
+
+The only safe thing for a woman to do who finds herself married to one
+man and in love with another is to _wait_, a year, or two or three
+years, until time proves her love and _she knows in her heart_ that she
+can make the change and never regret it, no matter what happens. _You
+see, she can NEVER be happy with the new love as long as_ CONSCIENCE OR
+HEART _reproaches her for her treatment of the old love._ It behooves
+her to consider well.
+
+Time will prove the new love. In many such cases times reveals the
+idol's feet of clay. He shows that his love is for _himself_, not for
+her. He pouts and kicks and teases like a petulant child. He wants her
+NOW, no matter how she may suffer in consequence of his haste.
+
+In spite of herself, in spite of her love for the new love, she finds he
+is not panning out as she supposed. She begins to see his other, his
+everyday side--_the side she will have to live with_ if she goes to him.
+
+Now is the husband's chance. She _knows his_ every-day side, from
+experience; she has tried it in weal and woe. If he rises to this
+occasion the Ideal Man, he stands a fair chance of winning from his wife
+a _deeper_ love than she has yet given any man. He may catch her _whole_
+heart in its rebound from the idol with feet of clay.
+
+To a husband in such a position I would say, _Be kind._ "There is
+nothing so kingly as kindness!"--and true kindness under this most
+trying condition will in time win even a recalcitrant wife's admiration
+and love--IF _the two are really mates_. If they are not real mates; if
+they have outgrown their usefulness to each other; the sooner they part
+the better. To hold them together would only be another "mistake."
+
+Because a man and wife were mates five or ten years ago is no proof that
+they are mates today. We are all _growing_, and it is often literally
+true that we "grow away" from people.
+
+_Every loved one who goes out of our lives makes room for a better,
+fuller love--unless we shut ourselves in with our "grief."_
+
+It is said that Robert Louis Stevenson fell in love with the wife of his
+best friend. He told his friend frankly, intending to leave the city.
+His friend questioned the wife and found she reciprocated Stevenson's
+love. Stevenson stayed with his friend in Paris and the wife went to
+her father's home in California. A year later, the attachment between
+his wife and Stevenson still remaining, the friend applied for a
+divorce. Then he and Stevenson journeyed all the way to California
+together, where Stevenson was married to the ex-wife. The ex-husband
+attended the wedding, and that same evening announced his engagement to
+a girl friend of Mrs. Stevenson.
+
+I glory in the friendship of those two men who refused to allow the
+unreasoning caprices of love to sever their love for each other. A
+separation and remarriage like that is a _credit_ to all parties
+concerned. _It is the quarrels and estrangements which are the real
+disgrace_ in cases of separation and remarriage.
+
+John Ruskin was another man too great and too good to resent love's
+going where it is sent. He had married, knowing that her respect and
+admiration but not her _love_, were his, a beautiful and brilliant girl
+much younger than himself. They lived happily a number of years. Then
+Ruskin brought home the painter, Millais, to make a picture of his wife.
+Artist and model fell in love. Ruskin found it out, and refused to allow
+his wife to sacrifice herself for him. He divorced her and gave her to
+Millais, and the three were life-long friends.
+
+If I were a man in such a case as A. J.'s I should treat my wife as I
+would a daughter. I would treat her as an Individual with the right
+of choice.
+
+Many a daughter has rushed headlong into a marriage which her relatives
+opposed and she regretted at leisure.
+
+If someone grabs you by the arm and pulls hard in one direction you are
+forced to pull hard in the opposite direction, or lose your balance and
+fall. If a daughter is pulled away from the man to whom she is
+attracted, her Individuality rebels and she pulls toward him harder than
+she would if let alone. She _chooses_ to follow the attraction which at
+the time is pleasanter than that between herself and her frowning
+relatives.
+
+Remembering this I would _free_ daughter or wife and trust to the God in
+her to work out her highest good. I would _believe_ that whatever she
+chose to do was really for her highest good. If I _really_ loved _her_ I
+would _prefer_ her happiness to my own.
