After you have found what qualities, habits, actions, or accomplishments attracted him, write them down in a little book and refer to them two or three times a year.  On these occasions ask yourself if you are keeping these attractions fresh and bright as they were in the days of courtship.  Women easily drop the things which won a man’s heart, and are unconscious that the change they bemoan began in themselves.  But do not imagine you can rest at ease after marriage with only the qualities, and charms, and virtues, which won you a lover.  To keep a husband in love is a more serious consideration than to win a lover.

You must add year by year to your attractions.

As the deep bloom of first youth passes, you must cultivate mental and spiritual traits which will give your face a lustre from within.

And as the mirth and fun of life drifts farther from you, and you find the merry jest, which of old turned care into laughter, less ready on your lip, you must cultivate a wholesome optimistic view of life, to sustain your husband through the trials and disasters besetting most mortal paths.

Make one solemn resolve now, and never forget it.  Say to yourself, “On no other spot, in no other house on earth, shall my husband find a more cheerful face, a more loving welcome, or a more restful atmosphere, than he finds at home.”

No matter what vicissitudes arise, and what complications occur, keep that resolve.  It will at least help to sustain you with a sense of self-respect, if unhappiness from any outside source should shadow your life.  An attractive home has become a sort of platitude in speech, but it remains a thing of vital importance, all the same, in actual life and in marriage.

Think often and speak frequently to your husband of his good qualities and of the things you most admire in him.

Sincere and judicious praise is to noble nature like spring rain and sun to the earth.  Ignore or make light of his small failings, and when you must criticize a serious fault, do not dwell upon it.  A husband and wife should endeavour to be such good friends that kindly criticism is accepted as an evidence of mutual love which desires the highest attainments for its object.

But no man likes to think his wife has set about the task of making him over, and if you have any such intention I beg you to conceal it, and go about it slowly and with caution.

A woman who knows how to praise more readily than she knows how to criticize, and who has the tact and skill to adapt herself to a man’s moods and to find amusement and entertainment in his whims, can lead him away from their indulgence without his knowledge.

Such women are the real reformers of men, though they scorn the word, and disclaim the effort.

It is well to keep a man conscious that you are a refined and delicate-minded woman, yet do not insist upon being worshipped on a pedestal.  It tires a man’s neck to be for ever gazing upward, and statues are less agreeable companions than human beings.