as inaccessible as a minister of state, and I want to talk to her about my marriage."
"You are thinking, then, of the holy and blessed state, as it is called, of matrimony?—I guessed as much," replied his uncle. "I have observed lately that you do not hear above half that is said to you; and the next thing that a young man loses, after his heart, is his hearing."
"There have been cases, I believe," returned Courtenaye, with a forced smile, "when a man has wished that the last-mentioned loss would continue."
"By the saffron robe of Hymen," cried Lord Norbourne, "but that would be a blessing! I own that I am no great friend to marriage in general; in nine cases out of ten, the opinion of the French poet, Marivaux, is mine also:—
'I would advise a man to pause
Before he takes a wife;
Indeed, I own, I see no cause
He should not pause for life.'
If a young man has his way to make in the world, a wife is a dead weight upon his hands.
