University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
Showing the great benefits arising from having a discreet friend.

Though years bring with them wisdom, yet there
is one lesson the aged seldom learn, namely, the
management of youthful feelings. Age is all head,
youth all heart; age reasons, youth feels; age acts
under the influence of disappointment, youth under
the dominion of hope. What wonder, then, that
they so seldom should agree? Mr. Lee had, for
more than half a score of years, been pondering on
the beautiful congruity of a match between his
daughter and his nephew. He had enough for both;
they were of a corresponding age; both handsome,
amiable, and intelligent; and they had been brought
up together, until within the last few years that
Highfield remained at college. It was the most
reasonable, the most likely, and the most natural,
that they should fall in love, marry, and be happy.

Therefore, he had long since determined in his own
mind, that they should fall in love, marry, and be
happy. Alas! poor gentleman; even experience
had failed in teaching him, that the most likely
things in the world are the least likely to come to
pass! He communicated his plans to his friend, Mr.
Fairweather:

“I intend Highfield shall live with us,” said he,
“and thus he will have every opportunity to make
himself agreeable.”

“You had better forbid him the house,” said the
other.

“Forbid him the—I shall do no such thing,”
said Mr. Lee, somewhat nettled; “but you are not
serious?”

“Faith am I.”

“How so?”

Mr. Fairweather was of the Socratic school,
without knowing much of Socrates; for he held the
ancients in little respect.

“Have you not observed, my good friend,” said
he, “that matrimony does not in general answer the
great end of human happiness?”

“Now I tell you what, Mr. Fairweather, I know
what you are after; you want to catch me in your
confounded, crooked interrogatives; but it wont do,
I tell you it wont do, sir,” said Mr. Lee, chafing.

“No, no, upon honour, I have no such intention;
only answer me frankly. Have you not made the
observation?”

“Well, then, I have,” answered Mr. Lee, with
some hesitation, and feeling exactly like a fly in the
anticipation of being caught in a cobweb.

“Very well: don't you think this arises from
their seeing too much of each other—becoming too
intimate—and thus losing the guard which the little,
salutary restraints of the constitution of society
interpose before marriage, giving way, in consequence,
to a display of temper and habits, that
weakens if not destroys affection?”

“Certainly—certainly—I do,” quoth the other.

“Very well: do not two young people, living
together in the same house, associating on terms of
the most perfect intimacy, also see a great deal of
each other, calculated to unveil the mysteries in
which love delights to shroud his glorious deceptions?
The young lady comes down to
breakfast, with her hair in papers—an old, faded,
black silk or calico frock—a shoe out at the sides,
and a hole in her stocking—she scolds the servant,
and gets into a passion; for it is impossible to be
always a hypocrite—and ten to one they become so
easy together, that they will not scruple at last to
contradict, quarrel, and at length care no more for
each other, than people generally do who have had
a free opportunity of seeing all their faults at full
length.

“All this is very true; but then—but go on, sir.”

“Very well—the case stands thus: Marriages
are seldom very happy—why? because the parties

are too much together—why? because they live in
the same house, and see all each other's faults.
Ergo, if you want two young persons to become
attached, and marry, you should take a course directly
opposite to that of matrimony. Instead of
shutting your daughter and nephew up together,
your best way will be, as I said before, to turn him
out of doors.”

“There! there! I knew you'd have me at last;
I felt you were all the time drawing your infernal
cobwebs round me. Sir, you're enough to provoke
a saint, with your Socratics.”

“I never meddle with Socrates, or Socratics, my
good friend; but Socrates, notwithstanding his
ignorance of steamboats, spinning jennies, railroads,
and chemistry, is upon the whole good authority in
cases of the kind we are discussing. He certainly
saw too much of his lady.”

“Then you seriously advise me to turn my nephew
out of doors, to bring about a union? Why
I did threaten it the other day, and Lucia told me
if I did, she would certainly let him in again.”

“Why, my dear friend, here you have the whole
secret of the matter. Only persuade the young lady
that you don't approve of the young gentleman for a
son-in-law, and the business is done.”

“Confound it; be serious, can't you? I want
your advice as a friend.”

“Well, I have given it, and you don't like it. I
think it best then that you try the other extreme,

and shut them up together all day in the same room.
Don't you think, my good friend, that upon the
whole much of the misery of married life arises
from young people not being sufficiently acquainted
with the habits and tempers of each other beforehand?”

“Certainly, certainly.”

“Very well: and don't you think the best way of
obviating that evil, is to let them see as much of one
another as possible?”

Here Mr. Lee made his friend a most profound
and reverential bow. “I remember,” said he,
“having read, in Monsieur Rabelais, that the great
Panurge, being inclined to marry, consulted divers
philosophers without success, when the thought
came across him to ask the opinion of a fool, who
soon satisfied his doubts on the subject:—I shall
follow his example.” Whereupon he seized his hat
and stumped out of the room, followed by his friend.
But they did not separate; they stuck together like
a pair of wool-cards with the teeth standing opposite
ways, and finished the morning, the best friends in
the world.