of equal passion only gets called a "libertine," if
not worse things. I suppose we think it must have been so clever of
her. We speak of her as _inspiring_ love, though a man who inspires
the same wholesale affection isn't considered nice for young women to
know. It is, apparently because we realise that a woman very rarely
loses her head in love. She may have had a thousand lovers, but only
made herself look a "silly idiot" over one. But a man looks a "silly
idiot" every time. We know he must have uttered the usual eternal
protestations on each occasion. But a woman only has to _listen_, and
can always hear "the tale" without losing her dignity. She merely
begins to talk when a man comes "down to earth." While his "soul" had
soared verbally she enjoyed him as she enjoys a "ballad concert," those
love songs which say so much and mean so very little.

_Pompous Pride in Literary "Lions"_

I always think that the author who places his own photograph as an
illustrated frontispiece to his own book must be either an exceedingly
brave man or an exceedingly misguided one. At any rate, he runs a
terrible risk, amounting almost to certain calamity, in regard to his
literary admirers. I have never yet known an author--and this applies
to authoresses as well--whose face, if you liked his work, was not an
acute disappointment the moment you clapped eyes upon it. For example,
I am a devoted admirer of "Amiel's Journal", but it is years since I
have torn Amiel's photograph from the covers of his book. I could not
bear to think that such lovely, such poetical thoughts, should issue
from a man who, in his portrait, anyway, looks like nothing so much as
a melancholy Methodist minister, the most cheerful characteristic of
whom is "Bright's disease."

In the days of my extreme youth I admired a well-known authoress--_in
public_, be it understood, as is the way of youth. The world was given
to understand that in her seductive heroines she really drew her own
portrait. This same world lived long in blissful ignorance that what
was stated to be a fact was only the very small portion of a
half-truth. For years this famous lady _refused_ to have her photo
published. She even went so far as to tell the world so in every
"interview" which journalists obtained from her--either regarding her
views on "How best to obtain an extra sugar-allowance in war-time," or
concerning "Queen Mary's noble example to English women to wea