I wrote the advertisement for him, which he thankfully and carefully placed in his pocket-book, and bade us good morning. "Poor devil," said I, "here's a condition—here's a novelty—here's a rara avis! a fellow of twenty-three, with a good character and income, and not sufficient impudence to ask for a wife. I know lots of young ladies who would have sufficient charity to break him of his bashfulness in a few lessons."
However, his case is not a novel one. It shows the necessity of parents accustoming their sons in early life to cultivate the society of respectable females. They should be encouraged in any disposition they may manifest for good female society, although they may incur the charge of being either a beau or a dandy. Boys should go to dancing-school, not only because it teaches them grace, but it accustoms them in early life to the society of women. They dance with those girls, whom, in later periods, they may admire and respect as ladies. The lives of children should be checkered with innocent amusements—study and labor require such relief; and they should not be brought up in close confinement, in a doggerel way which unfits them for society when they are men; nor be driven to the dire necessity of advertising for a wife, and taking the risk of such a desperate adventure.
From the Knickerbocker.
A SCENE IN REAL LIFE.
'The facts not otherwise than here set down.'
Wife of Mantua.
Amidst the exaggerations of modern literature, and the fictions of that exuberant fancy, which in these latter days is tasked to gratify a public taste somewhat vitiated, it is useful to present occasional views of actual existence. Such are contained in the following sketch, which is studiously simple in its language, and every event of which is strictly true. We have this assurance from a source entitled to implicit credit.
Editors Knickerbocker.