o provide myself with an inexhaustible
store of that '_sobriety_,' which I am so strongly recommending my
reader to provide himself with; or, if he cannot do that, to deliberate
long before he ventures on the life-enduring matrimonial voyage. This
sobriety is a title to _trust-worthiness_; and _this_, young man, is the
treasure that you ought to prize far above all others. Miserable is the
husband, who, when he crosses the threshold of his house, carries with
him doubts and fears and suspicions. I do not mean suspicions of the
_fidelity_ of his wife, but of her care, frugality, attention to his
interests, and to the health and morals of his children. Miserable is
the man, who cannot leave _all unlocked_, and who is not _sure_, quite
certain, that all is as safe as if grasped in his own hand. He is the
happy husband, who can go away, at a moment's warning, leaving his house
and his family with as little anxiety as he quits an inn, not more
fearing to find, on his return, any thing wrong, than he would fear a
discontinuance of the rising and setting of the sun, and if, as in my
case, leaving books and papers all lying about at sixes and sevens,
finding them arranged in proper order, and the room, during the lucky
interval, freed from the effects of his and his ploughman's or
gardener's dirty shoes. Such a man has no _real cares_; such a man has
_no troubles_; and this is the sort of life that I have led. I have had
all the numerous and indescribable delights of home and children, and,
at the same time, all the bachelor's freedom from domestic cares: and to
this cause, far more than to any other, my readers owe those labours,
which I never could have performed, if even the slightest degree of want
of confidence at home had ever once entered into my mind.

93. But, in order to possess this precious _trust-worthiness_, you must,
if you can, exercise your _reason_ in the choice of your partner. If she
be vain of her person, very fond of dress, fond of _flattery_, at all
given to gadding about, fond of what are called _parties of pleasure_,
or coquetish, though in the least degree; if either of these, she never
will be trust-worthy; worthy; she cannot change her nature; and if you
marry her, you will be _unjust_ if you expect trust-worthiness at her
hands. But, besides this, even if you find in her that innate
'_sobriety_' of which I have been speaking, there requires on your part,
and that at once too, confidence and trust wit