'_Soberly, soberly_.' Now, this species
of sobriety is a great qualification in the person you mean to make your
wife. Skipping, capering, romping, rattling girls are very amusing where
all costs and other consequences are out of the question; and they _may_
become _sober_ in the Somersetshire sense of the word. But while you
have _no certainty_ of this, you have a presumptive argument on the
other side. To be sure, when girls are _mere children_, they are to play
and romp like children. But, when they arrive at that age which turns
their thoughts towards that sort of connexion which is to be theirs for
life; when they begin to think of having the command of a house, however
small or poor, it is time for them to cast away the levity of the child.
It is natural, nor is it very wrong, that I know of, for children to
like to gad about and to see all sorts of strange sights, though I do
not approve of this even in children: but, if I could not have found a
_young woman_ (and I am sure I never should have married an _old_ one)
who I was not _sure_ possessed _all_ the qualities expressed by the word
sobriety, I should have remained a bachelor to the end of that life,
which, in that case, would, I am satisfied, have terminated without my
having performed a thousandth part of those labours which have been, and
are, in spite of all political prejudice, the wonder of all who have
seen, or heard of, them. Scores of gentlemen have, at different times,
expressed to me their surprise, that I was '_always in spirits_;' that
nothing _pulled me down_; and the truth is, that, throughout nearly
forty years of troubles, losses, and crosses, assailed all the while by
more numerous and powerful enemies than ever man had before to contend
with, and performing, at the same time, labours greater than man ever
before performed; all those labours requiring mental exertion, and some
of them mental exertion of the highest order; the truth is, that,
throughout the whole of this long time of troubles and of labours, I
have never known a single hour of _real anxiety_; the troubles have been
no troubles to me; I have not known what _lowness of spirits_ meaned;
have been more gay, and felt less care, than any bachelor that ever
lived. 'You are _always in spirits_, Cobbett!' To be sure; for why
should I not? _Poverty_ I have always set at defiance, and I could,
therefore, defy the temptations of riches; and, as to _home_ and
_children_, I had taken care t