The marriage in that instant consummated results in a threefold
Male and Female offspring which takes its place in Lineland."
"What! Always threefold?" said I. "Must one wife then
always have twins?"
"Bass-voiced Monstrosity! yes," replied the King. "How else could
the balance of the Sexes be maintained, if two girls were not born
for every boy? Would you ignore the very Alphabet of Nature?"
He ceased, speechless for fury; and some time elapsed before
I could induce him to resume his narrative.
"You will not, of course, suppose that every bachelor among us
finds his mates at the first wooing in this universal Marriage Chorus.
On the contrary, the process is by most of us many times repeated.
Few are the hearts whose happy lot it is at once to recognize
in each other's voices the partner intended for them by Providence,
and to fly into a reciprocal and perfectly harmonious embrace.
With most of us the courtship is of long duration. The Wooer's voices
may perhaps accord with one of the future wives, but not with both;
or not, at first, with either; or the Soprano and Contralto
may not quite harmonize.
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