VIII

ON WIDOWS

Women do have grievances--Various specimens of widows--The jolly
widow--The inconsolate widow--The plump widow--Marriageable
widows--Mourning and black--Last wills and testaments--How long
should a widow mourn her husband?--'You should have seen me
yesterday!' 180

CHAPTER XXXIX

ON OLD MAIDS

Different types of old maids--Many of them are undisguised blessings--
Few men are good enough for women--Old bachelors and old maids 185

CHAPTER XL

SHOULD PEOPLE REMARRY?

The excuse most people give for remarrying--St. Peter's opinion
of men who have been married more than once--Stepmothers 189

CHAPTER XLI

THE LAWS AND CEREMONY OF MARRIAGE

Laws that will be altered during the twentieth century--People
will have to pass examinations before they are allowed to marry--
The Church should give young couples a happy start, and change the
ceremony of marriage 194

CHAPTER XLII

ON NURSES

Nurses look the happiest women in the world--Their lives and their
privileges--True story of a nurse 198

CHAPTER XLIII

PORTRAIT OF A FRENCH MOTHER 214

CHAPTER XLIV

FAILINGS AND FOIBLES OF GOOD WOMEN

Women of strong character--Obstinacy and prejudice--Tastes and
temperaments--The diplomatic woman--The strong-minded woman--The
superiority of woman--Monopolizers--Little women--The woman who
is wrong--'I told you so'--Why women were not given beards--Women
who marry for money and for titles--The only chance of success in
matrimony 228

CHAPTER XLV

CUPIDIANA

Stray thoughts on women--Love and matrimony 237

HER ROYAL HIGHNESS WOMAN

CHAPTER I

THE ETERNAL FEMININE

What do we know about women?--Generalities on the subject--I am
requested to speak on some subject I know something about.

'I am a man, and everything that concerns woman interests me,' might
have said Terence. This is also what every Frenchman says, and why of
all men on earth he is the one who knows women best. He is keenly
alive to woman's influence, and woman is an ever-present, almost a
fixed, idea with him. Whether he study her from the artistic, the
psychological, even the physiological, point of view, his interest in
her is never exhausted. And this