the
night like a solemn requiem over lost hours. Presently she became
aware that her sister was kneeling beside her, with anxious
questioning look; she seemed, this elder sister, in her long, white
night-dress, with pale, straight hair pushed back from the
clear-tinted, oval face, like a youthful Madonna, and Mary drawing the
gentle face close to her own with sudden impulse, said: "I have seen
the man I shall marry, I have seen him to-night; he is the homeliest
man I have ever known, but if I am married at all, he is to be my
husband."

A few months later this prophecy was verified. On the 12th day of
April, 1832, Robert Dale Owen and Mary Robinson were joined in those
sacred bonds, which, in every true marriage, can be broken only by the
shadow hand of Death. The ceremony was simple and unique; it consisted
in signing a document written by the bridegroom himself, with a
Justice of the Peace and the immediate family as witnesses. The
following extracts will show the character of the compact:

NEW YORK, Tuesday, _April 12, 1832_.

This afternoon I enter into a matrimonial engagement with Mary
Jane Robinson, a young person whose opinions on all important
subjects, whose mode of thinking and feeling, coincide more
intimately with my own than do those of any other individual with
whom I am acquainted.... We have selected the simplest ceremony
which the laws of this State recognize.... This ceremony involves
not the necessity of making promises regarding that over which
we have no control, the state of human affections in the distant
future, nor of repeating forms which we deem offensive, inasmuch
as they outrage the principles of human liberty and equality, by
conferring rights and imposing duties unequally on the sexes. The
ceremony consists of a simply written contract in which we agree
to take each other as husband and wife according to the laws of
the State of New York, our signatures being attested by those
friends who are present.

Of the unjust rights which in virtue of this ceremony an
iniquitous law tacitly gives me over the person and property of
another, I can not legally, but I can morally divest myself. And
I hereby distinctly and emphatically declare that I consider
myself, and earnestly desire to be considered by others, as
utterly divested, now and during the rest