We are now in a transition state, and but few steps have yet been
taken. From polygamy, Europe passed to the marriage _de convenance_.
This was scarcely an improvement An attempt was then made to substitute
genuine marriage (the mutual choice of souls inducing a permanent union),
as yet baffled on every side by the haste, the ignorance, or the impurity
of Man.

Where Man assumes a high principle to which he is not yet ripened, it
will happen, for a long time, that the few will be nobler than before;
the many, worse. Thus now. In the country of Sidney and Milton, the
metropolis is a den of wickedness, and a sty of sensuality; in the
country of Lady Russell, the custom of English peeresses, of selling
their daughters to the highest bidder, is made the theme and jest of
fashionable novels by unthinking children who would stare at the idea
of sending them to a Turkish slave-dealer, though the circumstances of
the bargain are there less degrading, as the will and thoughts of the
person sold are not so degraded by it, and it is not done in defiance
of an acknowledged law of right in the land and the age.

I must here add that I do not believe there ever was put upon record
more depravation of Man, and more despicable frivolity of thought and
aim in Woman; than in the novels which purport to give the picture of
English fashionable life, which are read with such favor in our
drawing-rooms, and give the tone to the manners of some circles.
Compared with the cold, hard-hearted folly there described, crime is
hopeful; for it, at least, shows some power remaining in the mental
constitution.

To return:--Attention has been awakened among men to the stains of
celibacy, and the profanations of marriage. They begin to write about