Bride, n. A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.

Brain, n. An apparatus with which we think what we think.

Cabbage, n. A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.

Cannon, n. An instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries.

Marriage, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.

Thus Dante's motto over Inferno applies with equal force to marriage: 'Ye who enter here leave all hope behind.'

A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage, married immediately after his wife died: Johnson said, it was the triumph of hope over experience.