everything you ought not to do. _Of two people
who are married, there is always one who has the delusion that he or she
is necessary and delightful to the life of the other. The other
generally thinks just the contrary._ The result is not peace. This gay,
charming, handsome son of Rome has become your entire world; but don't
suppose for a moment, my child, that you will ever be his. It is not in
reason, not in nature, that you should be. _If_ you have the
intelligence, the tact, and the forbearance required, you _may_ become
his friend and counsellor; but I fear you never will have these. You
fret, you weep, and you understand nothing of the masculine temperament.
"I see snakes," as the Americans observe; and you will not have either
the coolness or the wisdom required to scotch a snake, much less to kill
it. Once for all, my poor pet, go cheerfully to Paris, Trouville, and
all the pleasure-places in the world. Affect enjoyment if you feel it
not, and try to remember, beyond everything, that affection is not to be
retained or revived by either coercion or lamentation. Once dead, it is
not to be awakened by all the "crooning" of its mourner. It is a corpse
for ever and aye. Myself, I fail to see how you could expect a young
Italian, who has all the habits of the great world and the memories of
his _vie de garcon_, to be cheerful or contented in a wet June in an
isolated English country house, with nobody to look at but yourself.
Believe me, my dear child, it is the inordinate vanity of a woman which
makes her imagine that she can be sufficient for her husband. Nothing
but vanity. The cleverer a woman is, the more fully she recognizes her
own insufficiency for the amusement of a man, and the more carefully (if
she be wise) does she take care that this deficiency in her shall never
be forced upon his observation. Now, if you shut a man up with you in a
country house, with the rain raining every day, as in Longfellow's poem,
you do force it upon him most conspicuously. If you were not his wife, I
dare say he would not tire of you, and he might even prefer a gray sky
to a blue one. But as his wife!--oh, my dear, why, why don't you try and
understand what a terrible penalty-weight you carry in the race? Write
and tell me all about it. I shall be anxious. I am so afraid, my sweet
little sister, that you think love is all moonlight and kisses, and
forget that there are clouds in the sky and quarrels on earth. May
heaven save you