Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/178

170 Here, it will be seen that the end which each had in view has given quality to the act of each. The choice has been made to rest on external considerations alone, and must be productive of disappointment and consequent unhappiness. It will take but a short time for the lady to make the sad discovery, that the brilliant reputation of her husband is no compensation for a morose temper, a love of dissipation, indifference to his wife, captiousness, want of principle, or, even worse, infidelity. Nor will it take him long to tire of her beauty, or to discover that, now he has full possession of her property, her person is of little value.

This is presenting an extreme case; yet such are every day occurring. In most cases of marriage, even when selfish considerations like these are predominant, there is yet in the parties sufficient good sense to be aware that indifference to qualities of mind is an error that might prove fatal to happiness; and therefore they are careful to see that in those who possess the main prerequisites, there are no faults or peculiarities of character that could not well be borne. These marriages prove unhappy just in the degree that the leading end was of a selfish and external character; but the good sense that prompted some regard to qualities of mind, shows itself