g fountain of the beautiful and good,
of God and nature; he would drink for a moment of eternal streams.
Then he would _forget_, take courage, and breathe freely again. Having
been relieved by her, he would in his turn assist her with his powerful
hand, lead her into his own world, his own life, his way of progress
and new ideas--the way of the future!

Unfortunately this is not the way of the world. I have sought
everywhere, but in vain, for this fine exchange of thought, which alone
realizes marriage. They certainly try for a moment, in the beginning,
to communicate together, but they are soon discouraged: the husband
grows dumb, his heart, dried up with the arid influence of interest and
business, can no longer find words. At first she is astonished and
uneasy: she questions him. But questions annoy him; and she no longer
dares to speak to him. Let him be easy; the time is coming when his
wife, sitting thoughtful by the fire-side, absent in her turn, and
framing her imaginary plans, will leave him in quiet possession of his
taciturnity.

First of all, she has a son. It is to him, if he be left to her, that
she will devote herself entirely. Should she go out, she gives him her
hand, and soon her arm; he is now like a young brother, "a little
husband." How tall he has grown already! how quickly time passes; and
it is a pity he grows so; for now comes the separation, his Latin and
his tears. Must he not become a learned man? Must he not enter, as
soon as possible, into the world of violence and opposition, where he
will acquire the bad passions which are cultivated so carefully in us,
pride, ambition, hatred, and envy? The mother would like to wait
longer: "What is the hurry? he is so young, and those schools are so
strict! He will learn much better at home, if they will let him remain
with her; she will engage masters and superintend his studies herself;
she will discontinue going to balls."--"Impossible, madam, impossible!
you would make a milksop of him." The fact is, the father, though he
likes his son very much, finds, that in a well-regulated house this
movement and constant noise and bustle are intolerable. He is unable
to support anything of the sort: fatigued, disgusted, and ill-humoured,
he wants silence and repose.

Wise husbands, who make so little of the resistance of a mother, do you
not perceive that it is also by an instinct of virtue that this woman
wishes to keep her son the pure and