Mind you, I did not want a stupid rotter, a cow, a sitter and lounger and taker on of fat and slougher off of intelligence. I did not want the lazy slattern who poses as domestic, who is fond of home in exactly the same way that a pig is fond of an alley wallow. You laugh at me. You say: “He is a conceited fool!--to think that _he_ could attract and absorb an intelligent woman with a complex woman’s soul!” Not so, gentle reader. I did not wish to attract and to absorb her. As for the “complex woman’s soul,” the less I saw or heard of it, the better pleased I’d be. I simply wanted a woman who would join me in being attracted by and absorbed in family life. You are still smiling mockingly. But let me tell you a few secrets of wisdom and happiness. First--Friendship is divine, but intimacy is the devil himself--unless it is the intimacy of the family. Second--To love your neighbor as yourself, he must be and must remain your neighbor, that is to say, within hail, but not within touch. Third--Husband, wife, and children are the only natural intimates--intimate because they have the bond of common interest. The family that looks abroad for intimates has ceased to be a family. Finally--A man who has his wife and children for intimates has neither need nor time for other intimates; and unless a man’s wife and children are his intimates, he has, in fact, no wife and no children. Let me add, for the benefit of--perhaps of you and your husband, gentle reader--that the only career worth having is built upon and with efficient work; careers made with friendships, gaddings, pulls, and the like would better be left unmade. You are smiling still, in your smug, supercilious fashion--smiling at what you promptly call old-fashioned trite truisms. I am not sure that, after they have been thought about a while, they would seem old-fashioned or stale. Rather, I flatter myself, they are the statement of a new philosophy of life. For the old theory with which you are confusing these truths was that the family is the _social unit_. In fact, it is not; the only _social_ units are individuals--capable individuals. My theory, or rather my philosophy--for it is more than a theory--my philosophy is that the family is the _unit of happiness_. Society can--and does--get along fairly well with little or no happiness. But happiness is an excellent thing, nevertheless. And _I_ wanted it.