January 6, 1910
It was a harsh wintry day; the pavements were glib with ice and snow; it blew and sleeted and rained. I got a carriage, and in the evening -Twelfth Night by the way -went with Marie and Blanche to the wedding of Miss Julia Fitz-Randolph McGee and Mr. Frances V. Dobbins. It was a church wedding and a pretty affair. Afterward we went to the house on Crescent avenue for the reception of the bridal party and a few intimate friends. All seemed becomingly happy, and if any doubt or cynicism appeared, it appeared veiled in the men's cloak room. And yet at the church, at the nuptials, I felt myself assisting at some solemn fate or looking on in a dream. The figures came and departed -there was a hushed crucial moment, a subdued word or two. I wondered if they sincerely believed, realized and accepted. Was there not something limited, illusory and archaic in this beautiful custom so religiously kept up? For my part I perceived some artifice, craft and inadequacy in the marriage institution that made it look like an anachronism, or a superstitious ceremony projected into the present by reason of its peculiar grace and venerable usage and because no constructive substitute has been found: it lingered on because no finer, subtler, more comprehensive and sufficing form had been discovered to fit the passion and purpose of man and the concept of the universal mind.
