ings of life, and life is mainly made up of little things,
exposed to petty frictions, and requiring small decisions and small
sacrifices. Wide interests and large appreciations are, in the marriage
relation, more important than any great constructive or creative talent,
and the power to soothe, to sympathise, to counsel, and to endure, than
the highest qualities of the hero or the saint. It is by these alone
that the married life attains its full measure of perfection.

'Tu mihi curarum requies, tu nocte vel atra
Lumen, et in solis tu mihi turba locis.'[69]

But while this is true of all marriages, it is obvious that different
professions and circumstances of life will demand different qualities. A
hard-working labouring man, or a man who, though not labouring with his
hands, is living a life of poverty and struggle, will not seek in
marriage a type of character exactly the same as a man who is born to a
great position, and who has large social and administrative duties to
discharge. The wife of a clergyman immersed in the many interests of a
parish; the wife of a soldier or a merchant, who may have to live in
many lands, with long periods of separation from her husband, and
perhaps amid many hardships; the wife of an active and ambitious
politician; the wife of a busy professional man incessantly occupied
outside his home; the wife of a man whose health or business or habits
keep him constantly in his house, will each need some special qualities.
There are few things in which both men and women naturally differ more
than in the elasticity and adaptiveness of their natures, in their power
of bearing monotony, in the place which habit, routine, and variety hold
in their happiness; and in different kinds of life these things have
very different degrees of importance. Special family circumstances, such
as children by a former marriage, or difficult and delicate relations
with members of the family of one partner, will require the exercise of
special qualities. Such relations, indeed, are often one of the most
searching and severe tests of the sterling qualities of female
character.

Probably, on the whole, the best presumption of a successful choice in
marriage will be found where the wife has not been educated in
circumstances or ideas absolutely dissimilar from those of her married
life. Marriages of different races or colours are rarely happy, and the
same thing is true of marriages between persons of