Death must come, and love must come; but the state in which they find
us?--whether blinded, astonished, and frightened, and ignorant, or, like
reasonable creatures, guarded, prepared, and fit to manage our own
feelings?--_this_, I suppose, depends on ourselves; and for want of such
self-management and self-knowledge, look at the evils that
ensue!--hasty, improvident, unsuitable marriages; repining, diseased,
or vicious celibacy; irretrievable infamy; cureless insanity:--the
death that comes early, and the love that comes late, reversing the
primal laws of our nature.
It is of little consequence how unequal the conventional difference of
rank, as in Germany--how equal the condition, station, and means, as in
America,--if there be inequality between the sexes; and if the sentiment
which attracts and unites them to each other, and the contracts and
relations springing out of this sentiment, be not equally well
understood by both, equally sacred with both, equally binding on both.
* * * * *