Richard was a most moral and refined man at home in his domestic life. He was not only the best husband that ever lived, but the pleasantest man to live with, and the easiest. He was too large-minded for all the usual small worries and Grundified conventions that form the cab-shafts of domestic life in civilization. He was a man with whom it was possible to combine, to keep up all the little refinements of the honeymoon, which tends to preserve affection and respect, and a halo of romance, which we kept up for thirty years, which is to civilized European life, just what putting one's self on a lower rank than one's husband in Moslem life is in the East--it preserves respect to both man and woman; whilst anything immoral, or cruel, or dishonest called forth his anger and severity. He was a man who, if he had not practised great self-control, _could_ have had a very violent temper; but he had it so completely under him, that I have very seldom seen him in a rage, except, as I say, at anything cruel or unjust, ungentlemanly or immoral. With regard to domestic temper, it is a consolation to me to say that we never had a quarrel in our lives, nor even cross words, although occasionally women-friends worked hard to that effect. I always hold it as a rule that it is the most ungenerous thing a woman can be guilty of to "nag" a man, because, if he is a gentleman, he is at an utter disadvantage--he can't strike her. I have often seen women nagging at their husbands till I have wondered why they did not knock them down and jump upon them. When we married, I made a promise to myself that I would never do this, and if I ever saw him a little put out about anything, and felt myself getting irritable, I used to go out of the room on some excuse till it had passed, and then come back, and by that time we would begin to chaff about it, and it was all gone. I remember once slamming the door when I went out, and I heard him roaring with laughter. He never had any mean jealousy, as a little man would have had. If I got any praise he was glad, and when he knew that I had striven my heart out in somebody's service, or for some good, and that I got slighted, as I often did, or a still worse return, he used to be furious, and I always used to have to pretend that I liked it to keep him quiet. In some few cases, let us say in the service of the poor, or in the protection of animals, I was more frequently seen than he was, and some ignorant person would say, "Look, my dear, that is the kind lady's husband;" and he used to roar with laughing, and say, "What a capital joke for me to be known only as 'Lady B.'s husband'!" Then we used to laugh, and I used to pretend to be delighted with my importance.