IT IS really too “early days” with you to be benefited by advice from one who has just come to the twenty-fifth year of matrimony . . .
Do I know your choice, perhaps I have met him — perhaps not. However it is impossible to give “directions for use” — besides characters change so greatly with time and circumstances. I can scarcely think that love proper, and enduring, is in the nature of men — as a rule — perhaps there is no woman “whom custom will not stale.” There is ever a desire to give but little in return for our devotion, & affection — theirs being akin to children’s — a sort of easy affectionateness — & at fifty, a man’s