has not yet
taught, can be known only from the report of others. I have been told that late
marriages are not eminently happy. This is a question too important to be
neglected, and I have often proposed it to those, whose accuracy of remark, and
comprehensiveness of knowledge, made their suffrages worthy of regard. They have
generally determined, that it is dangerous for a man and woman to suspend their
fate upon each other, at a time when opinions are fixed, and habits are
established; when friendships have been contracted on both sides, when life has
been planned into method, and the mind has long enjoyed the contemplation of its
own prospects.
    It is scarcely possible that two travelling through the world under the
conduct of chance, should have been both directed to the same path, and it will
not often happen that either will quit the track which custom has made pleasing.
When the desultory levity of youth has settled into regularity, it is soon
succeeded by pride ashamed to yield, or obstinacy delighting to contend. And
even though mutual esteem produces mutual desire to please, time itself, as it
modifies unchangeably the external mien, determines likewise the direction of
the passions, and gives an inflexible rigidity to the manners. Long customs are
not easily broken: he that attempts to change the course of his own life, very
often labours in vain; and how shall we do that for others which we are seldom
able to do for ourselves?« »But surely, interposed the prince, you suppose the
chief motive of choice forgotten or neglected. Whenever I shall seek a wife, it
shall be my first question, whether she be willing to be led by reason?«
    »Thus it is, said Nekayah, that philosophers are deceived. There are a
thousand familiar disputes which reason never can decide; questions that elude
investigation, and make logick ridiculous; cases where something must be done,
and where little can be said. Consider the state of mankind, and inquire how few
can be supposed to act upon any occasions, whether small or great, with all the
reasons of action present to their minds. Wretched would be the pair above all
names of wretchedness, who should be doomed to adjust by reason every morning
all the minute detail of a domestick day.
    Those who marry at an advanced age, will probably escape the encroachments
of their children; but, in diminution of this advantage, they will be likely to
leave them, ignorant and helpless, to a guardian's mercy: or, if that should not
happen, they must at least go out of the