I myself advised a dear friend of mine to marry a young girl who appeared to be, and had been up to that time, the goddess of modesty, the angel of chastity; I wrote my _milla osta_ on the passport of my friend, and he, who was good enough to believe me a great specialist in this abstruse matter, embarked trustfully and happily on the tempestuous sea of matrimony. Alas! after a few months the goddess of modesty had become a Mepalura!—I had forgotten to inquire after the temperament of her father and mother. Having made the hereditary inquiry, and found the young lady with a _clean bill of health_, you must study her. On an equality with other conditions, if you desire a tranquil and not exacting _wife_, seek these elements in her: Light hair, blue eyes, fairly stout, a calm expression, natural movements, little or no nervousness, lips rather thin, no protuberance of the upper lip. Great love of children, a sure sign of a great development of the sentiment of maternity, which is the most powerful restraint on exaggerated desires of the flesh. If, on the contrary, you desire an ardent woman, you will more easily find her with black eyes and hair, dark skin, tumid and thickish lips, a thin frame. She will be nervous, very sensitive, of a capricious character, she will have glances of fire and snakelike movements. All these physical and moral lineaments are very gross, and only have value as general observations, such as one reads on passports, equally suited to a hundred different people. I myself must make a criticism on these two examples of mine although they are taken from life, and are the result of many repeated observations. As regards the blonde and brunette I ought, for example, to make you at once aware that I mean to speak of those nations in which there is a great mixture of ethnic types, which gives us in the same city, in the same village, women with light, chestnut-coloured or black hair. Where all are light, or all are dark, we still find women of ice and of fire, without any change in the colour of their skin or hair. The fullness of body is of greater importance, for it has a more intimate and varied connection with the general nutrition of the whole organism. It is very rare to find an exacting woman amongst the corpulent, unless they are hysterical, and, from the protuberant lip and bosom, are condemned to sterility. It is equally rare to find a cold woman amongst thin ones. The fleshiness of the lip is a good index by which to measure the sensuality of a woman, and it is so sure a one that I have given it an ethnic character, having found it in the most different races of Asia and Africa, where polygamy is usual, and physical love is the first pleasure and first occupation of man and woman. ⁂