d there is nothing
odious in our proceeding, any more than there is anything of a fiscal
character; do not be alarmed."

The Custom House of the marriage state is, of all the expedients
prescribed in this second part, that which perhaps demands the most
tact and the most skill as well as the most knowledge acquired _a
priori_, that is to say before marriage. In order to carry it out, a
husband ought to have made a profound study of Lavater's book, and to
be imbued with all his principles; to have accustomed his eye to judge
and to apprehend with the most astonishing promptitude, the slightest
physical expressions by which a man reveals his thoughts.

Lavater's _Physiognomy_ originated a veritable science, which has won
a place in human investigation. If at first some doubts, some jokes
greeted the appearance of this book, since then the celebrated Doctor
Gall is come with his noble theory of the skull and has completed the
system of the Swiss savant, and given stability to his fine and
luminous observations. People of talent, diplomats, women, all those
who are numbered among the choice and fervent disciples of these two
celebrated men, have often had occasion to recognize many other
evident signs, by which the course of human thought is indicated. The
habits of the body, the handwriting, the sound of the voice, have
often betrayed the woman who is in love, the diplomat who is
attempting to deceive, the clever administrator, or the sovereign who
is compelled to distinguish at a glance love, treason or merit
hitherto unknown. The man whose soul operates with energy is like a
poor glowworm, which without knowing it irradiates light from every
pore. He moves in a brilliant sphere where each effort makes a burning
light and outlines his actions with long streamers of fire.

These, then, are all the elements of knowledge which you should
possess, for the conjugal custom house insists simply in being able by
a rapid but searching examination to know the moral and physical
condition of all who enter or leave your house--all, that is, who have
seen or intend to see your wife. A husband is, like a spider, set at
the centre of an invisible net, and receives a shock from the least
fool of a fly who touches it, and from a distance, hears, judges and
sees what is either his prey or his enemy.

Thus you must obtain means to examine the celibate who rings at your
door under two circumstances which are quite distinct, namely, when