I need not detail the arguments by which our final resolution was determined. To go abroad, and embrace a voluntary banishment, would have looked like an admission of guilt, which Astræa persisted in repudiating. Whatever verdict society might choose to pronounce, Astræa would be governed only by her own. Her justice adapted itself expressly to the occasion, setting aside the larger views which laws designed for the general security must include. But such is woman's logic ever!--circumstantially sensitive, clear, and narrow! Her voice was for war. I had no motive for opposing her; my pride agreed with her--my reason took the other side; but, in reality, I saw no great choice either way. I knew, or felt, that society would never be reconciled to us. Men have instincts on such points; but women, with their wild sense of what may be called natural law, never can see these things in the same light. This was a matter I could not argue with Astræa. I merely told her that in our anomalous situation, we must not look for much sympathy or consideration; that, in fact, I had known similar cases (perhaps not quite so peculiar, but that made no difference in the eyes of society), and that the issue of the struggle to get back always ended in increased humiliation; yet I was, nevertheless, ready to adopt any plan of life that would satisfy her feelings. I was bound to think of that first, and perfectly willing to take chance for the rest. It was settled at last, at the close of our long council, that we should adopt a sort of middle course; and before we returned to London, which we now fully resolved to do at the opening of the season, we projected a visit to Brighton, and one or two other places on the coast. VI. Talk of the sagacity of the lower animals, and the reasoning faculties of man! We are the most inconsistent of all creatures; we are perpetually contradicting ourselves, perpetually involved in anomalies of our own making. It is impossible to reconcile half the things we do with the exercise of that reason which we boast of as the grand distinction that elevates us above the horse, the dog, the elephant. We never find any of these animals doing unaccountable things, or practically compromising their sagacity. For my part, looking back on my life, I feel that it is full of contradictions, which, although apparent to me now, were not so in the whirl of agitation out of which they surged. Here, for example, after a flight from the world, and nearly six months' burial in the severest solitude, behold us on a sudden in the midst of the gay crowds of Brighton. The transition is something startling. It was so to us at the time; and I confess that at this distance from the excitement which led to it, I can not help regarding it as an act of signal temerity, considering the circumstances in which we were placed.