The Physiology of Marriage, Part 3 by Honoré de Balzac
page 40 of 125 (32%)
page 40 of 125 (32%)
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WITH MARRIAGE.
2. OF THE MOTHER-IN-LAW. 3. OF BOARDING SCHOOL FRIENDS AND INTIMATE FRIENDS. 4. OF THE LOVER'S ALLIES. 5. OF THE MAID. 6. OF THE DOCTOR. 1. OF RELIGIONS AND OF CONFESSION; CONSIDERED IN THEIR CONNECTION WITH MARRIAGE. La Bruyere has very wittily said, "It is too much for a husband to have ranged against him both devotion and gallantry; a woman ought to choose but one of them for her ally." The author thinks that La Bruyere is mistaken. 2. OF THE MOTHER-IN-LAW. Up to the age of thirty the face of a woman is a book written in a foreign tongue, which one may still translate in spite of all the _feminisms_ of the idiom; but on passing her fortieth year a woman becomes an insoluble riddle; and if any one can see through an old woman, it is another old woman. Some diplomats have attempted on more than one occasion the diabolical task of gaining over the dowagers who opposed their machinations; but if they have ever succeeded it was only after making enormous concessions to them; for diplomats are practiced people and we do not |
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