Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/377

Rh beauty. Am I unjust? Is it the glitter of the drawing-room and the chandelier which bewilders me?

One observation I considered as well founded. Artifice and vanity exercise no less power over our sex in this country than they do in the great cities of Europe, and far more than in our good Sweden. Some proofs of this fact have almost confounded me. The luxurious habits and passion for pleasure of young married ladies have not unfrequently driven their husbands to despair and to drunkenness. I once heard a young and handsome lady say, “I think that ladies, after they are married, are too little among gentlemen. When I go to a ball I always make it a duty to forget my children.”

A scandalous law-suit is now pending here between a young couple who have been married a few years. It was a most magnificent wedding; the establishment, furniture, everything was as expensive and splendid as possible. It was all silk, and velvet, and jewels. Soon, however, discord arose between the married pair, in consequence, it is said, of the young wife's obstinacy in rouging against the wish of her husband. Her vain and foolish mother appears to have taken the side of the daughter against the husband, and now the two are parted, and a correspondence is published which redounds to the honour of none of the family.

On the other hand, the besetting sins of the men in the Great West, are gambling and drunkenness; all may be summed up in that style of living which is called recklessness.

“For what do people marry here in the West ; for love or for money?” inquired I of an elderly, clever, and intellectual gentleman, one of my friends.

“For money,” replied he, shortly.

His wife objected to that severe judgment; but he would not retract it, and she was obliged to concede