To be of a different country from that of our companion implies not only the speaking of a different language but the loving different things, the feeling, thinking, hating, and desiring things unlike. We are all living fragments of a long history of many centuries, and to unite and make two beings agree who were born under separate skies, educated with diversity of taste, with different ideals of religion, morality, politics, and customs, is possible, but difficult and uncommon. Look around, and you will find that the most frequent motive of these _mésalliances_ is nearly always some pecuniary interest, or else one of rank, unless an all-powerful love has submerged the other incitements toward a reasonable marriage in its tumultuous and furious waves. Amongst other marriages those of American girl millionaires, who come to Europe to exchange their dollars for shields bearing the arms of our counts, marquises, and princes, are very well known. The difference of nationality in two married people is just one point lessening the probability of their happiness, and it is aggravated a hundred times if a difference in religion is added to the scale. There is no great love without great faith, and he who loves much finds the speaking of another language, the following of dissimilar customs, the praying in a church or mosque, but insignificant obstacles. But great love, however long it may last, calms down and becomes a tender and fond habit; and when the sea of passion is calmed one looks through the water, now grown so clear and transparent, and sees at the bottom the points of diversity of faith, taste, and habits, standing up ruggedly, the rocks rising and coming to the surface, and rendering navigation difficult and full of perils. The honeymoon is then hidden behind the dense stormy clouds, and the mariners run into the shallows of indifference, or dash the vessel against the waves of incompatibility and domestic discord. The calkers may come with their gold and their coats of arms to patch up the wreckage, but it will always be patched badly, and the holy concord of bodies and souls will be lost forever. CHAPTER V. THE HARMONY OF FEELINGS. Fish, birds, and mammals, when they feel themselves fit for love and wish to win it, develop new organs, new songs, the newest seductions, and with æsthetic or musical fascination engage in the pleasant warfare of voluptuousness. They show the female all they have of the best, all that is most irresistible, and thus obtain the prize of victory. So do men and women. They adorn themselves, hide their defects, and make a show of their beauty, but as the battle between them is fought on a higher plane, each one polishes up rusty virtues, invents new ones, and sends his vices or moral weaknesses to prison or into exile.