Perhaps Thackeray is right when he says, "The men who appreciate woman most are those who have felt the sharpness of her claws." That is to say, things show up best on the darkest background. If so, let us give Xantippe due credit. She tested the temper of the sage by railing on him and deluging him with Socratic propositions, not waiting for the answers; she often broke in with a broom upon his introspective efforts to know himself; if this were not enough, she dashed buckets of scrubbing-water over him; presents that were sent him by admiring friends she used as targets for her mop and wit; if he invited friends with faith plus to dine, she upset the table, dishes and all, before them--not much to their loss; she occasionally elbowed her way through a crowd where her husband was entertaining the listeners upon the divine harmonies, and would tear off his robe and lead him home by the ear. But these things never ruffled Socrates--he might roll his eyes in comic protest at the audiences as he was being led away captive, but no resentment was shown. He had the strength of a Hercules, but he was a far better non-resistant than Tolstoy, because he took his medicine with a wink, while Fate is obliged to hold the nose of the author of "Anna Karenina," who never sees the comedy of an inward struggle and an outward compliance, any more than does the benedict, safely entrenched under the bed, who shouts out, "I defy thee, I defy thee!" as did Mephisto when Goethe thrust him into Tophet. * * * * * The popular belief is that Xantippe, the wife of Socrates, was a shrew, and had she lived in New England in Cotton Mather's time would have been a candidate for the ducking-stool. Socrates said he married her for discipline. A man in East Aurora, however, has recently made it plain to himself that Xantippe was possessed of a great and acute intellect. She knew herself, and she knew her liege as he never did--he was too close to his subject to get the perspective. She knew that under right conditions his name would live as one of the world's great teachers, and so she set herself to supply the conditions. She deliberately sacrificed herself and put her character in a wrong light before the world in order that she might benefit the world. Most women have a goodly grain of ambition for themselves, and if their husbands have genius, their business is not to prove it, but to show that they themselves are not wholly commonplace. Not so Xantippe--she was quite willing to be misunderstood that her husband might live.