15. THE INEBRIATE; Kindred Women

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That romantic deference and deli­cacy of sentiment, with which the natu­ral American, whom untoward circum­stances of birth and association have not rendered positively uncouth and morally deformed, never fails to ap­proach every tolerable woman, is devel­oped here, from even the most latent inclination, by the peculiar craving of our minds and hearts, and the rarity of its gratification. The presence of a true lady among us as potently refines our imaginations and elevates our as­pirations, as the lovely apparition of the “First Lady “(Mrs. Frank Ward) rebuked and calmed the fierce, turbulent selfishness of San Francisco in 1849:

We all know that rum, when it has usurped the kingdom of a mind, reduces it to the slavery of ignoble passions and gross imaginations ; but we also know that the minds and hearts it most easily invades, finding them miserably defenseless, are precisely those which under happier circumstances are most sensitively susceptible  to emotions of grace and chivalry. By the hand of every gentle woman who brings her subtle sympathy among us, we reach back toward the hearts of our mothers and sisters and wives. “Our sched­ule,” says the Report, “will show that of the whole number admitted since the 1st of May, 1867, one hundred and forty-six have been married men. The moral advantage, the chance of life­long abstinence, is decidedly with the married, arteris paribus,

 {NOTE on meaning of arteris paribus: “on its face” or “as an accepted fact” or “through observations}

and the marriage being happy; for I need hardly say that there is no more po­tent, nor comparatively more common provocative to reckless debauchery than an ill-assorted, incompatible, wrang­ling marriage: nor any such incentive and inspiration to reform, any such support and cheer in the struggle of self-denial and self-control, any such source of fortitude and hope in the hour of temptation, as the devotion of a for­giving, faithful, patient wife, clinging fast to the wreck that the crew of self­ish kindred and friends have aban­doned. The women who have followed their husbands to this Asylum, and lin­gered near at hand, to watch and help and applaud them, are the pride of their own sex, and the prize of ours.”