WITH the single exception of Falstaff, all Shakespeare's
characters are what we call marrying men. Mercutio, as he was
own cousin to Benedick and Biron, would have come to the same
end in the long run. Even Iago had a wife, and, what is far
stranger, he was jealous. People like Jacques and the Fool in
LEAR, although we can hardly imagine they would ever marry,
kept single out of a cynical humour or for a broken heart, and
not, as we do nowadays, from a spirit of incredulity and
preference for the single state. For that matter, if you turn
to George Sand's French version of AS YOU LIKE IT (and I think
I can promise you will like it but little), you will find
Jacques marries Celia just as Orlando marries Rosalind.

At least there seems to have been much less hesitation
over marriage in Shakespeare's days; and what hesitation there
was was of a laughing sort, and not much more serious, one way
or the other, than that of Panurge. In modern comedies the
heroes are mostly of Benedick's way of thinking, but twice as
much in earnest, and not one quarter so confident. And I take
this diffidence as a proof of how sincere their terror is.
They know they are only human after all; they know what gins
and pitfalls lie about their feet; and how the shadow of
matrimony waits, resolute and awful, at the cross-roads. They
would wish to keep their liberty; but if that may not be, why,
God's will be done! "What, are you afraid of marriage?" asks
Cecile, in MAITRE GUERIN. "Oh, mon Dieu, non!" replies
Arthur; "I should take chloroform." They look forward to
marriage much in the same way as they prepare themselves for