Every bride is beautiful. Every bride looks charming in a simple
costume of--for further particulars see local papers. Every marriage
is a cause for universal rejoicing. With our wine-glass in our hand
we picture the ideal life we know to be in store for them. How can
it be otherwise? She, the daughter of her mother. (Cheers.) He--
well, we all know him. (More cheers.) Also involuntary guffaw from
ill-regulated young man at end of table, promptly suppressed.

We carry our make-believe even into our religion. We sit in church,
and in voices swelling with pride, mention to the Almighty, at stated
intervals, that we are miserable worms--that there is no good in us.
This sort of thing, we gather, is expected of us; it does us no harm,
and is supposed to please.

We make-believe that every woman is good, that every man is honest--
until they insist on forcing us, against our will, to observe that
they are not. Then we become very angry with them, and explain to
them that they, being sinners, are not folk fit to mix with us
perfect people. Our grief, when our rich aunt dies, is hardly to be
borne. Drapers make fortunes, helping us to express feebly our
desolation. Our only consolation is that she has gone to a better
world.

Everybody goes to a better world when they have got all they can out
of this one.

We stand around the open grave and tell each other so. The clergyman
is so assured of it that, to save time, they have written out the
formula for him and had it printed in a little book. As a child it