you are indifferent to them. "It is only a dog," you say;
"what matter if the brute fret to death?"

You don't understand it of course; you who so soon forget all your own
dead--the mother that bore you, the mistress that loved you, the friend
that fought with you shoulder to shoulder; and of course, also, you care
nothing for the measureless blind pains, the mute helpless sorrows, the
vague lonely terrors, that ache in our little dumb hearts.

* * *

Lucretius has said how charming it is to stand under a shelter in a
storm, and see another hurrying through its rain and wind; but a woman
would refine that sort of cruelty, and would not be quite content
unless she had an umbrella beside her that she refused to lend.

* * *

"Oh, pooh, my dear!" cried Fanfreluche. "He has robbed his host at
cards, and abused his host behind his back; to fulfil the whole duty of
a nineteenth century guest it only remains for him to betray his host in
love!"

"You think very ill of men?" I muttered; I was, indeed, slightly weary
of her sceptical supercilious treatment of all things; your
pseudo-philosopher, who will always think he has plumbed the ocean with
his silver-topped cane, is a great bore sometimes.

"I think very well of men," returned Fanfreluche. "You are mistaken, my
dear. There are only two things that they never are honest about--and
that is their sport and their women. When they get talking of their
rocketers, or their runs, their pigeon-score, or their _bonnes
fortunes_, they always lie--quite unconsciously. And if they miss their
bird or their woman, isn't it always because the sun was in their eyes
as they fired, or because she wasn't half good-looking enough to try
after?--bless your heart, I know them!"

"If you do, you are not complimentary to them," I grumbled.

"Can't help that, my dear," returned Fanfreluche. "Gracious! whatever is
there that stands the test of knowing it well? I have heard Beltran say,
that you find out what an awful humbug the Staubbach is when you go up
to the top and see you can straddle across it. Well, the Staubbach is
just like everything in this life. Keep your distance, and how well the
creature looks!--all veiled in its spray, and all bright with its
prismatic colours, so deep, and so vast, and so very impressive. But
just go up to the top, scale the crags of its character, and measure the
height of its aspirations, and fathom the torrent of