200 MARRIAGE AND HEREDITY 



she may appear to do so unintentionally." " In Persia 

 a glimpse of a lady's face is seldom to be got, save 

 by stratagem, or by what is considered an immodest 

 act on her part, the raising of a corner of the veil by 

 the lady herself; but the Persian belle yet contrives 

 to find a way of rewarding her admirer with a 

 glance." ^ In Turkey the difficulty presented by the 

 veil has been ingeniously turned. " So coquettishly 

 is the transparent muslin folded over the nose and 

 mouth that the delicate cloud seems but to heighten 

 each charm. Far, very far is it from hiding the 

 wearer's features from the profaning eye of man."^ 

 It is by such devices that Nature seeks to regain her 

 ravished rights. Failing the recuperative power re- 

 quired for its revival, an ailing race succumbs in time to 

 a stronger competitor ; the fittest, in a word, survives. 

 On the face of the earth, as on a scroll, how many 

 records, lost to history, may have been written and 

 erased by successive races or civilisations ? 



Mormonism, free love, and other new-fangled 

 substitutes for monogamy adopted in America are 

 experiments bound in natural course to fail, because 

 they conflict with instincts which, having grown up 



^ Wills's Persia as it is. 

 ^ Mrs. Harvey's Turkish Harems and Circassian ITomes. 



