Nature, hating incongruity, yet loves variety. She preserves the limits of species, but within those limits she seeks fidelity to one type. Therefore it is that in marriage a person inclines strongly to one of a different temperament—to a person quite unlike himself.
So true is this, that a Frenchman of genius, Bernardin de St. Pierre, vouches for this anecdote of himself. He was in a strange city, visiting a friend whom he had not seen for years. The friend's sister was of that age when women are most susceptible. She was tall, a blonde, deliberate in motion, with blue eyes and fair hair. In a jesting way, St. Pierre, who had never seen her before, and knew nothing of her personal life, said,—
'Mademoiselle, you have many admirers. Shall I describe him on whom you look with most favor?'
The lady challenged him to do so.
'He is short in stature, of dark complexion, dark hair and eyes, slight in figure, active and nervous in all his movements.'
The lady blushed to her eyes, and cast a glance of anger at her brother, who, she thought, had betrayed her secret. But no! St. Pierre's only informant was his deep knowledge of the human heart.
This instinct is founded upon the truth that the perfect temperament is that happily balanced one which holds all the organs in equilibrium,—in which no one rules, where all are developed in proportion. Nature ever strives to realize this ideal. She instills in the nervous temperament a preference for the lymphatic; in the sanguine, a liking for the bilious constitution. The offspring should combine the excellencies of both, the defects of neither. We do well to heed her admonitions here, and to bear in mind that those matches which combine opposite temperaments, are, as a rule, the most fortunate.
THE MORAL AND MENTAL CHARACTER.
Very few words are necessary here. We have already said we speak as physicians, not as moralists. But there are some false and dangerous ideas abroad, which it is our duty as physicians to combat.
None is more false, none more dangerous, than that embodied in the proverb, 'A reformed rake makes the best husband.' What is a rake? A man who has deceived and destroyed trusting virtue,—a man who has entered the service of the devil to undermine and poison that happiness in marriage, which all religion and science are at such pains to cultivate. We know him well in our capacity as physicians. He comes to us constantly the prey to loathsome diseases, the results of his vicious life; which diseases he will communicate to his wife, for they are contagious, and to his children, for they are hereditary; and which no reform can purge from his system, for they are ineradicable.