etic notice,
for there is another side. There is a basis of attack, as well as
defence. I not only apologize, but stand up for this much-abused
article. Though worn gloves are indeed less beautiful than fresh ones,
they have more character. Take one just from the shop, how lank and
wan it is,--a perfect monotony of insipidity; but in a day or two it
plumps out, it curls over, it wabs up, it wrinkles and bulges and
stands alone. All the joints and hollows and curves and motions of
your hands speak through its outlines. Twists and rips and scratches
and stains bear silent witness of your agitation, your activity, your
merry-making. Here breaks through the irrepressible energy of your
nature. Let harmless negatives rejoice in their stupid integrity.
Genius is expansive and iconoclastic. Enterprise cannot be confined by
kid or thread or silk. The life that is in you must have full swing,
even if snap go the buttons and gray go the gloves. Truly, if
historians had but eyes to see, the record of one's experience might be
written out from the bureau-drawer. Happy a thousand times that
historians have not eyes to see.

As to mending gloves, after the first attack it is time lost. Let one
or two pairs, kept for show and state, be irreproachable; but the rest
are for service, and everybody knows that little serving can be done
with bandaged hands. You must take hold of things without gloves, or,
which amounts to the same thing, with gloves that let your fingers
through, or you cannot reasonably expect to take hold of things with
any degree of efficiency.

So, as I was saying, I sat on the coach-top twisting my gloves, and I
wished in my heart that men would not do such things as that very
agreeable gentleman was doing. I do not design to enter on a crusade
against tobacco. It is a mooted point in minor morals, in which every
one must judge for himself; but I do wish men would not smoke so much.
In fact, I should be pleased if they did not smoke at all. I do not
believe there is any necessity for it. I believe it is a mere habit of
self-indulgence. Women connive at it, because--well, because, in a
way, they must. Men are childish, and, as I have said before, animal.
I don't think they have nearly the self-restraint, self-denial, high
dignity and purity and conscience that women have,--take them in the
mass. They give over to habits and pleasures like great boys. People
talk about the extravagance of women. B