(How Sir Walter runs in my head to-night.) Yes, she must be all this, and possess a thousand other good qualities, many more than are enumerated by Iago, so as never to descend for a moment from the pedestal on which her baron has set her up. Is this indulgent? is it even reasonable? Can he expect any human creature to be always dancing on the tight-rope? Why is Lady Triermain not to have her whims, her temper, her fits of ill-humour, like her lord? She must not indeed follow his example and relieve her mind by swearing “a good, round, mouth-filling oath,” therefore she has the more excuse for feeling at times a little captious, a little irritable, what she herself calls a little _cross_. Did he expect she was an angel? Well, he often called her one, nay, she looks like it even now in that pretty dress, says my lord, and she smiles through her tears, putting her white arms round his neck so fondly that he really believes he _has_ found what he wanted till they fall out again next time. Men are very hard in the way of exaction on those they love. All “take” seems their motto, and as little “give” as possible. If they would but remember the golden rule and expect no more than should be expected from themselves, it might be a better world for everybody. I have sometimes wondered in my own mind whether women do not rather enjoy being coerced and kept down. I have seen them so false to a kind heart, and so fond of a cruel one. Are they slaves by nature, do you conceive, or only hypocrites by education? I suppose no wise man puzzles his head much on that subject. They are all incomprehensible and all alike! “How unjust!” exclaims Bones, interrupting me with more vivacity than usual. “How unsupported an assertion, how sweeping an accusation, how unfair, how unreasonable, and how like a _man_! Yes, that is the way with every one of you; disappointed in a single instance, you take refuge from your own want of judgment, your own mismanagement, your own headlong stupidity, in the condemnation of half the world! You open a dozen oysters, and turn away disgusted because you have not found a pearl. You fall an easy prey to the first woman who flatters you, and plume yourself on having gained a victory without fighting a battle. The fortress so easily won is probably but weakly garrisoned, and capitulates ere long to a fresh assailant. When this has happened two or three times, you veil your discomfiture under an affectation of philosophy and vow that women are all alike, quoting perhaps a consolatory scrap from Catullus— ‘Quid levius plumâ? pulvis. Quid pulvere? ventus. Quid vento? mulier. Quid muliëre? nihil?’