On the contrary, now that this disagreeable interruption has been forced upon me--certainly not through any seeking of mine--it may be better to speak out and settle the matter. Men who have the happiness of being in the married state know that nothing is to be gained by failing to settle instantly with women who contradict and oppose them. Who was that mellow philosopher in one of Trollope's tiresomely clever novels who said: “My word for it, John, a husband ought not to take a cane to his wife too soon. He should fairly wait till they are half-way home from the church--but not longer, not longer.” Of course every man with a spark of intelligence and gallantry wishes that women COULD rise to real novel-reading Think what courtship would be! Every true man wishes to heaven there was nothing more to be said against women than that they are not novel-readers. But can mere forgetting remove the canker? Do not all of us know that the abstract good of the very existence of woman is itself open to grave doubt--with no immediate hope of clearing up? Woman has certainly been thrust upon us. Is there any scrap of record to show that Adam asked for her? He was doing very well, was happy, prosperous and healthy. There was no certainty that her creation was one of that unquestionably wonderful series that occupied the six great days. We cannot conceal that her creation caused a great pain in Adam's side--undoubtedly the left side, in the region of the heart. She has been described by young and dauntless poets as “God's best afterthought;” but, now, really--and I advance the suggestion with no intention to be brutal but solely as a conscientious duty to the ascertainment of truth--why is it, that--. But let me try to present the matter in the most unobjectionable manner possible. In reading over that marvelous account of creation I find frequent explicit declaration that God pronounced everything good after he had created it--except heaven and woman. I have maintained sometimes to stern, elderly ladies that this might have been an error of omission by early copyists, perpetuated and so become fixed in our translations. To other ladies, of other age and condition, to whom such propositions of scholarship might appear to be dull pedantry, I have ventured the gentlemanlike explanation that, as woman was the only living thing created that was good beyond doubt, perhaps God had paid her the special compliment of leaving the approval unspoken, as being in a sense supererogatory. At best, either of these dispositions of the matter is, of course, far-fetched, maybe even frivolous. The fact still remains by the record. And it is beyond doubt awkward and embarrassing, because ill-natured men can refer to it in moments of hatefulness--moments unfortunately too frequent.