Returning, however, to the narrower sphere of particular marriages, it may be observed that although full confidence, and, in one sense, complete identification of interests, are the characteristics of a perfect marriage, this does not by any means imply that one partner should be a kind of duplicate of the other. Woman is not a mere weaker man; and the happiest marriages are often those in which, in tastes, character, and intellectual qualities, the wife is rather the complement than the reflection of her husband. In intellectual things this is constantly shown. The purely practical and prosaic intellect is united with an intellect strongly tinged with poetry and romance; the man whose strength is in facts, with the woman whose strength is in ideas; the man who is wholly absorbed in science or politics or economical or industrial problems and pursuits, with a woman who possesses the talent or at least the temperament of an artist or musician. In such cases one partner brings sympathies or qualities, tastes or appreciations or kinds of knowledge in which the other is most defective; and by the close and constant contact of two dissimilar types each is, often insensibly, but usually very effectually, improved. Men differ greatly in their requirements of intellectual sympathy. A perfectly commonplace intellectual surrounding will usually do something to stunt or lower a fine intelligence, but it by no means follows that each man finds the best intellectual atmosphere to be that which is most in harmony with his own special talent. To many, hard intellectual labour is an eminently isolated thing, and what they desire most in the family circle is to cast off all thought of it. I have known two men who were in the first rank of science, intimate friends, and both of them of very domestic characters. One of them was accustomed to do nearly all his work in the presence of his wife, and in the closest possible co-operation with her. The other used to congratulate himself that none of his family had his own scientific tastes, and that when he left his work and came into his family circle he had the rest of finding himself in an atmosphere that was entirely different. Some men of letters need in their work constant stimulus, interest, and sympathy. Others desire only to develop their talent uncontrolled, uninfluenced, and undisturbed, and with an atmosphere of cheerful quiet around them.