"And here my dear child, let me advise you to avoid by all means what is called a clean wife. You will be made to endure the extreme of misery under the base, the inviduous pretext of being rendered comfortable. Your house will be an ark tossed by continual floods. You will never know what it is to properly accommodate your shoulders to a shirt, so brief will be its visit to your back ere it again go to the washtub. And then for spiders, fleas, and other household insects, sent especially into our homesteads to awaken the enquiring spirit of man, to at once humble his individual pride by the contemplation of their sagacity, and to elevate him by the frequent evidence of the marvels of animal life--all these calls upon our higher faculties will be wanting, and lacking them your immortal part will be dizzied, stunned by the monotony of the scrubbing-brush, and poisoned past the remedy of perfume by yellow soap. Your wife and children, too, will have their faces continually shining like the holiday saucers on the mantel-piece. Now consider the conceit, the worse than arrogance of this; the studied callous forgetfulness of the beginning of man. Did he not spring from the earth?--from clay--dirt--mould--mud--garden soil, or composition of some sort, for theological geology (you must look in the dictionary for these words) has not precisely defined what; and is it not the basest impudence of pride to seek to wash and scrub and rub away the original spot? Is he not the most natural man who in vulgar meaning is the dirtiest? Depend upon it, there is a fine natural religion in dirt; and yet we see men and women strive to appear as if they were compounded of the roses and lilies in Paradise instead of the fine rich loam, that feeds their roots. Be assured of it, there is great piety in what the ignorant foolishly call filth. Take some of the Saints for an example--off with their coats, and away with their hair shirts; and even then, my son, so intently have they considered and been influenced by the lowly origin of man, that with the most curious eye, and most delicate finger, you shall not be able to tell where either saint or dirt begins or ends." In a "Man made of Money," we have something original--a dialogue between two fleas, as they stand on the brow of Mr. Jericho-- "'My son,' says the elder, 'true it is, man feeds for us. Man is the labouring chemist for the fleas; for them he turns the richest meats and spiciest drinks to flea wine. Nevertheless, and I say it with much pain, man is not what he was. He adulterates our tipple most wickedly.'