Cashel Byron's Profession

"Although your future will not concern me, I often find myself

thinking of it. I fear you will soon find that the world has not yet

provided a place and a sphere of action for wise and well-instructed

women. In my younger days, when the companionship of my fellows was

a necessity to me, I voluntarily set aside my culture, relaxed my

principles, and acquired common tastes, in order to fit myself for

the society of the only men within my reach; for, if I had to live

among bears, I had rather be a bear than a man. Let me warn you

against this. Never attempt to accommodate yourself to the world by

self-degradation. Be patient; and you will enjoy frivolity all the

more because you are not frivolous: much as the world will respect

your knowledge all the more because of its own ignorance.

"Some day, I expect and hope, you will marry. You will then have an

opportunity of making an irremediable mistake, against the

possibility of which no advice of mine or subtlety of yours can

guard you. I think you will not easily find a man able to satisfy in

you that desire to be relieved of the responsibility of thinking out

and ordering our course of life that makes us each long for a guide

whom we can thoroughly trust. If you fail, remember that your

father, after suffering a bitter and complete disappointment in his

wife, yet came to regard his marriage as the happiest event in his

career. Let me remind you also, since you are so rich, that it would

he a great folly for you to be jealous of your own income, and to

limit your choice of a husband to those already too rich to marry

for money. No vulgar adventurer will be able to recommend himself to

you; and better men will be at least as much frightened as attracted

by your wealth. The only class against which I need warn you is that

to which I myself am supposed to belong. Never think that a man must

prove a suitable and satisfying friend for you merely because he has

read much criticism; that he must feel the influences of art as you

do because he knows and adopts the classification of names and

schools with which you are familiar; or that because he agrees with

your favorite authors he must necessarily interpret their words to

himself as you understand them. Beware of men who have read more

than they have worked, or who love to read better than to work.

Beware of painters, poets, musicians, and artists of all sorts,

except very great artists: beware even of them as husbands and

fathers. Self-satisfied workmen who have learned their business

well, whether they be chancellors of the exchequer or farmers, I

recommend to you as, on the whole, the most tolerable class of men I

have met.