“Go on; I am not yet within appreciable distance of anything bearing on my wife’s case.” “Ah, the thing is a million-headed monster! hardly to be recognised by the same features in any two cases. To get at the _rationale_ of it, we must take up human nature by the roots. We talk glibly in these days of what we get from our forefathers, what comes to us through our environment, and consider that in these two we have the sum of human nature. Not a bit of it; we have only accounted for some peculiarities in the individual; independently of these, we come equipped with stock for the business of life of which too little account is taken. The subject is wide, so I shall confine myself to an item or two. “We all come into the world--since we are beings of imperfect nature--subject to the uneasy stirring of some few primary desires. Thus, the gutter child and the infant prince are alike open to the workings of the desire for esteem, the desire for society, for power, &c. One child has this, and another that, desire more active and uneasy. Women, through the very modesty and dependence of their nature, are greatly moved by the desire for esteem. They must be thought of, made much of, at any price. A man desires esteem, and he has meetings in the marketplace, the chief-room at the feast; the _pétroleuse_, the city outcast, must have notoriety--the esteem of the bad--at any price, and we have a city in flames, and Whitechapel murders. Each falls back on his experience and considers what will bring him that esteem, a gnawing craving after which is one of his earliest immaterial cognitions. But the good woman has comparatively few outlets. The esteem that comes to her is all within the sphere of her affections. Esteem she must have; it is a necessity of her nature. “‘_Praise_, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles,’ are truly to her, ‘human nature’s daily food.’” “Now, experience comes to her aid. When she is ill, she is the centre of attraction, the object of attention, to all who are dear to her; she will be ill.” “You contradict yourself, man! don’t you see? You are painting, not a good woman, but one who will premeditate, and act a lie!”