ablishment a
course of education the most odious, and the most dreadful which a
woman can undergo. I know but few noble and generous souls who value,
more than millions, purity of heart, frankness of soul, and who would
a thousand times more readily pardon a passion than a lie, whose
instinctive delicacy has divined the existence of this plague of the
soul, the lowest step in human degradation.

Under these circumstances there occur in the domestic establishment
the most delightful scenes of love. It is then that a woman becomes
utterly pliant and like to the most brilliant of all the strings of a
harp, when thrown before the fire; she rolls round you, she clasps
you, she holds you tight; she defers to all your caprices; never was
her conversation so full of tenderness; she lavishes her endearments
upon you, or rather she sells them to you; she at last becomes lower
than a chorus girl, for she prostitutes herself to her husband. In her
sweetest kisses there is money; in all her words there is money. In
playing this part her heart becomes like lead towards you. The most
polished, the most treacherous usurer never weighs so completely with
a single glance the future value in bullion of a son of a family who
may sign a note to him, than your wife appraises one of your desires
as she leaps from branch to branch like an escaping squirrel, in order
to increase the sum of money she may demand by increasing the appetite
which she rouses in you. You must not expect to get scot-free from
such seductions. Nature has given boundless gifts of coquetry to a
woman, the usages of society have increased them tenfold by its
fashions, its dresses, its embroideries and its tippets.

"If I ever marry," one of the most honorable generals of our ancient
army used to say, "I won't put a sou among the wedding presents--"

"What will you put there then, general?" asked a young girl.

"The key of my safe."

The young girl made a curtsey of approbation. She moved her little
head with a quiver like that of the magnetic needle; raised her chin
slightly as if she would have said:

"I would gladly marry the general in spite of his forty-five years."

But with regard to money, what interest can you expect your wife to
take in a machine in which she is looked upon as a mere bookkeeper?

Now look at the other system.

In surrendering to your wife, with an avowal of absolute confidence in
her, two-thirds of your fortune and letting her as mistre