r in the fable of La Fontaine;
she will throw paving stones at your head to drive away the flies that
alight on it. She will tell you in the evening all the things that have
been said about you, and will ask an explanation of acts which you never
committed, and of words which you never said. She professes to have
justified you for faults of which you are innocent; she has boasted of
a liberty which she does not possess, in order to clear you of the wrong
which you have done in denying that liberty. The deafening rattle which
your wife shakes will follow you everywhere with its obtrusive din. Your
darling will stun you, will torture you, meanwhile arming herself by
making you feel only the thorns of married life. She will greet you with
a radiant smile in public, and will be sullen at home. She will be dull
when you are merry, and will make you detest her merriment when you are
moody. Your two faces will present a perpetual contrast.

Very few men have sufficient force of mind not to succumb to this
preliminary comedy, which is always cleverly played, and resembles
the _hourra_ raised by the Cossacks, as they advance to battle. Many
husbands become irritated and fall into irreparable mistakes. Others
abandon their wives. And, indeed, even those of superior intelligence do
not know how to get hold of the enchanted ring, by which to dispel this
feminine phantasmagoria.

Two-thirds of such women are enabled to win their independence by this
single manoeuvre, which is no more than a review of their forces. In
this case the war is soon ended.

But a strong man who courageously keeps cool throughout this first
assault will find much amusement in laying bare to his wife, in a light
and bantering way, the secret feelings which make her thus behave, in
following her step by step through the labyrinth which she treads, and
telling her in answer to her every remark, that she is false to herself,
while he preserves throughout a tone of pleasantry and never becomes
excited.

Meanwhile war is declared, and if her husband has not been dazzled by
these first fireworks, a woman has yet many other resources for securing
her triumph; and these it is the purpose of the following Meditations to
discover.

MEDITATION XXIV. PRINCIPLES OF STRATEGY.

The Archduke Charles published a very fine treatise on military under
the title _Principles of Strategy in Relation to the Campaigns of 1796_.
These principles seem somewhat to resemble