meanings behind their smile, with no other reason
than a desire to mystify. Perhaps the Sphinx smiles to herself just for
the fun of seeing us take her smile so seriously. And surely women must
so smile as they hear their psychology so gravely discussed. Of course,
the superstition is invaluable to them, and it is only natural that they
should make the most of it. Man is supposed to be a complete ignoramus
in regard to all the specialised female 'departments'--from the supreme
mystery of the female heart to the humble domestic mysteries of a
household. Similarly, men are supposed to have no taste in women's
dress, yet for whom do women clothe themselves in the rainbow and the
sea-foam, if not to please men? And was not the high-priest of that
delicious and fascinating mystery a man--if it be proper to call the
late M. Worth a man,--as the best cooks are men, and the best waiters?

It would seem to be assumed from all this mystification that men are
beings clear as daylight, both to themselves and to women. Poor,
simple, manageable souls, their wants are easily satisfied, their
psychology--which, it is implied, differs little from their
physiology--long since mapped out.

It may be so, but it is the opinion of some that men's simplicity is no
less a fiction than women's mysterious complexity, and that human
character is made up of much the same qualities in men and women,
irrespective of a merely rudimentary sexual distinction, which has, of
course, its proper importance, and which the present writer would be the
last to wish away. From that quaint distinction of sex springs, of
course, all that makes life in the smallest degree worth living, from
great religions to tiny flowers. Love and beauty and poetry;
Shakespeare's plays, Burne-Jones's pictures, and Wagner's operas--all
such moving expressions of human life, as science has shown us, spring
from the all-important fact that 'male and female created He them.'

This everybody knows, and few are fools enough to deny. Many people,
however, confuse this organic distinction of sex with its time-worn
conventional symbols; just as religion is commonly confused with its
external rites and ceremonies. The comparison naturally continues itself
further; for, as in religion, so soon as some traditional garment of the
faith has become outworn or otherwise unsuitable, and the proposal is
made to dispense with or substitute it, an outcry immediately is raised
that religion itself