for nothing is less agreeable than a woman with a
beard, whilst, on the contrary, the most intellectual of women may at
the same time be the most permanently charming.

LETTER V.

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO CONTEMPLATED MARRIAGE.

The danger of deviation--Danger from increased expenditure--Nowhere so
great as in England--Complete absorption in business--Case of a
tradesman--Case of a solicitor--The pursuit of comfort dangerous to
the Intellectual Life--The meanness of its results--Fireside
purposes--Danger of deviation in rich marriages--George Sand's study
of this in her story of "Valvedre."

Amongst the dangers of marriage, one of those most to be dreaded by a
man given to intellectual pursuits is the deviation which, in one way or
other, marriage inevitably produces. It acts like the pointsman on a
railway, who, by pulling a lever, sends the train in another direction.
The married man never goes, or hardly ever goes, exactly on the same
intellectual lines which he would have followed if he had remained a
bachelor. This deviation may or may not be a gain; it is always a most
serious danger.

Sometimes the deviation is produced by the necessity for a stricter
attention to money, causing a more unremitting application to work that
pays well, and a proportionate neglect of that which can only give
extension to our knowledge and clearness to our views.

In no country is this danger so great as it is in England, where the
generally expensive manner of living, and the prevalent desire to keep
families in an ideally perfect state of physical comfort, produce an
absorption in business which in all but the rarest instances leaves no
margin for intellectual labor. There are, no doubt, some remarkable
examples of men earning a large income by a laborious profession, who
have gained reputation in one of the sciences or in some branch of
literature, but these are very exceptional cases. A man who works at his
profession as most Englishmen with large families have to work, can
seldom enjoy that surplus of nervous energy which would be necessary to
carry him far in literature or science. I remember meeting an English
tradesman in the railway between Paris and the coast, who told me that
he was obliged to visit France very frequently, yet could not speak
French, which was a great deficiency and inconvenience to him. "Why not
learn?" I then asked, and received the following answer:

"I have to work at my business a