The Decision[1]
"I hear Belle," said Jeanette Roland[2] addressing her cousin Belle
Gordon, "that you have refused an excellent offer of marriage."
"Who said so?"
"Aunt Emma."
"I am very sorry that Ma told you, I think such things should be kept
sacred from comment, and I think the woman is wanting in refinement and
delicacy of feeling who makes the rejection of a lover a theme for
conversation."
"Now you dear little prude I had no idea that you would take it so
seriously but Aunt Emma was so disappointed and spoke of the rejected
suitor in such glowing terms, and said that you had sacrificed a
splendid opportunity because of some squeamish notions on the subject of
temperance, and so of course, my dear cousin, it was just like me to let
my curiosity overstep the bounds of prudence, and inquire why you
rejected Mr. Romaine."[3]
"Because I could not trust him."
"Couldn't trust him? Why Belle you are a greater enigma than ever. Why
not?"
"Because I feel that the hands of a moderate drinker are not steady
enough to hold my future happiness."
"Was that all? Why I breathe again, we girls would have to refuse almost
every young man in our set, were we to take that stand."
"And suppose you were, would that be any greater misfortune than to be
the wives of drunkards."
"I don't see the least danger. Ma has wine at her entertainments, and I
have often handed it to young gentlemen, and I don't see the least harm
in it. On last New Year's day we had more than fifty callers. Ma and I
handed wine, to every one of them." "Oh I do wish people would abandon
that pernicious custom of handing around wine on New Year's day. I do
think it is a dangerous and reprehensible thing."
"Wherein lies the danger? Of course I do not approve of young men
drinking in bar rooms and saloons, but I cannot see any harm in handing
round wine at social gatherings. Not to do so would seem so odd."
"It is said Jeanette[,?] 'He is a slave who does not be, in the right
with two or three.' It is better, wiser far to stand alone in our
integrity than to join with the multitude in doing wrong. You say while
you do not approve of young men drinking in bar rooms and saloons, that
you have no objection to their drinking beneath the shadow of their
homes, why do you object to their drinking in saloons, and bar rooms?"
"Because it is vulgar. Oh! I think these bar rooms are horrid places. I
would walk squares out of my way to keep from passing them." "And I
object to intemperance not simply because I think it is vulgar but
because I know it is wicked; and Jeanette I have a young brother for
whose welfare I am constantly trembling; but I am not afraid that he
will take his first glass of wine in a fashionable saloon, or flashy gin
palace, but I do dread his entrance into what you call 'our set.' I fear
that my brother has received as an inheritance a temperament which will
be easily excited by stimulants, that an appetite for liquor once a
awakened will be hard to subdue, and I am so fearful, that at some
social gathering, a thoughtless girl will hand him a glass of wine, and
that the first glass will be like adding fuel to a smouldering fire."
"Oh Belle do stop, what a train of horrors you can conjure out of an
innocent glass of wine."
"Anything can be innocent that sparkles to betray, that charms at first,
but later will bite like an adder and sting like a serpent."
"Really! Belle, if you keep on at this rate you will be a monomaniac on
the temperance question. However I do not think Mr. Romaine will feel
highly complimented to know that you refused him because you dreaded he
might become a drunkard. You surely did not tell him so."
"Yes I did, and I do not think that I would have been a true friend to
him, had I not done so."
"Oh! Belle, I never could have had the courage to have told him so."
"Why not?"
"I would have dreaded hurting his feelings. Were you not afraid of
offending him?"
"I certainly shrank from the pain which I knew I must inflict, but
because I valued his welfare more than my own feelings, I was
constrained to be faithful to him. I told him that he was drifting where
he ought steer, that instead of holding the helm and rudder of his
young life, he was floating down the stream, and unless he stood firmly
on the side of temperance, that I never would clasp hands will him for
life."
"But Belle, perhaps you have done him more harm than good; may be you
could have effected his reformation by consenting to marrying him."
"Jeanette, were I the wife of a drunken man I do not think there is any
depth of degradation that I would not fathom with my love and pity in
trying to save him. I believe I would cling to him, if even his own
mother shrank from him. But I never would consent to [marry any man?],
whom I knew to be un[?]steady in his principles and a moderate drinker.
If his love for me and respect for himself were not strong enough to
reform him before marriage, I should despair of effecting it afterwards,
and with me in such a case discretion would be the better part of
valor."
"And so you have given Mr. Romaine a release?"
"Yes, he is free."
"And I think you have thrown away a splendid opportunity."
"I don't think so, the risk was too perilous. Oh Jeanette, I know by
mournful and bitter experience what it means to dwell beneath the shadow
of a home cursed by intemperance. I know what it is to see that shadow
deepen into the darkness of a drunkard's grave, and I dare not run the
fearful risk."
"And yet Belle this has cost you a great deal, I can see it in the
wanness of your face, in your eyes which in spite of yourself, are
filled with sudden tears, I know from the intonations of your voice that
you are suffering intensely."
"Yes Jeanette, I confess, it was like tearing up the roots of my life to
look at this question fairly and squarely in the face, and to say, no;
but I must learn to suffer and be strong, I am deeply pained, it is
true, but I do not regret the steps I have taken. The man who claims my
love and allegiance, must be a victor and not a slave. The reeling
brain of a drunkard is not a safe foundation on which to build up a new
home."
"Well Belle, you may be right, but I think I would have risked it. I
don't think because Mr. Romaine drinks occasionally that I would have
given him up. Oh young men will sow their wild oats."
"And as we sow, so must we reap, and as to saying about young men sowing
their wild oats, I think it is full of pernicious license. A young man
has no more right to sow his wild oats than a young woman. God never
made one code of ethics for a man and another for a woman. And it is the
duty of all true women to demand of men the same standard of morality
that they do of woman."
"Ah Belle that is very fine in theory, but you would find it rather
difficult, if you tried to reduce your theory to practice."
"All that may be true, but the difficulty of a duty is not a valid
excuse for its non performance."
"My dear cousin it is not my role to be a reformer. I take things as I
find them and drift along the tide of circumstances."
"And is that your highest ideal of life? Why Jeanette such a life is not
worth living."
"Whether it is or not, I am living it and I rather enjoy it. Your vexing
problems of life never disturb me. I do not think I am called to turn
this great world 'right side up with care,' and so I float along singing
as I go,
"I'd be a butterfly born in a bower
Kissing every rose that is pleasant and sweet,
I'd never languish for wealth or for power
I'd never sigh to have slaves at my feet."
"Such a life would never suit me, life must mean to me more than ease,
luxury and indulgence, it must mean aspiration and consecration,
endeavor and achievement."
"Well, Belle, should we live twenty years longer, I would like to meet
you and see by comparing notes which of us shall have gathered the most
sunshine or shadow from life."
"Yes Jeanette we will meet in less than twenty years, but before then
your glad light eyes will be dim with tears, and the easy path you have
striven to walk will be thickly strewn with thorn; and whether you
deserve it or not, life will have for you a mournful earnestness, but
notwithstanding all your frivolity and flippancy there is fine gold in
your character, which the fire of affliction only will reveal."