Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

42 *' Virginibus Puerisque "
has come and gone, and he has still preserved
some rags of honour. In the first, he expects
an angel for a wife ; in the last, he knows
that she is like himself — erring, thoughtless,
and untrue ; but like himself also, filled with
a struggling radiancy of better things, and
adorned with ineffective qualities. You may
safely go to school with hope ; but ere you
marry, should have learned the mingled
lesson of the world : that dolls are stuffed
with sawdust, and yet are excellent play-
things ; that hope and love address them-
selves to a perfection never realised, and yet,
firmly held, become the salt and staff of life ;
that you yourself are compacted of infirmities,
perfect, you might say, in imperfection, and
yet you have a something in you lovable and
worth preserving ; and that, while the mass
of mankind lies under this scurvy condemna-
tion, you will scarce find one but, by some
generous reading, will become to you a lesson,
a model, and a noble spouse through life.
So thinking, you will constantly support
your own unworthiness, and easily forgive