“In the long years liker must they grow:
The man be more of woman, she of man;
He gain in sweetness and in moral height,
Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world;
She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care:
Move as the double natured poet each
Till at the last she set herself to man
Like perfect music unto noble words.”
The preparations are all at last made. The bridal trousseau is completed. The day has been fixed. The cards have gone out. The hour comes. Two young hearts are throbbing with love and joy. A brilliant company, music, flowers, a solemn hush as the happy pair approach the altar, the repetition of the sacred words of the marriage ceremony, the clasping of hands, the mutual covenants and promises, the giving and receiving of the ring, the final “Whom God hath joined together, let not man put asunder,” the prayer and benediction, – and they twain are one flesh. There are tears and congratulations, hurried good byes, a bridal tour, and a new bark puts out upon the sea freighted with high hopes. God grant it may never be dashed upon any hidden rock and wrecked!
Marriage is very like the bringing together of two instruments of music. The first thing is to get them keyed to the same pitch. Before a concert begins you hear the musicians striking chords and keying their instruments, until at length they all perfectly accord. Then they come out and play some rare piece of music without a discord or a jar in any of its parts.
No two lives, however thorough their former acquaintance may have been however long they may have moved together in society or mingled in the closer and more intimate relations of a ripening friendship, ever find themselves perfectly in harmony on the marriage day. It is only when that mysterious blending begins after marriage which no language can explain that each finds so much in the other that was never discovered before. There are beauties and excellences that were never disclosed, even to love’s partial eye, in all the days of familiar intimacy. There are peculiarities which were never seen to exist until they began to make themselves manifest within the veil of the matrimonial temple. There are incompatibilities that were never dreamed of till they were revealed in the attrition of domestic life. There are faults which neither even suspected in the temper and habits of the other.
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