Most newly married people require some time to settle quietly down together.  Even those whose married life has been the happiest, arrive at peace and repose through a period of little struggles and bewilderments.  The husband does not all at once find his place, nor the wife hers.  One of the very happiest women we know has told us, that the first year of her married life was the most uncomfortable of all.  She had so much to learn—­was so fearful of doing wrong—­and had not yet found her proper position.  But, feeling their way, kind and loving natures will have no difficulty in at last settling down comfortably and peacefully together.

It was not so with the supposed young man and his pretty “face.”  Both entered upon their new life without thinking; or perhaps with exaggerated expectations of its unalloyed happiness.  They could not make allowances for lovers subsiding into husband and wife; nor were they prepared for the little ruffles and frettings of individual temper; and both felt disappointed.  There was a relaxation of the little attentions which are so novel and charming to lovers.  Then the pretty face, when neglected, found relief in tears.

There is nothing of which men tire sooner, especially when the tears are about trifles.  Tears do not in such cases cause sympathy, but breed repulsion.  They occasion sourness, both on the one side and the other.  Tears are dangerous weapons to play with.  Were women to try kindness and cheerfulness instead, how infinitely happier would they be.  Many are the lives that are made miserable by an indulgence in fretting and carking, until the character is indelibly stamped, and the rational enjoyment of life becomes next to a moral impossibility.

Mental qualities are certainly admirable gifts in domestic life.  But though they may dazzle and delight, they will not excite love and affection to anything like the same extent as a warm and happy heart.  They do not wear half so well, and do not please half so much.  And yet how little pains are taken to cultivate the beautiful quality of good temper and happy disposition!  And how often is life, which otherwise might have been blessed, embittered and soured by the encouragement of peevish and fretful habits, so totally destructive of everything like social and domestic comfort!  How often have we seen both men and women set themselves round about as if with bristles, so that no one dared to approach them without the fear of being pricked.  For want of a little occasional command over one’s temper, an amount of misery is occasioned in society which is positively frightful.  Thus is enjoyment turned into bitterness, and life becomes like a journey barefooted, amongst prickles, and thorns, and briars.