As Deduced by a Bachelor of Sixty Years 1 am sixty to-day, and 1 have always promised myself that, when T was sixty, [would write an article on woman." It is probable that no editor, and certain that no married editor, will dare to print it. The Jaubject is of great importance, and conclusions are of such value that T have resolved to throw them into the form of aphorisms or Kantian antinomic (A) Nothing anifoys a woman so much as to be told that there deep-seated difference between the sexes, s0 that no member of one can ever hope perfectly to understand the other, for (2) she is sure that her own con duct iso. simple, rational, and obvious that anyone who is not an jot should be able to understand it; and (2) she is certain that she herself can see through any man, including her husband.
(B) Nothing annoys a woman so much as to be told that there is no real difference between the sexes, so that any member of the one sex can understand the other for (2) she never can understand shy men do such silly things; and (2) she is sure that no man, certainly not her husband, has ever really understood the hidden depth of her nature.
(A) Nothing annoys a woman so much as to find other women agree ing with her in her estimate of her for (1) if she thinks nothing of her husband it annoys her to find that Jother women think no more than she does. This needs no explanation; (2) if she thinks the world of her husband she is sure that she alone possesses the key to his real character, and it annoys her to find that other women seem to. possess (B) Nothing annoys a woman so much as to find other women dis agreeing with her estimate of her for (1) whether she thinks much oF creme de monthe and little of him she is sure that she nages were arranged, horoscopes (A) Nothing annoys a woman so much 3s to be argued with, for if she ig right she has certainly arrived at her conclusions by. in-faction, and so has no arguments with which to support what she knows to be correct; and (2) if she wrong she dislikes being. proved (B) Nothing annoys a woman much as not to be argued with for (2) it is an insulting assumption, Jon the part of the brute, that women can't argue; and (2) if she ith wishes what Jdiscussion of a question, and what her husband calls a row, she ought to be allowed to have one.
Let me add a few detached re-factions.
(2) No bachelor can ever know anything about women in general, siege the only way to know anything about even one woman is to marry ber.
(2) No married man can ever know anything about women in general since he either supposes hat other women are like his wife, land is thereby misled, since no two, women are ever alike, or he knows that no two women are ever alike, and so what he has learned about his swife (supposing he has. learned anything) is no help to. him as a key to other women.
Every" man, married and ingle, should frequent the society of woman, since there is no company better for a man than that of tone woman, wife or friend, (4) Every) man, married and single, should avoid the society of women, since where several women are is no place for @ man, (5) It is a mistake to regard a man cook" as in some way anomaly. No woman is fitted to a cook. Women do not take Jeating sufficiently seriously, Stevenson knew, a woman, with no man in the house, ix capable of living entirely upon cake, like all wretched bachelors writing about women, was always wrong, but never so wrong as achen he wrote the lines.
Most women have no characters sat all; Matter too soft a Iasting mark to beat iatinguished by black, brown, Women, of course, differ among off themselves as widely as men, but the most fluffy and frivolous we contains somewhere in her being bhard core of individuality compared with which Napoleon was a mere will-o'the-wisp. For men, like sheep, are gregarious animals and in'crowds, whereas woman, like the eat, is an individualist' and walks by herself, If anyone doubts this, Jet him look at a man and a woman each of whom is the first te appear in public in a new tashier The wretched man says to himself, "T know I look a silly fool; everyone is looking at me." The triumphant woman says, "No one has a hat like mine: everyone is looking at me.
The subject is inexhaustible If the editor avnends my name to this article I shall emigrate,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.