And when with envy Time, transported,
       Shall think to rob us of our joys,
     You’ll in your girls again be courted,
       And I’ll go wooing in my boys.—­Percy.

On flies time, and thus the tale goes on.  You are in love with an amiable maiden, and she is pleased.  If you could see further into her heart you would find she was idolatrous.  But this matter of courtship must have shown you how careless you have been with your money through all those years you might have been hoarding it for this great need.  But you did not save your wages, probably, or if you did you are an exceptional young man.  You now need money.  You should work about fifteen months before you marry.  It will be a long, tedious, unpleasant pull, trying to the affections, and it is generally very trying to the health; but it is necessary, and if you have not the persistence to save money for fifteen months, in the meantime quarreling and making up, with all the quarters of the moon, you have not the solidity of citizenship, and will be better unmarried.  “Successful love takes a load off our hearts, and puts it upon our shoulders” says Bovee.  Square up your shoulders!  Get under the load so that you can carry it!  The days of responsibility have come.  The larger the responsibilities look, the deeper the young man usually loves.  The day of the Chicago fire a man put up a pine shed on the ruins of a marble palace, and on his sign he painted

“ALL GONE BUT WIFE AND HOPE!”

People who thought those two things a small capital were greatly mistaken, for that same man is now rich again.  When you hear of a man being ruined by getting married, ask for names and dates.  The name will usually settle it.  Along the front of the lake at Chicago is a breakwater.  In hot weather this pier is nearly covered with men of leisure, taking midsummer-night dreams.  They are the so-called “harvesters” who start out in droves into the country after something to do—­“forced to search for work and not find it!” Marriage has not ruined them.  You will find that the men your adviser shows you who has been ruined by marriage, was a born wharf-rat, fit only to be shot with a gun big enough to save the expense of any further funeral.

THERE IS NO POSSIBLE CHANCE

of a man being worse off married than single.  As a married man, he is on the right path.  As a single man, there is no anchor for him.  He may be here to-day, in San Francisco next week.  Then, in two or three years, he will be back, as poor as ever.  You will have to work, of course.  But you have never before done your share of the work.  If you are a smart man, you can do your share and more too.  You will have a home of your own.  You could never get one as a single man, perhaps, because you would not need one.

YOU WILL BE SAFER