Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 11, 1895 - Miscellanies, Volume III

'vmcmiBUs puerisque'
last, he knows that she is like himself — erring,
thoughtless, and untrue ; but hke 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
playthings ; that hope and love address themselves
to a perfection never realised, and yet, firmly held,
become the salt and staff of fife ; 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 con-
demnation, 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 the failings of your friend. Nay,
you will be wisely glad that you retain the sense of
blemishes ; for the faults of married people con-
tinually spur up each of them, hour by hour, to do
better and to meet and love upon a higher ground.
And ever, between the failures, there will come
glimpses of kind virtues to encourage and console.
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