arned to travel after the Spanish fashion,
and to make but one stage of a great many miles; and in excessive heats
I always travel by night, from sun set to sunrise. The other method of
baiting by the way, in haste and hurry to gobble up a dinner, is,
especially in short days, very inconvenient. My horses perform the
better; never any horse tired under me that was able to hold out the
first day's journey. I water them at every brook I meet, and have only a
care they have so much way to go before I come to my inn, as will digest
the water in their bellies. My unwillingness to rise in a morning gives
my servants leisure to dine at their ease before they set out; for my own
part, I never eat too late; my appetite comes to me in eating, and not
else; I am never hungry but at table.

Some of my friends blame me for continuing this travelling humour, being
married and old. But they are out in't; 'tis the best time to leave a
man's house, when he has put it into a way of continuing without him, and
settled such order as corresponds with its former government. 'Tis much
greater imprudence to abandon it to a less faithful housekeeper, and who
will be less solicitous to look after your affairs.

The most useful and honourable knowledge and employment for the mother of
a family is the science of good housewifery. I see some that are
covetous indeed, but very few that are good managers. 'Tis the supreme
quality of a woman, which a man ought to seek before any other, as the
only dowry that must ruin or preserve our houses. Let men say what they
will, according to the experience I have learned, I require in married
women the economical virtue above all other virtues; I put my wife to't,
as a concern of her own, leaving her, by my absence, the whole government
of my affairs. I see, and am vexed to see, in several families I know,
Monsieur about noon come home all jaded and ruffled about his affairs,
when Madame is still dressing her hair and tricking up herself, forsooth,
in her closet: this is for queens to do, and that's a question, too: 'tis
ridiculous and unjust that the laziness of our wives should be maintained
with our sweat and labour. No man, so far as in me lie, shall have a
clearer, a more quiet and free fruition of his estate than I. If the
husband bring matter, nature herself will that the wife find the form.

As to the duties of conjugal friendship, that some think to be impaired
by these absences, I am quit