so by our choice
and for our sins. The subjection of women; the ideal imposed upon them
from the cradle, and worn, like a hair-shirt, with so much constancy;
their motherly, superior tenderness to man's vanity and self-importance;
their managing arts--the arts of a civilised slave among good-natured
barbarians--are all painful ingredients and all help to falsify
relations. It is not till we get clear of that amusing artificial scene
that genuine relations are founded, or ideas honestly compared. In the
garden, on the road or the hillside, or _tete-a-tete_ and apart from
interruptions, occasions arise when we may learn much from any single
woman; and nowhere more often than in married life. Marriage is one long
conversation, chequered by disputes. The disputes are valueless; they
but ingrain the difference; the heroic heart of woman prompting her at
once to nail her colours to the mast. But in the intervals, almost
unconsciously and with no desire to shine, the whole material of life is
turned over and over, ideas are struck out and shared, the two persons
more and more adapt their notions one to suit the other, and in process
of time, without sound of trumpet, they conduct each other into new
worlds of thought.

FOOTNOTE:

[14] This sequel was called forth by an excellent article in _The
Spectator_.

XII

THE CHARACTER OF DOGS

The civilisation, the manners, and the morals of dog-kind are to a great
extent subordinated to those of his ancestral master, man. This animal,
in many ways so superior, has accepted a position of inferiority, shares
the domestic life, and humours the caprices of the tyrant. But the
potentate, like the British in India, pays small regard to the character
of his willing client, judges him with listless glances, and condemns
him in a byword. Listless have been the looks of his admirers, who have
exhausted idle terms of praise, and buried the poor soul below
exaggerations. And yet more idle and, if possible, more unintelligent
has been the attitude of his express detractors; those who are very fond
of dogs, "but in their proper place"; who say "poo' fellow, poo'
fellow," and are themselves far poorer; who whet the knife of the
vivisectionist or heat his oven; who are not ashamed to admire "the
creature's instinct"; and flying far beyond folly, have dared to
resuscitate the theory of animal machines. The "dog's instinct" and the
"automaton-dog," in this age of psychology a