shall be my first question whether she be willing to be led by
reason."

"Thus it is," said Nekayah, "that philosophers are deceived. There
are a thousand familiar disputes which reason never can decide;
questions that elude investigation, and make logic ridiculous;
cases where something must be done, and where little can be said.
Consider the state of mankind, and inquire how few can be supposed
to act upon any occasions, whether small or great, with all the
reasons of action present to their minds. Wretched would be the
pair, above all names of wretchedness, who should be doomed to
adjust by reason every morning all the minute details of a domestic
day.

"Those who marry at an advanced age will probably escape the
encroachments of their children, but in the diminution of this
advantage they will be likely to leave them, ignorant and helpless,
to a guardian's mercy; or if that should not happen, they must at
least go out of the world before they see those whom they love best
either wise or great.

"From their children, if they have less to fear, they have less
also to hope; and they lose without equivalent the joys of early
love, and the convenience of uniting with manners pliant and minds
susceptible of new impressions, which might wear away their
dissimilitudes by long cohabitation, as soft bodies by continual
attrition conform their surfaces to each other.

"I believe it will be found that those who marry late are best
pleased with their children, and those who marry early with their