'The contrast of beginning and end,' said the General, 'is almost always melancholy. But how rarely does any man,--nay, I had nearly said, or any woman--think a moment of the time to come, or of any time but the present day, in marrying?' 'Except with respect to fortune!' cried Mrs. Arlbery, 'and there, methinks, you men, at least, are commonly sufficiently provident. I don't think reflection is generally what you want in that point.' 'As to reflection,' exclaimed Mr. Macdersey, ''tis the thing in the world I look upon to be the meanest! a man capable of reflection, where a beautiful young creature is in question, can have no soul nor vitals. For my part, 'tis my only misfortune that I cannot get at that lovely girl, to ask her for her private opinion of me at once, that I might either get a licence tomorrow, or drive her out of my head before sleep overtakes me another night.' 'Your passions, my good Macdersey,' said Mrs. Arlbery, 'considering their violence, seem tolerably obedient. Can you really be so fond, or so forgetful at such short warning?' 'Yes, but it's with a pain that breaks my heart every time.' 'You contrive, however, to get it pretty soon mended!' 'That, madam, is a power that has come upon me by degrees; I have paid dear enough for it!--nobody ever found it harder than I did at the beginning; for the first two or three times I took my disappointments so to heart, that I should have been bound for ever to any friend that would have had the good nature to blow my brains out.' 'But now you are so much in the habit of experiencing these little failures, that they pass on as things of course?' 'No, madam, you injure me, and in the tenderest point; for, as long as I have the least hope, my passion's as violent as ever; but you would not be so unreasonable as to have a man love on, when it can answer no end? It's no better than making him unhappy for a joke. There's no sense in such a thing.' 'By the way, my dear Miss Tyrold, and _apropos_ to this Miss Lynmere,' said Mrs. Arlbery, 'do tell me something about Mr. Mandlebert--what is he?--what does he do always amongst you?' 'He--he!--' cried Camilla, stammering, 'he was a ward of my father's--' 'O, I don't mean all that; but what is his style?--his class?--is he agreeable?' 'I believe--he is generally thought so.' 'If he is, do pray, then, draw him into my society, for I am terribly in want of recruits. These poor gentlemen you see here are very good sort of men; but they have a trick of sleeping with their eyes wide open, and fancy all the time they are awake; and, indeed, I find it hard to persuade them to the contrary, though I often ask them for their dreams. By the way, can't you contrive, some or other amongst you, to make the room a little cooler?' 'Shall I open this window?' said the Major.