meaning, less
cynical than supposed, but quite as sad, of La Rochefoucauld when he
noted down, "Il y a de bons mariages, mais point de delicieux;" since,
in the delicate French sense of the word, implying some analogy of
subdued yet penetrating pleasantness, as of fresh, bright weather or
fine light wine, courtship is essentially _delicieux_.

This is, of course, initiating a question of manner. Modern psychology
is discovering scientific reasons for the fact that if you wag a dog's
tail he feels pleased; or, at all events, that the human being would
feel pleased if it had a tail and could wag it. Confessors and nurses
knew it long ago, curbing bad temper by restraining its outer
manifestations; and are not dinners and plays, flags and illuminations,
birthdays and jubilees--nay, art itself, devices for suggestions to
mankind that it feels pleased?

Married people, as a rule, wish not to be pleased, or at least not to
show it. They may be heartbroken at each other's death, and unable to
endure a temporary separation; but the outsider may wonder why, seeing
how little they seem to care for being together. It is the same, after
all, with other relations; and it is only because brothers and sisters,
fathers and children have not taken visible steps to select one another
that their bored indifference is less conspicuous. You will say it is a
question of mere manner. But, as remarked, manner not merely results
from feeling, but largely reacts on feeling, and makes it different.
People who live together have the appearance, often, of taking each
other, if not as a convenience, at all events as a _fait accompli_, and,
so far as possible, as if not there at all. Near relations try to
realize the paradox of companionable solitude; and intimacy seems to
imply the right to behave as if the intimate other one were not there.
Now, _being by one's self_ is a fine thing, convenient and salutary
(indeed, like courtship, there is not enough of it); but being by one's
self is not to be confounded with _not being in company_. I have
selected that expression advisedly, in order to give a shock to the
reader. _In company?_ Good heavens! is being with one's wife, one's
brothers or sisters, one's children, one's bosom friends _being in
company_? And why not? Should company necessarily mean the company of
strangers? And is the presence of one's nearest and dearest to be
accounted as nothing--as nothing demanding some change in ourselves, and