Notes from Life in Seven Essays Author:Henry Taylor Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: OF CHOICE IN MARRIAGE. ' What do you think of marriage ?' says the Duchess of Malfy in Webster's play, and Antonio answers, ' I take it as those that deny ... more »purgatory; It locally contains or heaven or hell; There is no third place in it.' When I was young and inexperienced in wives, I did not take the same view of marriage which Antonio took. I used to say that there were two kinds of marriages, with either of which a man might be content; the one 'the incorporate existence marriage,' the other ' the pleasant additament marriage.' For I thought that if a man could not command a marriage by which all interests would be deepened, all objects exalted, rewards and forfeitures doubled and far more than doubled, and all the comparatives of life turned into superlatives, then there remained, nevertheless, a very agreeable kind of resource, — a marriage, that is, in which one might live one's own substantive life with the additional embellishment of some graceful, simple, gay, easy-hearted creature, who would lie light upon the surface of one's being, be at hand whenever solitude and serious pursuits had become irksome, and never be in the way when she is not wanted. Visions these are; merely dreams of our Epicurean youth. There is no such wife, and marriage is what Antonio took it to be. And marriage being thus the highest stake on this side the grave, it seems strange that men should be so hasty in the choice of a wife as they sometimes are ; for if we look about us at those marriages in which men and women have chosen for themselves, we shall find that even where there has been no absolute passion to expedite the business, the choice has not always been preceded by much deliberation. Perhaps it is owing to that very fact of the decision being so critical, that it is often...« less