then you will discover something unpleasant, and you
will be saved." That is a little what happens in marriage; for ever and
ever people are together, hearing each other, watching each other.
Listen to M 14:

"I really was very much in love with him and only just at the end of the
engagement did I notice how hard he blew his nose. After we were
married, I thought: 'Oh! don't be so silly and notice such little
things, he's such a splendid fellow.' A little later--'Oh! I do wish he
wouldn't blow his nose like that, it drives me mad.' Now I find myself
listening and telling myself with an awful feeling of doom: 'He's going
to blow his nose!'"

(She never tells him that he trumpets like an elephant. She fears to
offend him. She prefers to stand there, exasperated and chafed. One day
he will trumpet down the walls of her Jericho.)

There are awful little things between two people. Here are some of them:

M 43. When tired, the wife has a peculiar yawn, roughly: "Hoo-hoo!
Hoo-hoo!" The husband hears it coming, and something curls within him.

M 98. Every morning in his bath the husband sings: "There is a fountain
fill'd with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins," always the same.

M 124. The wife buys shoes a quarter size too small and always slips
them off under the table at dinner. Then she loses them and develops
great agitation. This fills her husband with an unaccountable rage.

M 68. The wife is afflicted with the _cliche_ habit and can generally
sum up a situation by phrases such as: "All is not gold that glitters."
Or, "Such is life." Or, "Well, well, it's a weary world." The husband
can hear them coming.

There are scores of these little cruel things which wear away love as
surely as trickling water will wear away a stone. (Observe how
contagious _cliches_ are!) The dilemma is horrible; if the offended
party speaks out, he or she may speak out much too forcibly and raise
this sort of train of thought: "He didn't seem to mind when we were
engaged. He loved me then, and little things didn't matter. He doesn't
love me now. I wonder whether he is in love with some one else. Oh! I'm
so unhappy." If, on the other hand, one does not speak out forcibly, or
does not speak at all, the offender goes on doing it for the rest of his
or her life, and there is nothing to do except to wait until one has got
used to it and has ceased to care. But by that time one has generally
ceased to care for the offender.

There are ideal