"And modest diffidence?"
"Turns to fawning humility."
"And noble pride?"
"To vulgar haughtiness."
"And readiness to oblige?"
"Becomes a habit of too ready friendship and servility."
"Dear aunt, you make me almost angry. My future husband can never degenerate thus. He has one virtue which will preserve him as he is for ever. A deep sense, an indestructible feeling for everything that is great and good and noble, dwells in his bosom. And this delicate susceptibility to all that is noble dwells in me also, I hope, as well as in him. This is the innate pledge and security for our happiness."
"But if it should grow old with you; if it should change to hateful excitability; and excitability is the worst enemy of matrimony. You both possess sensibility. That I do not deny; but beware lest this grace should degenerate into an irritable and quarrelsome mortal."
"Ah, Dearest aunt, if I might never become old! I could then be sure that my husband would never cease to love me."
"Thou art greatly in error, dear child! Wert thou always as fresh and beautiful as to-day, still thy husband's eye would by custom of years become indifferent to these advantages. Custom is the greatest enchantress in the world, and in the house one of the most benevolent of fairies. She render's that which is the most beautiful, as well as the ugliest, familiar. A wife is young, and becomes old; it is custom which hinders the husband from perceiving the change. On the contrary, did she remain young, while he became old, it might bring consequences, and render the man in years jealous. It is better as kind Providence has ordered it. Imagine that thou hadst grown to be an old woman, and thy husband were a blooming youth; how wouldst thou then feel?"