I was once congratulating a friend, who had around him a blooming
family, knit together in the strongest affection. "I can wish you
no better lot," said he, with enthusiasm, "than to have a wife
and children. If you are prosperous, there they are to share your
prosperity; if otherwise, there they are to comfort you." And,
indeed, I have observed that a married man falling into
misfortune, is more apt to retrieve his situation in the world
than a single one; partly, because he is more stimulated to
exertion by the necessities of the helpless and beloved beings
who depend upon him for subsistence, but chiefly because his
spirits are soothed and relieved by domestic endearments, and his
self-respect kept alive by finding, that, though all abroad is
darkness and humiliation, yet there is still a little world of
love at home, of which he is the monarch. Whereas, a single man
is apt to run to waste and self-neglect; to fancy himself lonely
and abandoned, and his heart to fall to ruin, like some deserted
mansion, for want of an inhabitant.
These observations call to mind a little domestic story, of which
I was once a witness. My intimate friend, Leslie, had married a
beautiful and accomplished girl, who had been brought up in the
midst of fashionable life.
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