bout it, and he succeeds. But it shocks his finest, tenderest
feelings. He admits that it is in accordance with nature; but he is apt
to argue that the whole progress of civilisation has been the result of
an effort to get away from nature. "What! Leave the most important
relation into which a man can enter to the mercy of chance, when a mere
gesture may arouse passion, or the colour of a corsage induce desire!
No, you English, you who are so self-controlled, you are not going
seriously to defend that! You talk of love as though it lasted for
ever. You talk of sacrificing to love; but what you really sacrifice,
or risk sacrificing, is the whole of the latter part of married
existence for the sake of the first two or three years. Marriage is not
one long honeymoon. We wish it were. When _you_ agree to a marriage you
fix your eyes on the honeymoon. When _we_ agree to a marriage we try to
see it as it will be five or ten years hence. We assert that, in the
average instance, five years after the wedding it doesn't matter
whether or not the parties were in love on the wedding-day. Hence we
will not yield to the gusts of the moment. Your system is, moreover, if
we may be permitted the observation, a premium on improvidence; it is,
to some extent, the result of improvidence. You can marry your
daughters without dowries, and the ability to do so tempts you to
neglect your plain duty to your daughters, and you do not always resist
the temptation. Do your marriages of 'romance' turn out better than our
marriages of prudence, of careful thought, of long foresight? We do not
think they do."

So much for the two ways. Patriotism being the last refuge of a
scoundrel, according to Doctor Johnson, I have no intention of
judging between them, as my heart prompts me to do, lest I should be
accused of it. Nevertheless, I may hint that, while perfectly
convinced by the admirable logic of the French, I am still, with the
charming illogicalness of the English, in favour of romantic marriages
(it being, of course, understood that dowries _ought_ to be far more
plentiful than they are in England). If a Frenchman accuses me of
being ready to risk sacrificing the whole of the latter part of
married life for the sake of the first two or three years, I would
unhesitatingly reply: "Yes, I _am_ ready to risk that sacrifice. I
reckon the first two or three years are worth it." But, then, I am
English, and therefore romantic by nature. Look at London,