e an artist, the women of Raphael will
inspire him with the purest sensations of love, those of Titian with
the loftiest sentiments of admiration and respect. Those of Watteau
will make him believe that he could live on candies and _choux a la
creme_. Those of Teniers would reconcile him to the idea of a quiet
life over a pipe and a tankard of beer. Some heroic beauty will inspire
him with the most chivalrous sentiments; some melancholy one with
dreams of a refined poetic life. Some sedate beauty, with her hair
dressed _a la vierge_, will suggest to him a regular humdrum life,
mid-day dinners, retiring and rising early, and will inculcate in him
an immoderate desire to be the father of a large family. That same man,
however, might become a criminal under the influence of some poisonous
beauty. Some Bostonian girl educated beyond her intellect might induce
that very man to spend the rest of his life studying Browning.

Now, my dear man, if beauty should influence you in the choice of a
wife, never decide on a woman before you are absolutely sure that,
whatever happens, you will be happy with her as your wife knitting by
your side, while, under a veranda covered with jasmine and honeysuckle,
you play with the babe on your knees. If a woman does not possess
_that_ kind of beauty, she is not fit for matrimony, and don't marry
her.

Now, a woman should marry young, very young even, so that her husband
should enjoy all the different phases of her beauty, from the beauty of
girlhood to that second youth, or matronly beauty, which to my mind is
perhaps the best of all. The Watteau of eighteen will become a Rubens
at forty. It is, perhaps, at forty that a woman is most strikingly
beautiful, and she is almost invariably so when she has taken care of
herself, and has been loved and petted by husband and children alike.
It is then that she knows how to make the best of herself, that she
best understands how to exercise her gifts and charms in the most
effective manner.

It is at forty that she enjoys the grace of perfect self-possession.
She has tact, and dresses faultlessly. Her knowledge of the world, her
experience of life, all help to make her a more delightful companion
than ever. The love she has inspired is written on every one of her
features. Her eyes sparkle with joy, her mouth expresses the ecstasy of
past and present bliss, and also gratitude for the kisses that have
been impressed upon it. Yes, the woman of forty is