one march, but did not encamp on the same
ground as before, as I found a better place by the side of the river. I
have been thinking all the morning about my future career, whether I
shall obtain the appointment in the Guards that I have applied for, (my
application has by this time reached England) if not, what will they do
with me when I get home, or shall I remain in the army? These questions
have been running in my head and occasionally a more delicate one
obtruded. Shall I marry, and if so, when and whom, and here, where all
my thoughts are revealed, I must needs confess that now at twenty-nine
years of age, I begin to weary of single blessedness, and long for a
fair, loving, and loveable companion. Now my gentle lady reader, here is
a chance for you, if you are content with honest love without adoration,
faithfulness without romance; for my romantic days have passed. I have
learnt the sober realities of life, and among them the truth of God's
declaration that it is not good for man to be alone. The _Saturday
Review_ in recent articles, "The Girl of the Period, &c.," holds out a
poor prospect for the would be benedict, and I fear there is much truth
in the assertion that the majority of our young women are husband
hunting, that they make matrimony their one great object, and will
condescend to any means whereby to attain the personal independance
given them by that position, that these marriages without love, only
prompted by selfish considerations, are followed by a total neglect of
all wifely duties--nay more, that even maternal care and tenderness have
nearly ceased to exist. It is a sad picture, and sternly drawn. The
well-known power of the paper is put forth in its highest degree, and
withering sarcasm, and bitter contempt accompany its stern reproofs.
Yet there is a final wail of despair at the unlikelihood of any change
for good being effected. This evil like most others is of our own
making. We men no longer marry while young, but when middle-aged or with
grey hairs beginning to show, a man desires a wife, he will most likely
choose one five and twenty years his junior. The girl often marry thus
because she cannot get a husband of her own age, and a very few years
lost will doom her to perpetual spinsterhood. It is necessarily a
marriage without love, a lucky one if there be respect. Girls have
learnt that it is useless to bestow their affections where nature would
have them, and and it is scarcely a matter