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The question being put by some of his friends to a
certain Roman, why he had put away his wife, both sober,
[p. 494]
beautiful, chaste, and rich, the gentleman, putting forth
his foot and showing his buskin, said: Is not this a new,
handsome, complete shoe?—yet no man but myself knows
where it pinches me. Therefore ought not a woman to
boast either of her dower, her parentage, or beauty; but
in such things as most delight a husband, pleasantness of
converse, sweetness of disposition, and briskness of humor,
there to show nothing of harshness, nothing distasteful,
nothing offensive, but from day to day to study behavior
jocund, blithe, and conformable to his temper. For as
physicians are much more afraid of fevers that proceed
from hidden causes, which have been by little and little
contracting for a long time together, than those that receive their nourishment from apparent and manifest unconcoctions; thus, if daily continued, the petty snubs and
frumps between man and wife, though perhaps unknown
to others, are of that force that above all things else they
canker conjugal affection, and destroy the pleasure of cohabitation.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 2.
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