Search for wives.
Where do men usually discover the women who afterwards become their wives, is a question we have occasionally heard discussed, and the result invariably come to is worth mentioning to our young lady readers.
Chance has much to do in the affair, and then there are important governing circumstances.
It is certain that few men make a selection from ball rooms, or any other place of public gaiety, and nearly as few are influenced by what may be called showing off in the streets, or by any allurements of dress.
Our conviction is, that ninety-hundredths of all the finery which decorate or load their persons go for nothing, as far as husband catching is concerned.
When, and how, then, do men find their wives?
In the quiet homes of their parents — at the fireside, where the domestic feeling and graces are alone demonstrated.
These are the charms which most surely attract the high as well as humble.
Against these all the finery and airs in the world sink into insignificance.--We shall illustrate this by an anecdote, which, though not new, will not be the worse for being told again.
In the year 1773
Peter Burnell,
Esq., of Buckenham, in
Kent, whose health was rapidly declining, was advised by his physicians to go to
Spain for the recovery of his health.
His daughters feared that those who only had motives entirely mercenary, would not pay him that attention which he might expect from those who, from duty and affection, united, feel the greatest affection in ministering to his case and comfort; they, therefore, resolved to accompany him. They proved that it was not a spirit of dissipation and gaiety that led them to
Spain, for they were not to be seen in any of the gay and fashionable circles; they never stirred from their homes except to attend him, either to take the air or drink the waters; in a word, they lived the most recluse life in the midst of a town then the resort of the most illustrious and fashionable personages in
Europe.
The exemplary attention to their father procured these three amiable sisters the admiration of all the
English in
Spain, and was the cause of their elevation to that rank in life to which their merits gave them so just a tide.
They were all married to noblemen--one to the
Earl of
Beverly, another to the Dude of
Hamilton, and afterward to the
Marquis of
Exeter, and a third to the
Duke of
Northumberland.
And it is justice to them to say that they reflected honor on their rank, rather than derived any from it.
