d who can say that
he has purchased an indulgence to disobey a law which is in some
respects paramount to every other, however great the price he may
have paid?

That marriage tends to concentrate our sympathies within the
family circle, I do not believe. A proper investigation of the
subject will, I am certain, prove this assumption unfounded.
Facts do _not_ show unmarried men to be 'best friends, masters,
servants' &c.; and I am sorry to find such a _theory_ maintained
by any sensible writer. Some of the illustrious examples of
celibacy which are usually brought, were by no means estimable
for their social feelings or habits. What would become of
mankind, if they were all to immure themselves in dungeons, or
what is nearly the same thing to social life, among books and
papers? Better, by far, to remain in ignorance of the material
laws which govern the universe, than to become recluses in a
world like this. Better even dispense with some of the lights
which genius has struck out to enable us to read suns and stars,
than to understand attraction in the material world, while we are
insensible to all attractions of a moral and social kind. God has
made us to _feel_, to _sympathize_, and to _love_,--as well as to
_know_.

SECTION II. _General Considerations._

We are now to enter on a most important part of our subject. Hitherto
it had been my object to point out the proper course for you to pursue
in reference to yourself, your own improvement, and consequent
usefulness. In the remarks of the preceding chapter, and in those which
follow, you are regarded as seeking a _companion_; as anxious to assume
new relations, such as involve new duties and new responsibilities.

If you are successful, instead of educating yourself alone, you are to
be concerned in improving the mental, moral, and social condition of
two persons; and in the end, perhaps _others_. You are to be a
_teacher_; you cannot avoid this station if you would. But you are also
to be a _learner_. Dr. Rush says we naturally imitate the manners, and
gradually acquire the tempers of persons with whom we live, provided
they are objects of our affection and respect. 'This,' he adds, 'has
been observed in husbands and wives who have lived long and happily
together; and even in servants.' And nothing can be more true.

Not only your tem