etween the wedded intelligences as the electric
light burns between two carbon points.

I venture to suggest, however, that this evil may be counteracted by
persons of some energy and originality. This is one of those very
numerous cases in which an evil is sure to arrive if nothing is done to
prevent it, yet in which the evil need not arrive when those whom it
menaces are forewarned. To take an illustration intelligible in these
days of steam-engines. We know that if the water is allowed to get very
low in the boiler a destructive explosion will be the consequence; yet,
since every stoker is aware of this, such explosions are not of frequent
occurrence. That evil is continually approaching and yet continually
averted by the exercise of human foresight.

Let us suppose that a married couple are clearly aware that in the
course of years their society is sure to become mutually uninteresting
unless something is done to preserve the earlier zest of it. What is
that something?

That which an author does for the unknown multitude of his readers.

Every author who succeeds takes the trouble to renew his mind either by
fresh knowledge or new thoughts. Is it not at least equally worth while
to do as much to preserve the interest of marriage? Without undervaluing
the friendly adhesion of many readers, without affecting any contempt
for fame, which is dearer to the human heart than wealth itself whenever
it appears to be not wholly unattainable, may not I safely affirm that
the interest of married life, from its very _nearness_, has a still
stronger influence upon the mind of any thinking person, of either sex,
than the approbation of unnumbered readers in distinct countries or
continents? You never _see_ the effect of your thinking on your readers;
they live and die far away from you, a few write letters of praise or
criticism, the thousands give no sign. But the wife is with you always,
she is almost as near to you as your own body; the world, to you, is a
figure-picture in which there is one figure, the rest is merely
background. And if an author takes pains to renew his mind for the
people in the background, is it not at least equally worth your while to
bring fresh thought for the renewal of your life with her?

This, then, is my theory of the intellectual marriage, that the two
wedded intellects ought to renew themselves continually for each other.
And I argue that if this were done in earnest, the otherwise inevitable