Thus the wife becomes the easy dupe of a husband who is clever enough
to give to the inevitable revolution, which comes sooner or later, the
advantageous results we have indicated.
You must import into your establishment that remarkable phenomenon
whose existence is demonstrated in the asymptotes of geometry. Your
wife will always try to minotaurize you without being successful. Like
those knots which are never so tight as when one tries to loosen them,
she will struggle to the advantage of your power over her, while she
believes that she is struggling for her independence.
The highest degree of good play on the part of a prince lies in
persuading his people that he goes to war for them, while all the time
he is causing them to be killed for his throne.
But many husbands will find a preliminary difficulty in executing this
plan of campaign. If your wife is a woman of profound dissimulation,
the question is, what signs will indicate to her the motives of your
long mystification?
It will be seen that our Meditation on the Custom House, as well as
that on the Bed, has already revealed certain means of discerning the
thought of a woman; but we make no pretence in this book of
exhaustively stating the resources of human wit, which are
immeasurable.
Pages:
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138