Page:Randolph, Paschal Beverly; Eulis! the history of love.djvu/160

Rh he who finds a woman worth seducing, and does it, should, by that act alone, he compelled to maintain and acknowledge her as a lawful wife, unless she sees fit to waive her undoubted right to claim and hold him as a husband. The fad that a man has done such an act should in law bar him from marriage with any other woman. Such is the way in which I look at it; and if society would but adopt the idea there would be fewer libertines, and some millions less of ruined girls and forlorn prostitutes.

She who robs a woman of her husband; or he who ruins a confiding girl merits a season in Tophet, and if I were Brahm would get it—sure!

CXLIII. The more familiarities a single woman permits a man to take, the more he is sure to undervalue her, and the less she respects and honors him. It is natural for him to despise one who allows too great freedoms. So also within the sacred pale of wedlock: the very first immodesty on either side blunts the edge, takes the bloom from the peach, lessens them in their own and each other's eyes, and is the beginning of folly which often ends in the divorce courts, the brothel, bagnio, or the grave! Modesty and circumspection build up tottering loves. Their opposites bring disrespect and finally dissolution. I say these things here, because I have long known them to be true.

What a pleasant thing it must be to a sensible and sensitive woman to have, whenever her heart prompts her to express affection—her better half meet her with a storm of coarse and disgusting passion,—the base idea of which must be perfectly withering to her soul. Poor She!—one of thousands!—how ardently must she long for death, and dread even heaven itself, if there is marrying and giving in marriage away over in the upper Land! Amd how such a woman must try to be a Budhist and long for nihility rather than continued life. But then such states are begotten of her—their, deep unrest, causing them to long—as have I ere now—for whole eternities of sweet and restful sleep. But then women capable of such yearnings are immortal; will survive death, and, let us believe—their longings will be appeased, their pangs assuaged over there where it is certain they, like myself, will at last be