He is a _rara avis_, a glorious
phenomenon, a marked consideration in the world, a being to be devoutly
gazed at to come to some appreciation of him.
I feel you are berating me, girls, so far as your natures will allow;
but, then, do I not speak the truth? Could I not unfold pitiful stories
about girls who marry fine wedding receptions and the servitude of
reverses? about young women who are vain enough to think there can
be no union of hearts without union of intellects, and so lay snares
for college students? Could I not picture to you the _mariage de
convenance_ in America? And could I not describe the marriage of
a jilt?
I cannot too earnestly repeat that marriage is the common and acceptable
destiny of both boys and girls; but I must complain because girls do
not regard it sufficiently before they enter into it. In the distress
which follows their hastiness, in the despair which sometimes hardens
their hearts, women call marriage a lottery, and man faithless.
I must think that marriage is not only a very natural, but a very
beautiful, way of increasing love.
"Love is the burden of all Nature's odes,--the song of the birds an
epithalamium, a hymeneal. The marriage of the flowers spots the meadows,
and fringes the hedges with pearls and diamonds. In the deep waters,
in the high air, in woods and pastures, and the bowels of the earth,
this is the employment and condition of all things.
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