ladies, whilst their
husbands are still the same rude, uncultivated boors. These wives must
be wise enough to console themselves for their trials; for indeed such
things are a very serious trial both to human endurance and to human
vanity. They must remember that they married when equals with their
husbands in their lowliness, and that their husbands have made the
fortune which they pour at their feet. They will recollect also that
their husbands must have industry, and a great many other sterling good
qualities, if they lack a little polish; and, lastly, that they are in
reality no worse off than many other women in high life who are married
to boors, to eccentric persons, or, alas! too often to those who, with
many admirable virtues, may blot them all by the indulgence in a bosom
sin or an hereditary vice.

The last paragraph will lead us naturally enough to the faults of
husbands. Now, although we are inclined to think that these are greatly
exaggerated, and that married men are, on the whole, very
good--excellent men and citizens, brave men, battling with the world and
its difficulties, and carrying forward the cumbrous machine in its path
of progress and civilization--although we think that, as a class, their
merits are actually not fully appreciated, and that the bachelors (sly
fellows!) get very much the best of it--still, we must admit that there
is a very large class of thoroughly bad husbands, and that this class
may be divided into the foolish, the careless, and the vicious
sub-classes, each of which would require at least a volume to be devoted
to their treatment and castigation. Nay, more than a volume. Archdeacon
Paley notes that St. John, apologizing for the brevity and
incompleteness of Gospel directions, states that, if all the necessary
books were written, the world would not contain them. So we may say of
the faults of foolish husbands; we will, therefore, say no more about
them, but return to the part which the wives of such men ought to play.

In the first place, as a true woman, a wife will be as tender of those
faults as she can be. She will not talk to her neighbors about them, nor
magnify them, nor dwell upon them. She, alas! will never be without her
share of blame; for the world, rightly or wrongly, often dowers the wife
with the faults of the husband, and, seeing no possibility of
interfering and assigning to each his or her share, suspects both.
Moreover, in many cases she will have to blam