o refuse a man who could make them happy, because they don't
quite like the shape of his nose, or because he is a little untidy in
his dress, or simply because they are waiting for some impossible
demigod to whom alone they could surrender their independence. But could
we not mildly point out that darker days must come, when life will not
be all enjoyment, and that a lonely old age, with only too possible
penury to be encountered, must be taken into consideration?

God knows I am no advocate for loveless, and least of all for mercenary
marriages, but I think we want some _via media_ between the French
_mariage de convenance_ and our English and American method of leaving
so grave a question as marriage entirely to the whimsies and romantic
fancies of young girls. We need not go back to the old fallacy that
marriage is the aim and end of a woman's existence, and absolutely
necessary for her happiness. Some women are doubtless called to be
mothers of the race, and to do the social work which is so necessary to
our complex civilization. Some women may feel themselves called to some
literary or artistic pursuit, or some other profession, for which they
require the freedom of unmarried life. But I think I shall carry most
women with me in saying that for the ordinary woman marriage is the
happiest state, and that she rarely realizes the deepest and highest in
her nature except in wifehood and motherhood. Rarely, indeed, can any
public work that she can do for the world equal the value of that
priceless work of building up, stone by stone, the temple of a good
man's character which falls to the lot of his mother. Truly is she
called the wife, the weaver, since day and night, without hasting and
without resting, she is weaving the temple hangings, wrought about with
pomegranates and lilies, of the very shrine of his being. And if our
girls could be led to see this, at least it would overcome that
adverseness to marriage which many are now so curiously showing, and
which inevitably makes them more fastidious and fanciful in their
choice, And, on the other hand, without falling back into the old
match-making mamma, exposing her wares in the marriage market to be
knocked down to the highest bidder, might not parents recognize a little
more than they do how incumbent on them it is to make every effort to
give their daughters that free and healthy intercourse with young men
which would yield them a wider choice, and which forms the