requently than is generally supposed. Perhaps
after a long season they find the fine ladies with whom they have
flirted and danced a weariness; and in this mood they are suddenly
taken with some simple, unfashionable girl, who does not know either
how to dress, or flirt, or dance. So they make the grave error of
thinking that because fine ladies are insupportable, women who are not
fine ladies will be sweet and companionable. But if the one be a
blank, will that prove the other a prize? The dulness or folly of a
polite woman is bad enough; but the dulness and folly of an uneducated
woman is worse. Very soon they find this out, and then comes
indifference, neglect, cruelty, and all the misery that attends two
ruined lives.

The result of unequal marriage in both sexes is certain wretchedness,
and this verdict is not to be altered by its exceptions, however
brilliant they may seem to be. For when a man of means and education
marries an uneducated girl of low birth, or a woman of apparent
culture and high social position marries her servant, and the
marriages are reasonably happy, then it may be positively said,
"_There has been no mesalliance_." The husband and wife were unequal
only in their externals. The real characters of both must have been
vulgar and naturally low and under-bred.

It is folly to talk of two beings unequally married "growing
together," or of "time welding their differences," and making things
comfortable. Habit indeed reconciles us to much suffering, and to many
trials; but an unequal marriage is a trial no one has any business to
have. It is without excuse, and therefore without comfort. When the
Almighty decrees us a martyrdom he blends his peace and consolations
therewith; but when we torture ourselves our sufferings rage like a
conflagration. Perhaps the chain may be worn, as a tight shoe is worn
into shape until it no longer lames; but oh, the misery in the
process! And even in such case the resigned sufferer has no credit in
his patience; quite the contrary, for he knows as well as others know,
though submission to what God ordains is the very height of energy and
nobility, submission to the mistakes we ourselves make is the very
climax of cowardice and weakness.

Discontented Women

Discontent is a vice six thousand years old, and it will be eternal;
because it is in the race. Every human being has a complaining side,
but discontent is bound up in the heart of woman; it is her ori