Francis Bacon, this household man, had too many titles: English lawyer, statesman, essayist, historian, intellectual reformer, philosopher, and champion of modern science. All the experience bestowed him a very special perspective to write articles, which were full of both unique wisdom and humor.
This time the great man had his eye fixed on the topic “marriage”. Marriage is an interesting subject that has been concerning and discussing since the beginning of the human society. Some people regard marriage as the most important thing in a person’s live while someone believes it is terrible and a restriction of freedom. In Bacon’s essay “of marriage and single life”, he analyzed and compared marriage with single life in many different aspects such as public service and personal qualities and characters. Also Bacon enumerated different influences that marriage or single has on people. According to Bacon, people who has wife and children, has given hostages to fortune for they are impediments to career and marriage means the end of free style of life. Therefore, the best men for public service are those unmarried or childless who have married and endowed the public both in affection and means. Although, Unmarried men can be best friends, best masters or best servants but not always best subjects because they can run away from duties and responsibilities at any moment and don’t care enough for the consequence and other people’s feelings. In a word, paying great attention to marriage and family makes people responsible, enthusiastic and warm-hearted.
With no direct experience of marriage or any deep thought about it, I dare not write on this holy topic. Yet Bacon’s passage inspires to write on another interesting topic which concerns every university student, especially boys in Shishu: love. Every guy on campus face a true problem: to have a girlfriend or not, of course basing on the assumption that he can choose.
Those who have girlfriends on campus have given hostages to success for they are impediments of their struggles. They have to, willing or not, spare a lot of time with their girlfriends, doing a lot of boring but sweet things. That’s what a girlfriend, or in general, love requires. Lovable university lovers become frequent visitors to theaters, movies, exquisite restaurants, or hotels for some open-minded ones. Therefore, they are left little time in study. You can seldom find lovers in the library. If any, they are seldom reading book. It will not be a wonder that you find those top students are nearly all single because they can only devote themselves to the world of knowledge and receive some compensations. The lovers are often not surprised to find out that they fail to rank high, usually the more fiercely they love the worse academic results they get. If a couple of vehemently loving university lovers succeeded to grade high, it’s either because they are not loving fiercely enough or they are talents. Of course it’s also possible there’s something wrong with the exam system.
Though having received compensation from academic achievements or activities, very few of the single guys are totally sedate and willing. The world seems to have tailored itself to the lovers. The world is full of festivals suiting the lovers for they are the most non-rational consumers ever. Each festival, all the stocks, restaurants, parks have come up with discounting policies for lovers. Besides, there isn’t a day set specially for the poor single one as if all are supposed to be hanging out with someone. And countless gizmos and exquisite crafts themed love are on the shelves looking attractive. A single man can still persist that he could turn to his good friends for fun on the festivals. However, men are good friends and playmates only when they are single. Once with a girlfriend, they are more mysterious and harder to find than mouse. Finally a single poor guy would end up with himself facing a computer or a book when outside is noisily celebrating a sweet festival. Alas! It’s not hard to imagine how lonely he feels inside. He will surely feel the impulse to find someone to end this status. That’s why there are few single ones can keep single throughout the 4 complete years. Maybe that’s the reason why people always say: when you enter the university, love is not a luxury but a requisite. Those who can resist the temptation and doesn’t need this requisite can really be saints.
Single saints indeed have great chances for success but they are losing the opportunity to learn about love. Love on campus is the purest for it doesn’t involve any practical and vulgar purposes, according to the social men. Also, it’s a valuable lesson to learn how to communicate and get along with the other sex. By the chance you will also have a much clearer picture of your ideal type of wife. Without well preparation, you may lose your beloved one when into society simply because you haven’t learned anything about how to treat your love during your campus year. Or you would be bogged down in a unsuitable love relationships can find it difficult to save yourself from it because you had no idea of what kind of people you like. What a tragedy! No wonder sad love songs always echo in every corner of streets and won many people’s heart. Maybe most of the heart-broken ones miss the good time to learn about love on campus. Joking, of course.
Love or study, that’s not a contradicting choice. All must learn a very important lesson during the lifetime: balance your life. Our life is made up of neither complete love nor total work. It’s supposed to be the nice combination of the two. So it’s essential for us university to practice the balancing work. Those that can well handle both are called the really successful saints.
