gether persons bound by blood and
affection in one common interest, leading a life common to themselves
and apart from others; and these persons may each one of them be
possessed of good and noble traits; there may be a common basis of
affection, of generosity, of good principle, of religion; and yet,
through the influence of some of these perverse, nibbling, insignificant
little foxes, half the clusters of happiness on these so promising vines
may fail to come to maturity. A little community of people, all of whom
would be willing to die for each other, may not be able to live happily
together; that is, they may have far less happiness than their
circumstances, their fine and excellent traits, entitle them to expect.

"The reason for this in general is that home is a place not only of
strong affections, but of entire unreserves; it is life's undress
rehearsal, its back-room, its dressing-room, from which we go forth to
more careful and guarded intercourse, leaving behind us much _debris_ of
cast-off and every-day clothing. Hence has arisen the common proverb,
'No man is a hero to his _valet-de-chambre_'; and the common warning,
'If you wish to keep your friend, don't go and live with him.'"

"Which is only another way of saying," said my wife, "that we are all
human and imperfect; and the nearer you get to any human being, the more
defects you see. The characters that can stand the test of daily
intimacy are about as numerous as four-leaved clovers in a meadow; in
general, those who do not annoy you with positive faults bore you with
their insipidity.' The evenness and beauty of a strong, well-defined
nature, perfectly governed and balanced, is about the last thing one is
likely to meet with in one's researches into life."

"But what I have to say," replied I, "is this,--that, family-life being
a state of unreserve, a state in which there are few of those barriers
and veils that keep people in the world from seeing each other's defects
and mutually jarring and grating upon each other, it is remarkable that
it is entered upon and maintained generally with less reflection, less
care and forethought, than pertain to most kinds of business which men
and women set their hands to. A man does not undertake to run an engine
or manage a piece of machinery without some careful examination of its
parts and capabilities, and some inquiry whether he have the necessary
knowledge, skill, and strength to make it do itself and him jus