The Evening Before Marriage - Page 2

occupy the thoughts of a young man, and still is of the utmost importance in every household: a secret from which alone spring lasting love and unalterable happiness."

Louise seized the hand of her aunt in both of hers. "Dear aunt! you know I believe you in everything. You mean, that enduring happiness and lasting love are not insured to us by accidental qualities, by fleeting charms, but only by those virtues of the mind which bring to each other. These are the best dowry which we can possess; these never become old."

"As it happens, Louise. The virtues also, like the beauties of the body, can grow old, and become repulsive and hateful with age."

"How, dearest aunt! what is it you say? Name me a virtue which can become hateful with years."

"When they have become so, we no longer call them virtues, as a beautiful maiden can no longer be called beautiful, when time has changed her to an old and wrinkled woman."

"But, aunt, the virtues are nothing earthly."

"Perhaps."

"How can gentleness and mildness ever become hateful?"

"So soon as they degenerate into insipid indolence and listlessness."

"And manly courage?"

"Becomes imperious rudeness."

"And modest diffidence?"

"Turns to fawning humility."

"And noble pride?"

"To vulgar haughtiness."

"And readiness to oblige?"

"Becomes a habit of too ready friendship and servility."

"Dear aunt, you make me almost angry. My future husband can never degenerate thus. He has one virtue which will preserve him as he is for ever. A deep sense, an indestructible feeling for everything that is great and good and noble, dwells in his bosom. And this delicate susceptibility to all that is noble dwells in me also, I hope, as well as in him. This is the innate pledge and security for our happiness."

"But if it should grow old with you; if it should change to hateful excitability; and excitability is the worst enemy of matrimony. You both possess sensibility. That I do not deny; but beware lest this grace should degenerate into an irritable and quarrelsome mortal."

"Ah, Dearest aunt, if I might never become old! I could then be sure that my husband would never cease to love me."

"Thou art greatly in error, dear child! Wert thou always as fresh and beautiful as to-day, still thy husband's eye would by custom of years become indifferent to these advantages. Custom is the greatest enchantress in the world, and in the house one of the most benevolent of fairies. She render's that which is the most beautiful, as well as the ugliest, familiar. A wife is young, and becomes old; it is custom which hinders the husband from