How often M loves and N accepts the love! Poor M! Also (in the long run), poor N!
That, indeed, is a happy marriage where M gives and wants just what N wants and gives: where M and N just want each other. For
Give and take is the rule of a community of two, as it is of a community of ten thousand;
The ideal (and probably impossible) industrial community is that in which demand and supply are in exact equipoise. The same holds good in matrimony.
In wedlock, a virtuous, has probably less force than a vicious, example.
That is to say,
A frivolous spouse is more apt to drag the couple down than is a serious spouse apt to lead the couple up. And
Many a mate there is (both masculine and feminine) feels like a pack-mule treading a precipitous pass.
* * *
Of every Audrey her Touchstone should be able proudly to say, "A poor. .
. . Thing, Sir, but mine own". In other words,
The homely violet deserves as tender cherishing as the rare exotic.