graven on your
cheerful, happy face.

Don't lavish yourself too much on your husband. Always leave something
to be desired. If you saturate him with love, he will get tired of you.

When lots of people require your attention in your house and you have
to reply to all in succession, do not exhaust your stock of sweetness,
patience and gentleness on your friends, your relatives, your children
and your servants, so that, when your husband's turn comes, you may not
have to say to him with a frown: 'Now, what is it?'

He should be served first and best. Perhaps he deserves it. If not,
your consideration for him may put it into his head to try and deserve
it.

CHAPTER VIII

THE GENTLE ART OF RULING A HUSBAND

The rule of women over men is the survival of the fittest.

The best thing that can happen to a man is to be ruled by his wife; but
she should rule him so discreetly, so diplomatically, that he could
almost boast that it is he who rules her. At all events, he should
remain very undecided which of the two it is that rules the other. And
when a man is not quite sure that it is he who rules his wife, you may
take it for granted that it is she who rules him. Of course, I start
from this indispensable, fundamental element, that there is love
between husband and wife. Without love existing in matrimonial life,
no rule can be laid down, no advice can be given on the subject.

How is the art of ruling a husband to be learned? The American and the
French girls are at a good school; they have only to study how Mamma
does it. I have travelled all over the world, and so far I have
discovered two countries only in which the men are in leading-strings
and the women are the leaders--my own beloved one and the United States
of America. In these two privileged nations the women lead the men by
the nose; but in America the women boast of it, and I do not think they
should. In France the women do not boast of it, but they do it, and
with a vengeance. Yet, before the people a Frenchwoman will always say:
'Oh, I do so and so because it pleases my husband.' Dear little humbug!
does she, though! Butter would not melt in her mouth when she says
that.

Now, the rule of the women over the men, both in France and in America,
is simply the survival of the fittest, the power of the most keen and
intelligent; but for all that, and perfectly as he may realize it, a
man objects to his submission being obvious to everybody. In pub