125.  GOOD TEMPER.  This is a very difficult thing to ascertain beforehand.  Smiles are so cheap; they are so easily put on for the occasion; and, besides, the frowns are, according to the lover’s whim, interpreted into the contrary.  By ‘good temper,’ I do not mean easy temper, a serenity which nothing disturbs, for that is a mark of laziness. Sulkiness, if you be not too blind to perceive it, is a temper to be avoided by all means.  A sulky man is bad enough; what, then, must be a sulky woman, and that woman a wife; a constant inmate, a companion day and night!  Only think of the delight of sitting at the same table, and sleeping in the same bed, for a week, and not exchange a word all the while!  Very bad to be scolding for such a length of time; but this is far better than the sulks.  If you have your eyes, and look sharp, you will discover symptoms of this, if it unhappily exist.  She will, at some time or other, show it towards some one or other of the family; or, perhaps, towards yourself; and you may be quite sure that, in this respect, marriage will not mend her.  Sulkiness arises from capricious displeasure, displeasure not founded in reason.  The party takes offence unjustifiably; is unable to frame a complaint, and therefore expresses displeasure by silence.  The remedy for sulkiness is, to suffer it to take its full swing; but it is better not to have the disease in your house; and to be married to it is little short of madness.

126. Querulousness is a great fault.  No man, and, especially, no woman, likes to hear eternal plaintiveness.  That she complain, and roundly complain, of your want of punctuality, of your coolness, of your neglect, of your liking the company of others:  these are all very well, more especially as they are frequently but too just.  But an everlasting complaining, without rhyme or reason, is a bad sign.  It shows want of patience, and, indeed, want of sense.  But, the contrary of this, a cold indifference, is still worse.  ’When will you come again?  You can never find time to come here.  You like any company better than mine.’  These, when groundless, are very teasing, and demonstrate a disposition too full of anxiousness; but, from a girl who always receives you with the same civil smile, lets you, at your own good pleasure, depart with the same; and who, when you take her by the hand, holds her cold fingers as straight as sticks, I say (or should if I were young), God, in his mercy, preserve me!

127. Pertinacity is a very bad thing in anybody, and especially in a young woman; and it is sure to increase in force with the age of the party.  To have the last word is a poor triumph; but with some people it is a species of disease of the mind.  In a wife it must be extremely troublesome; and, if you find an ounce of it in the maid, it will become a pound in the wife.  An eternal disputer is a most disagreeable companion; and where young women thrust their say into conversations carried on by older persons, give their opinions in a positive manner, and court a contest of the tongue, those must be very bold men who will encounter them as wives.