You would not like to live with a liar, with a thief, with a drunkard, for twenty or thirty years. A lazy man will make but a weak band or support for his and your house; so will one deficient in fortitude--that is, the power to bear pain and trouble without whining. Beware of the selfish man, for though he may be drawn out of selfishness in the early weeks of courtship, he will settle back into it again when the wear and worry of life come on. And remember that a man may have the roots of some of these vices in him and yet be extremely agreeable and good-looking, dress well, and say very pretty and charming things. "How easy is it for the proper-false in women's waxen hearts to set their forms!" In their haste to be married many women are too easily satisfied with the characters of men who may offer themselves as husbands. They aim at matrimony in the abstract; not _the_ man, but any man. They would not engage a servant if all they knew of her were that she had, as a housemaid lately advertised, "a fortnight's character from her last place;" but with even less information as to their characters they will accept husbands and vow to love, honour, and obey them! In comparison how much more honourable and how much less unloved and unloving is the spinster's lot! Women marry simply for a home because they have not been trained to fight the battle of life for themselves, and because their lives are so dull and stagnant that they think any change must be for the better. A friend--let us say Barlow--was describing to Jerrold the story of his courtship and marriage: how his wife had been brought up in a convent, and was on the point of taking the veil, when his presence burst upon her enraptured sight. Jerrold listened to the end of the story, and by way of comment said, "Ah! she evidently thought Barlow better than nun." When girls have been given work in the world they do not think that any husband is better than none, and they have not time to imagine themselves in love with the first man who proposes. How often is it the case that people think themselves in love when in fact they are only idle! There are hearts all the better for keeping; they become mellower and more worth a woman's acceptance than the crude, unripe things that are sometimes gathered--as children gather green fruit--to the discomfort of those who obtain them. A husband may be too young to properly appreciate and take care of a wife. And yet perhaps the majority of girls would rather be a young man's slave than an old man's darling. "My dear," said a father to his daughter, "I intend that you should be married, but not that you should throw yourself away on any wild, worthless boy: you must marry a man of sober and mature age. What do you think of a fine, intelligent husband of fifty?" "I think two of twenty-five would be better, papa."