Page:The Clergyman's Wife.djvu/377

mockery,) draws inspiration from the magnetic breath of her appreciative praises. If he is fortunate, her enthusiasm gives sweetness to his successes;—if he is struggling, her heroism in battling with difficulties, infuses courage into his soul;—if his steps are dogged by the evil spirit of failure, her cheerful patience softens the disheartening persecutions of the demon. When he returns troubled and fretful to his home, her tact ignores his ill humor until he forgets it himself;—when he is unreasonable she smiles, unseen, at his grave contradictions, and allows him to chide her for supposed caprice. She bears with his failings as no one else can or will bear with them;—she well knows that endurance is her own especial gift, and not his, and deems his peevishness and impatience, when he is suffering, a matter of course, though double the amount of pain would not extract from her a murmur or a groan. She comprehends how much the peace and happiness of life—married life in particular—depend upon trifles as light as air, and strives to guard him against petty domestic vexations, less endurable to some temperaments than actual afflictions. She never forgets that the absence from its proper place of the tiny but all important button, the mislaying of the indispensable closet keys, the necessity of waiting for an unpunctual meal, may imperil a man's affection, or unfit him for his most important avocations, particularly if they are of an intellectual or artistic character.

-