nd mountains and moonbeams and all that; those things
are not for a man. If I were a novelist, I'd never write stories about
a grizzly bear, or a dog, or a red bird. If I were a sculptor, I'd not
carve a lynx or a lion. If I were a painter, I'd never paint sheep. In
all this universe there is only one thing that Nature ever created for
a man. I'd write poems about that one thing! I'd write novels about it!
I'd paint it! I'd carve it! I'd compose music to it!"

"Why, what is that?" said Gabriella, led sadly astray.

"A woman!" said David solemnly, turning red.

Gabriella fled into the uttermost caves of silence.

"And there was only one thing ever made for woman."

"I understand perfectly."

David felt rebuffed. He hardly knew why. But after a moment or two of
silence he went on, still advancing with rough paces toward his goal:--

"Sometimes," he said mournfully, "it's harder for a man to get the only
thing in the world that was ever made for him than anything else! This
difficulty, however, appertains exclusively to the human species."

Gabriella touched her handkerchief quickly to her lips and held it
there.

"But then, many curious things are true of our species," he continued,
with his eyes on the fire and in the manner of a soliloquy, "that never
occur elsewhere. A man, for instance, is the only animal that will
settle comfortably down for the rest of its days to live on the
exertions of the female."

"It shows how a woman likes to be depended on," said Gabriella, with
her deep womanliness.

"Tom-cats of the fireside," said David, "who are proud of what fat mice
their wives feed them on. It may show what you say in the nature of the
woman. But what does it show in the nature of the man?"

"That depends."

"I don't think it depends," replied David. "I think it is either one of
the results of Christianity or a survival of barbarism. As one of the
results of Christianity, it demonstrates what women will endure when
they are imposed upon. As a relic of barbarism--when it happens in our
country--why not regard it as derived from the North American Indians?
The chiefs lounged around the house and smoked the best tobacco and
sent the squaws out to work for them. Occasionally they broke silence
by briefly declaring that they thought themselves immortal."

Gabriella tried to draw the conversation into other channels, but David
was not to be diverted.

"It has been a great fact in the history of your sex,"