"
It began to get dark, and I suggested that we had better be going back
to the hotel. The talk seemed already to have taken us away from all
pleasure in the prospect; I said, as we found our way through the rich,
balsam-scented twilight of the woods, where one joy-haunted thrush was
still singing: "You know that in America the law is careful not to meddle
with a man's private affairs, and we don't attempt to legislate personal
virtue."
"But marriage," he said--"surely you have the institution of marriage?"
I was really annoyed at this. I returned, sarcastically; "Yes, I am glad
to say that there we can meet your expectation; we have marriage, not only
consecrated by the church, but established and defended by the state.
What has that to do with the question?"
"And you consider marriage," he pursued, "the citadel of morality, the
fountain of all that is pure and good in your private life, the source of
home and the image of heaven?"
"There are some marriages," I said, with a touch of our national humor,
"that do not quite fill the bill, but that is certainly our ideal of
marriage."
"Then why do you say that you have not legislated personal virtue in
America?" he asked.
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