the daughter remains under her mother she
has every evening the vexation of hearing
the men say to one another, "The little one
is not bad looking, but how much handsomer
the mother is!"

Rich or poor, they generally live very
badly themselves and also feed their daughters
badly. But the mother, who is all grace, all
cleverness, and all spirit, stands in no need of
a clear complexion. The daughter does
stand in need of it. Her wretched diet keeps
her pale, weakly, and somewhat thin. The
poor girl mostly prolongs "the awkward age"
up to the time of her marriage. Then, happy
under your more liberal treatment, she
assumes a more graceful outline. She will
owe her beauty to you, to your kindness;
your young rose will blossom fresher and
more lovely than she could during the period
of her melancholy youth. But, to become
beautiful, and through the means of one
whom she loves, what happiness! It is
impossible to describe the excess of her gratitude.
To be handsome! For a woman, it is
Paradise—it is everything. If she only has
the consciousness that so great an advantage
is owing to you, she will heartily yield on
every other point; she will be delighted to
feel that you are the master; she will like
you to cut matters short, to decide everything,
and in general to save her the trouble
of having a will of her own. She will cheerfully
recognise, what is the truth, that you
are her guardian angel, that your ten or
twelve additional years, your experience of
the world, have taught you a thousand things
from which you can preserve her, a thousand
dangers to which she is exposed by her youth
and the semi-captivity of her girlhood, and
into which she might rush headlong but for
your interference.

For instance, her mother, from whom she
has so often desired to be emancipated,
is, nevertheless, regretted at the parting
moment. "If we were to live together?"
The bridegroom knows better than she that
nothing would be more fatal, that it would
make them all wretched, and that a life of
constraint and discord would be the result.
'"But at least, if I only had my maid, who is
so attached to me, who is so handy—my
Julie! No one else can dress me as she
does?" Here again, it is the husband who
saves her. He succeeds in persuading her
not to take the shrewd and supple lady's-maid,
who spoils her mistress, and who would
become the veritable rival of the husband,
flattering him, and working underhand
against him, the dangerous confidante of the
wife's little vexations, and, step by step, the
mistress—the real mistress—of the household.
Fortunately, the young man foresees
all that in the far distance, and obtains the
favour of not having to receive the seductive
viper in his new-formed home.

These are very grave points indeed, touching
which there may arise some little
disagreement. Sometimes, even, she will turn
on one side and weep for a moment, all the
while confessing that, after all, you have
more experience, and are no doubt in the
right. If you gain the victory on these
serious questions, how much more easy will
it be to dispose of all the rest. ln matters
of business and interest, in ideas, she will
readily recognise that you know and see
more, and more clearly, than herself, and
especially that your mental habits are
serious and strong in a very different degree.
Simply to have a business, a speciality of art,
is a great means of superiority for a man.
It implies a preliminary course of gymnastics;
he has thereby rendered supple the original
stiffness of his joints; he has trained and
strengthened his faculties of action. By
forging iron, you learn to forge yourself.
You are specially taught that in order to
succeed, to bring any work to its completion,
there must be perseverance, conscience, a
serious desire to produce a good performance,
and a great degree of precision. Women
are very capable of this precision, and yet
they hardly ever attain it. The reason
is, that they do not will it with sufficient
energy.

The way to be happy, is to narrow the
home circle. Love creates love, and augments
it. The secret of loving each other much, is
to occupy yourselves much one with the
other, to live much together, the closest and
the most possible.

"And then, if one gets weary, it will be
just the contrary; the couple will begin to
hate each other?" Yes, if an alternation
between solitude and the world, if a life of
excitement and indolence, broken up by
violent contrasts, hinders the mind from settling
in its place. But not so, if a uniform and
simple existence, divided between love and
labour, excludes vain unsettled thoughts, by
constantly inducing a closer communion, till
the consorts are brought to live, think, and
enjoy, the one through the other only. In
ancient Zurich, when a quarrelsome couple
requested a divorce, the magistrate did not
listen to them. Before deciding, he had them
shut up for three days in a single chamber,
with one bed, one table, one plate, and one
glass. Their food was passed to them without
their being seen or spoken to. When
they were let out, at the end of the three
days, not a single pair would hear a word
about the divorce.

The mere arrangement of our modern
apartments is sufficient to hinder a real
union. The multitude of little rooms divides
the household, breaks up the family, isolates
the spouses. On the other hand, the
super-position of stories in those great unwholesome
barracks, called houses, in which French
people crowd together, exposes them every
instant to the contact of strangers. Monsieur
will work apart, Madame will yawn apart,
or will gossip nonsense with untrustworthy