have seen women immediately lose all
interest in home and family life; I have seen some abandon husband, and
even children, on suddenly becoming a celebrity, a famous writer,
actress, or singer, or a 'professional' beauty. A successful man will
not alter in his feelings toward his family because he has become
celebrated, unless he has a wife who should keep amusing herself with
reminding him that, however the great 'John' of Oliver Wendell Holmes
he may be to the public, he is only plain 'Jack' at home. On the
contrary, the successful man will often most willingly give all the
applause of the public for a few encouraging words of praise from a
devoted wife, for a few expressions of admiration from a loving
daughter. The easily unstrung, almost hysterical, temperament of a
woman will sometimes make her give up all the quiet enjoyment of family
happiness and love for the noisy applause of the crowd. It acts on her
like an intoxicating beverage; and if men sometimes get cured of the
craving for drink, women, it is well known, never do. The celebrated
woman is seldom fit to be, or, if she is, to remain, a wife and a
mother. She becomes an anomaly, a freak. It is in woman's nature. She
cannot look down to drop her love on a man; to love she must admire and
look up. I would rather be the husband of a simple little dairymaid
than that of a George Sand or a Madame de Stael.

All these are stray thoughts on the great eternal feminine. Like my
fellow-men, I know nothing about women.

I quite appreciated a little scene only a few weeks old. I was
announced to give a lecture on 'Women' to the students of a large
ladies' college in North Carolina. A couple of hours before the
lecture, three young ladies from the college called on me at the hotel
where I was staying. I met them in the parlour. Three charming, bright,
most intelligent-looking girls they were. After looking at each other
for some time, so as to suggest that the other should speak, one at
last made up her mind to be the spokeswoman of the little deputation.
'We have called on you,' she said, 'to ask if you would be kind enough
to change the subject of your lecture to-night. Our lecture course is
instituted for the instruction and the general improvement of the
students, and we thought we should like to hear you talk to us on a
subject which you know something about.' I must say that I felt
fearfully small; but I was delighted at the frankness of those young
American g