an fly, and once on the ground the parent
birds are unable either to warm, feed or protect them.

Read the lives of the Great Men who have lived during the past three
thousand years, and listen closely, and you will hear the wild wail of
neglected and unappreciated wives. A woman can forgive a beating, but to
be forgotten--never. She hates, by instinct, an austere and self-contained
character. Dignity and pride repel her; preoccupation keeps her aloof;
concentration on an idea is unforgivable.

The wife of Tolstoy seeking to have her husband adjudged insane is not a
rare instance in the lives of thinkers. To think thoughts that are
different from the thoughts one's neighbors think is surely good reason
why the man should be looked after. Recently we have had evidence that the
wife of Victor Hugo regarded the author of "Les Miserables" with
suspicion, and at one time actually made preparations to let him enjoy
his exile alone--she would go back to Paris and enjoy life as every one
should. At Guernsey there was no society!

When Isaac Newton called upon his ladylove and in a fit of abstraction,
looking about for a utensil to push the tobacco down in his pipe, chanced
upon the lady's little finger, the law of gravitation was abrogated at
once, and Newton and his pipe were sent, like nebulae whirling into space.

When the Great Inventor, absorbed in a problem as to Electricity (that
thing which to us is only a name and of which we know nothing), forgets
home, wife, child, supper; and midnight finds him in his laboratory, where
he has been since sunrise--just imagine, if you please, the shrill
greeting that is in cold storage for him when he stumbles home, haggard
and worn, at dawn. How can he explain why he did this thing and answer the
questions as to who was there, and what good it all did anyway!

Thought is a torture, and requires such a concentration of energy that
there is nothing left for the soft courtesies of marriage. The day is
fleeting, and the night cometh when no man can work. The hot impulse to
grasp and materialize the dream ere it fades, is strong upon the man.

Of course he is selfish--he sacrifices everything, as Palissy did when
fuel was short and the clay just at the turning-point. Yes, the artist is
selfish: he sacrifices his wife and society, and himself, too, to get the
work done. Four-o'clocks, mealtime, bedtime, and all the household system
as to pink teas, calls and etiquette, stand for naught