Partner

“ What’s a fellow-man without honour! You’re welcome to it, partner, in a spirit of trust and confidence.’
Continuing to wink his red eyes both together—but in a self-communing way, and without any show of triumph—Mr Venus folded the paper now left in his hand, and locked it in a drawer behind him, and pocketed the key. He then proposed ‘A cup of tea, partner?’ To which Mr Wegg returned, ‘Thank’ee, partner,’ and the tea was made and poured out. ”

“ It is not usual to speak of an employee as a partner, and yet what else is he? ”

“ The business of selecting a partner for life, one who is expected to sustain the closest relation possible between human beings, who must be prepared to share in another's sorrows as well as joys, to sympathize with another's aspirations and appreciate another's motives and sentiments,—such a task is certainly one of the most serious of an individual's life and ought to be entered upon with calmness, deliberation, and unbiased judgment and entire self-control. ”

“ Take it Matrimonially, take it as it is a Partnership, for Matrimony it self is but a Partnership; though 'tis not a Partnership in Trade, 'tis what is ten thousand times more solemn, 'tis a Partnership in Life, a Partnership of Souls, they are embarked in the same Ship, they go the same Voyage, and, give me leave to say, they swim, they sink, they are happy, they are miserable, they are poor, they are rich, just as they agree, or not agree; Love or Hate, are united or not united ”

“ The husband—by primitive instinct partly, certainly by ancient tradition—regards himself as the active partner in matters of love and his own pleasure as legitimately the prime motive for activity. ”

“ By telling them how married partners should treat one another, what an important institution marriage is as the fountain from which all other relationships in life proceed, how marriage can be made happy, how necessary it is for married partners to treat each other with respect and consideration. ”

“ Wherever husband and wife enter into partnership, they shall declare it before many men. Now if they have lived together twenty winters or more, they are partners according to the laws, if they were not before. ”

“ We would consider two men ridiculous who entered into a business partnership, discussing with each other only the pleasure they anticipated in seeing each other so constantly as they would, working side by side each day. ”

“ The connection, with its consequences, is somewhat similar to a partnership in commercial life. If partners pull together, and are sympathetic, nothing can be more delightful than such an arrangement. The tie of business clenches the tie of social attraction. ”

“ When husband and wife are truly mated, they form a co-partnership in the building of the home. In this work the man, occupied with his business, must leave a large part of the direction, even in material things, to the woman. ”

“ But there are other families in which there is no vestige of such mystery, in which an engaged couple are spoken of together as openly as though they were already bound in some sort of public partnership. ”

“ Sometimes we find this affection flowing out into a wider altruism, extending beyond the family to the social group; which again is surely at once the condition and result of these beautiful and practical love-partnerships. ”

“ Young couples frequently change partners several times in the first year or two, till both are suited, when the union is practically permanent, except for temporary periods during which an exchange may be effected with another man, or the wife loaned to a friend. ”

“ Of course the enthusiastic tempestuous love of courting days will not as a rule remain. A married couple soon get to feel towards each other very much as two chums at college, or two partners in a business who are at the same time old and well-tried friends. ”

“ UNION.—Spiritual union of two married partners is the actual adjunction of the soul and mind of the one to the soul and mind of the other, 321. Conjugial love is the union of souls, 179, 480, 482. Union between two married partners in heaven is like that of the two tents in the breast, which are called the heart and the lungs, 75.
UNITY, the, of souls between two married partners in heaven is seen in their faces; the life of the husband is in the wife, and the life of the wife is in the husband—they are two bodies but one soul, 75. ”

“ Most of the world's business is done by companies, or partnerships, or associated endeavor of some kind. And the closer the intimacy between the men so engaged, the intimacy of common desires and common purposes, and mutual respect and confidence, and, if possible, friendship, the better chance there is for success. ”

“ For instance, in the last figure, sometimes called Flirtation, the four couples set in a circle, the gentlemen turn their partners, the ladies advance to the centre and retire, the gentlemen advance and retire ”

“ It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. ”

“ Conversation is a partnership, not a relation of master and slave, as most people try to make it.” ”

“ They did not vary their partners if their inclination were to stick to previous ones. Changing partners simply meant that a satisfactory choice had not as yet been arrived at by one or other of the pair, and by this time every couple had been suitably matched. It was then that the ecstasy and the dream began, in which emotion was the matter of the universe, and matter but an adventitious intrusion likely to hinder you from spinning where you wanted to spin. ”

“ If one of a friend’s children die, the formal couple are as sure and punctual in sending to the house as the undertaker; if a friend’s family be increased, the monthly nurse is not more attentive than they. The formal couple, in fact, joyfully seize all occasions of testifying their good-breeding and precise observance of the little usages of society; and for you, who are the means to this end, they care as much as a man does for the tailor who has enabled him to cut a figure, or a woman for the milliner who has assisted her to a conquest. ”

“ One of them in particular, by his kindness, so engaged my affection and gratitude, that we became inseparable companions, and shortly after the commencement of our friendship, we mutually agreed to build a nest together. Ah! then it was that I first knew the delights of liberty and society. Our labours, sweetened by affection, were converted into pleasures; while hope, displaying to our imagination the little brood nourished by our mutual toils, and reared by our mutual cares, imparted a new relish to every enjoyment. ”

