"And being in love, hostilities have commenced; and, if I mistake not, the war will be conducted by the lady with unexampled barbarity. When we enter the ball-room to-night, you will perceive this angelic creature inflicting more torture on poor Clarence than a pitiless savage inflicts with his scalping-knife on his victim; and all because she is dead in love with him, and he with her." "Toney Belton, you deserve to have your eyes scratched out by a bevy of beautiful damsels for your disparaging opinion of the last best gift." "Let them scratch; for women are like cats." "Like cats?" "There is a striking similitude between them; and when a man with a pulpy brain and a penetrable bosom falls into the hands of a beautiful and fascinating woman, he is much in the condition of an unfortunate mouse in the paws of a remorseless pussy. Indeed, nearly all truly faithful and devoted lovers have to undergo an ordeal like that of the helpless captive in feline clutches. The cruel cat will at one moment pat her victim softly on the head, and fondle it with the utmost affection, as if it were the most precious treasure she had in the world; she will apparently repent of her intention to hold it in captivity, and will permit it to escape and run half-way over the floor, when, with a sudden spring, she will pounce upon it again and hold it fast, regardless of its squeals for mercy. Just so with a pretty woman and her lover. Next to a tabby cat, the most remorseless and cruel creature in the world is a woman who has a man completely in her power. Indeed, there is so great a congeniality of disposition between the female sex and the feline species that maidens, when they become elderly and are not otherwise occupied, almost invariably take to nursing cats,--there being a mysterious affinity which draws them together." "Do you want me to believe that a woman will not marry a man until she has first tortured the soul out of him, and made him utterly miserable? Why, they say that marriages are made in heaven." "In heaven they may be made, Thomas; but, if so, they are caught on the horns of the moon as they are coming down; for I tell you that hardly any woman ever marries the right man, and hardly any man ever marries the right woman. You have only to open your eyes and you will perceive this without the aid of an opera-glass." "My observations have led me to no such conclusions." "Have you never observed, oh, most sagacious Thomas, that no pretty woman ever had an adorer without wishing to torment him with a rival? And is it not a singular fact that she usually selects some male animal to occupy that position who is in every respect the inferior of the worthy man whom she is endeavoring to drive to distraction? Does she not take every occasion to inflate the vanity of him whom she cares nothing about, and to humiliate the man whom she really loves? Now, there are Claribel Carrington and Imogen Hazlewood,--they are both pretty women."