"Certain it is," said Addison, "that there is no kind of affection so
purely angelic as that of a father to a daughter. He beholds her both
with and without regard to her sex. In love to our sons there is
ambition, but in that to our daughters there is something which there
are no words to express." "There is, however, an unkind measure by which
a few persons strive to avoid living by themselves in their old age.
They selfishly prevent their children (principally their daughters) from
marrying, in order to retain them around them at home. Certainly matches
are now and then projected which it is the duty of a parent to oppose;
but there are two kinds of opposition, a conscientious and sorrowful
opposition, and an egotistical and captious opposition, and men and
women, in their self-deception, may sometimes mistake the one for the
other. 'Marry your daughters lest they marry themselves, and run off
with the ploughman or the groom' is an axiom of worldly wisdom. Marry
your daughters, if you can do so satisfactorily, that they may become