n crossed in love;
indeed, I have never even experienced the tender passion, and only
write from my observations of other people; thus taking a perfectly
neutral ground in speaking of it at all.

One never hears that Adam fell in love with Eve, or that Eve was
passionately attached to Adam. But then, poor things, they had so
little choice--it was either that or nothing. Besides, there was no
opposition to the match, so it was bound to be rather a tame affair.
For my part, I pity Eve, for Adam was, I think, the very meanest of
men. When he was turned out of the garden, what a wretch he must have
felt himself! and how he must have taunted his poor wife! Weak men are
always bullies.

But "_revenons a nos moutons_," I am wondering who was the first
person to fall in love! Cain _might_ have done so with his mysterious
wife; history does not say. But certainly there is always some
attraction in mystery, so such a thing is possible. I wonder whence
that extraordinary woman sprang!

Neither do we hear much of Noah's domestic experiences, but I should
conclude on the whole that they were not happy. No man could be
endured for forty days shut up in the house, no business to go to,
nothing to do, always hanging about, his idle hands at some mischief
or other, and last, but not least, a diabolical temper, displayed at
every turn! Why, I cannot endure one for a week! My only wonder is
that the female population of the Ark did not rise up in a body and
consign their lords and masters to the floods.

Poor men, they deserve a little of our pity too, perhaps; for if Mrs.
Noah and her daughters-in-law at all resembled their effigies in the
Noah's Arks of the present day, they were women to be avoided, _I_
think.

So that, after all, it must have been Jacob who set such a very
foolish example; because we could not count Isaac, his being so
extraordinary and isolated a case, when he fell in love with his own
wife!

Therefore I think we owe Jacob a great many grudges. He was the
inventor of the tender passion, and since his time people have begun
to follow his example long before they come to years of discretion,
simply because their parents did so before them, and they think they
are not grown up, that they are not men, unless they have some love
affair on hand.

Some get married at once, some wait a long time, and some do not marry
at all. These last are, I think, generally the happiest, for this
so-called love lasts for only a