It will suffice to hint at the scientific value of the little that has been disclosed respecting Madame Clothilde de Vaux in elucidating the position of Auguste Comte as a teacher. Some may think that John Stuart Mill first taught his wife and then admired his own wisdom in her. His own account of the matter is very different, as we learn from the dedication of his essay "On Liberty":
"To the beloved and deplored memory of her who was the inspirer, and in part the author, of all that is best in my writings—the friend and wife whose exalted sense of truth and right was my strongest incitement, and whose approbation was my chief reward—I dedicate this volume. Like all that I have written for many years, it belongs as much to her as to me; but the work as it stands has had, in a very insufficient degree, the inestimable advantage of her revision; some of the most important portions having been reserved for a more careful re-examination, which they are now never destined to receive. Were I but capable of interpreting to the world one-half the great thoughts and noble feelings which are buried in her grave, I should be the medium of a greater benefit to it than is ever likely to arise from anything that I can write, unprompted and unassisted by her all but unrivalled wisdom."
In a speech upon woman's rights, a lady orator is said to have exclaimed, "It is well known that Solomon owed his wisdom to the number of his wives!" This is too much; nevertheless, Sir Samuel Romilly gave the experience of many successful men when he said that there was nothing by which through life he had more profited than by the just observations and the good opinion of his wife.
Most people are acquainted with husbands who have lost almost all self-reliance and self-help because their wives have been only too helpful to them. Trollope and George Eliot faithfully portrayed real life in their stories when they put the reins into the hands of good wives and made them drive the domestic coach, to the immense advantage and comfort of the husbands, who never suspected the real state of the case. No man has so thoroughly as Trollope brought into literature the idea which women have of men—creatures that have to be looked after as grown-up little boys; interesting, piquant, indispensable, but shiftless, headstrong, and at bottom absurd.
But this consciousness which good wives have of the helplessness of husbands renders them all the more valuable in their eyes. Before Weinsberg surrendered to its besiegers, the women of the place asked permission of the captors to remove their valuables. The permission was granted, and shortly after the women were seen issuing from the gates carrying their husbands on their shoulders. Indeed it would be impossible to relate a tenth part of the many ways in which good wives have shown affection for and actively assisted their wedded lords. Knowing this to be the case, we were not surprised to read some time since the following piece of Irish news: "An inquiry was held at Mullingar on Wednesday respecting Mr. H. Smythe's claim of £10,000 as compensation for the loss of his wife, who was shot whilst returning from church. The claim was made under the nineteenth section of the Crime Preservation Act, Ireland." The result of the inquiry we do not know, but for ourselves we think that £10,000 would barely compensate for the loss of a really good article in wives.
Some one told an old bachelor that a friend had gone blind. "Let him marry, then," was the crusty reply; "let him marry, and if that doesn't open his eyes, then his case is indeed hopeless." But this, we must remember, was not the experience of a married man.
A friend was talking to Wordsworth of De Quincey's articles about him. Wordsworth begged him to stop; he hadn't read them, and did not wish to ruffle himself about them. "Well," said the friend, "I'll tell you only one thing he says, and then we'll talk of other things. He says your wife is too good for you." The old poet's dim eyes lighted up, and he started from his chair, crying with enthusiasm, "And that's true! There he's right!" his disgust and contempt visibly moderating. Many a man whose faith in womankind was weak before marriage can a few years afterwards sympathize most fully with this pathetic confession of the old poet.
A Scotch dealer, when exhorting his son to practise honesty on the ground of its being the "best policy," quietly added, "I hae tried baith." So is it in reference to matrimony and celibacy. The majority of those who have "tried baith" are of opinion that the former is the best policy.
It would be absurd to assert that the marriage state is free from care and anxiety; but what of that? Is not care and trouble the condition of any and every state of life? He that will avoid trouble must avoid the world. "Marriage," says Dr. Johnson, "is not commonly unhappy, but as life is unhappy." And the summing up, so to speak, of this great authority is well known—"Marriage has many pains, but celibacy no pleasures."
