f love's
first wiles; she is gradually transformed from girlhood to womanhood.
Then she becomes mother and nurse, and in this situation, full of
charming pangs, that leaves neither a word nor a moment for
observation, such are its multiplied cares, it is impossible to judge
of a woman. You require, then, three or four years of intimate life
before you discover an exceedingly melancholy fact, one that gives you
cause for constant terror.

Your wife, the young lady in whom the first pleasures of life and love
supplied the place of grace and wit, so arch, so animated, so
vivacious, whose least movements spoke with delicious eloquence, has
cast off, slowly, one by one, her natural artifices. At last you
perceive the truth! You try to disbelieve it, you think yourself
deceived; but no: Caroline lacks intellect, she is dull, she can
neither joke nor reason, sometimes she has little tact. You are
frightened. You find yourself forever obliged to lead this darling
through the thorny paths, where you must perforce leave your
self-esteem in tatters.

You have already been annoyed several times by replies that, in
society, were politely received: people have held their tongues
instead of smiling; but you were certain that after your departure the
women looked at each other and said: "Did you hear Madame Adolphe?"

"Your little woman, she is--"

"A regular cabbage-head."

"How could he, who is certainly a man of sense, choose--?"

"He should educate, teach his wife, or make her hold her tongue."

AXIOMS.

Axiom.--In our system of civilization a man is entirely responsible
for his wife.

Axiom.--The husband does not mould the wife.

Caroline has one day obstinately maintained, at the house of Madame de
Fischtaminel, a very distinguished lady, that her little last one
resembled neither its father nor its mother, but looked like a certain
friend of the family. She perhaps enlightens Monsieur de Fischtaminel,
and overthrows the labors of three years, by tearing down the
scaffolding of Madame de Fischtaminel's assertions, who, after this
visit, will treat you will coolness, suspecting, as she does, that you
have been making indiscreet remarks to your wife.

On another occasion, Caroline, after having conversed with a writer
about his works, counsels the poet, who is already a prolific author,
to try to write something likely to live. Sometimes she complains of
the slow attendance at t