friendship, though this would neither touch his love nor interfere with their rights. Friendship is a hard saying to them, and one they cannot receive. Wherefore they keep a tight grasp on the marital collar, and suffer no relief of monotony by judicious loosening, nor by generous faith in integral fidelity. The practical result of which is that most men are horribly bored at home, and that the mass of them really suffer from the domestic stagnation to which national customs and the exclusiveness of women doom them so soon as they become family men. It must however, in fairness be added, that in general they obtain some kind of compensation; and that very few walk meekly in their bonds without at times slipping them off, with or without the concurrence of their wives. END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. S. & H. LONDON: PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET * * * * * Transcriber's note: Minor spelling and punctuation inconsistencies, mainly hyphenated words, have been harmonized. In this version, the oe ligature is represented by the separate characters oe, e.g. manoeuvre. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Girl of the Period and Other Social Essays, Vol. I (of 2), by Eliza Lynn Linton