How Trouble Is Forged. A Poem

PROBLEMS OF MARRIED LIFE 35 unawares, learning then by sad experience the wisdom it should have been his pleasure to give her. The settled income for the wife is important itself, but greater far is its significance as a recognition of true relationship, the individuality it recognizes, the freedom it confers, and the con- fidence it inspires. The settled income is no wondrous panacea that cures all the wrongs and sorrows of married life. It is no magic formula that transforms discord into harmony by its utterance; it is no miracle worker in the home; but it clears the air and it brings union and unity on one great problem in the life of the two. Most wives who love will go down through the dark valley of poverty and sorrow, bravely, loyally and uncomplainingly if fate decide that they must, but in their hearts they resent not sharing fully with him in his prosperity. They are not willing to be invited to his fasts but be denied his feasts. It is not the fact of the mere money itself but what they, without conscious analysis, feel that it implies. They may excuse temper, thoughtlessness, incompetency, coolness, seeming neglect and many other failings with the sentence that means so much to a hungry heart, "He must really love me after all or he would not provide so generously, often giving more than he can afford." She feels he is still standing bravely on guard between her and the world. The settled income may prove one of the water-tight compartments on the ship of matrimony — an excellent refuge in a storm of discord when the waves of doubt roll high. ("When Pride Comes Between, "is the title of the next paper in this series, in the December Era.) How Trouble is Forged. 0 purblind race of miserable men, How many among us at this very hour Do forge a life-long trouble for ourselves, By taking true for false, or false for true; Here, through the feeble twilight of this world Groping, how many, until we pass and reach That other, where we see as we are seen! —Tennyson's "Enid."