But this is a wile of the devil's. To
the end, spring winds will sow disquietude, passing faces
leave a regret behind them, and the whole world keep
calling and calling in their ears. For marriage is like
life in this-that it is a field of battle, and not a bed of
roses.
*
For there is something in marriage so natural and inviting,
that the step has an air of great simplicity and ease; it
offers to bury for ever many aching preoccupations; it is
to afford us unfailing and familiar company through life;
it opens up a smiling prospect of the blest and passive
kind of love, rather than the blessing and active; it is
approached not only through the delights of courtship, but
by a public performance and repeated legal signatures. A
man naturally thinks it will go hard within such august
circumvallations.
And yet there is probably no other act in a man's life so
hot-headed and foolhardy as this one of marriage.
*
Again, when you have married your wife, you would think you
were got upon a hilltop, and might begin to go downward by
an easy slope. But you have only ended courting to begin
marriage. Falling in love and winning love are often
difficult tasks to overbearing and rebellious spirits; but
to keep in love is also a business of some importance, to
which both man and wife must bring kindness and goodwill.
The true love story commences at the altar, when there lies
before the married pair a most beautiful contest of wisdom
and generosity, and a life-long struggle towards an
unattainable ideal.
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