The Physiology of Marriage Part 9

To seize adroitly upon the varieties of pleasure, to develop them, to impart to them a new style, an original expression, const.i.tutes the genius of a husband.

x.x.xIX.

Between two beings who do not love each other this genius is licentiousness; but the caresses over which love presides are always pure.

XL.

The married woman who is the most chaste may be also the most voluptuous.

XLI.

The most virtuous woman can be forward without knowing it.

XLII.

When two human beings are united by pleasure, all social conventionalities are put aside. This situation conceals a reef on which many vessels are wrecked. A husband is lost, if he once forgets there is a modesty which is quite independent of coverings. Conjugal love ought never either to put on or to take away the bandage of its eyes, excepting at the due season.

XLIII.

Power does not consist in striking with force or with frequency, but in striking true.

XLIV.

To call a desire into being, to nourish it, to develop it, to bring it to full growth, to excite it, to satisfy it, is a complete poem of itself.

XLV.

The progression of pleasures is from the distich to the quatrain, from the quatrain to the sonnet, from the sonnet to the ballad, from the ballad to the ode, from the ode to the cantata, from the cantata to the dithyramb. The husband who commences with dithyramb is a fool.

XLVI.

Each night ought to have its _menu_.

XLVII.

Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster which devours everything, that is, familiarity.

XLVIII.

If a man cannot distinguish the difference between the pleasures of two consecutive nights, he has married too early.

XLIX.

It is easier to be a lover than a husband, for the same reason that it is more difficult to be witty every day, than to say bright things from time to time.

L.

A husband ought never to be the first to go to sleep and the last to awaken.

LI.

The man who enters his wife's dressing-room is either a philosopher or an imbecile.

LII.

The husband who leaves nothing to desire is a lost man.

LIII.

The married woman is a slave whom one must know how to set upon a throne.

LIV.

A man must not flatter himself that he knows his wife, and is making her happy unless he sees her often at his knees.

It is to the whole ignorant troop of our predestined, of our legions of snivelers, of smokers, of snuff-takers, of old and captious men that Sterne addressed, in _Tristram Shandy_, the letter written by Walter Shandy to his brother Toby, when this last proposed to marry the widow Wadman.

These celebrated instructions which the most original of English writers has comprised in this letter, suffice with some few exceptions to complete our observations on the manner in which husbands should behave to their wives; and we offer it in its original form to the reflections of the predestined, begging that they will meditate upon it as one of the most solid masterpieces of human wit.

"MY DEAR BROTHER TOBY,

"What I am going to say to thee is upon the nature of women, and of love-making to them; and perhaps it is as well for thee--tho' not so well for me--that thou hast occasion for a letter of instructions upon that head, and that I am able to write it to thee.

"Had it been the good pleasure of Him who disposes of our lots, and thou no sufferer by the knowledge, I had been well content that thou should'st have dipped the pen this moment into the ink instead of myself; but that not being the case--Mrs. Shandy being now close beside me, preparing for bed--I have thrown together without order, and just as they have come into my mind, such hints and doc.u.ments as I deem may be of use to thee; intending, in this, to give thee a token of my love; not doubting, my dear Toby, of the manner in which it will be accepted.

"In the first place, with regard to all which concerns religion in the affair--though I perceive from a glow in my cheek, that I blush as I begin to speak to thee upon the subject, as well knowing, notwithstanding thy unaffected secrecy, how few of its offices thou neglectest--yet I would remind thee of one (during the continuance of thy courtship) in a particular manner, which I would not have omitted; and that is, never to go forth upon the enterprise, whether it be in the morning or in the afternoon, without first recommending thyself to the protection of Almighty G.o.d, that He may defend thee from the evil one.

"Shave the whole top of thy crown clean once at least every four or five days, but oftener if convenient; lest in taking off thy wig before her, thro' absence of mind, she should be able to discover how much has been cut away by Time--how much by Trim.

"'Twere better to keep ideas of baldness out of her fancy.

"Always carry it in thy mind, and act upon it as a sure maxim, Toby--

"_'That women are timid.'_ And 'tis well they are--else there would be no dealing with them.

"Let not thy breeches be too tight, or hang too loose about thy thighs, like the trunk-hose of our ancestors.

"A just medium prevents all conclusions.

"Whatever thou hast to say, be it more or less, forget not to utter it in a low soft tone of voice. Silence, and whatever approaches it, weaves dreams of midnight secrecy into the brain: For this cause, if thou canst help it, never throw down the tongs and poker.

"Avoid all kinds of pleasantry and facetiousness in thy discourse with her, and do whatever lies in thy power at the same time, to keep from her all books and writings which tend there to: there are some devotional tracts, which if thou canst entice her to read over, it will be well: but suffer her not to look into _Rabelais_, or _Scarron_, or _Don Quixote_.

"They are all books which excite laughter; and thou knowest, dear Toby, that there is no pa.s.sion so serious as l.u.s.t.

"Stick a pin in the bosom of thy shirt, before thou enterest her parlor.