Alice, or the Mysteries — Book 06

								

better appreciate his good qualities, such as they were,--generosity,
good-temper, good-nature, and unbounded indulgence to herself.  Husband
and wife have so many interests in common, that when they have jogged on
through the ups and downs of life a sufficient time, the leash which at
first galled often grows easy and familiar; and unless the temper, or
rather the disposition and the heart, of either be insufferable, what was
once a grievous yoke becomes but a companionable tie.  And for the rest,
Valerie, now that sentiment and fancy were sobered down, could take
pleasure in a thousand things which her pining affections once, as it
were, overlooked and overshot.  She could feel grateful for all the
advantages her station and wealth procured her; she could cull the roses
in her reach, without sighing for the amaranths of Elysium.
If the great have more temptations than those of middle life, and if
their senses of enjoyment become more easily pampered into a sickly
apathy, so at least (if they can once outlive satiety) they have many
more resources at their command.  There is a great deal of justice in the
old line, displeasing though it be to those who think of love in a
cottage, "'Tis best repenting in a coach and six!"  If among the
Eupatrids, the Well Born, there is less love in wedlock, less quiet
happiness at home, still they are less chained each to each,--they have
more independence, both the woman and the man, and occupations and the
solace without can be so easily obtained!  Madame de Ventadour, in
retiring from the mere frivolities of society--from crowded rooms, and
the inane talk and hollow smiles of mere acquaintanceship--became more
sensible of the pleasures that her refined and elegant intellect could
derive from art and talent, and the communion of friendship.  She drew
around her the most cultivated minds of her time and country.  Her
abilities, her wit, and her conversational graces enabled her not only to
mix on equal terms with the most eminent, but to amalgamate and blend the
varieties of talent into harmony.  The same persons, when met elsewhere,
seemed to have lost their charm; under Valerie's roof every one breathed
a congenial atmosphere.  And music and letters, and all that can refine
and embellish civilized life, contributed their resources to this gifted
and beautiful woman.  And thus she found that the mind has excitement
and occupation, as well as the heart; and, unlike the latter, the culture
we bestow upon the first ever yields us its return.  We talk of education
for the poor, but we forget how much it is needed by the rich.  Valerie
was a living instance of the advantages to women of knowledge and
intellectual resources.  By them she had purified her fancy, by them she
had conquered discontent, by them she had grown reconciled to life and to
her lot!  When the heavy heart weighed down the one scale, it was the