+
+And in it all I should be _deeply_ conscious that whatever is, is best,
+and that _all things worked together for_ MY _best good as well as
+for hers_.
+
+Whatever appearances may show to the shortsighted, the real TRUTH is
+this:--_Justice reigns; the happiness of one person is not bought at the
+expense of another; the law of attraction brings us our own and holds to
+us our own in spite of all its efforts to get away; it never leaves us
+until_, THROUGH SOME CHANGE OR LACK OF CHANGE IN OURSELVES, _it has
+ceased to be our own_.
+
+A man's "mental attitude" toward the other man in such cases as A.J.'s
+should be the same as toward other men--the attitude of real kindness
+toward an Individual who, like the rest of us, is being "as good as he
+knows how to be and as bad as he dare be."
+
+This does not mean that the husband shall allow himself to be used for a
+door mat, nor held up for the ridicule of the neighbors. A sensible
+father expects his daughter to observe the proprieties. The daughter of
+a sensible father is more than willing to meet these expectations. In
+the same way a sensible husband will expect his wife to see no more of
+the lover than "society" permits her to see of any man not related to
+her. No sensible American woman will jeopardize her good name under such
+circumstances. She will control her feelings until she has proved her
+new attraction and been duly released from the old. If a woman will not
+conduct herself in a self-respecting manner the sooner she leaves the
+better for the husband. As for herself, she will learn by experience--as
+Princess Louise did.
+
+Love is the mightiest force in creation. It will not be gainsaid. But it
+can be controlled. To pen it up too completely brings explosion,
+devastation. To give it too free rein means madness with no less
+devastation. To _direct_ it within reasonable limits is the only
+safe way.
+
+It takes a cool head and steadfast heart to meet such emergencies as
+A.J.'s. And eye hath not seen nor ear heard the "Well done" and its
+attendant glory, which enters into the heart and character of the man
+who meets such condition and conquers--_himself_. Not once in a thousand
+lives has a man such opportunity to prove his godship and bless himself
+and the world.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE LAW OF INDIVIDUALITY.
+
+All growth is by _learning_.
+
+All learning comes by the gratification of desire. Truly, experience is
+not only the best teacher, but the _only_ infallible one.
+
+The gratification of desire, good or bad, leaves always one imperishable
+residue of wisdom. The rest of the experience goes with the chaff
+for burning.
+
+Desire points invariably according to the individual's intelligence. In
+proportion as this is faulty his desires are "bad."
+
+What _is_ a bad desire, anyway? In the main "bad" desires are self-made
+or thoughtlessly accepted. Dancing is wicked to a Methodist and "good"
+to an Episcopalian.
+
+But aside from these personal standpoints which are legion there is an
+immutable Law, to which intelligence is conforming all action and
+thought--the Law of Individuality--the Law recognized and expressed by
+Confucius and Jesus in negative and positive forms of the "golden rule";
+"Do not unto others what ye would not they should do unto you."
+
+Interference with the freedom of the individual is "bad"--that is, _it
+invariably brings pain_ to the one who interferes, in thought or deed.
+Listen to this:
+
+"You cannot know anything of the sources or causes of the crisis you are
+judging, for no one who knows will tell you, and you would not know if
+you were told. The depths of elemental immortality, of self-deceit and
+revenge, lie in our eagerness to judge one another, and to force one
+another under the yoke of our judgments. When there is the faith of the
+Son of man in the world, life will be left to make its own judgments.
+The only judgment we have a right to make upon one another is the free
+and truthful living of our own lives." George D. Herron.
+
+This forcing of others, in mind or action, under the yoke of _our_
+judgment is the only possible way we can break a _real_ Law. To be
+_ourselves_ and to leave others free is to "_be good_." Dancing will
+come and go, and come again; so will fashions of all kinds;
+conventionalities and creeds; but this Law remains an eternal chalk line
+to be toed. And eternal torments await him who does not toe it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Take the case of a man who desires to "run away" with another man's
+wife. The one immutable Law of Individuality says _no man owns a wife_.
