e standards
of perfection. Mary has as little perception of perspective as a
Chinese landscape painter; she colors floridly and her drawing is out
of line.

Put John in his proper place as regards distances, shadow and
environment, and survey him in the cool white light of common sense.
Unless he is a _poseur_ of uncommon skill, he will appear best thus.

Conjugal quarrels are so constantly the theme of ridicule and the text
of warnings to the unwedded that we lose sight of the plain truth that
husbands and wives bicker no more than parents and children, brothers
and sisters. In every community there are more blood-relations who do
not speak to one another than divorced couples. Wars and fightings
come upon us, not through matrimony so much as through the manifold
infirmities of mortal nature. John, albeit not a woman, is a
vertebrate human being, "with hands, organs, dimensions, senses,
affections, passions. If you prick him he will bleed, if you tickle
him he will laugh, if you poison him he will die." In the true
marriage, he is the wife's other self--one lobe of her brain--one
ventricle of her heart--the right hand to her left. This is the
marriage the Lord hath made.

The occasional clash of opinions, the passing heat of temper, are but
surface-gusts that do not stir the brooding love of hearts at rest in
one another.

While John remains loyal to his wedded wife, forsaking all others and
cleaving to her alone, the inventory of his faults should be a sealed
book to her closest confidante, the carping discussion of his failings
be prohibited by pride, affection and right taste. This leads me to
offer one last tribute to our patient (and maybe bored) subject. He
has as a rule, a nicer sense of honor in the matter of comment upon
his wife's shortcomings and foibles than she exhibits with regard to
his.

Set it down to gallantry, chivalry, pride--custom--what you will--but
the truth sheds a lustre upon our John of which I mean he shall have
the full advantage. Perhaps the noblest reticence belongs to the
Silent Side of him. I hardly think it is because he has no yearning
for sympathy, no need of counsel, when he reluctantly admits to
himself that that upon which he has ventured most is, in some measure,
a disappointment. Be this as it may, Mary may learn discretion from
him--and the lesson conned should be forbearance with offensive
peculiarities, and, what she names to her sore spirit, lack of
appreciation. Giv