A Mouse being ambitious of marrying into a noble family, paid his addresses to a young Lioness, and at length succeeded in entering into a treaty of marriage with her. When the day appointed for the nuptials arrived, the bridegroom set out in a transport of joy to meet his beloved bride; and coming up to her, passionately threw himself at her feet; but she, like a giddy thing as she was, not minding how she walked, accidentally set her foot upon her little spouse, and crushed him to death.
APPLICATION.
It is very unsafe for persons of low estate to form connections with those of a very superior situation. When wealthy persons of mean extraction and unrefined education, as an equivalent for their money, demand brides out of the nursery of the peerage, if they should not be ruined by the giddy extravagance of their high-born wives, their being despised, or at least treated with neglect, is almost certain. But indeed, much unhappiness follows the want of a sound judgment in the choice of a partner for life, whether it be in high or low, rich or poor. No human contract is of so important, as well as delicate a nature, as marriage. It is one of the grand epochs in the history of a man. It is an engagement which should be voluntary, judicious, and disinterested, and can never be attended with honour, or blessed with happiness, if it has not its origin in mutual affection. If it be either unsuitable or compulsory, it produces not only individual misery, but consequences universally pernicious. Sordid interest and vile dependence may indeed sometimes act so powerfully, as to set nature and true convenience aside, so as to make the yoke which is jointly borne by the improper union of the high and low, or by age and youth, put on an appearance of regard for each other; but natural affection must needs be wanting on one side or the other. Nature has, however, with a strong hand, pointed out the path to be pursued, and a few prudential rules only are necessary to keep us within it. If a man is of an unsound constitution, or if he cannot provide for a family, let him forbear matrimony: it is the duty of every man who marries, to take a healthy woman for his wife, for the sake of his children, and an amiable one, for his own comfort. The same precaution ought to be taken by the fair sex, unless they can make up their minds to become nurses to tainted worn-out husbands, and their puny nerveless offspring.
THE YOUNG MAN AND THE LION.
An opulent Old Man, who believed in omens and dreams, had an only Son, of whom he was dotingly fond. One night he dreamt that he saw the Young Man, while he was eagerly engaged in the chase, seized upon and torn in pieces by a Lion. This operated upon his fears to such a degree, that he instantly determined upon breaking off his Son’s strong propensity to hunting, that he might be kept out of harm’s way. For this purpose, he spared neither pains nor expence to make home agreeable to him. He had the rooms decorated with the finest paintings of forest scenery, and the hunting of wild beasts, with the reality of which the youth had been so much delighted; but the Young Man, debarred from his favourite pleasures, considered the palace a prison, and his father as the keeper. One day, when looking at the pictures, he cast his eye upon that of a Lion, and, enraged that he was confined for a dream about such a beast, he struck at the painting with his fist, with all his might. There happened to be a nail in the wall behind the canvas, which lacerated the hand terribly. The wound festered, and threw the Young Man into a fever, of which he died; so that the Father’s dream was fulfilled by the very step he took to prevent it.
APPLICATION.
Those people who govern their lives by forebodings and dreams, and signs of ill-luck, are kept in a state of constant anxiety and uneasiness. Such a disposition is grounded on superstition, which is the offspring of a narrow mind, and adds greatly to the evils with which life is sufficiently loaded. Heaven has kindly concealed from us the knowledge of futurity, and it is therefore foolish for us to attempt to pry into it, or to disturb our minds with absurd conceptions of events which are only realised by our ridiculous precautions against them. How inconsistent is the conduct of people who imagine things to be predestined, and yet busy themselves in endeavours to prevent their coming to pass; as if the vain efforts of human power or prudence were able to counteract the will, or reverse the decrees of the Omnipotent.
