CONCLUSION
We have taken for the subjects of the foregoing moral essays,
twelve samples of married couples, carefully selected from a large
stock on hand, open to the inspection of all comers. These samples
are intended for the benefit of the rising generation of both
sexes, and, for their more easy and pleasant information, have been
separately ticketed and labelled in the manner they have seen.
We have purposely excluded from consideration the couple in which
the lady reigns paramount and supreme, holding such cases to be of
a very unnatural kind, and like hideous births and other monstrous
deformities, only to be discreetly and sparingly exhibited.
And here our self-imposed task would have ended, but that to those
young ladies and gentlemen who are yet revolving singly round the
church, awaiting the advent of that time when the mysterious laws
of attraction shall draw them towards it in couples, we are
desirous of addressing a few last words.
Before marriage and afterwards, let them learn to centre all their
hopes of real and lasting happiness in their own fireside; let them
cherish the faith that in home, and all the English virtues which
the love of home engenders, lies the only true source of domestic
felicity; let them believe that round the household gods,
contentment and tranquillity cluster in their gentlest and most
graceful forms; and that many weary hunters of happiness through
the noisy world, have learnt this truth too late, and found a
cheerful spirit and a quiet mind only at home at last.
Pages:
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85