rs. Cleveland. Never in my
knowledge were there so many weddings all over the United States as
during the week when this official wedding took place in the White
House. The representatives of the foreign Governments in Washington were
not invited to Mr. Cleveland's wedding. We all hoped that they would not
make such fools of themselves as to protest--but they did. They were
displeased at the President's omission to invite them. It was always a
wish of Mr. Cleveland's to separate the happiness of his private life
from that of his public career, so as to protect Mrs. Cleveland from the
glare to which he himself was exposed. His wedding was an intimate,
private matter to him, and if there is any time in a man's life when he
ought to do as he pleases it is when he gets married. It was a
remarkable wedding in some respects, remarkable for its love story, for
its distinguished character, its American privacy, its independent
spirit. The whole country was rapturously happy over it. The foreign
ministers who growled might have benefited by the example of Americanism
in the affair. Even the reporters, none of whom were invited, were happy
over it, and gave a more vivid account of the joyous scene than they
could have given had they been present.

The difference in the ages of the President and his beautiful bride was
widely discussed. Into the garland of bridal roses let no one ever twist
a sprig of night-shade. If 49 would marry 22, if summer is fascinated
with spring, whose business is it but their own? Both May and August are
old enough to take care of themselves, and their marriage is the most
noteworthy moment of their too short season of life. Some day her voice
is silenced, and the end of the world has come for him--the morning
dead, the night dead, the air dead, the world dead. For his sake, for
her sake, do not spoil their radiance with an impious regret. They will
endure the thorns of life when they are stronger in each other's love.

That June wedding at the White House was the nucleus of happiness, from
which grew a great wave of matrimony. The speed of God's will was
increasing in America. Most of the things managed by divine instinct are
characterised by speed--rapid currents, swift lightnings, swift coming
and going of lives. In the old-fashioned days a man got a notion that
there was sanctity in tardiness. It was a great mistake. In America we
had arrived at that state of mind when we wanted everything fast--firs