The marriage, whether of love, of ambition, of convenience or mere animal impulse, takes place. The music and dancing are no more, and the brilliancy of the bridal torch is extinct, and with those physical _parapharnalia_, one mental illusion after another begins to melt into thin air. The discriminating faculties, judgment and the critical vision, now become morbidly sensitive and severe, since satiety and the extinction of fancy and the imagination have left these capacities to unchecked action, beholding the object of their scrutiny continually, and close at hand. The medium becomes as unnaturally dark, as it was unnaturally light before. A thousand circumstances, never dreamed of in the philosophy of love and courtship, crowd upon this disposition to cynical and bilious criticism. Manifestations of temper and character, that once indicated to the lover, amiability and intelligence, become, to the moody husband or the discontented wife, marks of a weak understanding and a bad heart; and in proportion, as they nourish despondency and disappointment, they destroy the capability of indulgence and forbearance, and resist efforts to soothe, and correct, and conciliate. In proportion as they become dissatisfied with each other, by a mental progress, exactly the reverse of that which brought them together, home is enveloped with associations of gloom. The imagination finds sunshine in every other place; and every other person is sensible and attractive, but the one they have sworn to love and honor until death. There are those who will see in these revolting representations, a coloring of misanthropy; and pronounce this statement of the case harsh beyond nature. I would it were so; for, unless I deceive myself, I love my kind; and my only object is, to impress upon the young the importance of inquiring, when contemplating this vital and all important transaction, whether they see things in the clear light of truth, and as they will certainly appear after the delirium of love has passed away; or under the nameless and numberless illusions of that fever of the senses, of vanity, and instinct, too often miscalled by the name of love. I much mistake, if the greater portion of the domestic infelicity, which is loudly charged upon the wedded state in the abstract, is not owing to this fascination, this incapacity to examine the only elements, on which the happiness of a family must depend. All I would say, is, before entering on this union, remember, that it is easier to repent before, than after the evil is without a remedy. Pause and scrutinize; and let not the first glimpse of real light open your eyes to your true condition, when it is irretrievable.