beautiful exception like love that you never think of it as
marvellous.

A man never seems to be able to understand that, in order to obtain
the supremest pleasure from an act of thoughtfulness to his wife, he
must be wholly unselfish and give it to her, in her line, and the way
she wants it--and the way he knows she wants it, if he would only stop
to think. I know a man who hates to go out in the evening, but who
occasionally, in order to do something particularly sweet and
unselfish to please his wife, takes her to the theatre. She loves fine
plays, tragedy, high-grade comedy. But he takes her to the minstrels,
because that is the only thing he can stand, and for two weeks
afterwards he keeps saying to her, "Didn't I take you to the theatre
the other night, honey? Don't I sometimes sacrifice myself for your
pleasure?" And she goes and kisses him and says yes, and tries not to
think that his selfishness more than outweighs his unselfishness.
Women have more conscience about deceiving themselves into staying in
love than men have.

But even yet, suppose you are not that kind of a man, we have not got
to the point of the subject yet. Our way lies through the head to the
heart. And the man who is scrupulously careful about acts has yet to.
watch at once the greatest joy, the greatest grief, the supremest
healing of even deliberate wounds--words. It is a question with me
whether a woman ever knows all the joys of love-making who has one of
those dumb, silent husbands, who doubtless adores her, but is unable
to express it only in deeds. It requires an act of the will to
remember that his getting down-town at seven o'clock every morning is
all done for you, when he has not been able to tell you in words that
he loves you. It is hard to keep thinking that he looked at you last