not intermarry with the Pharisee. Imagine Consuelo as Mrs.
Samuel Budget, the wife of the successful merchant! The best
of men and the best of women may sometimes live together all
their lives, and, for want of some consent on fundamental
questions, hold each other lost spirits to the end.

A certain sort of talent is almost indispensable for
people who would spend years together and not bore themselves
to death. But the talent, like the agreement, must be for and
about life. To dwell happily together, they should be versed
in the niceties of the heart, and born with a faculty for
willing compromise. The woman must be talented as a woman,
and it will not much matter although she is talented in
nothing else. She must know her METIER DE FEMME, and have a
fine touch for the affections. And it is more important that
a person should be a good gossip, and talk pleasantly and
smartly of common friends and the thousand and one nothings of
the day and hour, than that she should speak with the tongues
of men and angels; for a while together by the fire, happens
more frequently in marriage than the presence of a
distinguished foreigner to dinner. That people should laugh
over the same sort of jests, and have many a story of "grouse
in the gun-room," many an old joke between them which time
cannot wither nor custom stale, is a better preparation for
life, by your leave, than many other things higher and better
sounding in the world's ears. You could read Kant by
yourself, if you wanted; but you must share a joke with some
one else. You can forgive people who do not follow you
through a philosophical disquisition; but to find your wife
laughing when you had tears in your eyes, or staring when you