derstand; your love is satiated and at an end.'

"Nothing could conquer her conviction _that study was her rival_, and
that love was only possible in idleness.

"'To love is everything,' she said; 'and he who loves has not time to
concern himself with anything else. Whilst the husband is intoxicating
himself with the marvels of science, the wife languishes and dies. It is
the destiny which awaits me; and since I am a burden to you, I should do
better to die at once.'

"A little later Valvedre ventured to hint something about work, hoping
to conquer his wife's _ennui_, on which she proclaimed the hatred of
work as a sacred right of her nature and position.

"'Nobody ever taught me to work,' she said, 'and I did not marry under a
promise to begin again at the _a_, _b_, _c_ of things. Whatever I know I
have learned by intuition, by reading without aim or method. I am a
woman; my destiny is to love my husband and bring up children. It is
very strange that my husband should be the person who counsels me to
think of something better.'"

I am far from suggesting that Madame Valvedre is an exact representative
of her sex, but the sentiments which in her are exaggerated, and
expressed with passionate plainness, are in much milder form very
prevalent sentiments indeed; and Valvedre's great difficulty, how to get
leave to prosecute his studies with the degree of devotion necessary to
make them fruitful, is not at all an uncommon difficulty with
intellectual men after marriage. The character of Madame Valvedre, being
passionate and excessive, led her to an open expression of her
feelings; but feelings of a like kind, though milder in degree, exist
frequently below the surface, and may be detected by any vigilant
observer of human nature. That such feelings are very natural it is
impossible even for a _savant_ to deny; but whilst admitting the clear
right of a woman to be preferred by a man to science when once he has
married her, let me observe that the man might perhaps do wisely, before
the knot is tied, to ascertain whether her intellectual dowry is rich
enough to compensate him for the sacrifices she is likely to exact.

LETTER VI.

TO A SOLITARY STUDENT.

Need of a near intellectual friendship in solitude--Persons who live
independently of custom run a peculiar risk in marriage--Women by
nature more subservient to custom than men are--Difficulty of
conciliating solitude and marriage--De Senancour--The marria