THE SUNSHINE OF HER FACE. Not glorious Titan, in his brightness clad, The sunshine of her face in lustre better'd; For when she list to cheer her beauties so, She smiled away the clouds of grief and woe. And had she deign'd her veil for to remove, Phoebus himself once more had fall'n in love. Tasso. WEDLOCK'S SOFT BONDAGE. How blest has my time been! what joys have I known, Since wedlock's soft bondage made Jessy my own! So joyful my heart is, so easy my chain, Around us our boys and girls frolic and play: ones see, And borrow their looks from my Jessy and me. What though on her cheeks the rose loses its hue, Her wit and good-humour bloom all the year through; Time still, as he flies, adds increase to her truth, And gives to her mind what he steals from her youth. Ye shepherds so gay, who make life to ensnare, And cheat, with false vows, the too credulous fair; In search of true pleasure how vainly you roam! To hold it for life, you must find it at home. Edward Moore. AVOID IN MARRIAGE DISTINCTIONS OF MINE AND THINE. Let the husband and wife infinitely avoid a curious distinction of mine and thine; for this hath caused all the laws, suits, and wars in the world; let them who have but one person, have also but one interest. Macarius, in his thirty-second Homily, speaks fully in this particular: “A woman betrothed to a man bears all her portion, and with a mighty love pours it into the hands of her husband, and says, ‘I have nothing of my own ;-my goods, my portion, my body, and my mind, are yours.' Jeremy Taylor. ARGUMENTS IN COMMENDATION OF MARRIAGE. But what do I trouble myself to finde arguments to perswade to, or commend marriage? Behold a brief abstract succintly, pithily, pathetically, perspicuously, and elegantly delivered by Jacobus de Voragine. I. Hast thou meanes? thou hast one to keep and increase it. 2. Hast none? thou hast one to helpe to get it. 3. Art in prosperity? thine happiness is doubled. 4. Art in adversity? shee'l comfort, assist, bear a part of thy burden to make it more tolerable. 5. Art at home? shee'l drive away melancholy. 6. Art abroad? shee looks after thee going from home, wishes for thee in thine absence, and joyfully welcomes thy returne. 7. There's nothing delightsome without society; no society so sweet as matrimony. 8. The band of conjugal love is adaman tine. 9. The sweet company of kinsmen increaseth, the number of parents is doubled, of brothers, sisters, nephews. Burton. THE IMPORTANCE OF SOCIETY TO A YOUNG WIFE. A young married woman is just the last person in the world who ought to be left neighbourless. Accustomed all her life to the pleasant talk of her mother, and the stimulating disputatiousness of her younger sister, she is utterly lonely as soon as her lord gets back again into his groove of work which he has temporarily left for the purpose of the honeymoon. The charming nest becomes a very palace of boredom and weariness; and she may even find herself committing the monstrous crime of half-wishing herself at home again among the polite wranglings of her unmarried sisters, who at all events kept her from being dull. Sala. AN UNDISTURBED DOMESTIC LIFE. Dryden. THE GOOD HUSBAND. The good husband is one, who, wedded not by interest but by choice, is constant as well from inclination as from principle: he treats his wife with delicacy as a woman, with tenderness as a friend; he attributes her follies to her weakness, her imprudence to her inadvertency; he passes them over therefore with good-nature, and pardons them with indulgence: all his care and industry are employed for her welfare; all his strength and power are exerted for her support and protection; he is more anxious to preserve his own character and reputation, because hers is blended with it: lastly, the good husband is pious and religious, that he may animate her faith by his practice, and enforce the precepts of Christianity by his own example that, as they join to promote each other's happiness in this world, they may unite to ensure eternal joy and felicity in that which is to come. Rev. T. Franklin. WHAT MAKES MARRIAGES UNHAPPY? Let it be remembered that marriage is the metempsychosis of women; that it turns them into different creatures from what they were before. Liveliness in the girl may have been mistaken for good temper—the little pervicacity which at first is attractively provoking, at last provokes without its attrac tiveness; negligence of order and propriety, of duties and civilities, long endured, often deprecated, ceases to be tolerable when children grow up and are in danger of following the example. It often happens, that if a man unhappy in the married state were to disclose the manifold causes of his uneasiness, they would be found, by those who were beyond their influence, to be of such a nature as rather to excite derision than sympathy. The waters of bitterness do not fall on his head in a cataract, but through a colander; one, however, like the vases