g to a club, he will
soon discover the terrible mistake he has made. His visits to that club
will be treated like perfect acts of unfaithfulness, reproaches will
begin, followed by sulking, and the famous sentence will be uttered,
'You love me no more.'

To be happy, matrimonial life must be uniform. Every change must be
discreet, gradual, and for the better. You have to keep a fire alive
for the length of your natural life; see that your cellar is well
stocked and the fuel used discriminately and economically.

Control your love and your ardour. If at the beginning you are too
attentive, and do such things as you know you cannot do for ever, look
out! The slightest inattention will take the most gigantic proportions.

Some men, good diplomatists, carry this principle the length of
objecting to being their wives' lovers, simply because they know they
cannot always be lovers, and that the day they cease to be lovers they
will be considered perfect criminals.

Therefore, my friend, control yourself sufficiently to restrain your
_epanchements_ so cleverly that your wife may be led to believe
that you love her more and more every day. Remember that you enter the
holy estate of matrimony with a certain capital of love. The whole
happiness of your married life will depend on the way you use that
capital.

Live on the interest.

If you touch the capital, you are bound to become bankrupt sooner or
later.

Married life is a comedy (sometimes, alas! a tragedy) in several acts.
Like in a play, avoid putting into the first act of your married life
all your strongest situations and all your smartest dialogue, for fear
lest the interest should go on flagging steadily to the end.

The clever dramatist is invariably satisfied with writing a quiet and
sober first act. No situations of any strength are required. He makes
his audience thoroughly acquainted with his characters.

Then the action begins, and the climax is never reached before the end
of the last act but one. A genius sometimes gives it in the last act.

The intelligent husband should bear this in mind and do the same.

The first act of matrimony should be a careful and sympathetic study of
character, the laying down of a little plan of campaign full of
considerate concessions and well-conceived resolutions.

It is only after at least ten years of matrimony that a climax should
be reached, when the man is above forty, in the full possession of his
manly powers,