If he has a handsome face, a good figure, a manly air, and yet falls
short of all these promises, he will sink into the class of the
predestined. On the other hand, a husband who is plain in features but
has a face full of expression, will find himself, if his wife once
forgets his plainness, in a situation most favorable for his struggle
against the genius of evil.
He will study (and this is a detail omitted from the letter of Sterne)
to give no occasion for his wife's disgust. Also, he will resort
moderately to the use of perfumes, which, however, always expose
beauty to injurious suspicions.
He ought as carefully to study how to behave and how to pick out
subjects of conversation, as if he were courting the most inconstant
of women. It is for him that a philosopher has made the following
reflection:
"More than one woman has been rendered unhappy for the rest of her
life, has been lost and dishonored by a man whom she has ceased to
love, because he took off his coat awkwardly, trimmed one of his nails
crookedly, put on a stocking wrong side out, and was clumsy with a
button."
One of the most important of his duties will be to conceal from his
wife the real state of his fortune, so that he may satisfy her fancies
and caprices as generous celibates are wont to do.
Then the most difficult thing of all, a thing to accomplish which
superhuman courage is required, is to exercise the most complete
control over the ass of which Sterne speaks.
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