which are founded on variety, make no lasting impressions on the mind; they only serve to prove the impossibility of permanent happiness, of which some women entertain _chimerical expectations_: but the duchess was too rational to make amusement her principal object. A woman that is hurried away by a fondness for it, is, generally speaking, a very useless member of the community: A party of pleasure will make her forget every connection: and she is often sick without knowing _where_ her complaint _lies_, because she has nothing _to do_, and is tired of being _well_. The duchess had loved her husband passionately. If any person had a desire of ingratiating themselves with her, they had only to begin by him: To praise, to please, or admire him, opened to them a reception in her heart. But our best virtues, when pushed to a certain degree, are on the point of becoming vices: She soon found she was to blame, in dedicating herself too fondly even to this beloved object. She exhausted her whole sensibility on him, and in proportion to the strength of her attachment, was the mortification she endured in being abandoned by him. But had not even this been her fate, the extravagant excesses of passion are but too generally followed by an intolerable langour. The woman who wishes to preserve her husband's affection, should be careful to conceal from him the extent of _hers_: there should be always something left for him to expect. Fancy governs mankind: and when the imagination is cloyed, reason is a slave to caprice.