Of all the actions of a man’s life, his marriage least concerns other people, yet of all actions of his life it is most meddled with.
A humble man is like a good tree, the fuller of fruit the lower the branches hang.
Love is that affection which, being compounded of desire, esteem, and benevolence, becomes the bond of attachment and union between individuals of the different sexes, and makes them enjoy in the society of each other a species of happiness which they experience nowhere else.
Most of our misfortunes are more supportable than the comments of our friends upon them.
An ingenious author asserts that the length of a man’s life may be estimated by the number of pulsations he has strength to perform. Thus, allowing seventy years for the common age of man, and sixty pulses in a minute for the common measure of pulses in a temperate person, the number of pulsations in his whole life would amount to 2,207,520,000; but if by intemperance he forces his blood into a more rapid motion, so as to give 75 pulses in a minute, the same number of pulses would be completed in fifty-six years, consequently his life would be reduced fourteen years.
Liberty of conscience is a natural right, and he that would obtain it must give it also.
Pleasure is to women what the sun is to the flower; if moderately enjoyed, it beautifies, it refreshes, and it improves—if immoderate, it withers, it deteriorates, and it destroys. But the duties of domestic life, exercised as they must be in retirement, and calling forth all the sensibilities of the female, are perhaps as necessary to the full development of her charms, as the shade and the shadow are to the rose, confirming its beauty and increasing its fragrance.
What deep communion, what real intercourse is implied by sharing the joys and cares of parentage, when any degree of equality is admitted between the parties! It is true that, in a majority of instances, the man looks upon his wife as an adopted child, and places her to the other children in the relation of nurse or governess rather than of parent. Her influence with them is sure, but she misses the education which should enlighten that influence, by being thus treated. It is the order of nature that children should complete the education, moral and mental, of parents, by making them think what is needed for the best culture of human beings, and conquer all faults and impulses that interfere with their giving this to these dear objects, who represent the world to them. Father and mother should assist one another to learn what is required for this sublime priesthood of nature. But for this, a religious recognition of equality is required.—Margaret Fuller.
“Selections.” Leamington Spa Courier (UK), 10 March 1849, p. 2.
