be more than one of the innumerable modes of human misery. When I see and reckon the various forms of connubial infelicity, the unexpected causes of lasting discord, the diversities of temper, the oppositions of 5 opinion, the rude collisions of contrary desire where both are urged by violent impulses, the obstinate contests of disagreeing virtues where both are supported by consciousness of good intention, I am sometimes disposed to think, with the severer casuists of most Io nations, that marriage is rather permitted than approved, and that none, but by the instigation of a passion too much indulged, entangle themselves with indissoluble compacts."

"You seem to forget," replied Rasselas, "that you 15 have, even now, represented celibacy as less happy than marriage. Both conditions may be bad, but they cannot both be worst. Thus it happens, when wrong opinions are entertained, that they mutually destroy each other and leave the mind open to truth."

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"I did not expect," answered the princess, "to hear that imputed to falsehood which is the consequence only of frailty. To the mind, as to the eye, it is difficult to compare with exactness objects vast in their extent and various in their parts. Where we see 25 or conceive the whole at once, we readily note the dis

criminations and decide the preference; but of two systems, of which neither can be surveyed by any human being in its full compass of magnitude and multiplicity of complication, where is the wonder that, judging of 30 the whole by parts, I am affected by one or the other

as either presses on my memory or fancy? We differ from ourselves, just as we differ from each other, when

we see only part of the question, as in the multifarious relations of politics and morality; but when we perceive the whole at once, as in numerical computations, all agree in one judgment, and none ever varies his opinion."

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"Let us not add," said the prince, "to the other evils of life the bitterness of controversy, nor endeavor to vie with each other in subtleties of argument. We are employed in a search, of which both are equally to enjoy the success or suffer by the miscarriage; it is 10 therefore fit that we assist each other. You surely conclude too hastily from the infelicity of marriage against its institution. Will not the misery of life prove equally that life cannot be the gift of heaven? The world must be peopled by marriage or peopled 15 without it."

"How the world is to be peopled," returned Nekayah, "is not my care, and needs not be yours. I see no danger that the present generation should omit to leave successors behind them; we are not now inquir- 20 ing for the world, but for ourselves."

THE DEBATE ON MARRIAGE CONTINUED.

"THE good of the whole," says Rasselas, "is the same with the good of all its parts. If marriage be 25 best for mankind, it must be evidently best for individuals, or a permanent and necessary duty must be the cause of evil, and some must be inevitably sacrificed to the convenience of others. In the estimate which

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you have made of the two states, it appears that the incommodities of a single life are in a great measure necessary and certain, but those of the conjugal state accidental and avoidable.

"I cannot forbear to flatter myself, that prudence and benevolence will make marriage happy. The general folly of mankind is the cause of general complaint. What can be expected but disappointment and repentance from a choice made in the immaturity of youth, Io in the ardor of desire, without judgment, without foresight, without inquiry after conformity of opinions, similarity of manners, rectitude of judgment, or purity of sentiment?

ΙΟ

A

"Such is the common process of marriage. 15 youth and maiden meeting by chance or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home and dream of one another. Having little to divert attention or diversify thought, they find themselves uneasy when they are apart, and therefore 20 conclude that they shall be happy together. marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness had before concealed; they wear out life in altercations, and charge nature with cruelty.

They

"From those early marriages proceeds likewise the 25 rivalry of parents and children. The son is eager to enjoy the world before the father is willing to forsake it, and there is hardly room at once for two generations. The daughter begins to bloom before the mother can be content to fade, and neither can forbear 30 to wish for the absence of the other.

"Surely all these evils may be avoided by that deliberation and delay which prudence prescribes to

irrevocable choice. In the variety and jollity of youthful pleasures, life may be well enough supported without the help of a partner. Longer time will increase experience, and wider views will allow better opportunities of inquiry and selection. One advantage at 5 least will be certain; the parents will be visibly older than their children."

"What reason cannot collect," said Nekayah, “and what experiment has not yet taught, can be known only from the report of others. I have been told that 10 late marriages are not eminently happy. This is a question too important to be neglected, and I have often proposed it to those whose accuracy of remark, and comprehensiveness of knowledge, made their suffrages worthy of regard. They have generally determined, 15 that it is dangerous for a man and woman to suspend their fate upon each other at a time when opinions are fixed and habits are established; when friendships have been contracted on both sides, when life has been planned into method, and the mind has long en- 20 joyed the contemplation of its own prospects.

"It is scarcely possible that two, travelling through the world under the conduct of chance, should have been both directed to the same path, and it will not often happen that either will quit the track which cus- 25 tom has made pleasing. When the desultory levity of youth has settled into regularity, it is soon succeeded by pride ashamed to yield, or obstinacy delighting to contend. And even though mutual esteem produces mutual desire to please, time itself, as it modifies un- 30 changeably the external mien, determines likewise the direction of the passions and gives an inflexible rigid

ity to the manners. Long customs are not easily broken; he that attempts to change the course of his own life very often labors in vain, and how shall we do that for others which we are seldom able to do for 5 ourselves?"

ΙΟ

"But surely," interposed the prince, "you suppose the chief motive of choice forgotten or neglected. Whenever I shall seek a wife it shall be my first question whether she be willing to be led by reason.

"Thus it is," said Nekayah, "that philosophers are deceived. There are a thousand familiar disputes which reason never can decide; questions that elude investigation and make logic ridiculous; cases where something must be done and where little can be said. 15 Consider the state of mankind, and inquire how few can be supposed to act upon any occasions, whether small or great, with all the reasons of action present to their minds. Wretched would be the pair, above all names of wretchedness, who should be doomed to ad20 just by reason every morning all the minute detail of a domestic day.

"Those who marry at an advanced age will probably escape the encroachments of their children, but in diminution of this advantage they will be likely to 25 leave them ignorant and helpless to a guardian's mercy; or if that should not happen, they must at least go out of the world before they see those whom they love best either wise or great.

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"From their children, if they have less to fear, they have less also to hope, and they lose without equivalent the joys of early love, and the convenience of uniting with manners pliant and minds susceptible of