150 SOCRATES AND XANTIPPB. 



of repartee, and brilliantly successful in her sallies of polished irony 

 and delicate sarcasm. Such was the woman whom her unkind des- 

 tiny united to an ugly philosopher of a rectified temper. 



Socrates despised the world's opinion and derided its fashions ; 

 Xantippe, true to the genius of her sex, was fully impressed with 

 the importance of both. Therefore the husband dressed and behaved 

 like a sloven, while the wife exerted all her energies, and plied all 

 her arts, to subject him to the wholesome and beautifying dominion 

 of the graces. Reasoning from the present to the past, and taking 

 for granted the immutability of female characteristics, we are fully 

 justified in saying that this was the mode of conduct which the well- 

 meaning Xantippe adopted. How are we to suppose that the phi- 

 losopher received his wife's coaxings and admonitions? After 

 listening to her observations, he would argue with her upon the 

 ground of her complaints in that cross-examination style of his which 

 the Socratic Boswells record as having been peculiarly grateful to 

 the spirit of the ci-devant statuary, and which was certainly enough 

 to drive any but a marble lady into strong hysterics. Perhaps how- 

 ever he was not even so ambiguously courteous as this, but merely 

 laughed at her importunity, and went about the town as untidy a 

 figure as ever. Is it to be thought that a woman of refined taste 

 and high spirit, such as was Xantippe, could tamely submit to this 

 contemptuous and philosophic treatment ? 



We are informed that Socrates did not receive a single penny 

 with his bride. The graces of her mind and body formed the sum 

 total of her marriage-portion. How much light is thrown upon the 

 history of her single state by this little circumstance ! Her beauty 

 and accomplishments, added to her wit and vivacity, must, without 

 doubt, have captivated many admirers. Among them there was 

 probably a favoured one, with whom she exchanged vows of endless 

 love and fidelity. But Athenian lovers then were no better than 

 their modern representatives in all civilised countries. Xantippe's 

 swain we may imagine to have been a mercenary dog, whom Plutus 

 seduced from his allegiance to Cupid under the disguise of an heiress. 

 In a moment of pique and disappointment, the hasty young lady, our 

 heroine, gave an affirmative answer to the most important question 

 which could possibly have been put to her by an ugly little philo- 

 sopher, with a Calmuck nose, and twinkling gray eyes. 



It may be objected that all this is a mere hypothesis, but it is one 

 which derives all but certainty from its evident probability. Let us 

 however suppose that the match originated, on the lady's side, in a 

 laudable desire of obtaining an establishment of her own, on the gen- 

 tleman's in an involuntary submission to charms against whose influ- 

 ence philosophy was unable to defend him. If such were the case, 

 sad indeed was our heroine's lot. The philosopher was troubled with 

 a moral weakness which as a single man he might have humoured 

 ad libitum, without inflicting injury upon any one but himself. He 

 despised money. Having however once married, he was not likely 

 to conciliate his wife's affections by the advocacy of short commons, 

 nor to preserve them through the medium of a meagre and ill- 

 appointed household. Xantippe was a shrewd woman, and saw very 



