Virginia Argus

Domestic Happiness.—The great end of prudence is to give cheerfulness to those hours which splendor cannot gild, and acclamation cannot exhilarate. Those soft intervals of unbendend amusement, in which a man shrinks to his natural dimensions, and throws aside the ornaments or disguises which he feels, in privacy, to be useless incumbrances, and to lose all effect when they become familiar. To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition; the end to which every enterprise and labor ends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution. It is indeed at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity: for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed or shown in painted honor, and fictitious benevolence.