What would one give to learn that future? to gaze into the mirror of life, and discover its terrible lessons in advance! Could we prevent them by learning?—Alas! no—if we could, we could not learn. Can we look into the future and see what _is_ to take place, and then by efforts prevent the occurrence? If we could prevent that which we saw, how could we see it? But the little fellow is peering down the vista of time, and he is seeing care and anxiety dogging his heels; he is looking at the antagonistic movements of his life, and wondering how life can _be_, and _be_ thus opposed. He is seeing his future self, bowing down to the object of affection, and he is hearing _her_ calculations of the advantages which his offer had over that of another; and his young heart sickens at the mercenary selfishness of the idea. But if the mirror reflects or prefigures truly, his own _heart_ had made the same calculations before it was offered. And this is the common experience of life. Men pause in the midst of their business or their pleasure, and begin to think about marriage; they are reminded of this by the movements of others, or the customs of their kind. Do they look about and see where they can bestow the most of benefit, or confer the greatest amount of good? Do they say, “I have wealth and position, here is a lovely female, poor and humble, the ascentive power of my possessions will take _her_ up?” Or do they set down and make the calculations as to the amount of personal benefits which they would derive from the match? Ninety-nine times in the hundred the calculations upon a wife and her uses, are as carefully and as selfishly made by man, as are those upon the purchase of real estate, or stock for a stable or a farm. And we do not mean to say that on the whole marriages resulting from such calculations are not productive of as much _content_ as those which seem to be made with all the disinterestedness which novelists ascribe to their favorite heroes and heroines. Well, when the calculation is complete, the gentleman hastens off and _proposes_ to the lady; if the female is found to pause upon the proposal, and to ask herself, or to ask some one who knows, what are the means which this lover possesses to make her happier than she is now, or as happy as twenty other young men who are ready (when they have finished _their_ calculations) to make the same offer; if she pause thus and inquire, she is set down as a cold-hearted, selfish, intereste girl, with no force of affection, with no ideas of a married life beyond the bargaining of the shopman.