say unjustly, for it is
inevitable that a novelist should frequently represent marriage as being
the one great crisis of a man's history. It is not his function to give
a complete theory of life, but to describe such scenes as are most
interesting and most dramatic. He is quite justified in often writing as
though two lovers should really think about nothing under heaven except
their chances of union, and should be dismissed, when the happy event
has once taken place, in a certainty of living very happily ever
afterwards. He has no concern with the lover's briefs or sermons or
operations on the Stock Exchange, which may really take up by far the
greater part of the man's waking thoughts; and it would spoil the unity
of his work if he were to dwell upon them proportionately. It would be
as absurd to mistake the novelist's views for a complete one as to
condemn it because it is incomplete. In novels which depend, as
ninety-nine out of a hundred must depend, upon a love story, the
importance of marriage, or at least the degree in which it occupies the
thoughts of the characters, will necessarily be overstated. The engaged
persons, however, find that, in the eyes of their friends, if not in
their own, they are temporarily accepting the novelist's ideal. For the
time they are considered exclusively as persons about to marry, and all
their other relations in life retire into the background.

The difficulty of the position depends upon the extent to which this
conventional assumption diverges from the true facts of the case. The
lady, for example, suffers less than the gentleman, because, in spite of
Dr. Mary Walker and other martyrs to the cause of woman's rights, it is
still true that marriage fills a larger space in her life than in that
of the other sex. She can take up the character with a certain triumph,
as of one who has more or less fulfilled her mission and passed from the
ranks of the aspirants to those of the successful candidates for
matrimony. At any rate, even if she takes a loftier view of feminine
duties, there is nothing ridiculous about her position. She may busy
herself about trousseaux or wedding-dresses or marriage-presents, with
perfect satisfaction to herself and to the envy of her female friends.
But her unfortunate accomplice, especially if he is of mature age, is in
a far more uncomfortable position.

Few men who have become immersed in any profession or business can act
the character without an un