in one's
own family circle. Nothing so soon, and so certainly wears out the
happiness of married persons, as that too common bad effect of
familiarity, the sinking down into dullness and insipidity; neglecting
to keep alive the flame by the delicacy which first kindled it; want of
vigilance in keeping the temper cheerful by Christian discipline, and
the faculties bright by constant use. Mutual affection decays of itself,
even where there is no great moral turpitude, without mutual endeavors,
not only to improve, but to amuse.

"This," continued he, "is one of the great arts of _home enjoyment_.
That it is so little practiced, accounts in a good measure for the
undomestic turn of too many married persons. The man meets abroad with
amusements, and the woman with attentions, to which they are not
accustomed at home. Whereas a capacity to please on the one part, and a
disposition to be pleased on the other, in their own house, would make
most visits appear dull. But then the disposition and the capacity must
be cultivated antecedently to marriage. A woman, whose whole education
has been rehearsal, will always be dull, except she lives on the stage,
constantly displaying what she has been sedulously acquiring. Books, on
the contrary, well chosen books, do not lead to exhibition. The
knowledge a woman acquires in private, desires no witnesses; the
possession is the pleasure. It improves herself, it embellishes her
family society, it entertains her husband, it informs her children. The
gratification is cheap, is safe, is always to be had at home."

"It is superfluous," said Sir John, "to decorate women so highly for
early youth; youth is itself a decoration. We mistakingly adorn most
that part of life which least requires it, and neglect to provide for
that which will want it most. It is for that sober period when life has
lost its freshness, the passions their intenseness, and the spirits
their hilarity, that we should be preparing. Our wisdom would be to
anticipate the wants of middle life, to lay in a store of notions,
ideas, principles, and habits, which may preserve or transfer to the
mind that affection which was at first partly attracted by the person.
But to add a vacant mind to a form which has ceased to please; to
provide no subsidiary aid to beauty while it lasts, and especially no
substitute when it is departed, is to render life comfortless, and
marriage dreary."

"The reading of a cultivated woman," said Mr.