How to be Happy Though Married: Being a Handbook to MarriageHardy, E. J. (Edward John)
General
How to be Happy Though Married: Being a Handbook to Marriage
Hardy, E. J. (Edward John)
Marriage
We do not want excitement during the honeymoon, for are we not in love
(if we are not we ought to be ashamed of ourselves), and is not love
all-sufficient? Last week we only saw the object of our affections by
fits and starts as it were; now we have her or him all to ourselves.
"Who hath not felt that breath in the air,
A perfume and freshness strange and rare,
A warmth in the light, and a bliss everywhere,
When young hearts yearn together?
All sweets below, and all sunny above,
Oh! there's nothing in life like making love,
Save making hay in fine weather."
Let cynics say what they will, the honeymoon, when not greatly
mismanaged, _is_ a halcyon period. It is a delightful lull between two
distinct states of existence, and the married man is not to be envied
who can recall no pleasant reminiscences of it. What profane outsiders
consider very dull has a charm of its own to honeymoon lovers who
"illumine life with dreaming," and who see--
"Golden visions wave and hover,
Golden vapours, waters streaming,
Landscapes moving, changing, gleaming!"
Still, we cannot but think that if a wedding tour must be taken it
should be short, quiet, free-and-easy, and inexpensive. At some future
time, when the young people are less agitated and have learned to
understand each other better, the time and money saved will be
available for a more extended holiday. During the honeymoon there should
be "marches hymeneal in the land of the ideal" rather than
globe-trotting; "thoughts moved o'er fields Elysian" rather than over
the perplexing pages of "Bradshaw's General Railway and Steam Navigation
Guide."
In reference to the honeymoon, as to other matters, people's opinions
differ according to their temperaments and circumstances. So we shall
conclude this chapter by quoting two nearly opposite opinions, and ask
our readers to decide for themselves.
In the "Memoir of Daniel Macmillan" his opinion is thus stated: "That
going out for the honeymoon is a most wise and useful invention; it
enables you to be so constantly together, and to obtain a deeper
knowledge of each other; and it also helps one to see and feel the
preciousness of such intimacy as nothing else could. Intercourse in the
presence of others never leads below the surface, and it is in the very
depths of our being that true calm, deep and true peace and love lie.
Nothing so well prepares for the serious duties of after-life."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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