is a veritable enchantress. You find me here, determined
to avoid the spell.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Pardon me. You were introduced, as Jupiter was
to Semele, by thunder and lightning, which was, happily, not quite as
fatal.

_Mr. Falconer._ I must guard against its being as fatal in a different
sense; otherwise I may be myself the _triste bidental_.{2} I have aimed
at living, like an ancient Epicurean, a life of tranquillity. I
had thought myself armed with triple brass against the folds of a
three-formed Chimaera. What with classical studies, and rural walks,
and a domestic society peculiarly my own, I led what I considered
the perfection of life: 'days so like each other they could not be
remembered.' {3}

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ It is vain to make schemes of life. The world
will have its slaves, and so will Love.

Say, if you can, in what you cannot change. For such the mind of man, as
is the day The Sire of Gods and men brings over him.{4}

1 (Greek passage)--Antigone.

2 Bidental is usually a place struck by lightning: thence
enclosed, and the soil forbidden to be moved. Persius uses
it for a person so killed.

3 Wordsworth: The Brothers.

4 Quid placet aut odio est, quod non mutabile credas?

(Greek phrase) These two quotations form the motto of
Knight's Principles of Taste.

_Mr. Falconer._ I presume, doctor, from the complacency with which you
speak of Love, you have had no cause to complain of him.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Quite the contrary. I have been an exception to
the rule that 'The course of true love never did run smooth.' Nothing
could run more smooth than mine. I was in love. I proposed. I was
accepted. No crossings before. No bickerings after. I drew a prize in
the lottery of marriage.

_Mr. Falconer._ It strikes me, doctor, that the lady may say as much.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ I have made it my study to give her cause to say
so. And I have found my reward.

_Mr. Falconer._ Still, yours is an exceptional case. For, as far as
my reading and limited observation have shown me, there are few happy
marriages. It has been said by an old comic poet that 'a man who brings
a wife into his house, brings into it with her either a good or an evil
genius.'{1} And I may add from Juvenal: 'The Gods only know which it
will be.'{2}

1 (Greek passage)

Theodectes: apud Stobaeum.
2 Conjugium petimus partumque uxoris, at illis
Notum,