divorce. Then he and Stevenson journeyed all the way to California

together, where Stevenson was married to the ex-wife. The ex-husband

attended the wedding, and that same evening announced his engagement to

a girl friend of Mrs. Stevenson.

 

I glory in the friendship of those two men who refused to allow the

unreasoning caprices of love to sever their love for each other. A

separation and remarriage like that is a credit to all parties

concerned. It is the quarrels and estrangements which are the real

disgrace in cases of separation and remarriage.

 

John Ruskin was another man too great and too good to resent love's

going where it is sent. He had married, knowing that her respect and

admiration but not her love, were his, a beautiful and brilliant girl

much younger than himself. They lived happily a number of years. Then

Ruskin brought home the painter, Millais, to make a picture of his wife.

Artist and model fell in love. Ruskin found it out, and refused to allow

his wife to sacrifice herself for him. He divorced her and gave her to

Millais, and the three were life-long friends.

 

If I were a man in such a case as A. J.'s I should treat my wife as I

would a daughter. I would treat her as an Individual with the right

of choice.

 

Many a daughter has rushed headlong into a marriage which her relatives

opposed and she regretted at leisure.

 

If someone grabs you by the arm and pulls hard in one direction you are

forced to pull hard in the opposite direction, or lose your balance and

fall. If a daughter is pulled away from the man to whom she is

attracted, her Individuality rebels and she pulls toward him harder than

she would if let alone. She chooses to follow the attraction which at

the time is pleasanter than that between herself and her frowning

relatives.

 

Remembering this I would free daughter or wife and trust to the God in

her to work out her highest good. I would believe that whatever she

chose to do was really for her highest good. If I really loved her I

would prefer her happiness to my own.

 

And in it all I should be deeply conscious that whatever is, is best,

and that all things worked together for MY best good as well as

for hers.

 

Whatever appearances may show to the shortsighted, the real TRUTH is

this: - Justice reigns; the happiness of one person is not bought at the

expense of another; the law of attraction brings us our own and holds to

us our own in spite of all its efforts to get away; it never leaves us