Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/15

take sober resolutions, or as now, to think of entering into the church, I never found it would be hard to put off this kind of folly at the porch. Besides, perhaps, in so general a conversation among that sex, I might pretend a little to understand where I am when I am going to choose for a wife; and though the cunning sharper of the town may have a cheat put on him, yet it must be cleanlier carried than this which you think I am going to top upon myself. And truly, if you knew how metaphysical I am that way, you would little fear I should venture on one who has given so much occasion to tongues: for, though the people is a lying sort of beast (and I think in Leicester above all parts that I ever was in) yet they seldom talk without some glimpse of a reason, which I declare (so unpardonably jealous I am) to be a sufficient cause for me to hate any woman any farther than a bare acquaintance. Among all the young gentlemen that I have known who have ruined themselves by marrying (which I assure you is a great number) I have made this general rule, that they are either young, raw, and ignorant scholars, who, for want of knowing company, believe every silk petticoat includes an angel; or else these have been a sort of honest young men, who perhaps are too literal in rather marrying than burning, and entail a misery on themselves and posterity, by an overacting modesty. I think, I am very far excluded from listing under either of these heads. I confess, I have known one or two men of sense enough, who, inclined to frolicks, have married and ruined themselves out of a maggot; but a thousand household thoughts, which always drive matrimony out