So, when I see a raw youth and a
green girl, fluted and fiddled in a dancing measure into
that most serious contract, and setting out upon life's
journey with ideas so monstrously divergent, I am not
surprised that some make shipwreck, but that any
come to port.
*
Those who have a few intimates are to be avoided; while
those who swim loose, who have their hat in their hand all
along the street, who can number an infinity of
acquaintances, and are not chargeable with any one friend,
promise an easy disposition and no rival to the wife's
influence. I will not say they are the best of men, but
they are the stuff out of which adroit and capable women
manufacture the best husbands.
*
A ship captain is a good man to marry if it is a marriage
of love, for absences are a good influence in love, and
keep it bright and delicate; but he is just the worst man
if the feeling is more pedestrian, as habit is too
frequently torn open and the solder has never time to set.
*
A certain sort of talent is almost indispensable for people
who would spend years together and not bore themselves to
death. But the talent, like the agreement, must be for and
about life. To dwell happily together,. they should be
versed in the niceties of the heart, and born with a
faculty for willing compromise. The woman must be talented
as a woman, and it will not much matter although she is
talented in nothing else.
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