w happiness in the domestic establishment as in
a political state is a negative happiness. The affection of a people for
a king, in an absolute monarchy, is perhaps less contrary to nature than
the fidelity of a wife towards her husband, when love between them no
longer exists. Now we know that, in your house, love at this moment has
one foot on the window-sill. It is necessary for you, therefore, to put
into practice that salutary rigor by which M. de Metternich prolongs his
_statu quo_; but we would advise you to do so with more tact and with
still more tenderness; for your wife is more crafty than all the Germans
put together, and as voluptuous as the Italians.

You should, therefore, try to put off as long as possible the fatal
moment when your wife asks you for a book. This will be easy. You will
first of all pronounce in a tone of disdain the phrase "Blue stocking;"
and, on her request being repeated, you will tell her what ridicule
attaches, among the neighbors, to pedantic women.

You will then repeat to her, very frequently, that the most lovable and
the wittiest women in the world are found at Paris, where women never
read;

That women are like people of quality who, according to Mascarillo, know
everything without having learned anything; that a woman while she
is dancing, or while she is playing cards, without even having
the appearance of listening, ought to know how to pick up from the
conversation of talented men the ready-made phrases out of which fools
manufacture their wit at Paris;

That in this country decisive judgments on men and affairs are passed
round from hand to hand; and that the little cutting phrase with which
a woman criticises an author, demolishes a work, or heaps contempt on a
picture, has more power in the world than a court decision;

That women are beautiful mirrors, which naturally reflect the most
brilliant ideas;

That natural wit is everything, and the best education is gained rather
from what we learn in the world than by what we read in books;

That, above all, reading ends in making the eyes dull, etc.

To think of leaving a woman at liberty to read the books which her
character of mind may prompt her to choose! This is to drop a spark in
a powder magazine; it is worse than that, it is to teach your wife to
separate herself from you; to live in an imaginary world, in a Paradise.
For what do women read? Works of passion, the _Confessions_ of Rousseau,
romances, and all