15

Oak Lawn, Tues 10th March, 1846

Man is a discontented being "any way
you can fix him. But he is less contented un-
married than he is married. Woman's society
is indispensable. When man first attains to main-
hood, full of vain thoughts and self conceit, he
imagines he is happy in what he expects. He sows
his wild oats, struts largely and talks big until
a year or two matures some what his mind.
Being now in the full frontier of manhood,
the hory day of life, his passions are strong
and rampant and impel him to their grat-
ification. Here [inserted: he] is, he finds, in difficulty.
They they [sic] are lawless and cannot bear restr-
aint without denying him, as he thinks,
happiness. Judegement and morality admon-
ish him. The youth is now in a strait.
At length, it may be granted, his good sense and
his morality get the better, and he gives up eph-
ereral pleasure (substantial only to evil) for the
sake of real future, good enjoyed fourfold. This
self denial will be a fine recommendation
to him. He refrains, he denies, and goes on in the
garb of virtue, though his inner man be vice.
He gets tired of sowing wild oats - he get dis-
gusted in the march of the pastimes with
which he sat out. He longs for improvment,
and to enjoy that respectable, dignified and con-
tented condition among men, he so
admires. But he is unhappy. To be happy, he
must be virtuous. He is as it were in the very
pride of mankind - is unmarried. A wom-
an is indispensable. Man must have a woman.
He longs to be married and settled. He wishes
to be settled in permanent business of life but
what he wants, he desires a woman, "that
last best gift to man."