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A letter to a friend to dissuade him from marrying a widow which he had formerly been in love with, and quitted.
At this time when no hot planet fires the blood, and when the lunaticks of Bedlam themselves are trusted abroad, that you should run mad, is (Sir) not so much a subject for your friends' pity as their wonder. 'Tis true, love is a natural distemper, a kind of small pocks. Every one either hath had it, or is to expect it, and the sooner the better. Thus far you are excused. But having been well cured of a fever, to court a relapse, to make love the second time in the same place, is (not to flatter you) neither better nor worse than to fall into a quagmire by chance, and ride into it afterwards on purpose. 'Tis not love (Tom) that doth the mischief, but constancy; for love is of the nature of a burning-glass, which, kept still in one place, fireth: changed often, it doth nothing—a kind of glowing coal which, with shifting from hand to hand, a man easily endures. But then to marry (Tom)! Why, thou hadst better to live honest. Love, thou knowest, is blind; what will he do when he
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An answer to the letter. Cease to wonder (honest Jack) and give me leave to pity thee, who labourest to condemn that which thou confessest natural, and the sooner had the better. Thus far there needs no excuse, unless it be on thy behalf, who stylest second thoughts (which are by all allowed the best) a relapse, and talkest of a quagmire where no man ever stuck fast, and accusest constancy of mischief in what is natural, and advisedly undertaken. 'Tis confessed that love changed often doth nothing—nay, 'tis nothing; for love and change are incompatible; but where it is kept fixed to its first object, though it burn not, yet it warms and cherisheth, so as it needs no transplantation or change of soil to make it fruitful; and certainly, if love be natural, to marry is the best recipe for living honest. Yes, I know what marriage is, and know you know it not, by terming it the dearest way of curing love; for certainly there goes more charge to the keeping of a stable full of horses, than one only steed; and much of vanity is therein besides, when, be the errand what it will, this one steed shall serve your turn as well
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