ffection for a particular person is
united, but it is not of such a character as to preclude choice,
judgment, comparison, and a consideration of worldly advantages.

It is a wise saying of Swift that there would be fewer unhappy marriages
in the world if women thought less of making nets and more of making
cages. The qualities that attract, fascinate, and dazzle are often
widely different from those which are essential to a happy marriage.
Sometimes they are distinctly hostile to it. More frequently they
conduce to it, but only in an inferior or subsidiary degree. The turn of
mind and character that makes the accomplished flirt is certainly not
that which promises best for the happiness of a married life; and
distinguished beauty, brilliant talents, and the heroic qualities that
play a great part in the affairs of life, and shine conspicuously in the
social sphere, sink into a minor place among the elements of married
happiness. In marriage the identification of two lives is so complete
that it brings every faculty and gift into play, but in degrees and
proportions very different from public life or casual intercourse and
relations. The most essential are often wanting in a brilliant life, and
are largely developed in lives and characters that rise little, if at
all, above the commonplace. In the words of a very shrewd man of the
world: 'Before marriage the shape, the figure, the complexion carry all
before them; after marriage the mind and character unexpectedly claim
their share, and that the largest, of importance.'[68]

The relation is one of the closest intimacy and confidence, and if the
identity of interest between the two partners is not complete, each has
an almost immeasurable power of injuring the other. A moral basis of
sterling qualities is of capital importance. A true, honest, and
trustworthy nature, capable of self-sacrifice and self-restraint, should
rank in the first line, and after that a kindly, equable, and contented
temper, a power of sympathy, a habit of looking at the better and
brighter side of men and things. Of intellectual qualities, judgment,
tact, and order are perhaps the most valuable. Above almost all things,
men should seek in marriage perfect sanity, and dread everything like
hysteria. Beauty will continue to be a delight, though with much
diminished power, but grace and the charm of manner will retain their
full attraction to the last. They brighten in innumerable ways the
little th