ar light of
observation. He therefore presents here without order or connection
the rough outlines which he has so far been able to execute, in the
hope that later he may have leisure to co-ordinate them and to arrange
them in a complete system. If he has been so far kept back in the
accomplishment of a task of supreme national importance, he believes,
he may say, without incurring the charge of vanity, that he has here
indicated the natural division of those symptoms. They are necessarily
of two kinds: the unicorns and the bicorns. The unicorn Minotaur is
the least mischievous. The two culprits confine themselves to a
platonic love, in which their passion, at least, leaves no visible
traces among posterity; while the bicorn Minotaur is unhappiness with
all its fruits.

We have marked with an asterisk the symptoms which seem to concern the
latter kind.

MINOTAURIC OBSERVATIONS.

I.

*When, after remaining a long time aloof from her husband, a woman
makes overtures of a very marked character in order to attract his
love, she acts in accordance with the axiom of maritime law, which
says: _The flag protects the cargo_.

II.

A woman is at a ball, one of her friends comes up to her and says:

"Your husband has much wit."

"You find it so?"

III.

Your wife discovers that it is time to send your boy to a boarding
school, with whom, a little time ago, she was never going to part.

IV.

*In Lord Abergavenny's suit for divorce, the _valet de chambre_
deposed that "the countess had such a detestation of all that belonged
to my lord that he had very often seen her burning the scraps of paper
which he had touched in her room."

V.

If an indolent woman becomes energetic, if a woman who formerly hated
study learns a foreign language; in short, every appearance of a
complete change in character is a decisive symptom.

VI.

The woman who is happy in her affections does not go much into the
world.

VII.

The woman who has a lover becomes very indulgent in judging others.

VIII.

*A husband gives to his wife a hundred crowns a month for dress; and,
taking everything into account, she spends at least five hund