CONCLUDING WHISPER

TO BOTH

HUSBAND AND WIFE.

"A little explain'd, a little endured, a little pass'd over as a foible, And lo, the jagged atoms fit like smooth mosaic."-Tupper.

CHAPTER I.

MUTUAL FORBEARANCE.

TEMPER is the key-stone of the arch of domestic happiness. All will be uncertain, and tend to swift destruction, if this is not secure. There are a multitude of foolish remarks current in society on the subject of temper. With some persons it is looked on as a mere matter of physical temperament, and therefore independent of the will. Others excuse or even flatter a hasty temper by saying, "Well, my heart is warm, and my temper partakes of its warmth." Many

apologize to themselves, and presumptuously to others, for petulance and perversity, by saying, "I may not have a very good temper, but no one can say I have a bad disposition; and disposition is more than temper." As if it were not obvious that even the most intimate friends must often judge of the disposition by the temper.

The great familiarity and close intercourse of married life naturally breaks down all those reserves and restraints which conceal the character from ordinary observation. It is impossible that people can long seem to each other to be what they are not, in such an intimate relationship. Faults of temper, particularly as they are most easily elicited by the trivial, yet often perverse accidents of daily life, are soonest discovered and quickest resented. It cannot, perhaps, be helped, that (though it is certainly a misfortune) persons know far less of each other's temper than of any individual peculiarity before marriage. Without any intended insincerity each may involuntarily deceive the other on this point. For during courtship each is pleased with the other. The gloss of novelty is on every action and sentiment; the light of love is shedding its lustre

on every look, and adding a grace to manner, an embellishment to character. Often courtships are not only short, but the intercourse is very limited even for the time. It is natural that both should wish to seem, and try to be, agreeable to the other during the period of intercourse before marriage. On all great points of mutually interesting opinions or important principles, sensible people take care to be agreed; and ordinary prudence points out the propriety of such a general conformity of sentiments, and mind and manners, as shall be decidedly pleasing to each. This conformity by no means implies uniformity. The law of contrast often obtains, and very happily in marriage-more often than the law of similarity; but it must be a contrast that blends and harmonizes; there must be affinity even in diversity. But temper can only be known by daily intercourse, and it may be that new scenes, and new duties, and new trials, may develop peculiarities and manifestations that before were only latent, and therefore both unknown and unsuspected even to the careful self-observer, to say nothing of the proverbially blinded eyes of affection.

However well known to each other on