Now it might have been supposed the a Circle--proud of his ancestry
and regardful for a posterity which might possibly issue hereafter
in a Chief Circle--would be more careful than any other to choose
a wife who had no blot on her escutcheon. But it is not so.
The care in choosing a Regular wife appears to diminish as one rises
in the social scale. Nothing would induce an aspiring Isosceles,
who has hopes of generating an Equilateral Son, to take a wife
who reckoned a single Irregularity among her Ancestors; a Square
or Pentagon, who is confident that his family is steadily on the rise,
does not inquire above the five-hundredth generation; a Hexagon
or Dodecagon is even more careless of the wife's pedigree;
but a Circle has been known deliberately to take a wife
who has had an Irregular Great-Grandfather, and all because
of some slight superiority of lustre, or because of the charms
of a low voice--which, with us, even more than with you,
is thought "an excellent thing in a Woman."
Such ill-judged marriages are, as might be expected, barren, if they
do not result in positive Irregularity or in diminution of sides;
but none of these evils have hitherto provided sufficiently deterrent.
Pages:
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89