Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/84

Rh with anecdotes and illustrations from the abounding stores of his overflowing mind. Some may think he talks too much; but none, except from their own impatient vanity, could wish it were less.

It was either at Mr. Rogers', or at a breakfast a few days after at Mr. R.'s sister's (whose house, by-the-way, is a fair pendant for his), that we had much Monkbarn's humour, from worthy disciples of that king of old bachelors, on the subject of matrimony. H. said there had been many a time in his life when he should have married, if he could some fine day have walked quietly into a village church, and met at the altar a lady baring come as quietly into another door, and then, after the marriage service, each have departed their separate way, with no observation, no speculation upon the engagement, no congratulations before or after. Rogers, who seems resolved to win the crown of celibiat martyrdom (is there a crown for it?), pronounced matrimony a folly at any period of life, and quoted a saying of some wicked Benedict, that, "no matter whom you married, you would find afterward you had married another person."

No doubt; but, except with the idealizing lover, I believe the expectation is as often surpassed as disappointed. There is a generous opinion for a single woman of your married fortunes!