beginning of the year 1795. Husband and
wife came to Douai that the first days of their union might be spent
in the patriarchal house of the Claes,--the treasures of which were
increased by those of Mademoiselle de Temninck, who brought with her
several fine pictures of Murillo and Velasquez, the diamonds of her
mother, and the magnificent wedding-gifts, made to her by her brother,
the Duke of Casa-Real.

Few women were ever happier than Madame Claes. Her happiness lasted for
fifteen years without a cloud, diffusing itself like a vivid light
into every nook and detail of her life. Most men have inequalities of
character which produce discord, and deprive their households of the
harmony which is the ideal of a home; the majority are blemished with
some littleness or meanness, and meanness of any kind begets bickering.
One man is honorable and diligent, but hard and crabbed; another kindly,
but obstinate; this one loves his wife, yet his will is arbitrary and
uncertain; that other, preoccupied by ambition, pays off his affections
as he would a debt, bestows the luxuries of wealth but deprives the
daily life of happiness,--in short, the average man of social life is
essentially incomplete, without being signally to blame. Men of talent
are as variable as barometers; genius alone is intrinsically good.

For this reason unalloyed happiness is found at the two extremes of
the moral scale. The good-natured fool and the man of genius alone
are capable--the one through weakness, the other by strength--of that
equanimity of temper, that unvarying gentleness, which soften the
asperities of daily life. In the one, it is indifference or stolidity;
in the other, indulgence and a portion of the divine thought of which he
is the interpreter, and which needs to be consistent alike in principle
and application. Both natures are equally simple; but in one there is
vacancy, in the other depth. This is why clever women are disposed to
take dull men as the small change for great ones.

Balthazar Claes carried his greatness into the lesser things of life. He
delighted in considering conjugal love as a magnificent work; and like
all men of lofty aims who can bear nothing imperfect, he wished to
develop all its beauties. His powers of mind enlivened the calm of
happiness, his noble nature marked his attentions with the charm of
grace. Though he shared the philosophical tenets of the eighteenth
century, he installed a chaplain in his home unti