I discover that the defects of man spring from the tendency of his natural traits, in which force predominates, to run to excess. I see his gentle companion endowed with attributes and qualities naturally tending to temper his defects. The means she has received to reach this end announce that it is the purpose of nature that she should use them with this view. She has charms which, when rightly applied, none can resist. Her character is a happy compound of sensibility, wisdom and levity. She has superadded a felicity of address which she owes to her organization, and which the reserve, that her education imposes, serves to develope. Thus the qualities, and even the imperfections of the two sexes serve to bring them together. It follows, that man should possess authority, and woman influence, for their mutual happiness. When the wife commands, I cease to behold a respectable married pair. I see a ridiculous tyrant, and a still more ridiculous slave. It is vain to urge that she may be most capable of authority, and that her orders may be conformable to wisdom and justice. They are absurd, from the very circumstance that they are orders. The virtues which the husband ought to practise towards his wife must have their origin in love, which can only be inspired, and which flies all restraint. In a single position, the wife honors herself in assuming authority. It is when reverses have overwhelmed and desolated her husband, so that, ceasing to sustain her and changing the natural order, she supports him. Grant that he receives hope as her gift; grant that he is compelled to blush in imitating her example of courage; she aspires to this power no longer than to be able to restore him to the place whence misery had cast him down.[30]