me into the
boundless sphere of their thought and in turn stooping to the simple
task of amusing them as if they were children; understanding well the
inconsistencies of masculine and violent souls, understanding also their
slightest word, their most puzzling looks; happy in silence, happy also
in the midst of loquacity; and well aware that the pleasures, the
ideas and the moral instincts of a Lord Byron cannot be those of a
bonnet-maker. But we must stop; this fair picture has led us too far
from our subject; we are treating of marriage and not of love.

MEDITATION XII. THE HYGIENE OF MARRIAGE.

The aim of this Meditation is to call to your attention a new method
of defence, by which you may reduce the will of your new wife to a
condition of utter and abject submission. This is brought about by
the reaction upon her moral nature of physical changes, and the wise
lowering of her physical condition by a diet skillfully controlled.

This great and philosophical question of conjugal medicine will
doubtless be regarded favorably by all who are gouty, are impotent, or
suffer from catarrh; and by that legion of old men whose dullness we
have quickened by our article on the predestined. But it principally
concerns those husbands who have courage enough to enter into those
paths of machiavelism, such as would not have been unworthy of that
great king of France who endeavored to secure the happiness of the
nation at the expense of certain noble heads. Here, the subject is the
same. The amputation or the weakening of certain members is always to
the advantage of the whole body.

Do you think seriously that a celibate who has been subject to a
diet consisting of the herb hanea, of cucumbers, of purslane and the
applications of leeches to his ears, as recommended by Sterne, would be
able to carry by storm the honor of your wife? Suppose that a diplomat
had been clever enough to affix a permanent linen plaster to the head
of Napoleon, or to purge him every morning: Do you think that Napoleon,
Napoleon the Great, would ever have conquered Italy? Was Napoleon,
during his campaign in Russia, a prey to the most horrible pangs of
dysuria, or was he not? That is one of the questions which has weighed
upon the minds of the whole world. Is it not certain that cooling
applications, douches, baths, etc., produce great changes in more or
less acute affections of the brain? In the middle of the heat of July
when each one of your pores