perhuman effort for the family to become the nation, and for the
boundaries of the hearth to extend to the frontiers.

A complaint, a pang, a tear, is enough to make a man, a woman, and a
child, blend their hearts together and feel that they are but one.

Laugh at marriage; the task is easy. All human contracts are tainted with
error, and an error is always smiled at by those who are not the victims
of it. There are husbands, it is certain; and when we see a man tumble
down, even if he knocks his brains out, our first impulse it to burst out
laughing. Hence the great and eternal mirth that greets Sganarelle.

But search to the bottom and behold that beneath all these trifles,
beneath all this dust of little exploded vanities, ridiculous mistakes
and comical passions, is hidden the very pivot of society. Verify that in
this all is for the best, since this family sentiment, which is the basis
of society, is also its consolation and joy.

The honor of our flag, the love of country, and all that urges a man to
devote himself to something or some one not himself, are derived from
this sentiment, and in it, you may assert, is to be found the source
whence flow the great streams at which the human heart quenches its
thirst.

Egotism for three, you say. What matter, if this egotism engenders
devotion?

Will you reproach the butterfly with having been a caterpillar?

Do not accuse me in all this of exaggeration, or of poetic exaltation.

Yes, family life is very often calm and commonplace, the stock-pot that
figures on its escutcheon has not been put there without reason, I admit.
To the husband who should come and say to me: "Sir, for two days running
I have fallen asleep by the fireside," I should reply: "You are too lazy,
but after all I understand you."

I also understand that Baby's trumpet is noisy, that articles of
jewellery are horribly dear, that lace flounces and sable trimmings are
equally so, that balls are wearisome, that Madame has her vapors, her
follies, exigencies; I understand, in short, that a man whose career is
prosperous looks upon his wife and child as two stumbling blocks.

But I am waiting for the happy man, for the moment when his forehead will
wrinkle, when disappointment will descend upon his head like a leaden
skull-cap, and when picking up the two blocks he has cursed he will make
two crutches of them.

I admit that Alexander the Great, Napoleon the First, and all the
demi-gods of humani