Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/154

is either some roué who has come to grief by his extravagances and seeks refuge in matrimony as he might in a charitable institution or else he is some decayed specimen of humanity without vital strength; for a man full of organic energy is proud and enterprising, he will only court the woman for whom he feels an affinity, and is well able to make a good appearance in the world, without the dowry of an unloved wife. The aristocratic bridegroom must be also a man of common character and ignoble views, prepared to dissemble and lie, for rich heiresses as a rule, demand that the coarse appropriation of their wealth should be concealed under the appearance of affection, at least during the honeymoon. She, the wealthy heiress, is also a very inferior type of humanity; she is the daughter of an intellectually limited and worthless father, for no other kind of a parent would sacrifice his child to external show, nor wish to enter into family relations with a society which will always look down upon him and his, and treat them with contempt, as unwished-for intruders. The girl herself, is either contented with her lot, willing to be the wife of a man to whom she is indifferent, in which case she is a creature without heart or character, a vain foolish doll, or else she experiences a longing to love and be loved, and yet resigns herself to the fate projected for her by her family, and this presupposes that she has a nature without strength of will and a spiritless character. The mesalliances which are not contracted for a dowry are yet similar to them in kind. I am not speaking of course of those cases where true and respectful love leads to the union of persons of different social stations. I can pass these by more easily as they do not occur hardly more than once in a century, and have never exercised any appreciable influence upon the improvement of the aristocracy as a race, on account