Of course they will. Is there any reason why they should not? If any man
can show just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let
him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace.

I repeat it, of course they will. You surely cannot suppose I should,
in cold blood, sit down to write a story in which nobody was to fall
in love or be in love! Sir, scoff as you may, love is the one vital
principle in all romance. Not only does your cheek flush and your eye
sparkle, till "heart, brain, and soul are all on fire," over the burning
words of some Brontean Pythoness, but when you open the last thrilling
work of Maggie Marigold, and are immediately submerged "in a
weak, washy, everlasting flood" of insipidity, twaddle, bosh, and
heart-rending sorrow, you do not shut the book with a jerk. Why not?
Because in the dismal distance you dimly descry two figures swimming,
floating, struggling towards each other, and a languid _soupcon_ of
curiosity detains you till you have ascertained, that, after infinite
distress, Adolphus and Miranda have made

"One of the very best matches,
Both well mated for life:
She's got a fool for her husband,
He's got a fool for his wife."

Sir, scoff as you may, love is the one sunbeam of poetry that gilds
with a softened splendor the hard, bare outline of many a prosaic life.
"Work, work, work, from weary chime to chime"; tramp behind the plough,
hammer on the lapstone, beat the anvil, drive the plane, "from morn till
dewy eve"; but when the dewy eve comes, ah! Hesperus gleams soft and
golden over the far-off pinetrees, but