The good and the evil cannot well agree; the evil can yet less agree
with one another, and even the virtuous fall sometimes to variance when
their virtues are of different kinds. As for those who live single, I
never found that their prudence ought to raise envy. They dream away
their time without friendship and without fondness, and are driven to
rid themselves of the day, for which they have no use, by childish
amusements and vicious delights. They act as beings under the constant
sense of some known inferiority, that fills their minds with rancour,
and their tongues with censure."

"I cannot forbear to flatter myself," said Rasselas, "that prudence and
benevolence will make marriage happy. What can be expected but
disappointment and repentance from a choice made in the immaturity of
youth, in the ardour of desire, without judgment, without foresight,
without inquiry after conformity of opinions, similarity of manners,
rectitude of judgment, or purity of sentiment. From these early
marriages proceed the rivalry of parents and children.

"The son is eager to enjoy the world before the father is willing to
forsake it, and there is hardly room at once for two generations. The
daughter begins to bloom before the mother can be content to fade, and
neither can forbear to wish for the absence of the other. Surely all
these evils may be avoided by that deliberation and delay which prudence
prescribes to irrevocable choice."

"And yet," said Nekayah, "I have been told that late marriages are not
eminently happy. It has generally been determined that it is dangerous
for a man and woman to suspend their fate upon each other at a time when
opinions are fixed and habits are established, when friendships have
been contracted on both sides, and when life has been planned into