+Instead of this being a problem with two men and one man's property as
+factors, it is a case of _three individuals_ with god-given rights of
+individual choice. You have heard it said that "_where two are agreed_
+as touching anything it shall be done unto them." It takes two to make,
+or to keep made, a bargain. No matter what hallucinations in regard to
+ownership any man may labor under, _he does not_ own a wife. He has no
+more "rights" over one woman than over another, or over another man,
+except as the _woman herself gives_ him the right and _keeps on_ giving
+it to him.
+
+The Law of Individuality is absolute, and in due time husbands will know
+better than to imagine they own wives; wives will know better than to be
+owned; and the other man will not imagine he can gain great pleasure
+from "running away" with anything. Each will be free and leave the
+others so.
+
+But "as a man thinketh in his heart so is he." Until a man _recognizes_
+the Law of Individuality his actions are governed by the Law he _does_
+recognize, and his desires act accordingly. When he desires to "run
+away" with anything his _conscience_ tells him he is stealing. If desire
+is strong enough he steals a wife, and eventually suffers for it. For,
+though he may not have broken a real law, he _has_ broken an imagined
+one and in his _own mind_ he deserves punishment and in his own mind he
+gets it. "As a man thinketh so _is_ he," and what he is _determines what
+he attracts_.
+
+Never was a deeper, truer saying than Paul's "BLESSED is the man that
+_doubteth not_ in that thing which he alloweth." The man who _waits_,
+until he is "_fully persuaded_ in his own mind" will be blessed in
+following desire, and he will grow in wisdom thereby.
+
+The man who _thinks_ his desire is "bad" and yet follows it, will grow
+in wisdom _by the scourging he gets_. He has transgressed _his
+conception_ of the One Law and suffers in getting back to _at-one-ment_.
+
+In either case he _grows in wisdom_ and eventually he will desire only
+in accordance with the One Law of Individual Choice.
+
+There is no question of "ought" about it. The individual is free to
+follow desire or to crucify it. And the fact is, _he follows desire when
+he crucifies it_. He _desires_ to crucify desire, because he _is afraid_
+to gratify it.
+
+The man who is not afraid follows desire and grows fast _in wisdom and
+in knowledge_. He may make mistakes and suffer all sorts of agonies as a
+result. But he learns from his misses as well as from his hits, and he
+progresses.
+
+The man who is afraid to follow desire crucifies _his life_ and stunts
+his growth.
+
+It were better for the individual to follow his desire and afterward
+repent, than to crush his desires and repent for a lifetime under the
+false impression that the universe unjustly gives to another that which
+should have belonged to him.
+
+There is just one kind of growth--_growth in wisdom._ We hear of
+children "who grow up in ignorance." We likewise hear that the earth is
+square and the moon a green cheese. Children can no more grow in
+ignorance than they can grow in a dark and air-tight case. _All_ growth,
+mental, moral, spiritual or "physical," is by increase in in-telligence;
+i.e., by _recognition_ of more truth. All things exist in a limitless
+sea of pure wisdom waiting, waiting _to be understood_. As fast as this
+universal wisdom is used it becomes _in-told--_intelligence--
+_recognized_ wisdom. We _breathe in wisdom_ and grow in intelligence.
+_All_ growth, mineral, plant, animal, man or god, conscious or
+unconscious--ALL growth is by this process. It is DESIRE that makes us
+breathe. Everything cries out for more, _more!--it_ cannot define always
+_what_ it wants, but it _wants,_ with insatiable craving. It is _more
+wisdom_ the whole creation groaneth and travaileth to get. "Give me more
+understanding or I die!"--the visible eternally cries out to the
+Invisible. Desire is the ceaseless life-urge of all things, from amoeba
+to archangel. Desire is "Immanuer'--_God with us_--God _in_ us to will
+and to do."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+HARMONY AT HOME.
+
+"I have recently married for the second time. My husband is a splendid
+man but his grown up children are not in harmony with me. Good people,
+but a different point of view. I make no pretensions to perfection, of
+course, but I do try to do the best lean."
