WILLIAM COBBETT. 97 



bility, be attended with any one single advantage, however 

 small. Fifteen pounds a year thus thrown away would 

 amount, in the course of a tradesman's life, to a decent 

 fortune for a child. Then there is the injury to health from 

 these night adventures ; there are the quarrels, there is the 

 vicious habit of loose and filthy talk, there are the slanders 

 and the backbitings, there are the admiration of contemptible 

 wit, and there the scoffings at all that is sober and serious.* 



The next even improves upon this : — 



'Show your affection for your wife and your admiration 

 of her not in nonsensical compliment, not in picking up her 

 handkerchief or her glove, or in carrying her fan; not, 

 though you have the means, in hanging trinkets and baubles 

 upon her; not in making yourself a fool by winking at and 

 seeming pleased with her foibles or follies or faults ; but 

 show them by acts of real goodness towards her ; prove by 

 unequivocal deeds the high value you set on her health 

 and life and peace of mind ; let your praise of her go to 

 the full extent of her deserts, but let it be consistent with 

 truth and with sense, and such as to convince her of your 

 sincerity. He who is the flatterer of his wife only prepares 

 her ears for the hyperbolical stuff of others. The kindest 

 appellation that her Christian name affords is the best you 

 can use, especially before faces. An everlasting " my dear" 

 is but a sorry compensation for a want of that sort of love 

 that makes the husband cheerfully toil by day, break his 

 rest by night, endure all sorts of hardships, if the life or 

 health of his wife demand it. Let your deeds and not your 

 words carry to her heart a daily and hourly confirmation of 

 the fact that you value her health and life and happiness 

 beyond all other things in the world; and let this be 



