who possesses the talent
or at least the temperament of an artist or musician. In such cases one
partner brings sympathies or qualities, tastes or appreciations or kinds
of knowledge in which the other is most defective; and by the close and
constant contact of two dissimilar types each is, often insensibly, but
usually very effectually, improved. Men differ greatly in their
requirements of intellectual sympathy. A perfectly commonplace
intellectual surrounding will usually do something to stunt or lower a
fine intelligence, but it by no means follows that each man finds the
best intellectual atmosphere to be that which is most in harmony with
his own special talent.

To many, hard intellectual labour is an eminently isolated thing, and
what they desire most in the family circle is to cast off all thought of
it. I have known two men who were in the first rank of science, intimate
friends, and both of them of very domestic characters. One of them was
accustomed to do nearly all his work in the presence of his wife, and in
the closest possible co-operation with her. The other used to
congratulate himself that none of his family had his own scientific
tastes, and that when he left his work and came into his family circle
he had the rest of finding himself in an atmosphere that was entirely
different. Some men of letters need in their work constant stimulus,
interest, and sympathy. Others desire only to develop their talent
uncontrolled, uninfluenced, and undisturbed, and with an atmosphere of
cheerful quiet around them.

What is true of intellect is also in a large degree true of character.
Two persons living constantly together should have many tastes and
sympathies in common, and their characters will in most cases tend to
assimilate. Yet great disparities of character may subsist in marriage,
not only without evil but often with great advantage. This is especially
the case where each supplies what is most needed in the other. Some
natures require sedatives and others tonics; and it will often be found
in a happy marriage that the union of two dissimilar natures stimulates
the idle and inert, moderates the impetuous, gives generosity to the
parsimonious and order to the extravagant, imparts the spirit of caution
or the spirit of enterprise which is most needed, and corrects, by
contact with a healthy and cheerful nature, the morbid and the
desponding.

Marriage may also very easily have opposite effects. It is not
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