Little do any couple know of each other before marriage. Besides Does not a delightful romance envelope the nuptials of strangers? At all events, even if precaution is a foe to impulse, few will be found to deny that
Strangeness is by no means inimical to passion. Perhaps, then, Fathers and mothers and uncles and aunts can form a better judgment as to the suitability and adaptability to each other of two young, ardent, and headstrong boys and girls can these themselves; since
Fathers and mothers and uncles and aunts know full well that impulse and passion often prove materials too friable for the many-storied fabric of marriage. At all events,
The French mode of contracting a marriage precludes the possibility of perilous and precocious affairs of the heart. Perhaps
The mistake that ardent and headstrong boys and girls make is in thinking that impulse and passion are the keys of Paradise. Their Elders know that impulse and passion are sometimes the keys of Purgatory.
Prudence and prevision are not keys to any supernal (or infernal) existence; they are merely guide-books to a terrestrial journey. At all events, it is significant that (which might be added as a lemma)
Widows rarely choose unwisely!
(1) Quoted by C. de Varigny in the "Revue des Deux Mondes" of January the 15th, 1893.
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Over that much-bethought-of, much-surmised-about-thing, a proposal of marriage, every young woman weaves a pre-conceived halo of romance, but