Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/189

 Rh lady, not destitute of self-esteem, observed to Boswell that she hoped men and women would be equal in another world, that gentleman replied with spirit: "Madam, you are too ambitious. We might as well desire to be equal with the angels."

The dissimulation which Dr. Gregory urged upon his daughters, and which is the safe-guard of all misplaced intelligence, extended to matters more vital than Latin and astronomy. He warned them, as they valued their earthly happiness, never to make a confidante of a married woman, "especially if she lives happily with her husband"; and never to reveal to their own husbands the excess of their wifely affection. "Do not discover to any man the full extent of your love, no, not although you marry him. That sufficiently shows your preference, which is all he is entitled to know. If he has delicacy, he will ask for no stronger proof of your affection, for your sake; if he has sense, he will not ask it, for his own. Violent love cannot subsist, at least cannot be expressed, for any time together on both sides. Nature in this case has laid the reserve on