constantly making love to her. One may suffer from abundance of
wealth. A great deal of discretion and a certain amount of respect
between married people are sure to secure the duration and the solidity
of their affection. Those who live at too close quarters are sure to
part one day or the other.'

Here is another, with less philosophy, but a good deal of what I might
call paradoxical psychology:

'The ideal husband,' said to me a woman married to a French painter on
the road to celebrity, 'is the one who is not a man of genius. Nothing
monopolizes a man like a great talent for writing, painting, or even
business; he belongs to his muse, his art, or his figures. His thoughts
are absorbed, and he has very few, if any, left for the little creature
who lives with him, not in the clouds, but by his side on this earth.

'When he returns from his dreams, he throws at her--poor inferior
being!--a glance of pity, if not of contempt. My ideal husband is a man
who can live for me as I am ready to live for him, and who can do
without a mistress, whether that mistress be called Literature, Art, or
Commerce. I love great men, great poets, great painters or sculptors,
but I would not have a great man for a husband; nay, furthermore, I
should like to have a husband jealous of all the great men of my
predilection in the world of fiction.'

A piquant little woman, not a bit beautiful, but absolutely charming and
the embodiment of amiability and cheerfulness, said to me:

'The ideal husband shall not be a handsome man, but a gentlemanly one,
with a keen sense of humour, cheerful, a laughing philosopher, and a man
with a magnanimous turn of mind, who would never take advantage of a
little trouble in which I might find myself entangled to say to me, "I
told you so," but get me out of it quickly.'

Of course, all my fair friends, without exception, have insisted on the
ideal husband being indulgent, generous, manly, sincere, loyal, and
above middle height. Strange to say that none of them ask him to be
handsome, much less insist on it. One of them even went so far as to
say:

'A husband should not be handsome. First of all he is never very
beautiful, since he is a man. But he might be worse; he might think he
is beautiful, and then Heaven help his wife!'

'The ideal husband,' remarked a lady, 'is a man who should never be
ridiculous, never make a fool of himself, and never for a moment believe
that women took notice of him. A wom