Page:Love and its hidden history.djvu/120

 {{block center|{{gap|10em}} Never yet  Knew I a whole, true man, of Jove-like port,  But in his heart of hearts there lived and reigned  A very woman, — sensitive and quick  To teaeh him tears and laughter, born of toys  That meaner souls may mock at. If a man  Include not thus a woman, he is less,  I hold, than man. }}

Men, and women too, are seldom happily married. What promised to be a heaven often turns out a near approach to the opposite institution, or condition. The cause of some of the trouble is clear and plain. Let this be made clear; and for this particular view of this especial item, I am indebted to an old acquaintance — a lady of vast experience, a keen observer, and the amount of whose brain might well shame thousands of the so-called great, who have reaped lustrous laurels, and grasped the keys of fame, upon less than half of her cerebral capital. I shall give her idea in my own words, and I think her statement not only true and valuable, but that her peculiar view is one of the most important pertaining to Love and its Hidden History. It is a well-known fact, that by the constant use of one organ we draw to it much more than its share of vitality. By the loss of sight the hearing and touch become substitutes for the eyes. The same fact is likewise true, in one sense, of other parts of the human economy, for all victims of youthful error succeed in displacing the pelvic nervous centres, or special seat of nervous sensation, from their normal localities to other and more external positions, the consequence of which, is that a chronic numbness, electric insulation, takes place, and finally the nerves of sensation become effectually paralyzed to a greater or less extent. Of course, ruin and disappointment, disease and despair, are the legitimate consequences that follow. Such victims are indeed pitiable. The true and legitimate intent of what is here meant by the term actual marriage can only be realized by healthy souls in healthy bodies, inspired by healthy love, fitness, respect, tenderness, and reciprocalness, all of which must conjoin ere the actual dream of bliss can pass into an experience. Under all other conditions it is sacrilege, counterfeit, fatal waste, and nervous exhaustion, and is actually but another form of self-pollution, rapidly depletive of magnetic and vital force to all concerned; and for