When she returns to the bosom of her stupid home you will see that, at
times, she is gloomy and thoughtful, then suddenly laughing and gay as
if beside herself; or assuming the serious expression of a German when
he advances to the fight. Such varying moods always indicate the
terrible doubt and hesitation to which we have already referred. There
are women who read romances in order to feast upon the images of love
cleverly depicted and always varied, of love crowned yet triumphant;
or in order to familiarize themselves in thought with the perils of an
intrigue.
She will profess the highest esteem for you, she will tell you that
she loves you as a sister; and that such reasonable friendship is the
only true, the only durable friendship, the only tie which it is the
aim of marriage to establish between man and wife.
She will adroitly distinguish between the duties which are all she has
to perform and the rights which she can demand to exercise.
She views with indifference, appreciated by you alone, all the details
of married happiness. This sort of happiness, perhaps, has never been
very agreeable to her and moreover it is always with her. She knows it
well, she has analyzed it; and what slight but terrible evidence comes
from these circumstances to prove to an intelligent husband that this
frail creature argues and reasons, instead of being carried away on
the tempest of passion.
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