Page:Love and its hidden history.djvu/124

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
118
love and its hidden history.

the "professors," and places where the dreadful crime is done; and legislators permit it. Shame on them! Now, abortion is rank murder, no matter who commits it! and I think hanging too good for the " professors; " and that a woman who does it is a fool and criminal, — for, just as sure as God lives, the consequences will cling to her for ages in the great hereafter. I believe "prevention" by drugs, washes, and all such means, very poisonous and pernicious. There is but one legitimate method by which wives can evade maternity, and that method is found in the element of time. Seed will not grow if the soil be not prepared for it. But I hold it wrong to resort to even this, for all human souls are a gain to the world and God.

But what is an unloved wife to do? I reply, first, seek to gain physical health by legitimate means, and then apply yourself to the not difficult task of winning your husband's love. And to these latter I say the same. It would be an insult to the intelligence of either for me to describe the methods of doing this; but I beg you to take notice that:—

I. Love between the sexes is something more than a sentiment. While embodied it depends upon the magnetic congeniality of the parties. If there be a full and reciprocal play therein, then a state of happiness exists. If not, then not. If one party loses this magnetic attraction power, love dies. Married people can always be told from what are called lovers. The former look from, the latter to, each other. One party has the jewel, and don't care anything about it; the other hasn't, and does. Why? Because they have lost magnetic power. To regain it, stop fretting, cease borrowing trouble, breathe deeply, bathe often, exercise much, and all the body, cultivate cheerfulness and health, eat, drink, sleep well, — on hard bed, head to the north; retire and rise early, and continually place the mind on the idea of regaining magnetic force. This will bring it. Use it wisely.

II. Will is feeble in most people. Cultivate it by thinking determinedly of one thing only at a time, to the total exclusion of everything else. It will grow. Then you can powerfully, holily, purely, use it to direct and impress the resistless magnetic power upon him you love, and whom you would retain and wear. Failure is impossible! The author of "Ravalette," who travelled in Syria, Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey, in 1861-62, made marriage and