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CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE
145

. . . Oh, I cannot deceive myself, or call things by opalescent names, any longer! My husband is not kind to me, he is not kind!

November the twenty-seventh.

We took our Thanksgiving dinner with Father, and Dana went to the Curtises' later in the evening. I had to come back and stay with the baby, to let the girls go out. She is asleep, and the house is as still as resignation. I cannot write, and have been trying to read. Dana says I do not keep up with current thought, and that a wife should make herself as attractive to her husband intellectually as she was before marriage. The first sentence I fell upon was this, from a French critic:

It is well that passionate love is rare. Its principal effect is to detach men from all their surroundings, to isolate them, . . . and a civilized society composed of lovers would return infallibly to misery and barbarism.

I think a woman should be quite happy in order to keep up with current thought. Current feeling is as much as I can manage.

TELEPHONE MESSAGE

"November the thirtieth.

"Main—20.

"To Mr. Dana Herwin, from Mrs. Herwin.

"By the maid to the office-boy. Peter will deliver as soon as Mr. Herwin comes in.