she concludes that you would be with her if you could, and that satisfies; she laments the absence, but submits to it without complaining.  Yet, in these cases, her feelings ought to be consulted as much as possible; she ought to be fully apprised of the probable duration of the absence, and of the time of return; and if these be dependent on circumstances, those circumstances ought to be fully stated; for you have no right to keep her mind upon the rack, when you have it in your power to put it in a state of ease.  Few men have been more frequently taken from home by business, or by a necessity of some sort, than I have; and I can positively assert, that, as to my return, I never once disappointed my wife in the whole course of our married life.  If the time of return was contingent, I never failed to keep her informed from day to day:  if the time was fixed, or when it became fixed, my arrival was as sure as my life.  Going from London to Botley, once, with Mr. FINNERTY, whose name I can never pronounce without an expression of my regard for his memory, we stopped at ALTON, to dine with a friend, who, delighted with Finnerty’s talk, as every body else was, kept us till ten or eleven o’clock, and was proceeding to the other bottle, when I put in my protest, saying, ’We must go, my wife will be frightened.’  ‘Blood, man,’ said Finnerty, ’you do not mean to go home to-night!’ I told him I did; and then sent my son, who was with us, to order out the post-chaise.  We had twenty-three miles to go, during which we debated the question, whether Mrs. COBBETT would be up to receive us, I contending for the affirmative, and he for the negative.  She was up, and had a nice fire for us to sit down at.  She had not committed the matter to a servant:  her servants and children were all in bed; and she was up, to perform the duty of receiving her husband and his friend.  ‘You did not expect him?’ said Finnerty.  ‘To be sure I did,’ said she; ‘he never disappointed me in his life.’

177.  Now, if all young men knew how much value women set upon this species of fidelity, there would be fewer unhappy couples than there are.  If men have appointments with lords, they never dream of breaking them; and I can assure them that wives are as sensitive in this respect as lords.  I had seen many instances of conjugal unhappiness arising out of that carelessness which left wives in a state of uncertainty as to the movements of their husbands; and I took care, from the very outset, to guard against it.  For no man has a right to sport with the feelings of any innocent person whatever, and particularly with those of one who has committed her happiness to his hands.  The truth is, that men in general look upon women as having no feelings different from their own; and they know that they themselves would regard such disappointments as nothing.  But this is a great mistake:  women feel more acutely than men; their love is more ardent, more pure, more lasting, and they are more frank and sincere in the utterance of their feelings.  They ought to be treated with due consideration had for all their amiable qualities and all their weaknesses, and nothing by which their minds are affected ought to be deemed a trifle.