To Dillemus

Since you have called upon me to commit to writing my opinions on the probable cause of unhappiness in the married state I beg to hand you a short treatise on that subject and must trust to your candour and known indulgence to pardon the want of perspicuity in the composition. My object will be merely to take a cursory view of things as they have appeared to my own immediate observation without diving too deeply into probable circumstances. I am well aware there is subject sufficient to be gleaned from the works of able authors but I feel you will most approve of my own unbiassed thoughts with the introduction of as little of extraneous matter as is consistent to the more clear and plain elucidation of the subject.

The probable causes of unhappiness and dissatisfaction in the married state are at once so numerous and complex that to strike at the root of the evil itself would require that experience in those matters which I am not in possession of I wish you to view these as the opinions I have imbibed by a silent and attentive observance of that class of Society In my view of the happy state (for such it is invariably denominated) I have generally found that those who married in their own immediate station of life have had the greatest share of connubial happiness and on this head I must declare I am favourable impressed with an idea that it is much more likely so to prove than when the contrary is the case. I have known those who were ever aiming at being united to families who were moving in a much higher sphere of life than themselves some from one cause and some another each having their particular object in view.