of the Danaïdes, perforated only for replenishment. We know scarcely the vestibule of a house of which we fancy we have penetrated into all the corners. We know not how grievously a man may have suffered, long before the calumnies of the world befell him, as he reluctantly left his house-door. There are women from whom incessant tears of anger swell forth at imaginary wrongs; but of contrition for their own delinquencies not one. Walter Savage Landor. THE GOOD AND GENTLE WIFE. This is one of my pleasures of illness-to be tended with gentle hands, to be comforted with gentle words, to be pillowed on a soft breast throbbing with love, and forgiveness, and tender pity. Then, when my man's strength is gone, and I am as weak and helpless as any child, I know how selfish men are, and what a deep, pure well of devotion is a woman's heart. When we are full of health and strength we go away from home-women-go to our dinners, and our clubs, and amusements, leaving them to their dull domestic routine, sometimes keeping them waiting and watching for us through the weary night. They do certainly give us a bit of their mind occasionally-they would be perfect angels if they did not; but when sickness strikes us down, the harsh word is hushed into a whisper of sympathy, the angry eye melts with an expression of tenderness and pity. And with all their little injuries struggling with love upon their lips, they do not permit themselves to utter more than the gentle sarcasm, You cannot go to the club now, can you, dear?" All the Year Round. INSIPIDITY OF MERCENARY MARRIAGES. 66 The marriage life is always an insipid one, when two people of no genius or taste for themselves meet together, upon such a settlement as has been thought reasonable by parents and conveyancers, from an exact valuation of the land and cash of both parties. In this case, the young lady's person is no more regarded than the house and improvements in purchase of an estate; but she goes with her fortune, rather than her fortune with her. These make up the crowd or vulgar of the rich, and fill up the lumber of the human race, without beneficence towards those below them, or respect to those above them; and lead a despicable, independent, and useless life, without sense of the laws of kindness, good-nature, mutual offices, and the elegant satisfactions which flow from reason and virtue. Addison. WE ARE ENTWINED ONE WITH It is the same, together or apart, From life's commencement to its slow decline: We are entwined; let death come slow or fast, The tie which bound the first endures the last. Byron. MARITAL LOVE GROWS INTO FRIENDSHIP. I cannot be persuaded but that the passion a bridegroom has for a virtuous young woman, will, little by little, grow into friendship, and then it has ascended to a higher pleasure than it was in its first fervour. Without this happens, he is a most unfortunate man who has entered into this state, and left the habitudes of life he might have enjoyed with a faithful friend. But when the wife proves capable of filling serious as well as joyous hours, she brings happiness unknown to friendship itself. Spenser speaks of each kind of love with great justice, and attributes the highest praise to friendship; and indeed there is no disputing that point, but by making that friendship take its place between two married persons. "Hard is the doubt, and difficult to deem, When all three kinds of love together meet, And do dispart the heart with power extreme, Whether shall weigh the balance down; to wit, The dear affections unto kindred sweet, Or raging fire of love to womankind, Or zeal of friends combined by virtues meet: But, of them all, the hand of virtuous mind Methinks the gentle heart should most assured bind. HOW A WIFE MAY IMPROVE HER Ye fair married dames, who so often deplore The bloom of your cheek, and the glance of your eye, Your roses and lilies, may make the men sigh; But roses, and lilies, and sighs pass away, And passion will die as your beauties decay. Use the man that you wed like your favourite guitar, Tho' music in both, they are both apt to jar; How tuneful and soft from a delicate touch, Not handled too roughly, nor play'd on too much! The sparrow and linnet will feed from your hand, Grow tame at your kindness, and come at command: Exert with your husband the same happy skill, For hearts, like young birds, may be tamed to your will. Be gay and good-humour'd, complying and kind; Turn the chief of your care from your face to your mind; 'Tis thus that a wife may her conquest improve, And Hymen shall rivet the fetters of Love. D. Garrick. MARRIAGE INSTITUTED IN PARADISE. Marriage was ordained by the Almighty, instituted in Paradise, and the first blessing from the Lord; He gave to man not a friend, but a wife-that is, a friend and a wife too (for a good woman is, in her soul, the same that a man is, and she is a woman only in her body; that she may have the excellency of the one and the