If you wish to be thought spotless marble, instead of warm flesh and blood, you should have gone into a museum, and refused marriage.  Remember God knew what He was about, when He fashioned woman to be man’s companion, mate, and mother of his children.

Respect yourself in all those capacities, and regard the fulfilment of each duty as sacred and beautiful.

Do not thrust upon the man’s mind continually the idea that you are a vastly higher order of being than he is.

He will reach your standard much sooner if you come half-way and meet him on the plane of common sense and human understanding.  Meantime let him never doubt your abhorrence of vulgarity, and your distaste for the familiarity which breeds contempt.

It is a great art, when a wife knows how to attract a husband year after year, with the allurements of the boudoir, and never to disillusion him with the familiarities of the dressing-room.

Such women there are, who have lived with their lovers in poverty’s close quarters, and through sickness and trouble, and yet have never brushed the bloom from the fruit of romance.  But she who needs to be told in what this art consists, would never understand, and she who understands, need not be told.

Keep your husband certain of the fact that his attention and society is more agreeable to you than that of any other man.  But never beg for his attentions, and do not permit him to think you are incapable of enjoying yourself without his playing the devoted cavalier.

The moment a man feels such an attitude is compulsory, it becomes irksome.  Learn how to entertain yourself.  Cling to your accomplishments and add others.  A man admires a progressive woman who keeps step with the age.  Study, and think, and read, and cultivate the art of listening.  This will make you interesting to men and women alike, and your husband will hear you praised as an agreeable and charming woman, and that always pleases a man, as it indicates his good taste and good luck.

Avoid giving your husband the impression that you expect a detailed account of every moment spent away from you.  Convince him that you believe in his honour and loyalty, and that you have no desire to control or influence his actions in any matters which do not conflict with his self-respect or your pride.

Cultivate the society of the women he admires.  There is both wisdom and tact in such a course.

Wisdom in making an ideal a reality, and tact in avoiding any semblance of that most unbecoming fault—­jealousy.

Let him see that you have absolute faith in your own powers to hold him, and that you respect him too much to mistake a frank admiration for an unworthy sentiment.  Do not hesitate to speak with equal frankness of the qualities you admire in other men.  Educate him in liberality and generosity, by example.

Allow no one to criticize him in your presence, and do not discuss his weaknesses with others.  I have known wives to meet in conclaves, and dissect husbands for an entire afternoon.  And each wife seemed anxious to pose as the most neglected and unappreciated woman of the lot.  With all the faults of the sterner sex, I never heard of such a caucus of husbands.