that this constant living together threatens the husband with
inevitable dangers.

We are going to try, therefore, to find out a method which will bring
our customs in harmony with the laws of nature, and to combine custom
and nature in a way that will enable a husband to find in the mahogany
of his bed a useful ally, and an aid in defending himself.

1. TWIN BEDS.

If the most brilliant, the best-looking, the cleverest of husbands
wishes to find himself minotaurized just as the first year of his
married life ends, he will infallibly attain that end if he is unwise
enough to place two beds side by side, under the voluptuous dome of the
same alcove.

The argument in support of this may be briefly stated. The following are
its main lines:

The first husband who invented the twin beds was doubtless an
obstetrician, who feared that in the involuntary struggles of some dream
he might kick the child borne by his wife.

But no, he was rather some predestined one who distrusted his power of
checking a snore.

Perhaps it was some young man who, fearing the excess of his own
tenderness, found himself always lying at the edge of the bed and in
danger of tumbling off, or so near to a charming wife that he disturbed
her slumber.

But may it not have been some Maintenon who received the suggestion from
her confessor, or, more probably, some ambitious woman who wished to
rule her husband? Or, more undoubtedly, some pretty little Pompadour
overcome by that Parisian infirmity so pleasantly described by M. de
Maurepas in that quatrain which cost him his protracted disgrace and
certainly contributed to the disasters of Louis XVI's reign:

"Iris, we love those features sweet,
Your graces all are fresh and free;
And flowerets spring beneath your feet,
Where naught, alas! but flowers are seen."

But why should it not have been a philosopher who dreaded the
disenchantment which a woman would experience at the sight of a man
asleep? And such a one would always roll himself up in a coverlet and
keep his head bare.

Unknown author of this Jesuitical method, whoever thou art, in the
devil's name, we hail thee as a brother! Thou hast been the cause of
many disasters. Thy work has the character of all half measures; it is
satisfactory in no respect, and shares the bad points of the two other
methods without yielding the advantages of either. How can the man of
the nineteenth century, how can