No-kidding-around relationship advice from a Civil War pastor

Photo of a bride taken in France in 1865.

I was looking through my bookcase this morning, hoping to winnow out a few more books to deaccession (I have donated almost 100 boxes of books to the library and the Bryn Mawr booksale, where my name is uttered in hushed tones of reverence, due to the quantity and quality of my offerings).  I came across a tiny volume I mistook at first for an old book I used to carry around with me to read at spare moments which contained wisdom from De La Rochefoucauld (at something like two and a half by three and a half inches, it was a handy little book to tote around).  But this was something different; a book by a minister given by another minister to a couple he married in 1865 - a marriage certificate filled out with their names and the date of their nuptials is pasted in the front of the book.

Much of the advice is refreshingly relevant to the present day, but one phrase appealed to me so much I had to make this entry.  Here it is, cautioning people against expectations of perpetutal happiness and harmony in the matrimonial state:

"Do not entertain expectations of bliss which the circumstances of the world and the imbecility of your nature, will render it impossible to realize."

I wonder what became of John Edgarton and Rosella Whitney, wed on January 10, 1865 in Clinton, NJ by the pastor of their Baptist church, C. M. Bowers.  I hope they were in some measure able to overcome the imbecility of their natures and achieve a modicum of happiness together.

This my fervent prayer:  May be we all be able to transcend, if only intermittently, the imbecility of our natures (and the circumstances of the world) and find a lasting, if modulated, satisfaction in life and love!