Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/389

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A man who admires a fine woman, has yet no more reason to wish himself her husband, than one who admired the Hesperian fruit, would have had to wish himself the dragon that kept it.

He who marries a wife, because he cannot always live chastely, is much like a man, who, finding a few humours in his body, resolves to wear a perpetual blister.

Married people, for being so closely united, are but the apter to part; as knots, the harder they are pulled, break the sooner.

A family is but too often a commonwealth of malignants: what we call the charities and ties of affinity, prove but so many separate and clashing interests: the son wishes the death of the father; the younger brother that of the elder; the elder repines at the sisters portions: when any of them marry, there are new divisions, and new animosities. It is but natural and reasonable to expect all this, and yet we fancy no comfort but in a family.

Authors in France seldom speak ill of each other, but when they have a personal pique; authors in England seldom speak well of each other, but when they have a personal friendship. LXV. There