MR. ANHALT.
For matrimony.
AMELIA.
All things that I don’t know, and don’t understand, are quite indifferent to me.
MR. ANHALT.
For that very reason I am sent to you to explain the good and the bad of which matrimony is composed.
AMELIA.
Then I beg first to be acquainted with the good.
MR. ANHALT.
When two sympathetic hearts meet in the marriage state, matrimony may be called a happy life. When such a wedded pair find thorns in their path, each will be eager, for the sake of the other, to tear them from the root. Where they have to mount hills, or wind a labyrinth, the most experienced will lead the way, and be a guide to his companion. Patience and love will accompany them in their journey, while melancholy and discord they leave far behind.—Hand in hand they pass on from morning till evening, through their summer’s day, till the night of age draws on, and the sleep of death overtakes the one. The other, weeping and mourning, yet looks forward to the bright region where he shall meet his still surviving partner, among trees and flowers which themselves have planted, in fields of eternal verdure.
AMELIA.
You may tell my father—I’ll marry. [Rises.]
MR. ANHALT.
[rising]. This picture is pleasing; but I must beg you not to forget that there is another on the same subject.—When convenience, and fair appearance joined to folly and ill-humour, forge the fetters of matrimony, they gall with their weight the married pair. Discontented with each other—at variance in opinions—their mutual aversion increases with the years they live together. They contend most, where they should most unite; torment, where they should most soothe. In this rugged way, choaked with the weeds of suspicion, jealousy, anger, and hatred, they take their daily journey, till one of these also sleep in death. The other then lifts up his dejected head, and calls out in acclamations of joy—Oh, liberty! dear liberty!
AMELIA.
I will not marry.
MR. ANHALT.
You mean to say, you will not fall in love.
AMELIA.
Oh no! [ashamed] I am in love.