True love is a greater leveler than anarchy.
In courtship, the wooer to the wooed is, in Juliet's phrase, the god of her idolatry; in matrimony he is lucky if he is the idol of her deity.
It is a question which is the sweeter: a spontaneous courtship, or one that has sprung from friendship.
In a spontaneous courtship there is all the charm of novelty;
In a courtship that has grown out of affection there is all the trustfulness of friendship. But
Friendship and courtship are two totally distinct things:
In courtship, men and women meet on the flowery-thorny common of love;
In friendship, men and women invite each other over to their respective plots. So,
A friend will show a friend all over his domain;
A lover can but point out to the lover the flowers (and thorns) which grow in the soil to which they are both strangers. 162
It is an open question whether in matters pre-matrimonial, the mode of the French is not preferable to that of the Anglo-Saxon; whether, that is,
Prudence and prevision are not more certain harbingers of matrimonial happiness of matrimonial happiness than are impulse and passion.
The French couple, when wedded, are virtually strangers; the Anglo-Saxon have already together enacted some scenes of the matrimonial drama. Yet it is an open question also whether
A more durable domestic affection is not built up from the pristine foundation of total ignorance than from that of a partial acquaintanceship.
The American Elizabeth Patterson, before she became Madame Jerome Bonaparte, could write, "I love Jerome Bonaparte, and I prefer to be his wife, were it only for a day, to the happiest union."
The continentalized Madame Jerome Bonaparte, twenty-six years after she had ceased to be Miss Elizabeth Patterson, could write "Do we not know how easily men and women free themselves from the fetters of love, and that only the stupid remain caught in these pretended bonds?" (1) After all,
Little do any couple know of each other before marriage. Besides Does not a delightful romance envelope the nuptials of strangers? At all events, even if precaution is a foe to impulse, few will be found to deny that
Strangeness is by no means inimical to passion. Perhaps, then, Fathers and mothers and uncles and aunts can form a better judgment as to the suitability and adaptability to each other of two young, ardent, and headstrong boys and girls can these themselves; since