nd, does the thing which involves more risk than
anything else malevolent fate could devise.

On the whole, I think I am sorry for her, for she has apples of Sodom in
her hand, although as yet to her delighted gaze they appear the fairest
of summer fruit.

III

MATRIMONY IN HARNESS

"What eagles are we still
In matters that belong to other men;
What beetles in our own!"

The more I know of horses, the more natural I think men and women are in
the unequalness of their marriages. I never yet saw a pair of horses so
well matched that they pulled evenly all the time. The more skilful the
driver, the less he lets the discrepancy become apparent. Going up hill,
one horse generally does the greater share of work. If they pull equally
up hill, sometimes they see-saw and pull in jerks on a level road. And I
never saw a marriage in which both persons pulled evenly all the time, and
the worst of it is, I suppose this unevenness is only what is always
expected.

Having no marriage of my own to worry over, it is gratuitous when I worry
over other people's. Old maids, you know, like to air their views on
matrimony and bringing up children. Their theories on these subjects have
this advantage--that they always hold good because they never are tried.

There never was such an unequal yoking together as the Herricks'. Nobody
has told me. This is one of the affairs which has not been confided to me.
Only, I knew them both so well before they were married. I knew Bronson
Herrick best, however, because I never used to see any more of Flossy than
was necessary.

To begin with, I never liked her name. I have an idea that names show
character. Could anybody under heaven be noble with such a name as Flossy?
I believe names handicap people. I believe children are sometimes tortured
by hideous and unmeaning names. But give them strong, ugly names in
preference to Ina and Bessie and Flossy and such pretty-pretty names, with
no meaning and no character to them. Take my own name, Ruth. If I wanted
to be noble or heroic I could be; my name would not be an anomalous
nightmare to attract attention to the incongruity. We cannot be too
thankful to our mothers who named us Mary and Dorothy and Constance. What
an inspiration to be "faithful over a few things" such a name as Constance
must be!

But Flossy's mothe