“About that I scarcely know; it’s not a matter to decide on hastily,” returned Leicester, coolly lighting a fresh cigar, which, being of an obstinate disposition, required much scientific management and considerable hard puffing to induce it to perform properly. “In regard to (puff) marriage, Mr. De Grandeville, looking at it philosophically--and I can assure you it’s a subject on which I’ve expended much (puff, puff) serious thought,--looking at it in a reasonable businesslike point of view, it becomes a mere (puff) affair of debtor and creditor,--a question of what you lose and what you gain. Let us try the matter by various tests and see how the account stands. We’ll begin with the watchwords of the day, for instance: ‘Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality.’ Liberty,--a single man can do as he likes without consulting anybody; a married man can do as he likes only when his wife shares the inclination, which, as no two people ever look at anything in exactly the same point of view, appears a somewhat stringent restriction. Fraternity,--a single man may choose his friends where he feels inclined, male or female, as it may have pleased Providence to create them; a married man dare not, unless he has a taste for domestic misery, and possesses eyes which are nail-proof, cultivate a female friendship, and somehow one feels if one were married one should not exactly wish to have a set of men always dangling about one’s house. Equality,--a single man, if he has received a gentleman’s education, wears a good coat, and has wit enough to keep himself warm, is anybody’s equal; a married man must bear all his wife’s burdens as well as his own, and doesn’t get asked by the Browns because the Smiths have told them her great-grandfather was transported for stealing a pewter pot. Now, let us look at the per contra side. A single man soon gets tired of his unlimited Liberty; there’s no fun in having your own way if you’ve no one to contradict you. A little opposition becomes a positive luxury, and this you’re sure to obtain _by_ matrimony. Then, as to Fraternity, friends are better than acquaintances, certainly, just as a mule is preferable to a jackass, but they’re not much comfort to one after all. My most intimate friend lives in Ceylon and writes to me once in five years about hunting elephants. Now, your wife is part of your goods and chattels, belongs to you as completely as your bootjack, and when in hours of indolence you wish to sit with your soul in slippers, she, if she is worth her salt, is ready to pull off the psychological boots that are pinching your mind, and prevent the _dolce far niente_ from becoming meaningless and insipid. Lastly, there’s no such Equality in the world as between husband and wife when they are really suited to each other, appreciate their relative positions justly, and endeavour to make practice and principle coincide. These are my ideas regarding the marriage state, Mr. De Grandeville; but ’tis no use discussing