Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/378

Rh that money had a great influence, after all, in the decision of a match.

That marriages, in spite of this, should often turn out happy, must be attributed to our Lord's mercy, and to the firm, moral principles which are instilled into this generation by nature and education, and supported by the influence of general moral opinion. Nor is it other than natural, that under such circumstances many marriages are also unhappy, and that the number of divorces is large in a portion of the American States where the law does not lay any very momentous impediment in the way. The frequency of divorce here may also be caused by the circumstance of the Americans having less patience than other people with imperfection, and preferring to cut the Gordian knot asunder, rather than to labour through a course of years in unloosening it. “Life is short!” say they.

Yet in the meantime have I nowhere seen more perfectly happy marriages than in America; but these were not entered into for the sake of money.

“What is there better here in the Western States than in those of the East, that makes you prefer living here?” inquired I from my excellent hostess.

“More freedom and less prejudice,” replied she; “more regard to the man than to his dress and his external circumstances; a freer scope for thought and enterprise, and more leisure for social life.”

And yet, I seem to have remarked, that shortness of temper, impatience, misunderstandings, and envyings, all the petty feuds of social life, take up their quarters here no less than in other great cities of the New World. The good seed and the tares spring up together everywhere in the fields of the earth, whether in the West, or whether in the East.

The climate of Cincinnati is not good; the air is keen, and the rapid alternations in the weather, may have