LET US HAVE THE MANHOOD AND THE WOMANHOOD,
if we have five hundred or a thousand dollars, to buy those necessaries of life which will enable us to live without debt after we are settled for life. We are sailing out of the harbor. Would it not be ridiculous for us to heave into the water our provisions, as a symbol of our delirious joy?—would not our ship be a ship of death when we reached the middle of the sea? There is just as much joy in a simple wedding which has properly shown our respect for the event as the third in importance of all which will punctuate our history. We have been born; we will die;
WE NOW MARRY.
"A man finds himself seven years older, the day after his marriage," says Lord Bacon. "Men should keep their eyes wide open before marriage, and half shut afterwards," says Madame Scuderie. "Marriage is a feast," says Colton, "where the grace is sometimes better than the dinner." "Mistress," cries Shakspeare, "know yourself; down on your knees, and thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love. For I must tell you friendly in your ear,—sell when you can; you are not for all markets." "To love early and marry late," says Richter, "is to hear a lark singing at dawn, and at night to eat it roasted for supper." "Marriages are best of dissimilar material," says Theodore Parker.
"TO BE A MAN
in a true sense," says Michelet, "is, in the first place, and above all things, to have a wife." "It is in vain for a man to be born fortunate," says Dacier, "if he be unfortunate in his marriage." "When it shall please God to bring thee to man's estate," says Sir Philip Sidney, "use great providence and circumspection in choosing thy wife. For from thence will spring all thy future good or evil; and it is an action of life, like unto a stratagem of war; wherein a man can err but once!" "We are not very much to blame for our bad marriages," says Ralph Waldo Emerson;
"WE LIVE AMID HALLUCINATIONS,
and this especial trap is laid to trip up our feet with, and all are tripped up, first or last. But the mighty mother nature, who had been so sly with us, as if she felt she owed us some indemnity, insinuates into the Pandora box of marriage some deep and serious benefits and some great joys." "It is a mistake to consider marriage merely as a scheme of happiness," says Chapin; "it is also a bond of service. It is the most ancient form of that social ministration which God has ordained for human beings, and which is symbolized by all the relations of nature." "Marriage" says Selden, "is a desperate thing;
THE FROGS IN ÆSOP
were extremely wise; they had a great mind to some water, but they would not leap into the well, because they could not get out again." Why were they wise? They were not wise at all. I have seen frogs in wells who are more contented than they would be outside. "Men are April when they woo, December when they wed," says Shakspeare; but he also says that "maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives," so it is an even tilt between two forms of human nature. "If idleness be the root of all evil," says Vanbruch, "then matrimony is good for something, for it sets many a poor woman to work." "In the opinion of the world," says Madame Swetchine, "marriage ends all; as it does in a comedy;