A system could not well have been devised more studiously hostile to human happiness than marriage.
The awful shadow of some unseen Power Floats, tho' unseen, amongst us.
Chameleons feed on light and air: Poets food is love and fame.
...Ere midnightโs frown and morningโs smile, ere thou and peace may meet.
The odious and disgusting aristocracy of wealth is built upon the ruins of all that is good in chivalry or republicanism; and luxury is the forerunner of a barbarism scarcely capable of cure.
Yes, marriage is hateful, detestable. A kind of ineffable, sickening disgust seizes my mind when I think of this most despotic, most unrequited fetter which prejudice has forged to confine its energies.