Nothing can be more fatal for a girl than to marry an artist of any kind. Have affairs with them, my dears, if you like. They can teach you a great deal about life, human nature and sex, because they are directly interested in these matters, whereas other men are cluttered with prejudices, ideals and literary reminiscences. But do not marry them, unless you have a writing of divorcement in the pocket of your night-gown. If you are poor, life will be horrid even though there are no children; and if you have children, it will be hell. If you have money, you may be quite sure that it is not you but your money which has been espoused. Every poor artist and intellectual is looking for a woman to keep him. So you loot out, too. Of course, not only are there no delicious marriages, there are not even any good ones—Rochefoucauld was such an optimist. And in any case marriage is a primitive institution bound to succumb before the joint attack of contraceptives and the economic independence of women. Remember, artists are not seeking tranquillity and legitimate posterity, but experience and an income. So look out! Poor Mrs. Shobbe did not look out, she had never been allowed to do anything so unmaidenly. She became the means whereby Mr. Shobbe avoided the dismal but common fate of working for a living. He snubbed her, he patronized her, he neglected her, he was unfaithful to her, but hung on to her like a sloth to a tree-branch—she had three thousand a year, most of which he spent. As for Shobbe he was a plump and talented snob of German origin. His aquiline nose was the one piece of evidence, apart from his bad manners, which supported his claim to aristocratic birth. Before the Great War he was always talking about his year’s service in an aristocratic German regiment, or beginning a sentence “When I was last with the Kaiser,” or talking voluble German whenever there was an audience, or saying “of course, you English...” After the war he discovered that he was and always had been a patriotic English gentleman. Be it said to his credit, he “rolled up” himself and did not only “give” a few cousins. But then, there was Mrs. Shobbe to get away from on a legitimate excuse—how many patriotic English gentlemen in the war armies were rather avoiding their wives than seeking their country’s enemies? Shobbe was an excellent example of the artist’s amazing selfishness and vanity. After the comfort of his own person he really cared for nothing but his prose style and literary reputation. He was also an amazing and very amusing liar—a sort of literary Falstaff. As for his affairs with women—my God! Yet, after all, were they really so lurid? Probably they were grossly exaggerated because Shobbe had talent, and everybody was jealous of it.... * * * * *