+
+This is the gist of several letters I have received from as many
+different women. I will answer them together.
+
+When you enter a new home the matter of importance is _not_ whether your
+new relatives harmonize with you, but whether _you_ harmonize with
+_them_. It is for _you_ to do _all_ the adjusting.
+
+This may seem hard, but it is not. It is an easier matter for one person
+to readjust her living than for a whole family to change. The family has
+not only its individual customs to hold each one, but its family customs
+as well; whilst you have left your family and have only your individual
+self to readjust. If you refuse to adjust yourself, for no matter what
+reason, you will act upon this family you have entered, as a red hot
+iron would act upon a pan of water--there'll be boil and bubble, toil
+and trouble and the family will fly to pieces. All because you came in
+with _positive_ notions of your own which you insist upon enforcing.
+
+But if you come into the family like a lump of sugar into a glass of
+water you will all, _in time_ melt together and the whole family will be
+the sweeter and better for your coming. Whatever there is in you which
+is better and sweeter than their own ideas and customs will in time be
+_absorbed_ by the family; for what is good is ever positive to the less
+good, and has a power of its own to convert; and every human soul, if
+left free, will eventually _choose_ the good.
+
+The only danger lies in your tilting your nose at _their_ ways and
+ideas, and insisting upon your own. That rouses the sense of
+_individuality_ in them and they then fight for _their_ ways and
+ideas--then there's boil and bubble and sputter and flying apart.
+
+Learn to vibrate _with_ people where you can and keep still when you
+can't. _Look_ for the little things you can enjoy together, and make
+light of the others. Recognize their _right_ to differ from you, and
+REMEMBER that "_all_ judgment is of God"--_their_ judgment as well
+as _yours_.
+
+All this differing of judgment among the people of earth is simply _God
+reasoning out things_. All the brains God has are your brains and mine.
+Just as in your brain you reason things for and against, wondering which
+is right and waiting for time and experience to decide; so God reasons
+one way through _your_ brain and another and opposite way through _my_
+brain, and then rests and observes until the "logic of events" shall
+show _him_, and us, the point of real harmony. Just be still and _let_
+God think through your brain, and don't kick up a muss because he thinks
+out the other side of things through my brain, or your new
+relatives' brains.
+
+Toleration is a great thing; but loving _willingness_ to _let_ God think
+out _all_ sides of a question through all sorts of brains, is a glorious
+thing. Let's stand for our point of view when it is called for, but
+don't let's insist upon it. Let's remember always to use God's "still,
+small voice."
+
+Do I need to tell you that what I have just said applies to you whether
+you have just married a second time or not? The whole world is our
+family, you know. Let's respect it and be kind to it, and _trust_ it to
+recognize and appropriate our point of view just as far as is good for
+it. Let's be more interested in getting at the _other_ points of view
+than insisting upon our own. That is the way we shall grow in wisdom and
+knowledge. And, too, that is the way we shall all get close enough
+together to really see the truth about things.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+A MYSTERY.
+
+"I desire to come face to face with the person or persons who are
+controlling and influencing my husband against his home and children and
+myself. He has been estranged from us all for several years, although
+sleeping under the same roof. Once I can find out the person or cause of
+his actions I can remove the effect, for I shall know just what to do. I
+want to solve the mystery."
+
+The chances are you will never find that out, and if you did it would
+do you absolutely no good. Your husband is no dumb fool to be
+"influenced" this way or that by two women! He is a man with ideas of
+his own. If he was disappointed in you as wife, he has possibly turned
+to some other woman. If so the more you pry and suspect and hint around,
+the more positively he will turn away from you. If you "found out" and
+made things warm for him or another he would simply hate and despise you
+and be the harder set against you. This is the Law.
+
+The thing for you to do is to recognize your husband's RIGHT to make and
+answer for his own mistakes. Then drop the whole thing from your mind
+and calculations.
+
+Then treat your husband as you would any man who came to visit you. Make
+yourself as attractive and cultured and agreeable as possible, and look
+out for his comfort, but never get in his way nor question his doings.
