ideal of love and marriage—a conception and ideal which one comes across in unexpected and unlikely persons and which is by no means confined to those whose years are still few in number and whose hearts are still hot within them. Only a few weeks ago I heard an elderly gentleman of scientific attainments talk something which, but for its sincerity, would have seemed to me sheer sentimental balderdash concerning the relations of men and women. And from other equally respectable gentlemen I have heard opinions that were beautiful as well as honest on the relations of the sexes, of a kind that no woman, being alone with another woman, would ever venture to utter. For we see the thing differently. I am not so foolish as to imagine that theory and practice in this or any other matter are in the habit of walking hand in hand; I know that for men the word love has two different meanings, and therefore I should be sorry to have to affirm on oath that the various gentlemen who have, at various times, favoured me with their views on the marriage question have one and all lived up to their convictions; but at least their conception of the love and duty
