And now what do you think about that?  Is not this a novel undertaking, and one which no philosopher has as yet approached, I mean this attempt to show how a woman may be prevented from deceiving her husband?  Is not this the comedy of comedies?  Is it not a second speculum vitae humanae.  We are not now dealing with the abstract questions which we have done justice to already in this Meditation.  At the present day in ethics as in exact science, the world asks for facts for the results of observation.  These we shall furnish.

Let us begin then by examining the true condition of things, by analyzing the forces which exist on either side.  Before arming our imaginary champion let us reckon up the number of his enemies.  Let us count the Cossacks who intend to invade his little domain.

All who wish may embark with us on this voyage, all who can may laugh.  Weigh anchor; hoist sail!  You know exactly the point from which you start.  You have this advantage over a great many books that are written.

As for our fancy of laughing while we weep, and of weeping while we laugh, as the divine Rabelais drank while he ate and ate while he drank; as for our humor, to put Heraclitus and Democritus on the same page and to discard style or premeditated phrase—­if any of the crew mutiny, overboard with the doting cranks, the infamous classicists, the dead and buried romanticists, and steer for the blue water!

Everybody perhaps will jeeringly remark that we are like those who say with smiling faces, “I am going to tell you a story that will make you laugh!” But it is the proper thing to joke when speaking of marriage!  In short, can you not understand that we consider marriage as a trifling ailment to which all of us are subject and upon which this volume is a monograph?

“But you, your bark or your work starts off like those postilions who crack their whips because their passengers are English.  You will not have galloped at full speed for half a league before you dismount to mend a trace or to breathe your horses.  What is the good of blowing the trumpet before victory?”

Ah! my dear pantagruellists, nowadays to claim success is to obtain it, and since, after all, great works are only due to the expansion of little ideas, I do not see why I should not pluck the laurels, if only for the purpose of crowning those dirty bacon faces who join us in swallowing a dram.  One moment, pilot, let us not start without making one little definition.

Reader, if from time to time you meet in this work the terms virtue or virtuous, let us understand that virtue means a certain labored facility by which a wife keeps her heart for her husband; at any rate, that the word is not used in a general sense, and I leave this distinction to the natural sagacity of all.

MEDITATION II.

MARRIAGE STATISTICS.