o; nay, although it may be the very essence of
wisdom, he will refuse it because he knows the behest proceeds from his
wife. He is like a jibbing horse, which you have to turn one way because
you want him to start forward on the other; or he more closely resembles
the celebrated Irish pig, which was so obstinate that his master was
obliged to persuade him that he was being driven to Dublin, when his
back was towards that city, and he was going to Athlone!

One part of management in husbands lies in a judicious mixture of good
humor, attention, flattery, and compliments. All men, as well as women,
are more or less vain; the rare exceptions of men who do not care to be
tickled by an occasional well-turned compliment only prove the rule.
But, in the case of a husband, we must remember that this love of being
occasionally flattered by his wife is absolutely a necessary and natural
virtue. No one needs to be ashamed of it. We are glad enough to own, to
remember, to treasure up every little word of approval that fell from
the lips of the woman we courted. Why should we forget the dear sounds
now she is our wife? If we love her, she may be sure that any little
compliment--an offered flower, a birthday gift, a song when we are
weary, a smile when we are sad, a look which no eye but our own will
see--will be treasured up, and will cheer us when she is not there.
Judiciously used, this conduct is of the greatest effect in managing the
husband. A little vanity does not, moreover, in such cases as these,
prove a man to be either a bad man or a fool. "All clever men," says a
great observer, "are more or less affected with vanity. It may be
blatant and offensive, it may be excessive, but not unamusing, or it may
show itself just as a large _soupcon,_ but it is never entirely absent."
The same writer goes on to say that this vanity should by no means be
injudiciously flattered into too large a size. A wife will probably
admire the husband for what he is really worth; and the vanity of a
really clever man probably only amounts to putting a little too large a
price on his merits, not to a mistake as to what those merits are. The
wife and husband will therefore think alike; but, if she be wise, she
will only go to a certain point in administering the domestic lumps of
sugar. "A clever husband," says the writer we have quoted, "is like a
good despot; all the better for a little constitutional opposition." Or
the same advice may be thus put