or
fourth page, I am justified in calling the book a very able bit of work
for the reason that the ordinary book on this subject contradicts itself
on every other page. No one who glances through this volume will fail to
understand why the psychology of Woman should be a favourite subject
with very young and very light thinkers. It is the only form of
literature that calls for absolutely no equipment in the author. Writing
a play, for instance, presupposes some acquaintance with a few plays
already written. No one can succeed as a novelist without a fair
knowledge of the technique of millinery or a tolerable mastery of stock
exchange slang. The writer of scientific articles for the magazines must
have fancy, and the writer of advertisements must have poetry and wit.
But to produce a book of epigrams on Woman requires nothing but an
elementary knowledge of spelling and the courage necessary to put the
product on the market.

The secret of the thing is so simple that it would be a pity to keep it
from the comparatively few persons who have failed to discover it. It
consists entirely in the fact that whatever one says about Woman is
true. And not only that, but every statement that can possibly be made
on the subject is sure to ring true, which is much better even than
being true. On every other subject under the sun there is always one
opinion which sounds a little more convincing than every other opinion.
There are, for example, people who insist that birds of a feather do not
necessarily flock together more frequently than birds of a different
feather do; and they will assert that if you step on a worm with real
firmness the chances of his turning are much less than if you did not
step on him at all. Nevertheless, there is undeniably a truer ring about
the assertion that birds do flock together than about the assertion that
they do not, and we accept more readily the worm that turns than the
worm that remains peaceful under any provocation. But this is not the
case with aphorisms about the gentler sex. There, everything sounds as
plausible as everything else.

Let me be specific. Right at the beginning of the volume to which I have
alluded, I came across the following apothegm: "Long after Woman has
obtained the right to vote she will continue to face the wrong way when
she steps from a street-car." "How true," I said to myself. Well, a few
days later, while glancing through the pages at the end of the volume,
my eye