TO LADIES ABOUT TO MARRY.

Patea Mail, 9 July 1881, Page 4

TO LADIES ABOUT TO MARRY.

Woman can not be too cautious, too watchful, too exacting in her choice of a lover, who from the slave of a few weeks or months (rarely years) is to become the master of her future destiny, and guide, not only through all time, but perhaps eternity. What madness, then, to suffer the heart to be taken captive by beauty, talent, grace, fascination, before the reason is convinced of the soundness of principle, the purity of faith, the integrity of mind of the future husband ! It is not' always the all-enduring, devoted, and impassionate lover who makes the kindest, the most attentive, and forbearing husband. We have often seen the coldest inattention, the most mortifying disparagement, the most insulting inconstancy, follow, even in the first months of matrimony, on the most romantic devotion and blindest adoration of courtship. The honeymoon seems to exhaust every drop of honey, and leave nothing but stings in the jar. Again, the lover who dares to be a man and to “ hint a fault, and hesitate dislike,” even though the happiness of his whole life seems to him at stake—one who may forget a bouquet, or neglect a compliment, arrive a few minutes too late, or be disinclined for a waltz or a polka, not admire a fashion, or disagree witli a sentiment —such a lover, despicable and indifferent, as he is pronounced to be by astounded mammas, and indignant aunts (jealous for their daughters and nieces as for themselves), and, far as he falls short of romantic sisters’ and young friends’ exacting notions, may turn out the best of good husbands after all. If he dared to be a man when he had everything to gain, he will not be a coward when he has, in the world’s opinion, nothing to lose.