I wonder whence that tear came, when I smiled In the production on't! Sorrow's a thief That can when joy looks on, steal forth a grief. MASSINGER. Oh pitiable condition of human kind! One colour is born to slavery abroad, and one sex to shavery at home!—A woman to secure her comfort and well-being in this country stands in need of one thing only, which is a good husband; but a man hath to provide himself with two things, a good wife, and a good razor, and it is more difficult to find the latter than the former. The Doctor made these remarks one day, when his chin was smarting after an uncomfortable operation; and Mrs. Dove retorted by saying that women had still the less favourable lot, for scarce as good razors might be, good husbands were still scarcer. Aye, said the Doctor, Deborah is right, and it is even so; for the goodness of wife, husband, and razor depends upon their temper, and taking in all circumstances and causes natural and adventitious, we might reasonably conclude that steel would more often be tempered precisely to the just degree, than that the elements of which humanity is composed should be all nicely proportioned and amalgamated happily. Rarely indeed could Nature stand up, and pointing out a sample of its workmanship in this line say to all the world this is a Man! meaning thereby what man, rational, civilized, well educated, redeemed, immortal man, may and ought to be. Where this could be said in one instance, in a thousand or ten thousand others she might say this is what Man has by his own devices made himself, a sinful and miserable creature, weak or wicked, selfish, sensual, earthly-minded, busy in producing temporal evil for others,—and everlasting evil for himself!