ilosopher has as yet approached, I mean this
attempt to show how a woman may be prevented from deceiving her
husband? Is not this the comedy of comedies? Is it not a second
_speculum vitae humanae_. We are not now dealing with the abstract
questions which we have done justice to already in this Meditation. At
the present day in ethics as in exact science, the world asks for
facts for the results of observation. These we shall furnish.

Let us begin then by examining the true condition of things, by
analyzing the forces which exist on either side. Before arming our
imaginary champion let us reckon up the number of his enemies. Let us
count the Cossacks who intend to invade his little domain.

All who wish may embark with us on this voyage, all who can may laugh.
Weigh anchor; hoist sail! You know exactly the point from which you
start. You have this advantage over a great many books that are
written.

As for our fancy of laughing while we weep, and of weeping while we
laugh, as the divine Rabelais drank while he ate and ate while he
drank; as for our humor, to put Heraclitus and Democritus on the same
page and to discard style or premeditated phrase--if any of the crew
mutiny, overboard with the doting cranks, the infamous classicists,
the dead and buried romanticists, and steer for the blue water!

Everybody perhaps will jeeringly remark that we are like those who say
with smiling faces, "I am going to tell you a story that will make you
laugh!" But it is the proper thing to joke when speaking of marriage!
In short, can you not understand that we consider marriage as a
trifling ailment to which all of us are subject and upon which this
volume is a monograph?

"But you, your bark or your work starts off like those postilions who
crack their whips because their passengers are English. You will not
have galloped at full speed for half a league before you dismount to
mend a trace or to breathe your horses. What is the good of blowing
the trumpet before victory?"

Ah! my dear pantagruellists, nowadays to claim success is to obtain
it, and since, after all, great works are only due to the expansion of
little ideas, I do not see why I should not pluck the laurels, if only
for the purpose of crowning those dirty bacon faces who join us in
swallowing a dram. One moment, pilot, let us not start without making
one little definition.

Reader, if from time to time you meet in this work the terms virtue or
virtuous, let us u