I had now arrived at that age when an ambitious man, satisfied with his progress in the world without, begins to feel in the cravings of unsatisfied affection the void of a solitary hearth.

I resolved to marry, and looked out for a wife.

I had never hitherto admitted into my life the passion of love.

In fact, I had regarded that passion, even in my earlier youth, with a certain superb contempt,--as a malady engendered by an effeminate idleness, and fostered by a sickly imagination.
I wished to find in a wife a rational companion, an affectionate and trustworthy friend.

No views of matrimony could be less romantic, more soberly sensible, than those which I conceived.