If now, however, Homo and Mulier be placed together, a very different relationship manifests itself. They cannot injure one another, and each is framed for the most delightful converse with the other. Nothing can be more secure from the outside world than a pair of approximately the same height; each protects the sensitive edge of each, and their armoured edges and means of offence are turned against all comers, either in one direction or the other. But, if the pair, through a mutual misunderstanding, happen to be disadjusted, and, their feet on the rim, turn their sharpnesses against one another, they are absolutely exposed to the harms and arrows of the world. Still, even in this case they cannot wound one another—a happy immunity. In the annals of this race which I have by me I find a curious history, which, unintelligible for ages to them, admits by us of a simple explanation. It is said that two beings, the most ideally perfect Vir and Mulier, were once living in a state of most perfect happiness, when, owing to certain abstruse studies of the Mulier, she was suddenly, in all outward respects, turned irremediably into a man. Vir recognized her as the same true Mulier. But she occupied the same position with regard to him which any other man would. It was only by standing on his head that he could, with his sensitive edge, approach her sensitive edge. She refused to explain how it was, or impart her secret to any one, but she had, she said, undergone a great peril. She manifested a strange knowledge of the internal anatomy of the race, and most of their medical knowledge dates from her. But no persuasion would induce her to reveal her secret; all the privacy of existence would be gone, she said, if she revealed it. She was supposed to have acquired some magical knowledge. This possession, however, did not make either of them happy, and one day, with fear, she said that she would either die or be restored to the outward semblance of her sex. She disappeared—absolutely; although she was surrounded by her friends, she absolutely vanished. And had it not been that some days afterwards, cutting through the solid rock for the purposes of some excavations, they accidentally came on a chasm, they would never have found her alive again. For she was found in a cavity in the living rock, warm and beautiful—her old self again. Her secret died with her.