Thus, the youth of one sex is consumed in slavery, disappointment, and spleen; that of the other, in frantic folly and selfish intemperance:  till at length, on the necks of a couple so enfeebled, so perverted, so distempered both in body and soul, society throws the yoke of marriage:  that yoke which, once rivetted on the necks of its victims, clings to them like the poisoned garments of Nessus or Medea.  What can be expected from these ill-assorted yoke-fellows, but that, like two ill-tempered hounds, coupled by a tyrannical sportsman, they should drag on their indissoluble fetter, snarling and growling, and pulling in different directions?  What can be expected for their wretched offspring, but sickness and suffering, premature decrepitude, and untimely death?  In this, as in every other institution of civilised society, avarice, luxury, and disease constitute the TRIANGULAR HARMONY of the life of man.  Avarice conducts him to the abyss of toil and crime:  luxury seizes on his ill-gotten spoil; and, while he revels in her enchantments, or groans beneath her tyranny, disease bursts upon him, and sweeps him from the earth.”

“Your theory,” said Mr Jenkison, “forms an admirable counterpoise to your example.  As far as I am attracted by the one, I am repelled by the other.  Thus, the scales of my philosophical balance remain eternally equiponderant, and I see no reason to say of either of them, OICHETAI EIS AIDAO[15.1].”

    NOTES

Chapter 1

[1.1] Foster, quasi Phostaer,—­from phaos and taereo, lucem servo, conservo, observo, custodio,—­one who watches over and guards the light; a sense in which the word is often used amongst us, when we speak of fostering a flame.

[1.2] Escot, quasi es skoton, in tenebras, scilicet, intuens; one who is always looking into the dark side of the question.

[1.3] Jenkison:  This name may be derived from aien ex ison, semper ex aequalibus—­scilicet, mensuris omnia metiens:  one who from equal measures divides and distributes all things:  one who from equal measures can always produce arguments on both sides of a question, with so much nicety and exactness, as to keep the said question eternally pending, and the balance of the controversy perpetually in statu quo.  By an aphaeresis of the a, an elision of the second e, and an easy and natural mutation of x into k, the derivation of this name proceeds according to the strictest principles of etymology:  aien ex ison—­Ien ex ison—­Ien ek ison—­Ien ’k ison—­Ienkison—­Ienkison—­Jenkison.

[1.4] Gaster:  scilicet Gastaer—­Venter, et praeterea nihil.

Chapter 2

[2.1] See Emmerton on the Auricula.

Chapter 3