th so useful as a wooden husband.
You should get a wooden husband, my dear, if you want to be left in
peace. It is like a comfortable slipper or your dressing-gown after a
ball. It is like springs to your carriage. It is like a clever maid who
never makes mistakes with your notes or comes without coughing
discreetly through your dressing-room. It is like tea, cigarettes,
postage-stamps, foot-warmers, eiderdown counterpanes--anything that
smooths life, in fact. Young women do not think enough of this. An
easy-going husband is the one indispensable comfort of life. He is like
a set of sables to you. You may never want to put them on; still, if the
north wind do blow--and one can never tell--how handy they are! You pop
into them in a second, and no cold wind can find you out, my dear.
Couldn't find you out, if your shift were in rags underneath! Without
your husband's countenance, you have scenes. With scenes, you have
scandal. With scandal, you come to a suit. With a suit, you most likely
lose your settlements. And without your settlements, where are you in
Society? With a husband you are safe. You need never think about him in
any way. His mere existence suffices. He will always be at the bottom of
your table, and the head of your visiting-cards. That is enough. He will
represent Respectability for you, without your being at the trouble to
represent Respectability for yourself. Respectability is a thing of
which the shadow is more agreeable than the substance. Happily for us,
Society only requires the shadow.

* * *

Very well; if you dislike dancing, don't dance; though if a woman don't,
you know, they always think she has got a short leg, or a cork leg, or
something or other that's dreadful. But why not show yourself at them?
At least show yourself. One goes to balls as one goes to church. It's a
social muster.

* * *

The art of pleasing is more based on the art of seeming pleased than
people think of, and she disarmed the prejudices of her enemies by the
unaffected delight she appeared to take in themselves. You may think
very ill of a woman, but after all you cannot speak very ill of her if
she has assured you a hundred times that you are amongst her dearest
friends.

* * *

Society always had its fixed demands. It used to exact birth. It used to
exact manners. In a remote and golden age there is a tradition that it
was once contented with mind. Nowada