a woman, is that of his
own wife: for the opportunities are greater, and the cases of
complete sympathy not so unspeakably rare. And in fact, this is the
source from which any knowledge worth having on the subject has, I
believe, generally come. But most men have not had the opportunity of
studying in this way more than a single case: accordingly one can, to
an almost laughable degree, infer what a man's wife is like, from his
opinions about women in general. To make even this one case yield any
result, the woman must be worth knowing, and the man not only a
competent judge, but of a character so sympathetic in itself, and so
well adapted to hers, that he can either read her mind by sympathetic
intuition, or has nothing in himself which makes her shy of
disclosing it. Hardly anything, I believe, can be more rare than this
conjunction. It often happens that there is the most complete unity
of feeling and community of interests as to all external things, yet
the one has as little admission into the internal life of the other
as if they were common acquaintance. Even with true affection,
authority on the one side and subordination on the other prevent
perfect confidence. Though nothing may be intentionally withheld,
much is not shown. In the analogous relation of parent and child, the
corresponding phenomenon must have been in the observation of every
one. As between father and son, how many are the cases in which the
father, in spite of real affection on both sides, obviously to all
the world does not know, nor suspect, parts of the son's character
familiar to his companions and equals. The truth is, that the
position of looking up to another is extremely unpropitious to
complete sincerity and openness with him. The fear of losing ground
in his opinion or in his feelings is so strong, that even in an
upright character, there is an unconscious tendency to show only the
best side, or the side which, though not the best, is that which he
most likes to see: and it may be confidently said that thorough
knowledge of one another hardly ever exists, but between persons who,
besides being intimates, are equals. How much more true, then, must
all this be, when the one is not only under the authority of the
other, but has it inculcated on her as a duty to reckon everything
else subordinate to his comfort and pleasure, and to let him neither
see nor feel anything coming from her, except what is agreeable to
him. All these difficulti