“I will introduce you to the public by telling the story of our previous acquaintance, just as it occurred,” I observed. This the reader will remark that I have already done; but I did not read my introduction to my friend, as I knew he would have raised strong objections to the complimentary passages. “Now tell me what I am to call you?” “Ivan is safe, simple, and not far from the truth, unless you prefer a pair of initials like my well-known countrywoman O. K. It has amused me to observe,” he added, with a smile, “as I have watched the performances, social, literary, and political, how much more easy it is for a woman to understand the genius of a man than the genius of a nation.” “Perhaps that is because the nation is composed of women as well as of men,”I replied. “After all, it comes to pretty much the same thing,” said Ivan; “for the genius that he understood well enough to beguile, seems to apprehend equally well the genius of the nation he governs, or he could not have beguiled it in the sense she desired. The whole incident serves to illustrate the mystery of woman’s true sphere of influence, so little understood by the women themselves who agitate for their rights.” “I am not disposed to admit,”I answered, “that the incident in question proves your case; for I know none of your own countrymen, to say nothing of the women, who understand the genius of the English people, for to do so implies an apprehension of the genius of their institutions, and it is the incapacity of foreigners generally to appreciate these which causes them to regard our domestic policy in the light of an unfathomable mystery which it is hopeless to attempt to penetrate, and our foreign policy as a delusion and a snare.”