usefulness of the other, and become amiable in both): marriage was ministered to by angels, and the first miracle our Saviour did was to do honour to a wedding. Jeremy Taylor. THE REALLY HAPPY MARRIAGE. The happy marriage is where two persons meet and voluntarily make the choice of each other, without principally regarding or neglecting the circumstance of fortune or beauty. These may still love, in spite of adversity or sickness: the former we may in some measure defend ourselves from; the other is the portion of our very make. When you have a true notion of this sort of passion, your humour of living great will vanish out of your imagination, and you will find love has nothing to do with state. Solitude, with the person beloved, has a pleasure, even in a woman's mind, beyond show or pomp. You are therefore to consider which of your lovers will like you best, which will bear with you most when out of humour; and your way to this is to ask of yourself, which of them you value most for his own sake, and by that judge which gives the greater instances of of his valuing you for yourself only. T. Steele. LOVE MUST BE MUTUAL. Love in marriage cannot live nor subsist, unless it be mutual; and where love cannot be, there can be left of wedlock nothing but the empty husk of an outside matrimony, as undelightful and unpleasing to God as any other kind of hypocrisy. Milton. NATURE'S OFFERING TO THE BRIDE. Bring flowers, fresh flowers, for the bride to wear! They were born to blush in her shining hair. She is leaving the home of her childhood's mirth : She hath bid farewell to her father's hearth: They are nature's offering! their place is there! They speak of hope to the fainting heart, With a voice of promise they come and part, They sleep in dust through the wintry hours; MARRIAGE AN APOTHEOSIS. Marriage is a kind of apotheosis, or a deification inverted. When a man becomes familiar with his goddess, she quickly sinks into a woman. Old age is likewise a great decayer of your idol: the truth of it is, there is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol, especially when she has contracted such airs and behaviour as are only graceful when her worshippers are about her. Considering therefore that in these and many other cases the woman generally outlives the idol, I must desire my fair readers to give a proper direction to their passion for being admired; in order to which, they must endeavour to make themselves the objects of a reasonable and lasting admiration. This is not to be hoped for from beauty, or dress, or fashion, but from those inward ornaments which are not to be defaced by time or sickness, and which appear most amiable to those who are most acquainted with them. Addison. WHAT THE word wIFE EXPRESSES. Lavish not all your love on to-day, for remember that marriage has its to-morrow likewise, and its day after to-morrow too. "Spare," as one may say, "fuel for the winter." Consider, my daughters, what the word wife expresses. The married woman is the husband's domestic faith; in her hands he must be able to confide house and family; be enabled to entrust her with the key of his heart, as well as the key of his dining-room. His honour and his home are under her keeping-his well-being is in her hand. Think of this! And you, sons, be faithful husbands, and good fathers of families. Act so that your wives may esteem and love you. Frederika Bremer. ON AN ANCIENT WEDDING-RING. Device-Two hearts united: the motto-"Dear love of mine, my heart is thine." I like that ring-that ancient ring, As were the sterling hearts of old. I like it, for it wafts me back, Far, far along the stream of time, To other men and other days- The men and days of deeds sublime. But most I like it as it tells The tale of well-requited love; How faithful fondness persevered, And youthful faith disdain'd to roveHow warmly he his suit preferr'd, Though she unpitying long denied, Till, soften'd and subdued at last, He won his fair and blooming bride :' How, till the appointed day arrived, They blamed the lazy-footed hoursHow then the white-robed maiden train Strew'd their glad way with freshest flowers And how, before the holy man They stood in all their youthful pride, And spoke those words, and vow'd those Vows, Which bind the husband to his bride. All this it tells; the plighted troth— The hand in hand-the heart in heart: I like its old and quaint device; No mortal change, no mortal chance, 'Till death' shall ere in sunder tear them. Year after year, 'neath sun and storm, Their hope in heaven, their trust in God, In changeless, heartfelt, holy love These two the world's rough pathway trod. Age might impair their youthful fires, Their strength might fail 'mid life's bleak weather; Still 'hand in hand' they travell'd on. Kind souls! they slumber now together. I like its simple poesy too: 'Mine own dear love, this heart is thine!' Thine, when the dark storm howls along, As when the cloudless sunbeams shine. |