rved well, though I am scarcely satisfied with it. According
to our English notions I know my name. English notions, however, are not
to be accepted in all matters, any more than the flat declaration of a
fact will develop it in alt its bearings. When our English society shall
have advanced to a high civilization, it will be less expansive in
denouncing the higher stupidities. Among us, much of the social judgement
of Bodge upon the relations of men to women is the stereotyped opinion of
the land. There is the dictum here for a man who adores a woman who is
possessed by a husband. If he has long adored her, and known himself to
be preferred by her in innocency of heart; if he has solved the problem
of being her bosom's lord, without basely seeking to degrade her to being
his mistress; the epithets to characterise him in our vernacular will
probably be all the less flattering. Politically we are the most
self-conscious people upon earth, and socially the frankest animals. The
terrorism of our social laws is eminently serviceable, for without it
such frank animals as we are might run into bad excesses. I judge rather
by the abstract evidence than by the examples our fair matrons give to
astounded foreigners when abroad.

Louise writes that her husband is paralysed. The Marquis de Mazardouin is
at last tasting of his mortality. I bear in mind the day when he married
her. She says that he has taken to priestly counsel, and, like a woman,
she praises him for that. It is the one thing which I have not done to
please her. She anticipates his decease. Should she be free--what then?
My heart does not beat the faster for the thought. There are twenty years
upon it, and they make a great load. But I have a desire that she should
come over to us. The old folly might rescue me from the new one. Not that
I am any further persecuted by the dread that I am in imminent danger
here. I have established a proper mastery over my young lady. 'Nous avons
change de role'. Alice is subdued; she laughs feebly, is becoming
conscious--a fact to be regretted, if I desired to check the creature's
growth. There is vast capacity in the girl. She has plainly not centred
her affections upon Charles, so that a man's conscience might be at ease
if--if he chose to disregard what is due to decency. But, why, when I
contest it, do I bow to the world's opinion concerning disparity of years
between husband and wife? I know innumerable cases of an old husband
ma