This page has been validated.
224
ON LIVING TO ONE’S-SELF.
"The fly that sips treacle
Is lost in the sweets;
So he that tastes woman
Ruin meets.”
Is lost in the sweets;
So he that tastes woman
Ruin meets.”
The song is Gay’s, not mine, and a bitter-sweet it is.—How few out of the infinite number of those that marry and are given in marriage wed with those they would prefer to all the world; nay, how far the greater proportion are joined together by mere motives of convenience, accident, recommendation of friends, or indeed not unfrequently by the very fear of the event, by repugnance and a sort of fatal fascination: yet the tie is for life, not to be shaken off but with disgrace or death: a man no longer lives to himself, but is a body (as well as mind) chained to another, in spite of himself—
“Like life and death in disproportion met.”
So Milton (perhaps from his own experience) makes Adam exclaim in the vehemence of his despair,
“For either
He never shall find out fit mate, but such
As some misfortune brings him or mistake;
Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain
Through her perverseness, but shall see her gain’d
By a far worse; or if she love, withheld
He never shall find out fit mate, but such
As some misfortune brings him or mistake;
Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain
Through her perverseness, but shall see her gain’d
By a far worse; or if she love, withheld
