and, therefore, the best way is to avoid a connexion, which is
to give you a life of wailing and sighs.

129. BEAUTY. Though I have reserved this to the last of the things to be
desired in a wife, I by no means think it the last in point of
importance. The less favoured part of the sex say, that 'beauty is but
_skin-deep_;' and this is very true; but, it is very _agreeable_,
though, for all that. Pictures are only paint-deep, or pencil-deep; but
we admire them, nevertheless. "Handsome is that handsome _does_," used
to say to me an old man, who had marked me out for his not over handsome
daughter. 'Please your _eye_ and plague your heart' is an adage that
want of beauty invented, I dare say, more than a thousand years ago.
These adages would say, if they had but the courage, that beauty is
inconsistent with chastity, with sobriety of conduct, and with all the
female virtues. The argument is, that beauty exposes the possessor _to
greater temptation_ than women not beautiful are exposed to; and that,
_therefore_, their fall is more probable. Let us see a little how this
matter stands.

130. It is certainly true, that pretty girls will have more, and more
ardent, admirers than ugly ones; but, as to the _temptation_ when in
their unmarried state, there are few so very ugly as to be exposed to no
_temptation_ at all; and, which is the most likely to resist; she who
has a choice of lovers, or she who if she let the occasion slip may
never have it again? Which of the two is most likely to set a high value
upon her reputation, she whom all beholders admire, or she who is
admired, at best, by mere chance? And as to women in the married state,
this argument assumes, that, when they fall, it is from their own
vicious disposition; when the fact is, that, if you search the annals of
conjugal infidelity, you will find, that, nine times out of ten, the
_fault is in the husband_. It is his neglect, his flagrant disregard,
his frosty indifference, his foul example; it is to these that, nine
times out of ten, he owes the infidelity of his wife; and, if I were to
say ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the facts, if verified, would, I
am certain, bear me out. And whence this neglect, this disregard, this
frosty indifference; whence this foul example? Because it is easy, in so
many cases, to find some woman more beautiful than the wife. This is no
_justification_ for the husband to plead; for he has, with his eyes
open, made a solemn contr