How Odd It Is That

The Brightest Attractions To The Lover Too Often Prove The Husband's Greatest Torments

Are You Hero Enough To Unite Yourself To One Whom You Know To Be Suspected And Despised By All Around You, And Identify Your Interests And Your Honor With Hers?

Keep Both Heart And Hand In Your Own Possession, Till You See Good Reason To Part With Them.

The Bud, Though Plucked, Would Not Be Withered, Only Transplanted To A Fitter Soil To Ripen And Blow Beneath A Brighter Sun; And Though I Might Not Cherish And Watch My Child's Unfolding Intellect, He Would Be Snatched Away From All The Suffering And Sins Of Earth; And My Understanding Tells Me This Would Be No Great Evil; But My Heart Shrinks From The Contemplation Of Such A Possibility, And Whispers I Could Not Bear To See Him Die.

I May Be Permitted, Like The Doctors, To Cure A Greater Evil By A Less, For I Shall Not Fall Seriously In Love With The Young Widow, I Think, Nor She With Me - That's Certain - But If I Find A Little Pleasure In Her Society I May Surely Be Allowed To Seek It; And If The Star Of Her Divinity Be Bright Enough To Dim The Lustre Of Eliza's, So Much The Better, But I Scarcely Can Think It