nothing more than perilous," said
an old lady to me, "I would admit that it would serve. But it is
tiresome; and I have never met a virtuous woman who did not think
about deceiving somebody."

And then, before any lover presents himself, a wife discusses with
herself the legality of the act; she enters into a conflict with her
duties, with the law, with religion and with the secret desires of a
nature which knows no check-rein excepting that which she places upon
herself. And then commences for you a condition of affairs totally
new; then you receive the first intimation which nature, that good and
indulgent mother, always gives to the creatures who are exposed to any
danger. Nature has put a bell on the neck of the Minotaur, as on the
tail of that frightful snake which is the terror of travelers. And
then appear in your wife what we will call the first symptoms, and woe
to him who does not know how to contend with them. Those who in
reading our book will remember that they saw those symptoms in their
own domestic life can pass to the conclusion of this work, where they
will find how they may gain consolation.

The situation referred to, in which a married couple bind themselves
for a longer or a shorter time, is the point from which our work
starts, as it is the end at which our observations stop. A man of
intelligence should know how to recognize the mysterious indications,
the obscure signs and the involuntary revelation which a wife
unwittingly exhibits; for the next Meditation will doubtless indicate
the more evident of the manifestations to neophytes in the sublime
science of marriage.

MEDITATION VIII.

OF THE FIRST SYMPTOMS.

When your wife reaches that crisis in which we have left her, you
yourself are wrapped in a pleasant and unsuspicious security. You have
so often seen the sun that you begin to think it is shining over
everybody. You therefore give no longer that attention to the least
action of your wife, which was impelled by your first outburst of
passion.

This indolence prevents many husbands from perceiving the symptoms
which, in their wives, herald the first storm; and this disposition of
mind has resulted in the minotaurization of more husbands than have
either opportunity, carriages, sofas and apartments in town.

The feeling of indifference in the presence of danger is to some
degree justified by the apparent tranquillity which surro