The reason why the men of a softer civilization are in general so successful with the women of the harder and more northerly countries is because of the comparative softness of their manners and the larger place which love and love-making hold among them. All who know France know the Frenchman's jealous hatred of Italian men; which hatred we share here in England, only we add the Frenchman to the list. We affect to despise the arts by which the men succeed and the women are gained over; but we cannot deny their potency, nor shut our eyes to the esteem in which they are held by women. This is not saying that the chivalrous habit of deference taught by civilization is not a good thing in itself, but it is saying that it is not worth the stronger and more essentially masculine qualities. But to women the art of love-making is worth all the other virtues in a lump; indeed, it comprises them all, and without it the best are valueless. It is the crown and glory of life--the one thing to live for; and where it is not, there is no life worthy of the name. Not that women are insensible to the charms of public fame. If a man has made himself a great reputation, he may throw the handkerchief where he likes, and he will find plenty of women to pick it up. In this case they are not too rigid in their requirements; and if his ways are a little hard and cold, they hold themselves indemnified for the loss of personal tenderness by the glory which surrounds a name which is now theirs. A woman must be exceptionally silly if she cannot take comfort in her husband's public repute for her disappointment in his private manners. But this is only with recognized and fully successful heroes. As a rule, no amount of manly virtues will excuse the want of the softer graces; and the finest fellow that ever lived, the true _anax andrôn_ among men, must be content to be measured by women merely according to his own estimate of them, and the power which the passion of love has over him. Nothing surprises men more than the odd ignorance of women concerning them; and half the unhappiness in married life, at least in England, springs from that ignorance. They cannot be made to understand the differences between a man's nature and requirements and their own; and they condemn all that they cannot understand. In those few rational homes where men's sports and gatherings, undisturbed by the presence of petticoats, are not made occasions for suspicion nor remonstrance, the stock of love and happiness with which married life began is more like the widow's cruse than elsewhere; but unfortunately for both husbands and wives, these homes are rare; while those are common where an extramural game of billiards in the evening is occasion for tears or pouting, and deadly offence is taken at club dinners or a week's shooting. The consequence of which is deceit or dissension; and sometimes both.