But if place alters the conditions of marriage, much more does character.  The wife of a man born to be a leader need only resign herself to his guidance; whereas the wife of a fool, conscious of superior power, is bound to take the reins in her own hand if she would avert calamity.

You speak of vice; and it is possible that, after all, reason and reflection produce a result not dissimilar from what we call by that name.  For what does a woman mean by it but perversion of feeling through calculation?  Passion is vicious when it reasons, admirable only when it springs from the heart and spends itself in sublime impulses that set at naught all selfish considerations.  Sooner or later, dear one, you too will say, “Yes! dissimulation is the necessary armor of a woman, if by dissimulation be meant courage to bear in silence, prudence to foresee the future.”

Every married woman learns to her cost the existence of certain social laws, which, in many respects, conflict with the laws of nature.  Marrying at our age, it would be possible to have a dozen children.  What is this but another name for a dozen crimes, a dozen misfortunes?  It would be handing over to poverty and despair twelve innocent darlings; whereas two children would mean the happiness of both, a double blessing, two lives capable of developing in harmony with the customs and laws of our time.  The natural law and the code are in hostility, and we are the battle ground.  Would you give the name of vice to the prudence of the wife who guards her family from destruction through its own acts?  One calculation or a thousand, what matter, if the decision no longer rests with the heart?

And of this terrible calculation you will be guilty some day, my noble Baronne de Macumer, when you are the proud and happy wife of the man who adores you; or rather, being a man of sense, he will spare you by making it himself. (You see, dear dreamer, that I have studied the code in its bearings on conjugal relations.) And when at last that day comes, you will understand that we are answerable only to God and to ourselves for the means we employ to keep happiness alight in the heart of our homes.  Far better is the calculation which succeeds in this than the reckless passion which introduces trouble, heart-burnings, and dissension.

I have reflected painfully on the duties of a wife and mother of a family.  Yes, sweet one, it is only by a sublime hypocrisy that we can attain the noblest ideal of a perfect woman.  You tax me with insincerity because I dole out to Louis, from day to day, the measure of his intimacy with me; but is it not too close an intimacy which provokes rupture?  My aim is to give him, in the very interest of his happiness, many occupations, which will all serve as distractions to his love; and this is not the reasoning of passion.  If affection be inexhaustible, it is not so with love:  the task, therefore, of a woman —­truly no light one—­is to spread it out thriftily over a lifetime.