other women in the world, and this I knew that she knew; but I now
saw that this was not all that she had a right to from me; I saw, that
she had the further claim upon me that I should abstain from every thing
that might induce others to believe that there was any other woman for
whom, even if I were at liberty, I had any affection. I beseech young
married men to bear this in mind; for, on some trifle of this sort, the
happiness or misery of a long life frequently turns. If the mind of a
wife be disturbed on this score, every possible means ought to be used
to restore it to peace; and though her suspicions be perfectly
groundless; though they be wild as the dreams of madmen; though they may
present a mixture of the furious and the ridiculous, still they are to
be treated with the greatest lenity and tenderness; and if, after all,
you fail, the frailty is to be lamented as a misfortune, and not
punished as a fault, seeing that it _must_ have its foundation in a
feeling towards you, which it would be the basest of ingratitude, and
the most ferocious of cruelty, to repay by harshness of any description.

193. As to those husbands who make the _unjust_ suspicions of their
wives a _justification_ for making those suspicions just; as to such as
can make a sport of such suspicions, rather brag of them than otherwise,
and endeavour to aggravate rather than assuage them; as to such I have
nothing to say, they being far without the scope of any advice that I
can offer. But to such as are not of this description, I have a remark
or two to offer with respect to measures of _prevention_.

194. And, first, I never could see the _sense_ of its being a piece of
etiquette, a sort of mark of _good breeding_, to make it a rule that man
and wife are not to sit side by side in a mixed company; that if a party
walk out, the wife is to give her arm to some other than her husband;
that if there be any other hand near, _his_ is not to help to a seat or
into a carriage. I never could see the _sense_ of this; but I have
always seen the _nonsense_ of it plainly enough; it is, in short,
amongst many other foolish and mischievous things that we do in aping
the manners of those whose riches (frequently ill-gotten) and whose
power embolden them to set, with impunity, pernicious examples; and to
their examples this nation owes more of its degradation in morals than
to any other source. The truth is, that this is a piece _of false
refinement_: it, bei