HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED
BEING A
Handbook to Marriage

BY
A GRADUATE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MATRIMONY.

"Domestic happiness, thou only bliss
Of Paradise that hast survived the fall!
Though few now taste thee, unimpaired and pure,
Or, tasting, long enjoy thee, too infirm
Or too incautious to preserve thy sweets
Unmixed with drops of bitters, which neglect
Or temper sheds into thy crystal cup."—Cowper.

"It is fit that I should infuse a bunch of myrrh into the festival goblet, and, after the Egyptian manner, serve up a dead man's bones at a feast: I will only show it, and take it away again; it will make the wine bitter, but wholesome."—Jeremy Taylor.

SEVENTH AND POPULAR EDITION.

LONDON
T FISHER UNWIN
26 Paternoster Square
1887

TO THOSE BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN WHO HAVE VENTURED, OR WHO
INTEND TO VENTURE, INTO THAT STATE WHICH IS "A
BLESSING TO A FEW, A CURSE TO MANY, AND A
GREAT UNCERTAINTY TO ALL," THIS BOOK
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED IN
ADMIRATION OF THEIR
COURAGE.

PREFACE.

Most of the books intended to give "counsel and ghostly strength" to newly-married people are so like a collection of sermons that they are given away rather than read. When writing the following pages I have remembered that the only kind of vice all people agree to shun is—advice, and have endeavoured to hide the pill. This is my excuse if at times I seem to fall into anecdotage.

One day two birds were busy building their nest in Luther's garden. Observing that they were often scared while committing their petty thefts by the passers to and fro, the Doctor exclaimed, "Oh, poor little birds! fly not away; I wish you well with all my heart, if you would only believe me!" If any birds of Paradise, or, to speak plainly, newly-married people, are a little scared by the title of this book or by any of its contents, I assure them that, while trying to place before them the responsibilities they have undertaken, I wish them well with all my heart, and take great interest in their nest-building.

To ask critics to be merciful at a time when new books are so numerous that our eyes ache with reading and our fingers with turning the pages, would be to ask them not to do their duty. They are the policemen of literature, and they are bound to make bad and worthless books "move on" out of the way of their betters. I can only hope that if any notice this little venture they may not feel obliged to "crush" it "among the stoure," as the Ayrshire ploughman had to crush the "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower."

I take this opportunity of thanking M. H., my best friend, without whose help and sympathy this book would be a worse one than it is, and my life much more unsatisfactory.

Part of the first chapter was published in Chambers's Journal, and I am indebted to Cassell's Saturday Journal for two anecdotes. I now tender my best thanks to the proprietors of those periodicals for permission to reprint the passages.

PREFACE
TO THE SECOND EDITION.

The "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower," as I called this book when it first made its appearance, has not been crushed with the ploughshare of criticism "among the stoure." On the contrary, it has been so well received that I am full of gratitude to the reviewers who recommended it and to the public who bought it. One critic suggested that to make the work complete a chapter on second marriages should be added. My reason for not writing such a chapter is that, not having myself been as yet often married, I did not presume to give advice to widows and widowers who have their own experience to guide them.

Taking up the book in a lending library a friend read aloud the title to a lady who accompanied her—"How to be Happy though Married." Lady: "Oh, bother the happiness; does it tell how to be married?" I hope that I may be pardoned if I cannot always do this.

CONTENTS.