In the first, he expects an angel for a wife; in the last, he
knows that she is like himself - erring, thoughtless, and
untrue; but like himself also, filled with a struggling
radiancy of better things, and adorned with ineffective
qualities. You may safely go to school with hope; but ere you
marry, should have learned the mingled lesson of the world:
that dolls are stuffed with sawdust, and yet are excellent
play-things; that hope and love address themselves to a
perfection never realised, and yet, firmly held, become the
salt and staff of life; that you yourself are compacted of
infirmities, perfect, you might say, in imperfection, and yet
you have a something in you lovable and worth preserving; and
that, while the mass of mankind lies under this scurvy
condemnation, you will scarce find one but, by some generous
reading, will become to you a lesson, a model, and a noble
spouse through life. So thinking, you will constantly support
your own unworthiness, and easily forgive the failings of your
friend. Nay, you will be I wisely glad that you retain the
sense of blemishes; for the faults of married people
continually spur up each of them, hour by hour, to do better
and to meet and love upon a higher ground. And ever, between
the failures, there will come glimpses of kind virtues to
encourage and console.

(1) Browning's RING AND BOOK.


III. - ON FALLING IN LOVE