Even in the common affairs of life, in love, friendship, and marriage, how little security have we when we trust our happiness in the hands of others! Most of the friends I have seen have turned out the bitterest enemies, or cold, uncomfortable acquaintance. Old companions are like meats served up too often that lose their relish and their wholesomeness. He who looks at beauty to admire, to adore it, who reads of its wondrous power in novels, in poems, or in plays, is not unwise: but let no man fall in love, for from that moment he is ‘the baby of a girl.’ I like very well to repeat such lines as these in the play of Mirandola— —‘With what a waving air she goes Along the corridor. How like a fawn! Yet statelier. Hark! No sound, however soft, Nor gentlest echo telleth when she treads, But every motion of her shape doth seem Hallowed by silence’— but however beautiful the description, defend me from meeting with the original! ‘The fly that sips treacle Is lost in the sweets; So he that tastes woman Ruin meets.’ The song is Gay’s, not mine, and a bitter-sweet it is.—How few out of the infinite number of those that marry and are given in marriage, wed with those they would prefer to all the world; nay, how far the greater proportion are joined together by mere motives of convenience, accident, recommendation of friends, or indeed not unfrequently by the very fear of the event, by repugnance and a sort of fatal fascination: yet the tie is for life, not to be shaken off but with disgrace or death: a man no longer lives to himself, but is a body (as well as mind) chained to another, in spite of himself— ‘Like life and death in disproportion met.’ So Milton (perhaps from his own experience) makes Adam exclaim, in the vehemence of his despair, ‘For either He never shall find out fit mate, but such As some misfortune brings him or mistake; Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain Through her perverseness, but shall see her gain’d By a far worse; or if she love, withheld By parents; or his happiest choice too late Shall meet, already link’d and wedlock-bound To a fell adversary, his hate and shame; Which infinite calamity shall cause To human life, and household peace confound.’