Awful it is; and, as serious men go through life, they become
more and more impressed with the momentous results which depend on the
choice made by a man or woman. A lad of nineteen lightly engages
himself; he knows nothing of the gloom, the terror, the sordid horror
of the fate that lies before him; and the unhappy girl is equally
ignorant. In fourteen years the actual substance of that young
fellow's very body is twice completely changed; he is a man utterly
different from the boy who contracted the marriage; there is not a
muscle or a thought in common between the boy and the man--yet the man
takes all the consequences of the boy's act. Supposing that the pair
are well matched, life goes on happily enough for them; but, alas, if
the man or the woman has to wake up and face the ghastly results of a
mistake, then there is a tragedy of the direst order! Let us suppose
that the lad is cultured and ambitious, and that he is attracted at
first by a rosy face or pretty figure only; supposing that he is thus
early bound to a vulgar commonplace woman, the consequences when the
woman happens to have a powerful will and an unscrupulous tongue are
almost too dreadful to be pictured in words.
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