cannot hope for an exemption from them. Rough roads, dark nights, and stormy days are to be expected; but while your affections continue undiminished, you will, in this circumstance, find a considerable alleviation of the difficulties with which you have to contend. The trials which occur by the way will be less felt, when they serve as occasions of proving afresh the care and tenderness which the travellers here have for each other.

When I exhort you to attend to the pre servation of that affection which first deter mined you to become partners for life, I am not to be understood as if I expected that the fervor experienced at its commencement would continue. That will abate. But though time and familiarity will assuredly carry off much of the first ardor, a true affection will receive improvement from time. Time will render it a more chastened, rational, and steady principle, if it be cultivated. If it be culti

vated, I say; otherwise, there may be a transition from idolatry to aversion.

To cultivate this kind of affection, neither of you should be remiss in those attentions which you have been accustomed to pay to each other. Let not the husband grow negligent of any of those marks of regard by which a wife feels herself acknowledged preeminently a friend and companion. She perceives herself still distinguished, when all the esteem, compassion, or good manners which her partner is ready to express to others, is, with a promptitude evidently unstudied, still more cordially shown to her. Conjugal affection is a delicate plant. It cannot thrive under indifference. Sullen taciturnity checks its growth. But it dies when scarcely any time is spent at home; when everybody can interest the husband in conversation but the wife; when she is the last person thought of in a recreation, or the least considered in an accommodation.

Let not, however, the wife be too ready to consider the behavior of her husband as expressive of indifference. Such conclusions often originate in the folly, pride, or petulance of the observer. To prevent our drawing them too hastily, let it be considered, that as an object becomes familiar to us, our esteem of it, though not diminished, naturally becomes a more silent sentiment. A woman must guard against the tormenting disappointments to which childish expectations render her liable. For there is a childishness in her expecting always to be caressed; and if she do not become more rational in her expectations. this folly will occasion its own punishment. She will fancy that she is neglected; she will complain; and her complaints will produce aversion.

There should likewise be some allowance made for what is natural to men, especially Englishmen: namely, a certain bluntness, through which they seem to be

indifferent when they are not really so. What may seem to improper judges inattention to others, to more penetrating observers is manifestly nothing but an honest inattention to themselves: a superiority to the mean arts of those interested persons whose chief study is the cultivation of an insinuating address.

But should there appear at times something more than mere inattention, something that evidences a disturbance of tem per, she is then perhaps called to allow for the agitations of mind to which men are particularly liable, from their having more to do with the world than women have. It is a serene region in which a woman moves; not so that into which the head of a family is often driven for the support of those who depend on him. In the midst of a thousand vexations from the stupidity, negligence, or knavery of those with whom his business lies, he has to earn that bread which his wife and children may eat in

tranquillity. Should he, therefore, when he comes home from this turbulent scene, omit a customary mark of affection, eat his meal in silence, or return a short answer to a civil question, let not the wife consider such behavior as any proof of indifference to her. Let her not listen to that demon of discord who would prompt her to resent it as such. Let her recollect that now is the time for her to exert the peculiar virtues of her sex; to call forth all the sweetness, humanity, and tenderness of her nature, in order to soothe him who has been toiling all the day, principally, perhaps, with a view to her comfort.

In cautioning a wife not to be too ready to consider herself neglected, I have not imparted the whole of my advice to her. I have admonished the husband not to be negligent of those marks of regard which are due to his partner; and she is to remember that the same duty is incumbent on her. It will be impossible for affection to