or the Romans.”  But she had something more than cleverness—­she had the confidence, generosity, and unselfishness which I have set forth as the main conditions of happiness.  I must repeat an old story; for it cannot too often be repeated.  Think of the woman who gathered all her resolution and uttered no sound, although the end of her finger was smashed by the closing of the carriage-door!  Mr. D’Israeli was about to make a great speech; so his wife would not disturb him on his way to Westminster, though flesh and bone of her finger were crushed.  She fainted when the orator had gone to his task; but her fortitude did not forsake her until her beloved was out of danger of being perturbed.  That one authentic story is worth a hundred dramatic tales of stagey heroism.  And we must remember how the statesman repaid the simple devotion of his wife.  All his spare time was passed in her company, and the quaint pair wandered in the woods like happy boy and girl.  Then, when the indomitable man had raised himself to be head of the State, and was offered a peerage, he declined; but he begged that his wife might be created countess in her own right.  Could anything be more graceful and courtly?  “You are the superior,” the first man in England seemed to say; “and I am content to rejoice in your honours without rivalling them.”  All the fanciful rhymes of the troubadours cannot furnish anything prettier than that.

If we leave the Beaconsfields and the Chathams and come among less exalted folk, we find that the same laws regulate happy marriages.  Confidence, generosity, unselfishness—­that is all.  In this beautiful England of ours there are happy households which are almost numberless.  The good folk do not care for fame or power; their happiness is rounded off and completed within their own walls, and they live as the lordly Chatham lived when he was free from the ties of place and Parliament.  On summer days, when the quiet evening is closing, the wayfarer may obtain chance glimpses of such happy homes here and there.  Some are inhabited by wealthy men, some by poor workmen; but the essential happiness of both classes is arrived at in the same way.

A young man wisely waits until his judgment is matured, and then proceeds to choose his mate; he does not blunder into heroic fooleries in the way of self-abnegation; for, if his choice is judicious, the lady will prevent him from hurting his own prospects.  Whether he be aristocrat or plebeian, he knows the worth of money, and he knows how to despise the foolish beings who talk of “dross” and “filthy lucre” and the rest.  Mere craving for money he despises; but he knows that the amount of “dross” in a man’s possession roughly indicates his resources in the way of energy, ability, and self-control.  When he marries, his wife is reasonably free from sordid cares.  It may be that he has only seventy pounds in a building society, it may be that his cheque for fifty thousand pounds would be honoured; but the