has compromised herself with a man. A letter from that man is delivered
to her before her husband. The latter knows whom the letter is from.
His wife hands it to him.

'My dear, this letter is addressed to you. I have no right to open it,'
says the husband. 'Don't you want to read it yourself?'

The wife answers that she does not.

'Very well,' he says; 'then there is only one thing to do.'

And before her he throws it into the fire.

All the women in the audience applaud. So they should; but how many of
them would behave in the same manner if such a letter from a woman came
to their husband?

Meanness in a man is revolting to woman; but although many women cannot
be accused of the defect, it must be admitted that it is often found in
them.

Many a man who was sure that his wife was in earnest love with another
man would be found ready to sacrifice himself and give his wife to that
man. A celebrated English writer did it. Under similar circumstances a
woman would rather give her husband or lover to the tiger of Mr. Frank
R. Stockton.

A man will admit the possibility of his wife loving another man and
being loved by him. He may grieve over it, but he will not despise her
for it, or necessarily impute any low or degrading motive to her. But a
woman will never admit that her husband can have fallen in love with
another woman. She will only accuse him of being too amorous, and in
her eyes that other woman can only be a 'low creature.' She will not
stop a moment and reflect that by lowering that 'creature' she lowers
herself, since her husband, for a time at any rate, may prefer that
woman to her.

It will not enter her head that, maybe, her husband goes down on his
knees and prays that he may forget that woman, but is conquered in the
struggle, and cannot resist the fascination. No; for her the woman is
an abandoned creature and her husband a blackguard. Every day in the
novels she reads, she will give her sympathies to a man who has met
with the misfortune which has befallen her husband and herself.

She will forget that if there was no passion in this life, no human
weaknesses, no pits and falls in the path of man and woman, there would
be no drama, no great poetry--in fact, no literature, no art.

She will admit that no heart (man's or woman's) is free from the danger
of being lost. She will admit that this may happen to any man, but not
to her husband. You may give her to read and study all the works of
B