Meanwhile, there is a life to live, there are things to do! A woman must get happiness from the exercise of all her activities, both spontaneous and enforced—even more than from her drawing-room or her jewels. We propose to pass in review as large a number of these occupations as possible, to show that, small or great, there is not one but appears to a woman a source of joy and glory if she mingles love with it. Everything she does, however infinitely humble, be it kneading bread for her husband or washing his feet, is vivified with a transfiguring radiance whenever the spirit of abnegation animates her toil, whenever she reflects that this husband is not the sole man existing in the world, nor a sort of domestic drill-sergeant, but represents the eternal idea sounding in every heart. We have already seen these noble women in days of trouble quivering with devotion at the bedside of their sick husbands; it is the same in days of happiness. They find strength in abstraction; the things that surround us so marvellously change their aspect, contract, expand, according as we take them for what they are or glorify them with thoughts of higher things—thoughts, not idle fancies, whether roseate or gloomy, whether too brilliant in prospect or too distressing in reality. It is chiefly in domestic life that abstraction is useful. The woman must steep her hands in beauty, fill her eyes with love, and then look at things courageously and truthfully. Everything, even vice itself, appears frigid, vulgar, and commonplace to materialists; women ought (yes, ought, not merely can) to render everything warm and gay—even virtue. Let us take haphazard some of the doings which most strikingly exhibit them—their eating, walking, country habits, Sunday occupations. From each of these they are able to strike the sacred spark. We shall see how everything is transfigured in their hands. First then, their eating. Nothing is more material in itself, and nothing better lends itself to spiritualisation. A house was characterised by the way in which a formal dinner was managed; this was the touchstone of true style. On the table was placed the massive and weighty silver plate, the family treasure which the mistress of the house kept under lock and key, and which was worth a fortune. The plate of some families was valued at a million francs. On days of high festivity the table blazed with ponderous gold, but they were content with silver for private dinners. The regulation of the menu was rightly regarded as a matter of such difficulty and importance that men of the highest merit made it their study to lay down fixed principles on the subject. Fulvio Orsini[195] has acquainted us with all the best traditions of ancient Rome. Platina,[196] the Raphael of the tribe, published under the auspices of Cardinal Roverella a treatise which may be cited as a perfect model.