o add something
of skilled labour to intangible brain-work. To find the right word is so
doubtful a success and lies so near to failure, that there is no
satisfaction in a year of it; but we all know when we have formed a
letter perfectly; and a stupid artist, right or wrong, is almost equally
certain he has found a right tone or a right colour, or made a dexterous
stroke with his brush. And, again, painters may work out of doors; and
the fresh air, the deliberate seasons, and the "tranquillising
influence" of the green earth, counterbalance the fever of thought, and
keep them cool, placable, and prosaic.

A ship captain is a good man to marry if it is a marriage of love, for
absences are a good influence in love and keep it bright and delicate;
but he is just the worst man if the feeling is more pedestrian, as habit
is too frequently torn open and the solder has never time to set. Men
who fish, botanise, work with the turning-lathe, or gather sea-weeds,
will make admirable husbands; and a little amateur painting in
water-colour shows the innocent and quiet mind. Those who have a few
intimates are to be avoided; while those who swim loose, who have their
hat in their hand all along the street, who can number an infinity of
acquaintances and are not chargeable with any one friend, promise an
easy disposition and no rival to the wife's influence. I will not say
they are the best of men, but they are the stuff out of which adroit and
capable women manufacture the best of husbands. It is to be noticed that
those who have loved once or twice already are so much the better
educated to a woman's hand; the bright boy of fiction is an odd and most
uncomfortable mixture of shyness and coarseness, and needs a deal of
civilising. Lastly (and this is, perhaps, the golden rule) no woman
should marry a teetotaller, or a man who does not smoke. It is not for
nothing that this "ignoble tabagie," as Michelet calls it, spreads over
all the world. Michelet rails against it because it renders you happy
apart from thought or work; to provident women this will seem no evil
influence in married life. Whatever keeps a man in the front garden,
whatever checks wandering fancy and all inordinate ambition, whatever
makes for lounging and contentment, makes just so surely for domestic
happiness.

These notes, if they amuse the reader at all, will probably amuse him
more when he differs than when he agrees with them; at least they will
do no harm,