n it is increased. A wife would certainly
do one or the other. Married to a very superior woman, able to
understand the devotion to intellectual aims, you would be much relieved
of the painful consciousness of eccentricity; but a woman of less
capacity would intensify it.

So far as we can observe the married life of others, it seems to me that
I have met with instances of men, constituted and occupied very much as
you are, who have found in marriage a strong protection against the
ignorant judgments of their neighbors, and an assurance of intellectual
peace; whilst in other cases it has appeared rather as if their solitude
were made more a cause of conscious suffering, as if the walls of their
cabinets were pulled down for the boobies outside to stare at them and
laugh at them. A woman will either take your side against the customs of
the little world around, or she will take the side of custom against
you. If she loves you deeply, and if there is some visible result of
your labors in fame and money, she may possibly do the first, and then
she will protect your tranquillity better than a force of policemen, and
give you a delightful sense of reconciliation with all humanity; but
many of her most powerful instincts tend the other way. She has a
natural sympathy with all the observances of custom, and you neglect
them; she is fitted for social life, which you are not. Unless you win
her wholly to your side, she may undertake the enterprise of curing your
eccentricities and adapting you to the ideal of her caste. This may be
highly satisfactory to the operator, but it is full of inconveniences to
the patient.

LETTER VII.

TO A LADY OF HIGH CULTURE WHO FOUND IT DIFFICULT TO ASSOCIATE WITH
PERSONS OF HER OWN SEX.

Men are not very good judges of feminine conversation--The interest of
it would be increased if women could be more freely initiated into
great subjects--Small subjects interesting when seen in relation to
central ideas--That ladies of superior faculty ought rather to elevate
female society than withdraw from it--Women when displaced do not
appear happy.

What you confided to me in our last interesting conversation has given
me material for reflection, and afforded a glimpse of a state of things
which I have sometimes suspected without having data for any positive
conclusion. The society of women is usually sought by men during hours
of mental relaxation, and we naturally find such a charm in