+Stand square up on your own feet and be as fine a woman as you know how
+to be--as gracious a one. If he does love some other woman it may be but
+a temporary infatuation and if you are attractive and kind and sensible
+and independent enough he may return to his first love in his own
+good time.
+
+If not, why, no matter. Just you get interested in life on your own
+account and let him do as he will. If he does care for another woman he
+deserves credit for not deserting you, as many a man would have done.
+Just respect and honor him for the good that is in him, instead of
+condemning him mentally because the good does not show just according to
+your ideas of how it should.
+
+Love does not stay put, no matter how hard folks try to keep it put.
+All we can do is to be as lovable as possible and thus do our part to
+_attract_ love.
+
+It may be that you are simply a sentimental goose who imagines her
+husband is "influenced" away from her, because, forsooth, he does not
+pay her the attentions he used to.
+
+I was once that kind of a goose myself, and it widened a breach that did
+not then exist except in my mind; widened it until at last it became a
+real breach--my husband went elsewhere for his companionship. I was too
+morbid and finicky and exacting for a healthy man.
+
+Just as the husband of the woman in "Confessions of a Wife," in
+_Century_ did. I read that serial each month and feel like shaking that
+little simpleton!--she is just the kind of a sentimental hair-splitting
+little idiot that I used to be! Instead of getting at her husband's
+point of view and enjoying _with_ him, at least sometimes, she insists
+on acting the martyr because he will not dawdle around and gush at
+her feet.
+
+Whatever is the cause of your trouble the only cure for it is
+Common-Sense. Live your own life, cheerily, happily, and enter into your
+husband's life so far as you can. Take all the good things that come
+your way and rejoice in them, but don't moon around and fuss because you
+can't have the sort of love-life described in some sentimental novel.
+Your business in life is to LOVE, not to _be_ loved. The latter is a
+secondary matter and the first is the thing that brings happiness to
+you. Go in to win now, and you can develop within yourself the full Life
+that you really desire. All you desire is yours and you will realize it
+in due time. But every moment you set your thought on straightening out
+Some Other body's life you are delaying your own realization and
+happiness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE FAMILY JAR.
+
+"If a man and woman love each other and are every way suited to marry
+should they yield to the opposition of his grown daughter?" M.A.
+
+This question in varying forms comes to me often. It always stirs within
+me something I used to call "righteous indignation." And incidentally it
+makes me smile. Translate the question into Plain English and anybody
+can answer it without hesitancy. Put it this way: When two Individuals
+know what they want and the whole world approves, should they go away
+back and sit down because a third Individual tries to interfere with
+their inherent right to the pursuit of happiness?
+
+Of course _not_. A man or woman old enough to have a grown daughter is
+old enough to know whether he wants to marry again. Not even the most
+precocious daughter is a better judge than her father as to what is best
+for his own happiness.
+
+Ah, there's the rub! It is not _his_ happiness she is concerned about.
+It is her own. A new marriage would interfere with the daughter's plans.
+She would have to give the chief place to the new wife. She would have
+to give up a share of the prospective inheritance she has more or less
+consciously been counting upon. So she opposes her father's re-marrying.
+
+But apparently not on these grounds--dear, no! Her father is "too old,"
+or "too weakly," or the intended wife is "not nice." The daughter
+conjures up a dozen excuses, but never the _real_ one; of which she is
+not fully conscious herself,--and _doesn't want to be_.
+
+The parent's "duty" to children is great; far greater than the child's
+duty to parent; but parental self-sacrifice should certainly _not_ be
+continued for life. A grown daughter is an Individual, who should stand
+on her own feet and make her own happiness _without_ curtailing the
+happiness of parents.
+
+Let her leave her father to a renewal of youth and happiness; or let her
+gracefully and kindly accept her rightful second place and use her
+loving energies in helping to make bright the home.
+
+A sensible, well trained, loving daughter will do one of these two
+things.
+
+A sensible, well trained, loving parent will consider his daughter's
+feelings and will do all he can to gain her _willingness_ before he
+marries; but he will not make a lasting sacrifice of his own and the
+other woman's happiness simply to please a selfish girl.
