apparently like them all the better for their deficiencies. Just see how
happily Racine lived with his wife, and what an angel he thought her,
and yet she had never read his plays. Certainly Goethe never troubled
the lady who called him "Mr. Privy Councillor" with whims about
'monads,' and speculations on 'color,' nor those stiff metaphysical
problems on which one breaks one's shins in the Second Part of the
Faust. Probably it may be that such great geniuses--knowing that, as
compared with themselves, there is little difference between your clever
woman and your humdrum woman--merge at once all minor distinctions,
relinquish all attempts that could not but prove unsatisfactory, at
sympathy in hard intellectual pursuits, and are quite satisfied to
establish that tie which, after all, best resists wear and tear--viz.
the tough household bond between one human heart and another.

At all events, this, I suspect, was the reasoning of Dr. Riccabocca,
when one morning, after a long walk with Miss Hazeldean, he muttered to
himself--

"Duro con duro
Non fece mai buon muro."

Which may bear the paraphrase, "Bricks without mortar would make a very
bad wall." There was quite enough in Miss Jemima's disposition to make
excellent mortar: the Doctor took the bricks to himself.

When his examination was concluded, our philosopher symbolically evinced
the result he had arrived at by a very simple proceeding on his
part--which would have puzzled you greatly if you had not paused, and
meditated thereon, till you saw all that it implied. _Dr. Riccabocca
took off his spectacles!_ He wiped them carefully, put them into their
shagreen case, and locked them in his bureau:--that is to say, he left
off wearing his spectacles.

You will observe that there was a wonderful depth of meaning in that
critical symptom, whether it be regarded as a sign outward, positive,
and explicit, or a sign metaphysical, mystical, and esoteric. For, as to
the last--it denoted that the task of the spectacles was over; that,
when a philosopher has made up his mind to marry, it is better
henceforth to be short-sighted--nay, even somewhat purblind--than to be
always scrutinizing the domestic felicity to which he is about to resign
himself, through a pair of cold, unillusory barnacles. And for the
things beyond the hearth, if he cannot see without spectacles, is he not
about to ally to his own defective vision a good sharp pair of eyes,
never at fault