And yet just such wails arise heavenward every day in the year from literally thousands of bleeding spirits.
CIII. I do not envy the feelings of those guilty of breaking up love-matches, or tyrannically ordering what shall or shall not he. If there is a hell, hereafter, it seems to me that all such ought to go there, at least tor a summering, if no longer; yet there are those who ruthlessly destroy others' happiness, because they have the power.
"My wife was not my wife, but always her mother's daughter!" has been the story ever since mothers-in-law came in fashion; and it is my opinion that more families have been "smashed into smithereens," to emote a Hibernicism, by that awful power, than perhaps any other single cause in the list, yet they think they do no harm; forcibly reminding one of the "Moral man" of the Russian poet, NEKRASOF:—
"A strictly moral man have I been ever,
And never injured anybody—never.
"I lent my friend a sum of money he could not pay,
I jogged his memory in a friendly way,—
Then took the law of him the affair to end;
The law to prison sent my worthy friend.
He died there—not a farthing for poor me!
I am not angry, though I've cause to be.
His debt that very moment I forgave,
And shed sad tears of sorrow o'er his grave.
A strictly moral man have I been ever,
And never injured anybody—never.
"I sent my slave to learn the art of dressing
Meat—he succeeded—a good cook's a blessing;
But he, too, oft would leave his occupation,
And gained a taste not suited to his station.
He liked to read, to reason, and discuss;
I, tired of scolding, without further fuss,
Had the rogue Hogged—all for the love of him;
He went and drowned himself—'twas a strange whim.
A strictly moral man have I been ever,
And never injured anybody—never.
