This sentence, instead of containing a just observation, is only an epigram. In looking round a circle of individuals, ridiculously called the world, we shall find happy family establishments less rare than we imagine. Besides, it would be absurd to count among unhappy unions, all those which are not wholly exempt from stormy passions. Not only is perfect felicity a chimerical expectation on the earth, but we meet with many people who would be fatigued into ennui in a perfect calm, and who require a little of the spice of contrariety to season the repast of life. I would not covet their taste; but there are modes of being singular, which, without imparting happiness, procure pleasures. Finally, supposing the number of unhappy marriages to be as immense as is contended, what is the conclusion? The great majority adopting, as maxims of life, principles so different from mine, it would be strange if they obtained such results as I desire. In these days, the deciding motive with parents, in relation to marriage, is interest; and, what seems to me revolting in the spirit of the age, is, that the young have also learned to calculate. When a man marries simply on a speculation of interest, if he sees his fortune and distinction secured, reign disorder and alienation in his house as they may, he is still happier than he deserves to be. Our marriages of inclination guaranty happiness no more than our marriages of interest. What results should be anticipated from the blind impulse of appetite? Let there be mutual affection, such as reason can survey with a calm and severe scrutiny. Such love as is painted in romances is but a fatal fever. It is children alone who believe themselves in love, only when they feel themselves in a delirium. They have imagined that life should be a continual ecstasy; and these indulged dreams of anticipation spoil the reality of wedded life. I have supposed the husband older than his wife. I have imagined him forming the character of his young, fair and docile companion; and that, so to speak, they have become assimilated to each other’s tastes and habits. The right combination of reason and love assures for them, under such circumstances, as much as possible, a futurity of happiness. I might here speak of the misery of jealousy and infidelity, and the comparative guilt of these vices in the husband and the wife. But these are sources of torment only in unions contracted and sustained by the maxims and the spirit of the world. According to my views these crimes could not mar the marriages which were undertaken from right motives, and under the approving sanction of severe reason. I, therefore, pass them by, as not belonging to my subject; and as supposing that when marriage is the result of wise foresight and regulated choice, and when its duties are discharged from a proper sense of their obligation, such faults can not occur.