st the old
man-made conditions, and they retaliate by falling in love less
frequently, and showing still more reluctance to enter the arena of
matrimony.

Nevertheless, they get there all the same, albeit in a different spirit.
Timorous and trembling, our faint-hearted modern lovers gird on their
new frock-coats and step shrinkingly into the arena where awaits
them--radiant and triumphant--the determined being whose will has
brought them thither. No, not _her_ will, but the mysterious will of
Nature which remains steadfast and of unswerving purpose, indifferent
to our sex-warfare and the progress of our petty loves and hates. The
institution of marriage battered, abused, scarred with countless
thousands of attacks, stained with the sins of centuries still continues
to flourish, for, as Schopenhauer says; '_It is the future generation in
its entire individual determination which forces itself into existence
through the medium of all this strife and trouble._'

The _Will-to-Live_ will always have the last word!

II

WHY MEN DON'T MARRY

'If you wish the pick of mankind, take a good bachelor and a good
wife.'

'There is probably no other act in a man's life so hot-headed and
foolish as this of marriage.' --R. L. STEVENSON.

'Whatever may be said against marriage, it is certainly an
experience.' --OSCAR WILDE.

'All the men are getting married and none of the girls,' a volatile lady
is once reported to have said, and one understands what she meant to
convey. In a newspaper correspondence on marriage I once noted the
following significant passage: '_But in these days it is different from
what it was when I was a girl. Then every boy had his sweetheart and
every girl her chap. Now it seems to me the boys don't want sweethearts
and the girls can't get chaps. For one youth who means honestly to marry
a girl, you will find twenty whose game is mere flirtation, regardless
of how the girl may be injured. The times are ungallant and they want
mending._'

This letter is signed 'A Workman's Wife,' but it bears ample evidence of
having been written by a member of the staff, who seemed to consider
sufficient _vraisemblance_ had been given to the signature by the
inclusion of an occasional vulgarism, such as 'chap.' But in spite of
being penned to order, the statements expressed appear to be only too
true. The times are ungallant indeed and growing more so every year.

Not long ago I was at a cheery