+
+If daughter and parent are not sensible, well trained and loving, it
+will be a case of frying pan or fire either way.
+
+The recognition of individual rights to the pursuit of happiness
+according to individual desire, is the only basis of happiness in family
+relations.
+
+The daughter who _helps_ her father do as he desires will find _him_
+ready to help _her_ do as _she_ desires. And _vice versa_.
+
+The daughter who "opposes" her father's marriage is quite apt to be the
+daughter who has _been opposed by her father_; he reaps as he has sown.
+Or else she is the daughter who has been brought up with the idea that
+parents are a mere convenience for her use.
+
+The way out of the Family Jar is often labyrinthine; but the Loving
+Individual can always thread it.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE TRUTH ABOUT DIVORCE.
+
+In January _Psychic and Occult Views and Reviews_ the editor, M.T.C.
+Wing, presents a view of "Wives and Work" which is anything but an
+_occult_ view of the subject. He evidently still clings to the old
+notion that man was made for the family, and not the family for man. He
+inveighs against George D. Herron and Elbert Hubbard _et al_ because
+they permitted themselves to be separated from their wives. Apparently
+he thinks the chief end of man is to tote some woman around on a chip,
+and the fact that in his callow youth man picked out (or was picked out
+by) the wrong woman, cuts no figure in the matter. Man must keep on
+toting her even if he has to give up his life work by which he has been
+enabled to supply the chip, not to mention the other things the
+woman demands.
+
+All of which is the very superficial view of the world at large, and
+has no place among new thought, "occult" teachings. It is entirely too
+obvious--to the old-fashioned sentimentalist, who is blind to the real
+facts in cases of separation.
+
+The sentimentalist gets just two views of the family, and draws his
+hasty conclusions therefrom. He sees first a happy family, a charming,
+clinging little simpleton of a wife, with half a dozen or so infants
+clinging to her skirts and bosom, and her round eyes lifted in adorable
+helplessness to the face of that great, strong lord and master, her
+husband. In his second view of the family he beholds this strong man
+turn his back upon this adoring family and walk deliberately forth to
+self-gratification, leaving them to perish from hunger and grief. Fired
+with these pretty and entirely fanciful pictures the superficial
+observer burns with indignation and calls down anathema upon the head of
+the deserter.
+
+The fact is that _no_ man ever deserts a family under such conditions.
+There is always a long period of disintegration before any family goes
+to pieces--a period of which _both_ man and wife are well aware. When a
+separation comes it is _really_ a relief to _both_ parties. The only
+real pain in such cases comes from the spirit of _revenge_, or a desire
+on the part of one or the other to pose as injured innocence, that she
+or he may rake in the sympathy and fire the indignation of just such
+uninformed friends as M.T.C. Wing.
+
+I have known a lot of people who separated--known them intimately and
+observed them well. In not one of these cases did the deserted party
+claim to _love_ the deserter. In all there was a real _relief_ when it
+was all over. In every case the one thing which had held them together
+so long was _fear of disgrace_. "Oh, _what_ will people think of
+me?"--is the first cry of everybody--especially women. It was _that_
+which made the deserted one unhappy and resentful. It is that which
+makes many women pose as injured innocents and rate the deserter as a
+villain. And all the time _in secret_ they are glad, _glad_ that they
+are relieved of the burden of living with an uncongenial husband
+or wife.
+
+Of course there are other reasons why women hate to be left by their
+husbands. One is that their support is apt to go with the deserter.
+
+Public opinion keeps many a family in the same house years after it
+really _knows_ it is separated widely as the poles.
+
+The dread of having to take care of herself keeps many a woman hanging
+like grim death to a man she knows she does not love, and who
+despises her.
+
+The fear of public opinion and the love, not of money, but of _ease_,
+holds together under one roof tens of thousands of families who have
+been _occultly_ and really separated for years.
+
+A man is held by the same sentimental notion that M.T.C. Wing has--that
+he must "protect" the woman. So he stays in hell to do it. He _has_ to
+stay in hell _until she gets out_.
