True love is a greater leveler than anarchy.
* * *
In courtship, the wooer to the wooed is, in Juliet's phrase, the god of
her idolatry; in matrimony he is lucky if he is the idol of her deity.
* * *
It is a question which is the sweeter: a spontaneous courtship, or one
that has sprung from friendship.
In a spontaneous courtship there is all the charm of novelty;
In a courtship that has grown out of affection there is all the
trustfulness of friendship. But
Friendship and courtship are two totally distinct things:
In courtship, men and women meet on the flowery-thorny common of love;
In friendship, men and women invite each other over to their respective
plots. So,
A friend will show a friend all over his domain;
A lover can but point out to the lover the flowers (and thorns) which
grow in the soil to which they are both strangers. 162
* * *
It is an open question whether in matters pre-matrimonial, the mode of
the French is not preferable to that of the Anglo-Saxon; whether, that
is,
Prudence and prevision are not more certain harbingers of matrimonial
happiness of matrimonial happiness than are impulse and passion.
The French couple, when wedded, are virtually strangers; the Anglo-Saxon
have already together enacted some scenes of the matrimonial drama. Yet
it is an open question also whether
A more durable domestic affection is not built up from the pristine
foundation of total ignorance than from that of a partial
acquaintanceship.
The American Elizabeth Patterson, before she became Madame Jerome
Bonaparte, could write, "I love Jerome Bonaparte, and I prefer to be his
wife, were it only for a day, to the happiest union."
The continentalized Madame Jerome Bonaparte, twenty-six years after she
had ceased to be Miss Elizabeth Patterson, could write "Do we not know
how easily men and women free themselves from the fetters of love, and
that only the stupid remain caught in these pretended bonds?" (1) After
all,
Little do any couple know of each other before marriage. Besides
Does not a delightful romance envelope the nuptials of strangers? At all
events, even if precaution is a foe to impulse, few will be found to deny
that
Strangeness is by no means inimical to passion. Perhaps, then,
Fathers and mothers and uncles and aunts can form a better judgment as to
the suitability and adaptability to each other of two young, ardent, and
headstrong boys and girls can these themselves; since
Fathers and mothers and uncles and aunts know full well that impulse and
passion often prove materials too friable for the many-storied fabric of
marriage. At all events,
The French mode of contracting a marriage precludes the possibility of
perilous and precocious affairs of the heart. Perhaps
The mistake that ardent and headstrong boys and girls make is in thinking
that impulse and passion are the keys of Paradise. Their
Elders know that impulse and passion are sometimes the keys of Purgatory.
Prudence and prevision are not keys to any supernal (or infernal)
existence; they are merely guide-books to a terrestrial journey. At all
events, it is significant that (which might be added as a lemma)
Widows rarely choose unwisely!
(1) Quoted by C. de Varigny in the "Revue des Deux Mondes" of January the
15th, 1893.
* * *
Over that much-bethought-of, much-surmised-about-thing, a proposal of
marriage, every young woman weaves a pre-conceived halo of romance, but
In nineteen cases out of twenty a proposal is either unexpected or
disappointing; that is,
Many a girl has almost held her breath with anxiety as she saw the great
question coming; then almost cried with vexation at the way it came.
For, often,
Either the wrong man proposes or the right man proposes stupidly.
The woman looks for ideal surroundings, a dramatic situation, and
impassioned and poetic utterance; usually,
The man seizes a commonplace opportunity and--stutters. Probably,