ask me some such question as this, Do you
prefer dark women or fair? Another will say, Do you like tall women or
short? A third, Do you think light-hearted women, or serious, the more
agreeable company? I find myself in the position that, once upon a time,
overtook a certain charming young lady of taste who was asked by an
anxious parent, the years mounting, and the family expenditure not
decreasing, which of the numerous and eligible young men, then paying
court to her, she liked the best. She replied, that was her difficulty.
She could not make up her mind which she liked the best. They were all
so nice. She could not possibly select one to the exclusion of all the
others. What she would have liked would have been to marry the lot, but
that, she presumed, was impracticable.

I feel I resemble that young lady, not so much, perhaps, in charm and
beauty as indecision of mind, when questions such as the above are put
to me. It is as if one were asked one's favourite food. There are times
when one fancies an egg with one's tea. On other occasions one dreams of
a kipper. Today one clamours for lobsters. To-morrow one feels one never
wishes to see a lobster again; one determines to settle down, for a
time, to a diet of bread and milk and rice-pudding. Asked suddenly to
say whether I preferred ices to soup, or beefsteaks to caviare, I should
be nonplussed.

I like tall women and short, dark women and fair, merry women and grave.

Do not blame me, Ladies, the fault lies with you. Every right-thinking
man is an universal lover; how could it be otherwise? You are so
diverse, yet each so charming of your kind; and a man's heart is large.
You have no idea, fair Reader, how large a man's heart is: that is his
trouble--sometimes yours.

May I not admire the daring tulip, because I love also the modest lily?
May I not press a kiss upon the sweet violet, because the scent of the
queenly rose is precious to me?

"Certainly not," I hear the Rose reply. "If you can see anything in her,
you shall have nothing to do with me."

"If you care for that bold creature," says the Lily, trembling, "you are
not the man I took you for. Good-bye."

"Go to your baby-faced Violet," cries the Tulip, with a toss of her
haughty head. "You are just fitted for each other."

And when I return to the Lily, she tells me that she cannot trust me.
She has watched me with those others. She knows me for a gad-about. Her
gentle face is full of pain.

So