+
+In almost every one of these separation cases it is the woman and _not_
+the man, who gives the signal. In George D. Herron's case the wife
+offered to take a certain sum of money and release him from supporting
+her. He met her conditions--and bore all the odium like a man. To her
+credit be it said she did not pose as an injured woman. I know nothing
+about Elbert Hubbard's case, but I venture to say that if he and his
+wife are separated that _she_ was the one who did the leaving act.
+
+We hear a lot about the "Biblical reason" for divorce; but I say unto
+you that infidelity is no reason at all for divorce. The one just cause
+for separation is _incompatibility of temper_.
+
+A man is an Individual; a woman is another Individual; and neither can
+make himself or herself over to please the other.
+
+When two people from lack of similar ideals and aims cannot _pull
+together_ the quicker they pull apart the better it will be for
+them--and the children, too.
+
+I know well a couple who lived together long enough to have grown
+children. For nearly a score of years they pulled like a pair of balky
+horses--what time they were not doing the monkey and parrot act. The
+husband stayed out nights and tippled. The wife sat at home and felt
+virtuous. Finally the woman worked up spunk enough to do what she had
+been dying to do for years. She packed up and left. Now she is happily
+married to a man she can pull _with_, And he is married to another woman
+who pulls with him. She has quit feeling virtuous and he has quit
+tippling. They are both prospering financially. The children have _two_
+pleasant homes, and more educational and other advantages than they ever
+dared hope for. Everyone of the family is _glad_ of that separation.
+
+The family is an institution of man's own making. It is a good and
+glorious thing so long as it serves to increase the happiness and health
+of its members. But whenever the family institution has to be maintained
+at the expense of the life, liberty or happiness of its members it is
+time to lay that particular institution on the shelf.
+
+What God does not hold together by LOVE let not man try to paste
+together by law.
+
+One great cause of the increase of divorces is the financial
+emancipation of woman. Women can now get out and take care of
+themselves, where a few years ago they had to grin and bear it; or bear
+it without grinning.
+
+If the new thought means anything, Brother Wing, it means that every
+individual man or woman, has the RIGHT to life, liberty and the pursuit
+of happiness wherever and with whom he chooses to seek it, so long as he
+or she does not attempt to abridge the same rights for others. It means
+that a woman is as much an Individual as a man, and must stand or fall,
+hold her husband or lose him, _on her own merits_. The new thought deals
+with Individuals regardless of sex.
+
+Marriage is a partnership, subject in the eyes of Justice to the same
+rules which govern other partnerships. Let us be just to the deserter,
+be he man or woman, before we are sentimentally generous to
+the deserted.
+
+And don't let us be _too_ sure that we know all the facts in these
+separation cases. It is human nature to fix up outward appearances for
+the benefit of the passer-by.
+
+Seek rather to _understand_. Condemn not.
+
+Has any one told you it is lucky to be married?
+
+I hasten to inform you it is just as lucky to be divorced, and I know
+it.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE OLD, OLD STORY.
+
+This is the springtime, when fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love and
+everybody wants to go a-soul-mating. Consequently my mail is leavened
+with letters from those who are unhappily married but who are sure they
+have got their eye on the One who from the foundation of the ion was
+intended for them. They all want to leave the old mis-mate and go to the
+new found soul mate, and they all want my advice and encouragement--to
+do it! Some of these writers have already left their husbands (?) and
+want to know whether or not they should go back, or go on. To one such I
+wrote the following letter, which I publish in the hope that it will
+help others to find and follow _themselves_. Here is the letter:
+
+One thing at a time! Get off with the old love before you go fretting
+about a new one! Don't you think you are a silly girl to ask _anybody's_
+advice as to whether or not you are to go back to your so-called
+husband? If _I_ know what _you_ ought to do I don't see what _you_ are
+worth to yourself or the universe. The truth is that YOU are the only
+person in creation who can make that decision. If you don't yet _know_
+that you have a right to make your own life as you see fit; if you don't
+yet _know_ whether or not you could go back to him; then _be still_
+until you _do_ know.
