pe, namely, that grace may
be given him to know exactly what his own will is. "_L'etat, c'est
moi_," is the lesson which every English husband learns of Mrs. Ellis,
and we should judge from the pictures of English novels that this "awful
right divine" is insisted on in detail in domestic life.

Miss Edgeworth makes her magnificent General Clarendon talk about his
"commands" to his accomplished and elegant wife; and he rings the
parlor-bell with such an air, calls up and interrogates trembling
servants with such awful majesty, and lays about him generally in so
very military and tremendous a style, that we are not surprised that
poor little Cecilia is frightened into lying, being half out of her wits
in terror of so very martial a husband.

During his hours of courtship he majestically informs her mother that he
never could consent to receive as _his_ wife any woman who has had
another attachment; and so the poor puss, like a naughty girl, conceals
a little school-girl flirtation of bygone days, and thus gives rise to
most agonizing and tragic scenes with her terrible lord, who petrifies
her one morning by suddenly drawing the bed-curtains and flapping an old
love-letter in her eyes, asking, in tones of suppressed thunder,
"Cecilia, is this your writing?"

The more modern female novelists of England give us representations of
their view of the right divine no less stringent. In a very popular
story, called "Agatha's Husband," the plot is as follows. A man marries
a beautiful girl with a large fortune. Before the marriage, he discovers
that his brother, who has been guardian of the estate, has fraudulently
squandered the property, so that it can only be retrieved by the
strictest economy. For the sake of getting her heroine into a situation
to illustrate her moral, the authoress now makes her hero give a solemn
promise not to divulge to his wife or to any human being the fraud by
which she suffers.

The plot of the story then proceeds to show how very badly the young
wife behaves when her husband takes her to mean lodgings, deprives her
of wonted luxuries and comforts, and obstinately refuses to give any
kind of sensible reason for his conduct. Instead of looking up to him
with blind faith and unquestioning obedience, following his directions
without inquiry, and believing not only without evidence, but against
apparent evidence, that he is the soul of honor and wisdom, this
perverse Agatha murmurs, complains, thinks