If the man the woman chooses for husband does not stand in her estimation absolutely first and all other claimants nowhere there is bound sooner or later to be trouble. For

No man will play second fiddle to any body or any thing; and

The realm amatory is a monarchial, not a republican, one. In all realms, there must be a ruler, whether elected or hereditary.

Always a divided sway results in schism, whether in the family or in the state. And although

Often enough the wife proves herself the more effective Sovereign, the forms of monarchy must be conceded to the man, even though the executive is left to the woman.

How often the only breast to which one can go on to "rain out the heavy mist of tears" is the one inhibited!

Two wills are not so easily blended into one as that the task may be left to Cupid. Yet,

Unless Cupid has a hand in blending two wills, it is bound to be a sorry business at best.

Always and in all wedlock there comes a time when will conflicts with will.

If both wills are inflexible, one must break--or both will fly apart.

But

Love and tact will relieve many a strain. Though sometimes one discovers that

Human eyes have a certain store of tears. It is not difficult to weep them all away. However,

In the final rupture between man and wife, it is the children that turn the scales. But, O ye young husbands and wives, remember that

Youth regards the whole world as its friend; age finds itself desolate in the midst of friends. Wherefore,

O youth, cleave unto the wife of thy bosom; since

A loving wife is worth a mult.i.tude of friends.

Sweet are friends, and fame is sweet; but sweeter far a wifely heart whereon to lay a weary head. But

Each married pair must solve its own difficulties as best it can. If any advice were worth the offering, it would be this:

O ye Husbands, and O ye Wives, if not for your own sakes then for your children's, lead a straight, clean, honorable life; any other sort of life leads to despicability, to dismalness, to disaster.--Which only means, after all, that

In the marriage relation, as in every relation--the social, the industrial, the commercial, the political--it is conduct, it is character, that counts, nothing else;

Beauty--Wealth--Culture--Grace--Wit--Intellect--Sprightliness-- Vivacity--Humor--these are much but they are simply naught, and less than naught, when just this simple, single, yet insatiable thing called Man wants to live amicably, affectionately, martially, with that simple, single, but incomprehensible thing called Woman.

Character--Conduct--rule the world, the Matrimonial equally with the Munic.i.p.al.

XIV. On this Human Heart

"The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?"

--Holy Writ

It does not take much to make two hearts beat faster than one.

The heart can deceive itself when it cannot deceive another.--Which will be cold comfort to some lovers, though it may console others.

To admit a sacred visitant into the inner recesses of the human heart, those recesses must be neat indeed. Remember, too, that you can

Never expect an angel to act as a charwoman; the sweeping must be done by the owner. Lastly,

Unless each heart is permitted access to the other, their union is fict.i.tious, perhaps perilous.--Explain these tropes who can.

No man can tell to whom a woman's heart belongs; not even the man who calls the woman "his". And

Let no man imagine that when he has won him a woman, he has won him a woman's heart. Since,

Sometimes a woman will give her heart to one man and her troth to another. Besides,

Many a heart is hard to read--especially if it is a palimpsest. Indeed, many are illegible to their owners. Nevertheless, That the woman should not know her own heart (as so often happens) terrifies the woman as much as it exasperates the man. Yet,

That must be a curious love that causes the heart to hesitate. And yet,

Many a man has debated for months whether to propose or not; and sometimes a woman will accept on a Friday the man that she refused point-blank of a Tuesday. But perhaps,

Where the heart hesitates, it is not so much a case of love as a case of convenience. For,

An overwhelming love leaves the heart of either doubt or debate. But alas,

The human heart seems to be an anatomical engine of such intricate and delicate mechanism that its workings are uncontrollable even by its owner.

Is a constant heart as hard a thing to manufacture in the world of life as is an immobile thing in the world of matter? And matter, so they say, is immobile only at absolute zero--when bereft of even molecular motion: a thing impossible to produce, and which to produce would require incalculable pressure and almost incalculable cold.

(Is there no chemical formula for fixing the impression of the heart?)

Who really held Burns his heart in thrall, Nelly Fitzpatrick or Mary Campbell or Ellison Begbie or Margaret Chalmers or Charlotte Hamilton or Jenny Cruikshank or Anne Park or Jean Armour or Mrs. Whelpdale or Mrs.