Reason, although it appeared under a form most pleasing to the author, was not listened to; for in the distance Folly tossed the coxcomb of Panurge, and the author wished to seize it; but, when he tried to catch it, he found that it was as heavy as the club of Hercules.  Moreover, the cure of Meudon adorned it in such fashion that a young man who was less pleased with producing a good work than with wearing fine gloves could not even touch it.

“Is our work completed?” asked the younger of the two feminine assistants of the author.

“Alas! madame,” I said, “will you ever requite me for all the hatreds which that work will array against me?”

She waved her hand, and then the author replied to her doubt by a look of indifference.

“What do you mean?  Would you hesitate?  You must publish it without fear.  In the present day we accept a book more because it is in fashion than because it has anything in it.”

Although the author does not here represent himself as anything more than the secretary of two ladies, he has in compiling their observations accomplished a double task.  With regard to marriage he has here arranged matters which represent what everybody thinks but no one dares to say; but has he not also exposed himself to public displeasure by expressing the mind of the public?  Perhaps, however, the eclecticism of the present essay will save it from condemnation.  All the while that he indulges in banter the author has attempted to popularize certain ideas which are particularly consoling.  He has almost always endeavored to lay bare the hidden springs which move the human soul.  While undertaking to defend the most material interests of man, judging them or condemning them, he will perhaps bring to light many sources of intellectual delight.  But the author does not foolishly claim always to put forth his pleasantries in the best of taste; he has merely counted upon the diversity of intellectual pursuits in expectation of receiving as much blame as approbation.  The subject of his work was so serious that he is constantly launched into anecdote; because at the present day anecdotes are the vehicle of all moral teaching, and the anti-narcotic of every work of literature.  In literature, analysis and investigation prevail, and the wearying of the reader increases in proportion with the egotism of the writer.  This is one of the greatest misfortunes that can befall a book, and the present author has been quite aware of it.  He has therefore so arranged the topics of this long essay as to afford resting places for the reader.  This method has been successfully adopted by a writer, who produced on the subject of Taste a work somewhat parallel to that which is here put forth on the subject of Marriage.  From the former the present writer may be permitted to borrow a few words in order to express a thought which he shares with the author of them.  This quotation will serve as an expression of homage to his predecessor, whose success has been so swiftly followed by his death: