may he display his
superior knowledge of astronomy, and prove to her that the moon is not
to be got. She listens with her head on one side, and after he has
talked himself quite out of breath, repeats the very same sentence she
began the discussion with, without variation or addition.

If she wants darling Johnny taken away from school, because cruel
teachers will not give up the rules of the institution for his pleasure,
in vain does Don Positive, in the most select and superior English,
enlighten her on the necessity of habits of self-control and order for a
boy,--the impossibility that a teacher should make exceptions for their
particular darling,--the absolute, perishing need that the boy should
begin to do something. She hears him all through, and then says, "I
don't know anything about that. I know what I want: I want Johnny taken
away." And so she weeps, sulks, storms, entreats, lies awake nights, has
long fits of sick-headache,--in short, shows that a pretty animal,
without reason or cultivation, can be, in her way, quite as formidable
an antagonist as the most clever of her sex.

Leander can sometimes vanquish his Hero in fair fight by the weapons of
good logic, because she is a woman capable of appreciating reason, and
able to feel the force of the considerations he adduces; and when he
does vanquish and carry her captive by his bow and spear, he feels that
he has gained a victory over no ignoble antagonist, and he becomes a
hero in his own eyes. Though a woman of much will, still she is a woman
of much reason; and if he has many vexations with her pertinacity, he is
never without hope in her good sense; but alas for him whose wife has
only the animal instinct of firmness, without any development of the
judgment or reasoning faculties! The conflicts with a woman whom a man
respects and admires are often extremely trying; but the conflicts with
one whom he cannot help despising become in the end simply disgusting.

But the inquiry now arises, What shall be done with all the questions
Dr. Johnson speaks of, which reason cannot decide, which elude
investigation, and make logic ridiculous,--cases where something must be
done, and where little can be said?

Read Mrs. Ellis's "Wives of England," and you have one solution of the
problem. The good women of England are there informed that there is to
be no discussion, that everything in the _menage_ is to follow the rule
of the lord, and that the wife has but one ho