Affectional Alchemy.
25
are not so bad ; but where such soul-youth does not exist, and the par¬
ties live in passable harmony, still there's great harm done, — in fact,
constructive wifcidc, and this is the reason win-, — a wife is apt to
become a mother quicker by an old husband than a young one ; be¬
cause the old man's blood is cooler, his passion slower in culmina¬
tion ; and she is likely to conceive from sheer weariness, and physi¬
cal and mental inability to guard herself; besides which, she never
dreams of danger, or of the female finesses she would put in play
against a younger .husband.
If ever it is right to prevent conception, I believe it is in excep¬
tional cases like this before us ; for his old blood, through his child,
courses through her young veins, making her old prematurely ; load¬
ing her down with the accumulated mental, physical and moral,
magnetic and other diseases of all his long run of years. Besides
which, his child is born old;—never knows what babyhood is, 01
childhood means. It looks, feels, is an oddity ; knows no infantile
days or pleasures, and is thus, by its own father, robbed and cheated
out of its best and most halcyon days. But that's not the worst of it
yet; for the offspring of January is sure to be nearly as calcareous as
its father. Its bones are harder, firmer, more solid than is right;
its cranium is broader, flatter, thicker, and dense as those of a grown
man ; and if the young mother escapes forceps-delivery, or a still
\\rorse operation, she may consider herself a fortunate woman. May
God pity all such, and alas! thousands of such there are.
How often we hear the expression, " She tapped the fountains of
his love." Well, the thing is possible, yet is seldom realized, for that
can only be done when both are maritally conjoined while influ¬
enced by a passion born of perfect, deep, soul-founded love ; and
then ! ah, then! the cup of human bliss is indeed full. Why? Be¬
cause a portion of each soul becomes incorporate in the other, and
the mystical blending— " they twain shall be one " — is complete.
But souls can be tapped without reciprocity, for the young wife's
soul i:. drained from her. either directly as a sponge, by her old hus¬
band, or indirectly through the uterine and vaginal diseases sure to
be her lot sooner or later; for the fluids of the twain will not, cannot
blend, except in so far forth as to innoculate the poor young thing
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