Letters of Two Brides

Our position will not be without its dangers; in a

country life, such as ours will be, ought we not to bear in mind the

evanescent nature of passion? Is it not simple prudence to make

provision beforehand against the calamities incident to change of

feeling?" He was greatly astonished to find me at once so reasonable and so apt

at reasoning; but he made me a solemn promise, after which I took his

hand and pressed it affectionately.

We were married at the end of the week. Secure of my freedom, I was

able to throw myself gaily into the petty details which always

accompany a ceremony of the kind, and to be my natural self. Perhaps I

may have been taken for an old bird, as they say at Blois. A young

girl, delighted with the novel and hopeful situation she had contrived

to make for herself, and may have passed for a strong-minded female.

Dear, the difficulties which would beset my life had appeared to me

clearly as in a vision, and I was sincerely anxious to make the

happiness of the man I married. Now, in the solitude of a life like

ours, marriage soon becomes intolerable unless the woman is the

presiding spirit.

A woman in such a case needs the charm of a

mistress, combined with the solid qualities of a wife. To introduce an

element of uncertainty into pleasure is to prolong illusion, and

render lasting those selfish satisfactions which all creatures hold,

and should shroud a woman in expectancy, crown her sovereign, and

invest her with an exhaustless power, a redundancy of life, that makes

everything blossom around her. The more she is mistress of herself,

the more certainly will the love and happiness she creates be fit to

weather the storms of life.

But, above all, I have insisted on the greatest secrecy in regard to

our domestic arrangements. A husband who submits to his wife's yoke is

justly held an object of ridicule. A woman's influence ought to be

entirely concealed. The charm of all we do lies in its unobtrusiveness.

If I have made it my task to raise a drooping courage and restore their

natural brightness to gifts which I have dimly descried, it must all

seem to spring from Louis himself.

Such is the mission to which I dedicate myself, a mission surely not

ignoble, and which might well satisfy a woman's ambition. Why, I could

glory in this secret which shall fill my life with interest, in this

task towards which my every energy shall be bent, while it remains

concealed from all but God and you.