So far as we can observe the married life of others, it seems to me that I have met with instances of men, constituted and occupied very much as you are, who have found in marriage a strong protection against the ignorant judgments of their neighbors, and an assurance of intellectual peace; whilst in other cases it has appeared rather as if their solitude were made more a cause of conscious suffering, as if the walls of their cabinets were pulled down for the boobies outside to stare at them and laugh at them. A woman will either take your side against the customs of the little world around, or she will take the side of custom against you. If she loves you deeply, and if there is some visible result of your labors in fame and money, she may possibly do the first, and then she will protect your tranquillity better than a force of policemen, and give you a delightful sense of reconciliation with all humanity; but many of her most powerful instincts tend the other way. She has a natural sympathy with all the observances of custom, and you neglect them; she is fitted for social life, which you are not. Unless you win her wholly to your side, she may undertake the enterprise of curing your eccentricities and adapting you to the ideal of her caste. This may be highly satisfactory to the operator, but it is full of inconveniences to the patient. LETTER VII. TO A LADY OF HIGH CULTURE WHO FOUND IT DIFFICULT TO ASSOCIATE WITH PERSONS OF HER OWN SEX. Men are not very good judges of feminine conversation--The interest of it would be increased if women could be more freely initiated into great subjects--Small subjects interesting when seen in relation to central ideas--That ladies of superior faculty ought rather to elevate female society than withdraw from it--Women when displaced do not appear happy.