e best of them all, takes compassion on
the poor husband. He removes certain scruples of the wife, &c. Even
this kindness is singularly humiliating. (See ed. 1833, vol. viii. pp.
254, 312, 347, 348.) Marriage, though one of the sacraments, appears
here as a suppliant on its knees before the _direction_, seems to ask
pardon, and suffer penance.

[2] For the _insulated state_ of a father of a family in Catholic
countries, see M. BOUVET'S _Du Catholicisme_, p. 175. (ed. 1840). An
English gentleman, whose wife goes to Confession, said to me one day,
"I am a lodger in my own house--I come to my meals."--ED.

[3] The name is rare in our days, but the thing is common; he who
confesses for a length of time becomes director. Several persons have,
at the same time, a confessor, an extraordinary confessor, and a
director.

CHAPTER IV.

HABIT.--ITS POWER.--ITS INSENSIBLE BEGINNING.--ITS PROGRESS.--SECOND
NATURE.--OFTEN FATAL.--A MAN MAKING THE MOST OF THE POWER OF
HABIT.--CAN WE GET CLEAR OF IT?

If spiritual dominion be really of the spirit, if the empire over
thought be obtained by thought itself, by a superiority of character
and mind, we must give way; we have only to be resigned. Our family
may protest, but it will be in vain.

But, for the most part, this is not the case. The influence we speak
of by no means supposes, as an essential condition, the brilliant gifts
of the mind. They are doubtless of service to him who has them,
though, if we have them in a superior degree, they may possibly do him
harm. A brilliant superiority, which ever seems a pretension to
govern, puts the minds of others on their guard, warns the less
prudent, and places an obstacle on the very threshold; which here is
everything. People of mediocrity do not alarm us, they gain an
entrance more easily. The weaker they are the less they are suspected;
therefore are they the stronger in one sense. Iron clashes against the
rock, is blunted, and loses its edge and point. But who would distrust
water? Weak, colourless, insipid as it is, if, however, it always
continues to fall in the same place, it will in time hollow out the
flinty rock.

Stand at this window every day, at a certain hour in the afternoon.
You will see a pale man pass down the street, with his eyes cast on the
ground, and always following the same line of pavement next the houses.
Where he set his foot yesterday, there he does to-day, and there he
will to-morr