There is something so gross in the Carriage of some Wives, that they lose their Husbands Hearts for Faults, which, if a Man has either Good-Nature or Good-Breeding, he knows not how to tell them of. I am afraid, indeed, the Ladies are generally most faulty in this Particular, who, at their first giving into Love, find the Way so smooth and pleasant, that they fancy 'tis scarce possible to be tired in it.
There is so much Nicety and Discretion requir'd to keep Love alive after Marriage, and make Conversation still new and agreeable after twenty or thirty years, that I know nothing which seems readily to promise it, but an earnest endeavour to please on both sides, and superior good Sense on the part of Man.
By a Man of Sense, I mean one acquainted with Business and Letters.
A Woman very much settles her Esteem for a Man, according to the Figure he makes in the World, and the Character he bears among his own Sex. As Learning is the chief Advantage we have over them, it is, methinks, as scandalous and inexcusable for a Man of Fortune to be illiterate, as for a Woman not to know how to behave her self on the most ordinary Occasions. It is this which sets the two Sexes at the greatest Distance; a Woman is vexed and surpriz'd, to find nothing more in the Conversation of a Man, than in the common Tattle of her own Sex.
Some small Engagement at least in Business, not only sets a Man's Talents in the fairest Light, and allots him a Part to act, in which a Wife cannot well intermeddle; but gives frequent occasions for those little Absences, which, whatever seeming Uneasiness they may give, are some of the best Preservatives of Love and De
Sir
e.
Lætitia
is pretty, modest, tender, and has Sense enough; she married
Erastus