will still do all he can. It is true that
there are thousands of good men married to fond and foolish women, and
they are happy. Well, the fond and foolish women are very fortunate.
They have fallen into hands that will entreat them tenderly, and they
will not perceive any lack. Nor are the noble men wholly unfortunate,
in that they have not taken to their hearts shrews. But this is not
marriage.

There are women less foolish. They see their husbands attracted in
other directions more often and more easily than in theirs. They have
too much sterling worth and profound faith to be vulgarly jealous.
They fear nothing like shame or crime; but they feel the fact that
their own preoccupation with homely household duties precludes real
companionship, the interchange of emotions, thoughts, sentiments,--a
living, and palpable, and vivid contact of mind with mind, of heart
with heart. They see others whose leisure ministers to grace,
accomplishments, piquancy, and attractiveness, and the moth flies
towards the light by his own nature. Because he is a wise, and
virtuous, and honorable moth, he does not dart into the flame. He does
not even scorch his wings. He never thinks of such a thing. He merely
circles around the pleasant light, sunning himself in it without much
thought one way or another, only feeling that it is pleasant; but
meanwhile Mrs. Moth sits at home in darkness, mending the children's
clothes, which is not exhilarating. Many a woman who feels that she
possesses her husband's affection misses something. She does not
secure his fervor, his admiration. His love is honest and solid, but a
little dormant, and therefore dull. It does not brace, and tone, and
stimulate. She wants not the love only, but the keenness, and edge,
and flavor of the love; and she suffers untold pangs. I know it, for I
have seen it. It is not a thing to be uttered. Most women do not
admit it even to themselves; but it is revealed by a lift of the
eyelash, by a quiver of the eye, by a tone of the voice, by a trick of
the finger.

But what is the good of saying all this, if a woman cannot help
herself? The children must be seen to, and the work must be done, and
after that she has no time left. The "mother of a young and increasing
family," with her "pale, thin face and feeble step," and her
"multiplied and wearying cares," is "completely worn down with so many
children." She has neither time nor for self-culture, beyond