I do not think Mrs. Martinet's family government by any means
perfect, though she has certainly very much improved it, and gets on
with far more comfort to herself and all around her than she did.
For the improvement at which I have hinted, I take some credit to
myself, though I am by no means certain, that, were I situated as my
friend is, I should govern my family as well as she governs hers. I
am aware that a maiden lady, like myself, young or old, it matters
not to tell the reader which, can look down from the quiet regions
where she lives, and see how easy it would be for the wife and
mother to reduce all to order in her turbulent household. But I am
at the same time conscious of the difficulties that beset the wife
and mother in the incessant, exhausting, and health-destroying
nature of her duties, and how her mind, from these causes, must
naturally lose its clear-seeing qualities when most they are needed,
and its calm and even temper when its exercise is of most
consequence. Too little allowance, I am satisfied, is made for the
mother, who, with a shattered nervous system, and suffering too,
often, from physical prostration, is ever in the midst of her little
family of restless spirits, and compelled to administer to their
thousand wants, to guide, guard, protect, govern, and restrain their
evil passions, when of all things, repose and quiet of body and
mind, for even a brief season, would be the greatest blessing she
could ask.

I have seen a wife and mother, thus situated, betrayed into a hasty
expression, or lose her self-command so far as to speak with fretful
impatience to a child who rather needed to be soothed by a calmly
spoken word; and I have seen her even-minded husband, who knew not
what it was to feel a pain, or to suffer from nervous prostration,