etitions are circulated for his return.

The law's delay ensues, and this but increases desire. Hate for the man
has turned to pity, and pity turns to love, as starch turns to gluten.

The man comes back, and is greeted with boughs and bays, with love and
laurel. His homecoming is that of a conquering hero. If the Supreme
Court were to issue an injunction requiring all husbands to separate
themselves by at least a hundred miles from their wives, for several
months in every year, it would cut down divorces ninety-five per cent,
add greatly to domestic peace, render race-suicide impossible, and
generally liberate millions of love vibrations that would otherwise lie
dormant.

* * * * *

As an example of female depravity, Valeria Messalina was sister in crime
to Jezebel, Bernice, Drusilla, Salome and Herodias.

Damned by a dower of beauty, with men at her feet whenever she so
ordered, her ambition knew no limit. This type of dictatorial womanhood
starts out by making conquests of individual men, but the conquests of
pretty women are rarely genuine. Women hold no monopoly on duplicity,
and there is a deep vein of hypocrisy in men that prompts their playing
a part, and letting the woman use them. When the time is ripe, they toss
her away as they do any other plaything, as Omar suggests the potter
tosses the luckless pots to hell.

When Julia and Agrippina were recalled, the act was done without
consulting Messalina; and we can imagine her rage when these two women,
as beautiful as herself, came back without her permission. Messalina had
never found favor in the eyes of Seneca--he treated her with patronizing
patience, as though she were a spoilt child.

Now that Julia was back, Messalina hatched the plot that struck them
both. Messalina insisted that the wealth of Seneca should be
confiscated. Claudius at this rebelled.

History is replete with instances of great men ruled by their barbers
and coachmen. Claudius left the affairs of state to Narcissus, his
private secretary; Polybius, his literary helper; and Pallas, his
accountant. These men were all of lowly birth, and had all risen in the
ranks from menial positions, and one of them at least had been sold as a
slave, and afterward purchased his freedom. Then there was Felix, the
ex-slave, another protege of Claudius, who trembled when Paul of Tarsus
told him a little wholesome truth. These men were all immensely rich,
and once, when C