Feb, 18
A book that has made considerable stir in the literary world of England is tite "Memoirs of J.M. Dent," the publisher of the Like most successful publisher of tuis age, It was a venture he never regretted though prudence would have dictated caution and a tong wait. But prudence would have Kept the lame boy at home in Darlington and prudence woul: have said it was madness for a man without capital to launch out on the perilous trade of publisher. Prudence would have made JIN. Dent a Journeyman bookbinder and he would have lived and died in comfortable medio-another Dick Whittington, the Darlington boy came to Londoa to seek his fortune, Apprenticed to a bookbinder in Cheapside married at twant) worker an set up house on 28 shillings a week and nothing the way of capital or furniture. This was the great adventure of his adventurous earreer that, the end, was crowned with sue! suees a5 comes to few evity and the British public would never have had that priceless boon, the "Everyman library of famous books." So far as marriage is concerned the youth fof tovday seems to be endowed the caution of age rather than the rashness of youth. Neither yo riy men nor maidens seem to be hurry to plum into matrimony and when they do they often make a hasty exit There followed fifteen through the door of the divorce bitter struggle in the midst of which he had hed out on the adventure of publishing on his own account, Then life's tragedy. The young wife Jay dying and as she reviewed the weary years of hardship she begged her husband not to let their boys come into the business, "Put them," she said, "to some career that would not ental a life-struggle." But the young. asters were made of the same metal as their sive and they insisted on being taken into part. nership and putting their should-Prosperity, Dent's was el. Success came
World famous and its founder was welcomed into the most select and cultured circles in London, But there was a bitter drop in the cup of victory. The girl bride who had shared in his early hardships was not ther to share in the altluence of better days, Memory reproached him that he had let himself be too much engrossed in business and had neglected the uncomplaining wife who had toiled at home to make his leisure comfortable, In retrospect. his life seemed to have been one of "great selfish nes while her's had been 9 of "perfect abr n." How gladly would he have laid laurels at her feet and crowned Her with all the luxury that wealth could buy, But it only might have been and was not, Tt reminds one of that romance, told in the oldest book in the world, of the boy who ran away from home and slept, the first night of his exile, om the bars ground with a stone for a pillow. Roy-like he dreamed and "behold a ladder set up on) earth and the top reached unto heaven." It was the same ladder that young Dent saw in "the lights o'London town" and that Boys will sve till the end of time.
Romance came into the life of the runaway boy and tragedy marred its joy for of such mixed stuff is woven the web of life. But he died ins a gorgeous Bgyptian palace with his sons grandsons yethered round chis bed and the one landmars that stood out clear to his recollection was a solitary grave. "Rachel died by me there in the way," said the old man, "and T buried her there in the way of Ephrath; the same Bethlehem." He was a hundred and thirty and more years of age but time had not dimmed that arly sorrow. And to-day the Jsitor to the holy land turns Aside to look on Rachel's tomb court. Even the unchanging East ix changing, in this respect. for early marriages are dis countenanced in China as they are in. countries that esteem themselves further advanced, And yet though there are many famous bachelors that one could name and more unmarried women than there should be la the world, it is indisputable that married life is normal life, When a person has reached the full stature of manhood he stands in flawed strength if he reinaing single. It is possible that it JIN. Dent had funked the adventure of marriage he would never have dared the adventure of publishing, for cowardice grows with exercise like any other habit. The question of when should a man marry is, perhaps, best answered by the semicynical retort, "When he can't help it" A rash or hasty mar-ringe is, certainly, inadvisable, but surely every happy has an element of the "can't help it" in its composition. economic side of the questi must he considered and take in choosing one's partner is the most trast insists ud who a peril ant his caution may cost him more than obedience would hav done,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.