round him, ask his opinion of this book and that picture, treasure his bon-mots, beg for his autograph, looking all the while the praise which they do not speak (though they speak a good deal of it), and when they go home write letters to him on matters about which in old times girls used to ask only their mothers;—­who can blame him if he finds the little wife at home a very uninteresting body, whose head is so full of petty cares and gossip, that he and all his talents are quite unappreciated? Les femmes incomprises of France used to (perhaps do now) form a class of married ladies, whose sorrows were especially dear to the novelists, male or female; but what are their woes compared to those of l’homme incompris? What higher vocation for a young maiden than to comfort the martyr during his agonies?  And, most of all, where the sufferer is not merely a genius, but a saint; persecuted, perhaps, abroad by vulgar tradesmen and Philistine bishops, and snubbed at home by a stupid wife, who is quite unable to appreciate his magnificent projects for regenerating all heaven and earth; and only, humdrum, practical creature that she is, tries to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with her God?  Fly to his help, all pious maidens, and pour into the wounded heart of the holy man the healing balm of self-conceit; cover his table with confidential letters, choose him as your father-confessor, and lock yourself up alone with him for an hour or two every week, while the wife is mending his shirts upstairs.—­True, you may break the stupid wife’s heart by year-long misery, as she slaves on, bearing the burden and heat of the day, of which you never dream; keeping the wretched man, by her unassuming good example, from making a fool of himself three times a week; and sowing the seed of which you steal the fruit.  What matter?  If your immortal soul requires it, what matter what it costs her carnal heart?  She will suffer in silence; at least, she will not tell you.  You think she does not understand you.  Well;—­and she thinks in return that you do not understand her, and her married joys and sorrows, and her five children, and her butcher’s bills, and her long agony of fear for the husband of whom she is ten times more proud than you could be; for whom she has slaved for years; whose defects she has tried to cure, while she cured her own; for whom she would die to-morrow, did he fall into disgrace, when you had flounced off to find some new idol:  and so she will not tell you:  and what the ear heareth not, that the heart grieveth not.—­Go on and prosper!  You may, too, ruin the man’s spiritual state by vanity:  you may pamper his discontent with the place where God has put him, till he ends by flying off to “some purer Communion,” and taking you with him.  Never mind.  He is a most delightful person, and his intercourse is so improving.  Why were sweet things made, but to be eaten?  Go on and prosper.