arfully solitary one. Unless he lives in a great capital
the man devoted to that life is more than all other men liable to suffer
from isolation, to feel utterly alone beneath the deafness of space and
the silence of the stars. Give him one friend who can understand him,
who will not leave him, who will always be accessible by day and
night--one friend, one kindly listener, just one, and the whole universe
is changed. It is deaf and indifferent no longer, and whilst _she_
listens, it seems as if all men and angels listened also, so perfectly
his thought is mirrored in the light of her answering eyes.

LETTER III.

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO CONTEMPLATED MARRIAGE.

The intellectual ideal of marriage--The danger of dulness--To be
counteracted only by the renewal of both minds--Example of Lady
Baker--Separation of the sexes by an old prejudice about
education--This prejudice on the decline--Influence of the late Prince
Consort.

How far may you hope to realize the intellectual ideal of marriage? Have
I ever observed in actual life any approximate realization of that
ideal?

These are the two questions which conclude and epitomize the last of
your recent letters. Let me endeavor to answer them as satisfactorily as
the obscurity of the subject will permit.

The intellectual ideal seems to be that of a conversation on all the
subjects you most care about, which should never lose its interest. Is
it possible that two people should live together and talk to each other
every day for twenty years without knowing each other's views too well
for them to seem worth expressing or worth listening to? There are
friends whom we know _too_ well, so that our talk with them has less of
refreshment and entertainment than a conversation with the first
intelligent stranger on the quarter-deck of the steamboat. It is evident
that from the intellectual point of view this is the great danger of
marriage. It may become dull, not because the mental force of either of
the parties has declined, but because each has come to know so
accurately beforehand what the other will say on any given topic, that
inquiry is felt to be useless. This too perfect intimacy, which has
ended many a friendship outside of marriage, may also terminate the
intellectual life in matrimony itself.

Let us not pass too lightly over this danger, for it is not to be
denied. Unless carefully provided against, it will gradually extinguish
the light that plays b