ssed very large experience, for so small
a matter; being thoroughly acquainted with women of every class, from
ladies of the highest blood, to Bonarobas, and peasants' wives: and that
they all might be divided into three heads and no more; that is to
say as follows. First, the very hot and passionate, who were only
contemptible; second, the cold and indifferent, who were simply odious;
and third, the mixture of the other two, who had the bad qualities of
both. As for reason, none of them had it; it was like a sealed book to
them, which if they ever tried to open, they began at the back of the
cover.

Now I did not like to hear such things; and to me they appeared to be
insolent, as well as narrow-minded. For if you came to that, why might
not men, as well as women, be divided into the same three classes,
and be pronounced upon by women, as beings even more devoid than their
gentle judges of reason? Moreover, I knew, both from my own sense, and
from the greatest of all great poets, that there are, and always have
been, plenty of women, good, and gentle, warm-hearted, loving, and
lovable; very keen, moreover, at seeing the right, be it by reason, or
otherwise. And upon the whole, I prefer them much to the people of my
own sex, as goodness of heart is more important than to show good reason
for having it. And so I said to Jeremy,--

"You have been ill-treated, perhaps, Master Stickles, by some woman or
other?"

"Ah, that have I," he replied with an oath; "and the last on earth who
should serve me so, the woman who was my wife. A woman whom I never
struck, never wronged in any way, never even let her know that I like
another better. And yet when I was at Berwick last, with the regiment
on guard there against those vile moss-troopers, what does that woman
do but fly in the face of all authority, and of my especial business, by
running away herself with the biggest of all moss-troopers? Not that I
cared a groat about her; and I wish the fool well rid of her: but the
insolence of the thing was such that everybody laughed at me; and back
I went to London, losing a far better and safer job than this; and all
through her. Come, let's have another onion."

Master Stickles's view of the matter was so entirely unromantic, that I
scarcely wondered at Mistress Stickles for having run away from him to
an adventurous moss-trooper. For nine women out of ten must have some
kind of romance or other, to make their lives endurable; and w