somewhere on distant seas a new ship is to be launched and needs a stalwart mainmast, or a home is to be builded that needs the fiber of strong and steadfast timber.  So, I think, with men and women, there would not be so much unsightly growing old, with waning power and wasted faculties, if we attended more strictly to the laws of health, and when death came to us at last it should only be because there was need of good timber further on.

XL.

Why, bless my soul!  It really seems to think.

I was watching not long since, a man talking to a bright woman on the train, and his manner of comporting himself set me to thinking of the peculiar ways men have of addressing themselves to women.  Some talk to a woman very much as they might talk to the wonderful automaton around at the museum when it plays a game of chess.  “Why, bless my soul, it really seems to be thinking!  What apparent intelligence?  What evident faculty of mental independence!  It almost appears to possess the power of coherent thought!” Others sit in the presence of a woman as though she was a dish of ice cream.  “How sweet.”  “How refreshing.”  “How altogether nice!” Many behave in her company as though she was a loaded gun, and liable to do mischief, while a very few act as though she was above the wiles of flattery, and not to be bought for the price of a new bonnet.  Hasten the day, good Lord, when she shall be regarded as something wiser and nobler than an automaton, less perishable than a confection, more comforting and peace-producing than a fire-arm, a veritable comrade for man at his best, not so much prized for the vain and evanescent charm of her beauty as for the steadfastness and the incorruptible purity of her soul.

XLI.

Take to drink, of course!

What would a man do, I yonder, if things went so irretrievably wrong with him as they do with some of us women?  Why, take to drink, of course.  That is a sovereign consolation I am told for many ills.  A woman has no equivalent for whisky.  She must needs clench her hands and set her teeth and bear her lot.  And yet you tell us a man is the stronger.  I tell you, my dear, I know a dozen women who could discount any soldier that ever fought in the Crimean wars, for downright heroism and pluck.  Where do you find the man who is willing to wear shabby clothes and old boots and a seedy hat that his boys may go fine as fiddles?  Where do you find a man who will get up cold mornings and make the fire, tramp to work through snow, pick his way through flooding rain, weather northeast blasts and go hungry and cold that he may keep the children together which a bad and wayward mother has deserted?  First thing a man would do in such a case would be to board the