sport for the theatres. What Christian wife
would like that? Comic plays were written about him, and the gamins
under the porticos ridiculed him. If he had been honored, Xanthippe
would have forgiven his self-imposed poverty; but to be poor, and
laughed at! Doubtless he deserved a good portion of the curtain
lectures he got.

Then Xanthippe had another cause of complaint in which she will be
sure of the sympathy of all wives. Socrates did not share in its full
bitterness the poverty to which he condemned his family. While she was
eating her pulse and olives at home, he was dining with Athenian
nobles, and drinking wine by the side of the brilliant Aspasia or the
fascinating Theodite.

We see Socrates, "splendid through the shades of time," as a great
moral teacher; but many of the Athenians of his day laughed at him,
and very few admired him. At any rate he did not provide for the wants
of his household, and even a bachelor like Saint Paul severely
condemns such a one. Certainly the men of Athens did not admire
Socrates, and probably the women of Xanthippe's acquaintance
sympathized with her,--to a woman of her temperament a very great
aggravation. It may be said all this is special pleading, but when we
have knocked at the door of certain truths in vain, we should try and
get into them by the window.

The Favorites of Men

It may be taken as a rule that women who are favorites with men are
very seldom favorites with their own sex. Wherever women congregate,
and other women are under discussion, men's favorites are named with
that tone of disapproval and disdain which infers something not quite
proper--something undesirable in the position. If specific charges are
made, the "favorite" will probably be called "an artful little flirt,"
or she will be "sly" or "fast." Matrons will wonder what the men see
in her face or figure; and the young girls will deplore her manners,
or rather her want of manners; or they will mercifully "hope there is
nothing really wrong in her freedom and boldness, but----" and the
sigh and shrug will deny the charitable hope with all the emphasis
necessary for her condemnation. For if a girl is a favorite with the
men of her own set, she is naturally disliked by the women, since she
attracts to herself far more than her share of admiration; and the
admiration of men, whether women acknowledge it or not, is the desire
and delight of the feminine heart, just as the love of women is the