justice. How glorious it would be if
all lawyers could be remunerated equally by the State! It would do
away with a thriving industry perhaps, but it might be a great aid to
real justice being arrived at, and not as things now are, when whoever
can pay the cleverest pleader has the best chance of winning the case.
But to get back to the views of divorce!

It would seem to me that the vital and essential question all persons
wishing for divorce ought to ask themselves is, "What is my motive in
desiring this freedom?" They should search their very souls for the
truth. If it is because the position has not only become intolerable
to themselves, but is a menace to their children or society, then they
should know that they are acting rightly in trying their utmost to be
free; but if the real reason is that they may legally indulge in a new
passion, then they may be certain that if they take advantage of a law
designed for the benefit of a race, and use it to their own baser
ends, they are invoking most dangerous forces to militate against
their own eventual unhappiness. No one who is in a position where his
or her good or bad example will be followed has any right to indulge
in any personal feelings to the influencing in a harmful way of his or
her public actions. This is the true meaning of that finest of all old
sayings, "_Noblesse oblige_." To me it would seem to be a frightful
sin for a man or woman for personal motives to degrade an order or a
community.

So this is the standpoint I would suggest every one looking at divorce
from: "Will the thing bring good or harm?--not to me who am only a
unit, but to that wider circle of my family and my country?" And if
common sense assures him or her that no good can come of it, then the
true citizen should not hesitate to bear the pain of refraining.

It would seem to me to be wrong to allow any personal feeling at all
to influence one to divorce, no matter what the cruelty of the
circumstances or the justice of the grievance one had, _if by so doing
the children of the marriage were injured in any way, or that the
prestige of an order or the honour of a family were lowered by one's
action_; but that were the husband or wife a shame and degradation to
the children or the family, the individual would be entirely justified
in divorcing, and would be helping the good of the State by preventing
the guilty and debased partner from committing further harm. Common
sense is always the