“ Family ties have their own particular sancity, and the marriage relation, its omnipotent, heaven-inspiring, all-embracing love; but friendship, independent of family ties, recognizing no external bond of union,—the spontaneous out-gushing of kindred spirits towards each other, breathes in an atmosphere peculiarly its own. ”

“ As our mutual affection increased, my companion, whom I had informed of the outlines of my past life, and who was aware of the dangers to which I was daily exposed, being filled with tender fears of losing me for ever, and prompted by sincere affection, suggested the idea of uniting ourselves indissolubly by marriage ”

“ In common with an extensive circle of acquaintances, we wish the newly married couple a happy and prosperous future. It is but seldom that a matrimonial alliance has called forth so many heart felt wishes for the happiness of the parties. ”

“ The friendship of which you have visions is out of the question between us, and only possible between husband and wife. Be satisfied with your own arrangements; we are ward and guardian, nothing more. ”

“ A mutual confidence and a mutual dependence upon each other gradually took the place of early reserves, and now they sweetly draw together—now they smoothly glide along the stream of life blessed indeed in all their marriage relations. ”

“ Unlike the mere association of friends, in which two people may work together, share the same interests, enjoy the same games, or suffer the same hardships, pleasures and difficulties, the married couple are united chiefly by a physical bond which has its basis in an act of passion, an act of desire, an act of power. ”

“ When knowledge and love go together to the making of each marriage, the joy of that new unit, the Pair, will reach from the physical foundation of its united body to the heavens where its head is crowned with stars. ”

“ She gets to know her husband’s every word, every mood, every gesture by heart. To call his presence companionship, or the boon that comes with friendship, would be to cast a slur on all companionship and friendship for ever. ”

“ True love ever desires reciprocation; and love can only be reciprocated by love; but there can neither be love nor reciprocation, except where there is liberty.
I have not dwelt on the economical duties of marriage,—some of which are proper to the husband, and others to the wife,—as the distinction is well known and acknowledged. These duties, equally important and useful, are intended to meet in the common uses of marriage—order, comfort, and happiness. ”

“ I grew up in commonplace ideas, I have never seen any other life than that in which the husband and wife belonged together, the father and mother reared, tended, and watched their children together, and love in this close, tender companionship reached its highest goal. ”

“ To them [Pg 147] the company of men is like a great bath into which a husband will plunge wildly, renouncing as he dives wives and children, all anchors and securities of hearth and roof, and from which he again emerges singularly refreshed and capable of being interested by a wife, a family, and a home until the next morning. ”

“ Propensities, passions, desires, inclinations, aspirations, capacities, powers, stand up side by side and press against each other, either to please or fret and chafe each other. Tastes, dispositions, feelings, either join in sweet, according friendship, or rankle in disagreeable contact. Marriage is a union, intimate, strong-bound, and vitally active. ”

“ I have been taught that the marriage alliance should be held sacred as a body corporate united in its parts for communion with self.”
Isolita. “If we consult our mutual advantage, it is not from extending injury but help to others, and 472with the flow of recurrent reciprocation, we in turn are filled to overflowing with grateful emotions of joy. We certainly should not disdain good instruction from any source, which offers experienced advantage for aiding our endeavors in perfecting the attainment of a happy union. ”

“ We repeat, that we cannot exactly perceive why, when the union of a couple of lovers, in many cases, adds to the happiness, honour, and glory of the married pair alone, their friends should think it a duty to levy on themselves these contributions ”

“ Each person is connected with every other person by some bond of attachment. It may be by the steel bond of brotherhood, by the silvern chain of religious fellowship, by the golden band of conjugal affection, by the flaxen cord of parental or filial love, or by the silken tie of friendship. One or more of these bonds of attachment may encircle each person, and each bond has its varying strength, and is capable of endless lengthening and contracting. ”

“ Courtship, love, presents, jointures, settlements, have no place in their thoughts; or terms whereby to express them in their language. The young couple meet, and are joined, merely because it is the determination of their parents and friends; it is what they see done every day, and they look upon it as one of the necessary actions of a reasonable being. ”

“ Everything with the formal couple resolves itself into a matter of form. They don't call upon you on your account, but their own; not to see how you are, but to show how they are: it is not a ceremony to do honour to you, but to themselves,--not due to your position, but to theirs. ”

“ After a while, the young couple, though loving each other none the less, began to respond to the many calls which invited them again into society, and the pride they felt in each other added zest to the pleasures of their return. ”

“ Their intercourse, which was wholly by letter, for they never met, passes through the stages of civility, admiration, esteem, regard and culminates in a tone of the tenderest affection and mutual confidence. ”

“ Even in this age of more fastidious manners, it is probable that the tender interchanges of affection between a young couple rejoining each other after deep calamities, and standing on the brink of fresh, perhaps endless separations, would meet with something of the same indulgence from the least interested witnesses. ”

“ Here each was everything to the other, and this undisturbed mutual life soon inspired that blissful consciousness of inseparable union which usually appears only after years, as the fairest fruit of a marriage founded on love. ”