Burn me up, buttercup.
Found this pause-inducing passage about the fine line between harmless flirtations and serious courtships in Anthony Trollope's Framley Parsonage (1861), the fourth book (of six) in the Barsetshire Chronicles:
"Young men in such matters are so often without any fixed thoughts! They are such absolute moths. They amuse themselves with the light of the beautiful candle, fluttering about, on and off, in and out of the flame with dazzled eyes, till in a rash moment they rush in too near the wick, and then fall with singed wings and crippled legs, burnt up and reduced to tinder by the consuming fire of matrimony."
-- p. 243, Oxford World's Classics edition (trade paperback)
Um. Yeah. Doesn't exactly recommend the "splendid institution," does it? I'd hate to think what Trollope might've written had he been unhappily married.
This strikes me as a slightly more elegant way of phrasing an old joke: No man is complete until he's married. After he's married, he's finished.
"Young men in such matters are so often without any fixed thoughts! They are such absolute moths. They amuse themselves with the light of the beautiful candle, fluttering about, on and off, in and out of the flame with dazzled eyes, till in a rash moment they rush in too near the wick, and then fall with singed wings and crippled legs, burnt up and reduced to tinder by the consuming fire of matrimony."
-- p. 243, Oxford World's Classics edition (trade paperback)
Um. Yeah. Doesn't exactly recommend the "splendid institution," does it? I'd hate to think what Trollope might've written had he been unhappily married.
This strikes me as a slightly more elegant way of phrasing an old joke: No man is complete until he's married. After he's married, he's finished.