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And yet we are contraries to each other, like fire and water. What a paradox! No, certainly the most excellent harmony. When I have too much fire, she has exactly the right measure of water to keep the fire within bounds. And my fire restrains hers, so that it does not become consuming. In short, we meet each other so exactly in the middle way, that by necessity two such people belong together (...) .Eternal God, I often think, this short life is trouble and labour and death at the end of it, and so two such quarrelsome creatures must often embitter each other's few days of life, for a few minutes of bestial pleasure torment and torture each other for days!

Heavens, what a gift it is, when Thou givest mankind understanding to make each other's days pleasant or at least bearable, and when Thou givest it to two who must live together, what a heavenly gift! God, how sweet life becomes! But that is not learned so quickly, my son! First as a child to learn to stand and walk, then one thing after another. When we are grown, we think we are men already. Oho, far from it! Boldly and unafraid we choose an object with whom we imagine our life will be contented and sugar-sweet. Oho, often two flintstones come together thus, that for years on end must gnash together, strike sparks and rub each other away, before they become sensible people. And often this life is much too short, so that they would not do it in all eternity. Grief, fear and horror pluck away many a young man, many a tender young wife in the prime of life into the jaws of death, and as for bringing on each other misery, murder, poisoning, desertion, and divorce, one can point to a thousand examples. [...] Why is there such a deal of noise in the world? Whence come so many widows and widowers, so many wretched orphans, streets crowded with beggars and a thousand dirty tales of the divorce-court, if not from that! Many hundreds of men and women are carried every year to the silence of the grave, where not a soul thinks of the real cause of their death. The late good man, the late good woman, alas, they just had to die before their time. Well-a-day, 'twas just God's will! God comfort them!

Secret vexation, repressed, locked away, choked-down grief has eaten away their hearts, consumed the blood in every vein. The other wanted to be their master. The stronger always wants to be master. And that can be the wife as easily as the husband. For it is only a question of the strength of the tongue, of the excellent gift and art of injuring, of giving pain. More fortunate are those who in this art hold the balance, who vie with each other to snap like mad dogs, to weary each other and wear each other out. Such people may at last be able to come to their senses and after many truces make peace at last." [Voellmy, v 2 pp 191-193]

31st July "It's just the noise!"
     "Eh, the cursed noise! I cannot possibly bear it. It is death to me! Revolts my very soul! I hate it like the devil when it's a case of a man. And then in a woman - in my wife! I cannot possibly get used to it. The damned voice of a tyrant! And she can't leave off, 'tis part of her very soul.

One of the children was told to wash a shirt. "I'll cut you in two pieces, I'll break your neck and your bones, I'll be the death of you, etc., if you don't make it nice and white!" If it was only the voice of a woman! No, a Prussian officer does not speak in such a coarse, rough tone. At every trifle, every little thing, not worth talking about! The child howled and set to on the shirt. And as so often before, it went through my very marrow. I began to speak in this, in her, voice of thunder. Listen, wife, this accursed tyrant's voice is bitter death to me, but against my will I must take the same tone with you! In any other tone you would not listen. You, you have taught me to speak like this. Before I had you, this way of speaking was unknown to me, strange, especially in a woman. I have told you hundreds and hundreds of times, and perhaps will not tell you so often: I will not bear it, I will not and cannot bear it. Listen, you must answer for it, if our children are growing up as wild half-demons. You show them how, you are teaching them, you see how they are already treating each other with your wild doom-laden tone, they imitate your monstrous grimaces and make furious faces. You see how their tender and sensitive hearts are becoming hardened, like stone.

She went away grumbling that I always stood up for the children, as she does every time, throwing all the blame on me. But it is altogether false. God knows how much I should like to

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