young, fairly educated, modest, patient; one with whom I may joke and
play, and yet be serious; to whom I may babble and talk, mixing hearty
fun and kisses together; one whose presence will lighten my anxiety and
soften the tumult of my cares."

It is not too much to say that the great majority of wives equal this
ideal. United to such a woman, a man becomes better. He can never be the
perfect man unless married. With marriage he undertakes those duties of
existence which he is born to fulfill. The excitements of life and of
business, the selfishness of daily existence, diminish; the generosities
of the heart expand; the health of the mind becomes daily more robust;
small repressions of selfishness, daily concessions, and daily trials,
render him better; the woman of his choice becomes his equal, and in
lifting her he lifts himself. He may not be a genius, nor she very
clever; but, once truly married, the real education of life begins. That
is not education which varnishes a man or a woman over with the pleasant
and shining accomplishments which fit us for society, but that which
tends to improve the heart, to bring forward the reflective qualities,
and to form a firm and regular character; that which cultivates the
reason, subdues the passions, restrains them in their proper place,
trains us to self-denial, makes us able to bear trials, and to refer
them, and all our sentiments and feelings to their proper source; which
makes us look beyond this world into the next. A man's wife, if properly
chosen, will aid in all this. The most brilliant and original thinker,
and the deepest philosopher we have--he who has written books which
educate the statesmen and the leaders of the world--has told us in his
last preface that he, having lost his wife, has lost his chief
inspiration. Looking back at his works, he traces all that is noble, all
that is advanced in thought and grand in idea, and all that is true in
expression, not to a poet or a teacher, but to his own wife; in losing
her he says he has lost much, but the world has lost more. So, also, two
men, very opposite in feelings, in genius, and in character, and as
opposite in their pursuits, declared at a late period in their
lives--lives spent in industry and hard work, and in expression of what
the world deemed their own particular genius--"that they owed all to
their wives." These men were Sir Walter Scott and Daniel O'Connell. "The
very gods rejoice," says Menu the sage,