written either for or against marriage; all I have
thought you needed was an exact description of it. If an examination of
the machine shall lead us to make one wheel of it more perfect; if
by scouring away some rust we have given more elastic movement to its
mechanism; then give his wage to the workman. If the author has had
the impertinence to utter truths too harsh for you, if he has too often
spoken of rare and exceptional facts as universal, if he has omitted
the commonplaces which have been employed from time immemorial to offer
women the incense of flattery, oh, let him be crucified! But do not
impute to him any motive of hostility to the institution itself; he
is concerned merely for men and women. He knows that from the moment
marriage ceases to defeat the purpose of marriage, it is unassailable;
and, after all, if there do arise serious complaints against this
institution, it is perhaps because man has no memory excepting for
his disasters, that he accuses his wife, as he accuses his life, for
marriage is but a life within a life. Yet people whose habit it is to
take their opinions from newspapers would perhaps despise a book in
which they see the mania of eclecticism pushed too far; for then they
absolutely demand something in the shape of a peroration, it is not hard
to find one for them. And since the words of Napoleon served to start
this book, why should it not end as it began? Before the whole Council
of State the First Consul pronounced the following startling phrase, in
which he at the same time eulogized and satirized marriage, and summed
up the contents of this book:

"If a man never grew old, I would never wish him to have a wife!"

POSTSCRIPT.

"And so you are going to be married?" asked the duchess of the author
who had read his manuscript to her.

She was one of those ladies to whom the author has already paid his
respects in the introduction of this work.

"Certainly, madame," I replied. "To meet a woman who has courage enough
to become mine, would satisfy the wildest of my hopes."

"Is this resignation or infatuation?"

"That is my affair."

"Well, sir, as you are doctor of conjugal arts and sciences, allow me to
tell you a little Oriental fable, that I read in a certain sheet, which
is published annually in the form of an almanac. At the beginning of the
Empire ladies used to play at a game in which no one accepted a
present from his or her partner in the game, without saying t