+
+You know things today that you did not know yesterday, and tomorrow you
+will know things you "can't decide about" today. So attend strictly to
+business and keep still, and stiller yet, until you KNOW what is best
+to do.
+
+Then DO it.
+
+So much for the old love. As to the new one, not even _you_ can know
+for certain whether that other man would pan out the soul mate you now
+imagine him. But the Law of Love, or Attraction, will _prove_ whether or
+not he is what you think. _Your Own_ will come to you, and all creation
+can't hinder it--IF you keep that man was NOT what I longed for, a real
+comrade; sweet and cool, and free in your own mind, and make the best of
+THIS day as it comes along.
+
+Ages ago I had a similar experience to yours. I found the only and
+original one intended for me. But I was tied to another man--NOT by a
+ceremony, for that ties nobody, but by my own conscience, which
+compelled me to "stand by" the man I thought "needed" me. So I stood,
+though I thought my heart was broken. In a few years I found that my
+soul mate was no mate at all!--I wouldn't have had him as a gracious
+gift! I felt like Ben Franklin who, as a barefooted boy, resolved that
+when he grew up and had pennies he would buy a stick of red striped
+peppermint candy; but when he grew up and had the pennies he didn't want
+the candy.
+
+I have learned to smile at that experience as the bitterest and sweetest
+of my past life, and the source of volumes of wisdom. The _Law of
+Attraction knew_ and the Law kept him from me. I afterward found the
+real comrade, and _more_ than the joy I thought I had forever missed!
+
+"We are pretty silly children, dearie, without the child's best quality,
+TRUST."
+
+Just you _let go_ of everything and everybody and apply yourself to
+doing THIS hour, with _love_, what your _hands_ find to do; and trust
+the Law to bring you in due time ALL the good things you ever desired.
+
+ACCEPT what comes as _from_ the Law; meet it kindly and do your best.
+
+The time came when I left my husband and secured a divorce. This may be
+your time to leave, or it may not. But NO one can know but yourself, and
+you will know as soon as you really _want_ to know what is RIGHT, and
+get quiet enough to find the decision _about which you have no doubt_.
+"BLESSED is he that _doubteth_ not in that thing which he alloweth." "He
+that doubteth is _damned already_." When you are _sure_, then go ahead;
+and the whole universe, seen and unseen, will work together for you
+and with you.
+
+What is it that ties you to one man and not to another? Not the words of
+a priest or a justice of the peace. It is _your thought_ about the
+matter, and _his_ thought about the matter, which ties you. You may not
+have thought you were tied until the preacher told you; but not his
+words but _your acceptance_ does the real tying.
+
+If you are ever freed from a husband you must _think_ yourself
+free--just as you must think yourself free from any other bondage. I
+thought myself free several years before I applied for a legal
+separation; so that when I did apply it was to me merely a technicality.
+
+Divorce or no divorce you are _tied_ to a man until you think yourself
+untied.
+
+Be still and find your mental freedom. Then you will know what to do.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A year after I wrote the above letter to a young woman who wanted to
+leave her husband and go to her "soul mate," I received from her another
+letter in which she thanked me from her heart for my letter, which, she
+said, had saved her from a terrible mistake. She had let time try the
+new love; who was found sadly wanting. More than that she had come to
+love and respect her husband as never before. Many others, both men and
+women, have written me to the same effect.
+
+Can you learn from the experiences of others--learn _caution_ at least?
+I hope so. Be _sure_ you are right before you resort to separation.
+
+In the meantime make it the aspiration and business of your life to know
+_that_ ALL _things are_ NOW _working for good to you and your mate, and
+all you hold in common_.
+
+Keep sweet, dearie, and _let_ them work--at least until you know exactly
+_what_ to do, and _how_ to do it; and can feel _sure_ in your heart of
+hearts that, _whatever the consequences_, you will never regret
+your action.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Happiness and Marriage, by Elizabeth (Jones) Towne
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10063 ***