A lower nature will drag him down, as a higher will
lift him up. The former will deaden his sympathies, dissipate his
energies, and distort his life; while the latter, by satisfying
his affections, will strengthen his moral nature, and by giving
him repose, tend to energise his intellect. Not only so, but a
woman of high principles will insensibly elevate the aims and
purposes of her husband, as one of low principles will
unconsciously degrade them. De Tocqueville was profoundly
impressed by this truth. He entertained the opinion that man
could have no such mainstay in life as the companionship of a wife
of good temper and high principle. He says that in the course of
his life, he had seen even weak men display real public virtue,
because they had by their side a woman of noble character, who
sustained them in their career, and exercised a fortifying
influence on their views of public duty; whilst, on the contrary,
he had still oftener seen men of great and generous instincts
transformed into vulgar self-seekers, by contact with women of
narrow natures, devoted to an imbecile love of pleasure, and from
whose minds the grand motive of Duty was altogether absent.
De Tocqueville himself had the good fortune to be blessed with an
admirable wife: (10) and in his letters to his intimate friends, he
spoke most gratefully of the comfort and support he derived from
her sustaining courage, her equanimity of temper, and her nobility
of character.
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