francs, she holds that she purchased, not a
brutal despot, but a complaisant follower.
Madame, to go to a charity-sermon, exacts the
support of monsieur's arm, whose tendencies
lie entirely turf-wards. At night, the one is
attracted to a ball, while the other cannot abstain
from his club. So that, the marriage of reason
(whose sweets have lasted about as long as
spring-tide flowers) ends, ninety times out of
a hundred, in a separation—not of hearts; for
that organ has never been consulted, and had
never formed part of the portion on either side.
And note well that this is a match made under
avowable circumstances; there are others that
may be stigmatised as shameful, although placed
under the patronage of reason. Take one as
a sample of the rest.

It was a young notary. The son of artisans
in easy circumstances, he dreamt, as the summit
of grandeur, of nothing less than an office in a
chef-lieu d'arrondissement, a town honoured by
the residence of a sous-préfet. Three hundred
a year (seven or eight thousand francs), after
twenty years' labour, was all his ambition; and
everything promised that he would obtain his
object.

He had been in business three years, and half
the cost of his place was already paid. (Notaries'
"studies" are purchased, like commissions in
the British army.) As a not ill-looking fellow,
and esteemed in the exercise of his legal
functions, he might, according to local custom,
aspire to a dowry of fifty thousand francs, with
twice as much in expectation. He was, in
short, the man who had the best opportunities
in the neighbourhood for making what is called
a marriage of reason without doing violence to
his own inclinations. He could pick and choose
among lots of girls possessing all the qualifications
required in that class of society; namely,
a decent fortune, sufficient education to know
that there is no railway between Dover and
Calais, enough piano-playing to scratch off a
polka, taste enough to avoid wearing a green
hat with a blue dress, a knowledge of pickling
and preserving, the capability to shear wool off
an egg-shell, and the sense (in spite of a love of
finery) to prefer an acre of land to a cashmere
shawl, with the habit of attending church merely
for decorum's sake. In other respects, brought
up in the most complete submissiveness, purity,
and ignorance. Assuredly, for matrimonial
speculators, it was the beau ideal of a chance.

Well—would you believe it?—this smart
little notary, who, as the saying is, had only to
stoop to gather the fairest flower, cast his eyes
on a girl older than himself, scarcely three feet
high, idiotic, subject to St. Vitus's dance, and
superlatively hysterical. True, she was an only
child; and nobody, except the notaries of the
neighbourhood, could state the exact figure of
the paternal fortune. The most moderate estimate
put it at fifteen hundred thousand francs.
That was the bait.

After many a cautious feeler to ascertain
whether he were likely to suit, the bold young
notary was admitted into the fortress. The
father who, for form's sake, had made some
slight, resistance, decided at length to conclude
an alliance which, at one stroke, had the double
advantage of ridding him of a heavy burden, and
of giving him a son-in-law capable of managing
his numerous affairs.

For the consideration of five hundred thousand
francs, in the shape of dowry, the notary, who
sold his office, swore at the altar to ensure the
happiness of a woman whom he could not look
at without disgust, and so contracted a marriage
which his fellow-townsmen qualified, not indeed
as a marriage of reason—the term did not
express sufficient approval—but as a marriage
"de haute raison," of high reason!

What admirable devotion! Was it not a
sacrifice of self to link himself for life to so
abject a creature, and to devote his abilities and
acquirements to the service of his opulent
father-in-law? True, the five hundred thousand francs
were regarded as a sop of consolation—no;
not that—as the reward of his cleverness.

That match gave rise to heaps of envy. But
although the story is historical, it finishes
exactly like a tale. For events—which is a pity
—sometimes take the liberty of occurring as
novel-writers would make them occur. There
was a final chastisement. After two years'
married life, the idiotic dwarf, who gained
strength by accidents that kill ordinary women,
buried for good and all her hard-working and
expectant husband, who died therefore without
touching the fortune for which he had sold
himself body and soul. Providence does not seem
to favour marriages of such excessively high
reason.

Keeping to the strict sense of the words, the
union termed a marriage of inclination would be
one in which reason is set aside, despised,
trodden under foot. Nay, the word "inclination"
is too timid and gentle to express the
meaning of those who apply it to this kind of
marriage. They would imply blind passion;
something worse, perhaps. They will be greatly
astonished at being told: "Your marriage of
reason is an act of folly, since you have
converted it into a commercial contract. Its true
name is a money-match. No one denies that the
voice of reason ought to be invoked, and listened
to, in concluding a marriage; but reason, really
worthy of the name, requires other conditions
besides the equalities laid down as bases.
Ruminate La Bruyère's skit. 'If you choose to
commit a folly, and marry for a passing whim,
you will espouse Mélite, who is young, pretty,
well-conducted, economical, whom you love,
and who loves you, who has a smaller fortune
than Ægine, whom they want you to marry,
and who, with a rich dower, will bring you a
rich disposition to spend it, and all your
worldly goods besides.'"

In fact, what will it profit me to marry a
woman who is more or less rich, if, for many
grave and inevitable reasons, I cannot live happily
with her? Far better to remain poor and
single; I shall at least preserve that inestimable
treasure commonly called liberty. I shall not