vincial academy had offered a hundred crowns for an essay; but in the
exit you behold the solution of these questions clearly and precisely
given to you. Our task would be far above the power of human
intelligence if it consisted in enumerating the different ways by which
men betray their feelings, the discernment of such things is purely a
matter of tact and sentiment.

If strangers are the subject of these principles of observation, you
have a still stronger reason for submitting your wife to the formal
safeguards which we have outlined.

A married man should make a profound study of his wife's countenance.
Such a study is easy, it is even involuntary and continuous. For him the
pretty face of his wife must needs contain no mysteries, he knows how
her feelings are depicted there and with what expression she shuns the
fire of his glance.

The slightest movement of the lips, the faintest contraction of the
nostrils, scarcely perceptible changes in the expression of the eye, an
altered voice, and those indescribable shades of feeling which pass over
her features, or the light which sometimes bursts forth from them, are
intelligible language to you.

The whole woman nature stands before you; all look at her, but none can
interpret her thoughts. But for you, the eye is more or less dimmed,
wide-opened or closed; the lid twitches, the eyebrow moves; a wrinkle,
which vanishes as quickly as a ripple on the ocean, furrows her brow for
one moment; the lip tightens, it is slightly curved or it is wreathed
with animation--for you the woman has spoken.

If in those puzzling moments in which a woman tries dissimulation in
presence of her husband, you have the spirit of a sphinx in seeing
through her, you will plainly observe that your custom-house
restrictions are mere child's play to her.

When she comes home or goes out, when in a word she believes she is
alone, your wife will exhibit all the imprudence of a jackdaw and will
tell her secret aloud to herself; moreover, by her sudden change of
expression the moment she notices you (and despite the rapidity of
this change, you will not fail to have observed the expression she wore
behind your back) you may read her soul as if you were reading a book
of Plain Song. Moreover, your wife will often find herself just on the
point of indulging in soliloquies, and on such occasions her husband may
recognize the secret feelings of his wife.

Is there a man as heedless of love's myst