He is wiser than the melancholy Jacques in the
same play, who calls all people fools, and mopes about preaching wise
saws. If our young men were as wise, there would not be half the
ill-assorted marriages in the world, and there would be fewer single
women. If they only chose by sense or fancy, or because they saw some
good quality in a girl--if they were not all captivated by the face
alone, every Jill would have her Jack, and pair off happily, like the
lovers in a comedy. But it is not so. We can not live without illusions;
we can not, therefore, subsist without disappointments. They, too,
follow each other as the night the day, the shade the sunshine; they are
as inseparable as life and death.
The difference of our conditions alone places a variety in these
illusions; perhaps the lowest of us have the brightest, just as
Cinderella, sitting amongst the coals, dreamed of the ball and beautiful
prince as well as her sisters. "Bare and grim to tears," says Emerson,
"is the lot of the children I saw yesterday; yet not the less they hung
it round with frippery romance, like the children of the happiest
fortune, and would talk of 'the dear cottage where so many joyful hours
had flown.' Well, this thatching of hovels is the custom of the country.
Women, more than all, are the element and kingdom of illusion." Happy is
it that they are so. These fancies and illusions bring forth the
inevitable disappointments, but they carry life on with a swing.
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