names, according to truth and justice, should be the same. A mother may be respected by every one as entitled to the highest esteem, she may consider herself a model of extreme morality, and yet when she introduces some wealthy suitor to her daughter and tries to overcome her natural indifference to him by judicious persuasion and advice, somewhat after this fashion: that it would be very foolish to throw away such a chance for a comfortable provision for the future, that it would be in the highest degree imprudent to wait for a second opportunity which might never arrive, that a maiden ought to think of practical things and get all the silly rubbish of romantic love stories out of her head—"with a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart,"—this model mother is an infamous go-between, no more and no less than the old hag who whispers corrupt counsel into the ear of some poor working girl in the park and is punished by the laws when found out. The elegant young bachelor, such a welcome guest in the drawing rooms of society, hunting for a fine match in the mazes of the German, until he finds some wealthy heiress to whom he can pay his court with melting glances and tenderly modulated tones, who puts off his creditors until the day after the wedding and portions off-his mistress from his bride's dowry—is not his degradation as deep as that of any low wretch whom he would not touch without gloves? A woman who sells herself to buy bread for her aged mother or her child, stands upon a higher moral plane than the blushing maiden who marries a money bag, in order to gratify her frivolous appetite for balls and travel. Of two men, he is the less deceived, the more logical and rational, who pays his companion of an hour in cash each time, than he who gets a companion for life by the marriage contract, whose society was purchased as much as in the former case.
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THE MATRIMONIAL LIE.
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