neral complaint. What can be expected, but disappointment and
repentance, from a choice made in the immaturity of youth, in the ardour
of desire, without judgment, without foresight, without inquiry after
conformity of opinions, similarity of manners, rectitude of judgment, or
purity of sentiment?

"Such is the common process of marriage. A youth and maiden, meeting by
chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate
civilities, go home, and dream of one another. Having little to divert
attention, or diversify thought, they find themselves uneasy, when they
are apart, and, therefore, conclude that they shall be happy together.
They marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness before had
concealed; they wear out life in altercations, and charge nature with
cruelty.

"From those early marriages proceeds, likewise, the rivalry of parents
and children; the son is eager to enjoy the world, before the father is
willing to forsake it, and there is hardly room, at once, for two
generations. The daughter begins to bloom, before the mother can be
content to fade, and neither can forbear to wish for the absence of the
other.

"Surely all these evils may be avoided, by that deliberation and delay,
which prudence prescribes to irrevocable choice. In the variety and
jollity of youthful pleasures, life may be well enough supported,
without the help of a partner. Longer time will increase experience, and
wider views will allow better opportunities of inquiry and selection:
one advantage, at least, will be certain; the parents will be visibly
older than their children."

"What reason cannot collect," said Nekayah, "and what experiment has not
yet taught, can be known only from the report of others. I have been
told, that late marriages are not eminently happy. This is a question
too important to be neglected, and I have often proposed it to those,
whose accuracy of remark, and comprehensiveness of knowledge, made their
suffrages worthy of regard. They have generally determined, that it is
dangerous for a man and woman to suspend their fate upon each other, at
a time, when opinions are fixed, and habits are established; when
friendships have been contracted on both sides; when life has been
planned into method, and the mind has long enjoyed the contemplation of
its own prospects.

"It is scarcely possible that two, travelling through the world, under
the conduct of chance, should have been both dir