Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/230

 A wife had ascertained, but not until after marriage, that her husband had been possessed of considerable property; and, what was to be regarded as still worse for his prospects, it was means inherited and not self-made. In consequence of such ample pre-provision, he had shown but slight disposition to enter with due zest and vigour upon the world's work, and his poor and humiliated wife was in consequence in utter despair at her prospects. The case was aggravated by the indolent fellow keeping an elegant and luxurious carriage, in which, with all the latest and best energy-locomotive adaptations, he wasted many precious hours; and he had even repeatedly tried to seduce his virtuous and high-aiming wife into the same ignoble waste of time.

The noble-minded wife, after a protracted endurance, hoping still against all hope, at length, and most, reluctantly, brought her action. The judge commented upon the very high importance of this case to the advanced civilization of the time. He pictured the young wife, ardent in the honourably ambitious hope of a successful life of activity and usefulness, realizing, after marriage, that all her brightest expectations were thwarted, checkmated, utterly wrecked, by an idling and useless husband. No doubt husbands of unusually superior natures could surmount the obstacles in question, and be, perhaps, just as active, mind and body, with wealth as without it. But as that was by no means the ordinary experience, a fact so material to the matrimonial agreement, and to matrimonial prospects, ought, in all fairness, to be made known beforehand; otherwise the contract was simply null and void. After a brief but emphatic