Such are the rush and bustle of the few weeks preceding the wedding that the presents, if numerous, cannot be recorded with any distinctness in the memory. A little list of them should be kept at hand for reference for months after the marriage, so that any error of the sort may be avoided. Mrs. Brown would not be at all pleased at being warmly thanked for Mrs. Green's salt-cellars instead 613 MARRIAQC of her own expensive entr6e dishes ; nor would Mrs. Green enjoy an expression of gratitude for the latter. She might, if of a cantankerous disposition, even suspect a hint of irony in the incident, knowing what a difference in value there is between her own small gift and Mrs. Brown's. A good memory is an essential part of the grand gift —tact. SALS OF FAMOUS MEH By Rev. E. J. HARDY Author of '■'■How to be Happy though Married^ I HE proposal of Edison, the great electrician, though business- like, was not prosaic. One day, as he stood behind the chair of a Miss Stillwell, a telegraph operator in his employ, he was not a little surprised when she suddenly turned round and said, " Mr. Edison, I can always tell when you are behind or near me." It was now Miss Still- well's turn to be surprised, for, with cha- racteristic bluntness and ardour, Edison confronted the young lady, and, looking her full in the face, said, " I have been thinking considerably about you of late, and if you are willing to marry me, I would like to marry you." The young lady said she would consider the matter, and talked it over with her mother. The result was that they Were married a month later, and the union has proved a Very happy one. The great preacher Spurgeon asked the girl who became his wife by means of a book. He was reading one day, as he sat by her side, Tupper's " Proverbial Philosophy." Coming to the lines : " If thou art to have a wife of thy youth, she is now living on the earth : Therefore think of her, and pray for her weal," he pointed them out to her, and asked, " Do vou prav for him who is to be your hus- band ? "" The old method of proposing on one's knees, which went out With the wearing of swords and silk stockings, must have been physically uncomfortable for all but the very young, and in one historical instance, at least, it Was in other ways inconvenient. We allude to the case of the Rev. Jerry White. He Was caught by Oliver Cromwell himself kneeling at the feet of his daughter. The ambitious parson pretended that he was suing for the hand of the lady's maid, and, taken at his Word, had to marry her instead of her mistress. It certainly could not have been said of Richard Hooker that his only books w'ere women's looks, for he was so taken up with his studies that he had no time to look for or propose to a wife. Accordingly, when the woman with whom he lodged suggested, after he had been ill, that he ought to get a wife to take care of him, he commissioned her to find such a one. She appointed her daughter to the situation, and Hooker had cause to regret that he did not choose for himself. The only one to whom Dean Swift appears to have proposed marriage was a Miss Waring, and he did this in an imperious way, like a victor imposing terms on a vanquished foe. He began by asking : " Are you in a condition to manage domestic affairs with an income of less than three hundred pounds a year ? Have you such an inclination to my person and honour as to comply with my desires and way of living, and endeavour to make us both as happy as you can ? Will you be ready to engage in the methods I shall direct for the improvement of your mind, so as to make us entertaining company for each other, without being miserable when we are neither visiting or visited ? Can you bend your love, esteem, and indifference to others the same Way as I do mine ? Have you so much good-nature as to endeavour by soft words to smooth any rugged humour occasioned by the cross acci- dents of life ? Shall the place where your husband is thrown be more welcome than courts and cities without him ? " If Jane Waring could answer these questions in the affirmative, Jonathan Swift said, " I shall be blessed to have you in my arms, without regarding whether your person be beautiful or your fortune large. Cleanliness in the first, and competency in the second, is all I look for. I singled you out at first from the rest of Women, and I expect not to be used like a common lover." This was certainly not a common Way of proposing marriage. Rowland Hill was as abject when proposing as Swift Was imperious. He asked the lady (a Miss Tudway) to accept " a poor worm in the character of a minister of Christ." What a difference there is between the proposals made by Swift and Hill and that of Richard Steele ! He wrote : " I have not a minute's quiet out of your sight, and when I am with you, you use me wdth so much distance that I am stiH in a
