"Maggie married Bob Wilson the farmer o' East Mains. Aye, and the marriage turned oot a happy one, for Bob never rose abune neeps and tatties in his life." Dauvit sighed. "But I sometimes used to look at the twa o' them when their bairns were roond their knees, and syne I used to gie a big _Dawm!_ and ging back to my wee hoose and mak my ain tea." "It doesna pay to hae a soul, dominie," he added with a short laugh. "Perhaps you could have given her a soul, Dauvit," I said. He shook his head with decision. "Na, dominie, a soul is something ye're born wi'; if it isna there it canna be put there. You say that I'm a poet, and you may be richt; there may be a wee bit o' the artist in me, and ye never heard o' an artist that was happily married. Wumman and art are opposites, and a man canna marry both." "That is true, Dauvit. But art is the feminine side of a man's nature; it is the woman in him . . . and the woman is superfluous to him, for she becomes the rival of the woman in himself." This thought impressed Dauvit. "Noo I understand Rabbie Burns," he cried. "Rabbie cudna love a wumman because he loved the wumman in himsel. She was the wife that bore his bairns--his poems." He paused, and a pained look came to his face. "There may be a poet in me, dominie," he said ruefully, "but she has borne me nae bairns. I am ane o' the mute inglorious Miltons . . . and I wud ha' been better if I had married Maggie and talked aboot neeps and tatties a' my life." "You couldn't have done it, Dauvit," I said as I rose to go. From the door I looked back at the old man as he stared at the fender. * * * * * One of the analysts says that the flirt is suffering from a mother complex. He has never got over his infantile love for his mother, and he is always trying to find the mother again in women. Hence he is like a bee, sipping at one flower and then flying on to another. I suspect that many a bachelor is a bachelor because his early love is fixed on the mother. Few mothers realise the danger of coddling their children. I have heard grown men dying in pain call on their mothers. It is a hard task for parents, but they must always try to break their children's fixation upon them. Women having father-complexes are common. The other day I met a girl who had no interest in young men; all her interest was in men with beards. No matter what the conversation was about she managed to mention her father. . . "Father says!" She will probably marry a man twice her age. It is well-known that boys of seventeen often fall in love with women of thirty, while adolescent girls usually fall in love with men of thirty. They are not really in love; they are looking for a substitute for the mother or father.