[SEE ENGRAVING.]
How many beautiful, lovely-minded women do we meet in society, who are united, by marriage contract, with men whose tastes, habits and characters, cannot but be in every way uncongenial. And on the other hand, how often do we see the finest specimens of men unequally joined to women who seem to have no true appreciation of what is really excellent in morals or social life. The reason for such inequality is very apparent to all who observe with any intelligence. The affinities which govern among those who enter life's dazzling arena, are, in most cases, external instead of internal. Accomplishment, personal appearance, and family connections, are more considered than qualities of the heart. Beauty, wit, station and wealth, are the standards of value, while real merit is not thought of or fondly believed to exist as a natural internal correspondent of the external attractions so pleasant to behold. In this false and superficial mode of estimating character lies the bane of domestic happiness. Deceived by the merest externals, young persons come together and enter into the holiest relation of life, to discover, alas! in a few years, that there exists no congeniality of taste, no mutual appreciation of what is excellent and desirable in life, and, worse than all, no mutual affection, based upon clearly seen qualities of the mind. Unhappiness always follows this sad discovery, and were it not for the love of children, which has come in to save them, hundreds and thousands, who, in the eyes of the world, appear to live happily together, would be driven angrily asunder.
Aunt Esther, whose own experience in life, confirmed by much observation, made the evil here indicated as clear as noonday to her perceptions, saw the error of her beautiful niece, Edith, in courting rather than shunning observation while in society.
"You wrong yourself, dear," she would often say, "by this over carefulness about external appearance. You attract those who see but little below the surface, while the really excellent and truly intelligent avoid instead of seeking your society."
"Would you have me careless about my appearance, aunt?" Edith would sometimes say, in reply to these suggestions.
"By no means," Aunt Esther would reply. "A just regard to what is appropriate in externals marks the woman of true taste and right feelings. But you go beyond this."
"Then I violate the principles of taste in dressing."
"I will not say that you do very broadly. Most persons would affirm that you display a fine taste, and in using the word display would express my objection. I think a woman infringes good taste when she so arrays herself as to attract attention to her dress."
"As I do?"
"Yes, Edith, as you do. If you disguise from yourself the fact that you both love and seek admiration for personal appearance, you do not do so from others—at least not from me."