According to characters and circumstances, resignation is the virtue of the weak or the virtue of the strong. A woman resigns herself to her fate in married life, sometimes because she has not enough strength of will, sometimes because she does not deign to revolt, oftener still because she discovers that her rebellion could only make matters worse for herself, and especially for her children.

If her husband is good, her resignation will soon bring him back to her; if he is bad, her rebellion will make him much worse.

If you cannot sympathize with your husband, or adopt his views and manner of thinking, resign yourself, keep your views for yourself, and do not transform your married life into an eternal French public meeting, where, instead of striking pebbles together in order to obtain light, they throw them at one another's faces.

Fulfil your duties. Never complain. Never exact what is not offered to you, unless it be respect. So long as your husband treats you with respect, at home as well as in public; so long as he is the thoughtful father of your children, and carefully and industriously attends to his profession or business, respect him and inspire in your children the respect for him, and especially do not make your children the confidant of your grievances; that is your foremost duty.

I cannot say to you: Try to force yourself to love your husband. This is not in your power. But I will say: Be irreproachable, and thus make yourself the superior of your husband. Devote yourself to your family. If you are rich, do with your money all the good that you can. The greatest possession is self-esteem. You can rise so high that the offences committed against you may appear infinitely small. After all, we get in this world the place that we know how to make for ourselves.

Never let the outside public know the details of your private life. Receive your friends and your guests with a smile on your lips. If your husband is a gentleman, he will show you before them the greatest consideration, and if you are a lady you will treat him in a like manner.

If your husband is unable to offer you his love—I mean a lover's love—do not commit the mistake of refusing his friendship, for it is just possible that this man, who has not in him the power to love you as a lover, would still be ready to give his life for you.

He would certainly be still ready to give it for his children, your children. Surely that friendship is worth having. Of course, the young wife, who discovers after only a few years of marriage that the dream of love has vanished, is to be pitied, supposing that it has not been through her fault that the dream has had such a short life; but the woman who for twenty or more years has had a faithful lover-husband is conceited and ridiculous beyond measure when she does not almost cheerfully resign herself to the inevitable crisis in matrimony; and if she has children that she takes in her confidence, and thus estranges from their father, her vanity is not very far from criminal. At all events, she deserves the sympathy of no one.

Resign yourself to the inevitable. Let the days of love, happiness, and devotion count in the final reckoning, and, in turning over a new leaf, be sure you bring forward devotion, and soon happiness may have to be added again.

Put on a cheerful face always, and remember that it pays to excite envy, never to excite pity.