There is in life one principle more potent than life itself.  It is a movement whose celerity springs from an unknown motive power.  Man is no more acquainted with the secret of this revolution than the earth is aware of that which causes her rotation.  A certain something, which I gladly call the current of life, bears along our choicest thoughts, makes use of most people’s will and carries us on in spite of ourselves.  Thus, a man of common-sense, who never fails to pay his bills, if he is a merchant, a man who has been able to escape death, or what perhaps is more trying, sickness, by the observation of a certain easy but daily regimen, is completely and duly nailed up between the four planks of his coffin, after having said every evening:  “Dear me! to-morrow I will not forget my pills!” How are we to explain this magic spell which rules all the affairs of life?  Do men submit to it from a want of energy?  Men who have the strongest wills are subject to it.  Is it default of memory?  People who possess this faculty in the highest degree yield to its fascination.

Every one can recognize the operation of this influence in the case of his neighbor, and it is one of the things which exclude the majority of husbands from the honeymoon.  It is thus that the wise man, survivor of all reefs and shoals, such as we have pointed out, sometimes falls into the snares which he himself has set.

I have myself noticed that man deals with marriage and its dangers in very much the same way that he deals with wigs; and perhaps the following phases of thought concerning wigs may furnish a formula for human life in general.

FIRST EPOCH.—­Is it possible that I shall ever have white hair?

SECOND EPOCH.—­In any case, if I have white hair, I shall never wear a wig.  Good Lord! what is more ugly than a wig?

One morning you hear a young voice, which love much oftener makes to vibrate than lulls to silence, exclaiming: 

“Well, I declare!  You have a white hair!”

THIRD EPOCH.—­Why not wear a well-made wig which people would not notice?  There is a certain merit in deceiving everybody; besides, a wig keeps you warm, prevents taking cold, etc.

FOURTH EPOCH.—­The wig is so skillfully put on that you deceive every one who does not know you.

The wig takes up all your attention, and amour-propre makes you every morning as busy as the most skillful hairdresser.

FIFTH EPOCH.—­The neglected wig.  “Good heavens!  How tedious it is, to have to go with bare head every evening, and to curl one’s wig every morning!”

SIXTH EPOCH.—­The wig allows certain white hairs to escape; it is put on awry and the observer perceives on the back of your neck a white line, which contrasts with the deep tints pushed back by the collar of your coat.

SEVENTH EPOCH.—­Your wig is as scraggy as dog’s tooth grass; and —­excuse the expression—­you are making fun of your wig.