The messenger came back only to
report that he had been "dismissed with some sort of contempt." It was
evident that Mary Milton's family had espoused her cause as against
her husband. Whatever may have been the secret motive of their
conduct, they explained the quarrel politically, and began to repent,
so Phillips thought, of having matched the eldest daughter of their
house with a violent Presbyterian.
If Milton had "hasted too eagerly to light the nuptial torch," he had
been equally ardent in his calculations of the domestic happiness upon
which he was to enter. His poet's imagination had invested a dull
and common girl with rare attributes moral and intellectual, and had
pictured for him the state of matrimony as an earthly paradise, in
which he was to be secure of a response of affection showing itself in
a communion of intelligent interests. In proportion to the brilliancy
of his ideal anticipation was the fury of despair which came upon him
when he found out his mistake. A common man, in a common age, would
have vented his vexation upon the individual. Milton, living at a time
when controversy turned away from details, and sought to dig down to
the roots of every question, instead of urging the hardships of his
own case, set to to consider the institution of marriage in itself.
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