440 MORE POT-POURRI 



if she makes the misery of the man she may like best by 

 marrying him if he is poor, than in accepting the rich 

 man if she can get him. I speak only of those whose 

 standard of life is a low one. What is supremely 

 idiotic, and distinctly the fault of the mother, showing 

 a general want of training, is to imagine that when you 

 marry a man for his money, whom you neither love nor 

 admire, you are to have as well all thejoys of life which 

 no money can buy. The thing is ridiculous. There are 

 few who, like Danae, can have god and gold together. 

 Marrying for money or position may be a high or a low 

 line; it is often the only vent for a woman's ambition. 

 But if she does it of her own free wUl, thoroughly un- 

 derstanding and facing what she undertakes, in nine 

 cases out of ten she will carry it through and make the 

 best of it. The person who 'has gained the world' is 

 perhaps the one least likely to throw it away. It is the 

 sentimental, warm-hearted, impressionable girl, who 

 marries some man of the world not knowing what she is 

 doing, who turns to someone else for consolation in bit- 

 terness of spirit when she finds out her mistake. 



The tone of the day, as it is often represented in 

 ephemeral literature, is that, so far as the moral life 

 goes, the sexes should be equal. This has given rise to 

 a very natural feeling amongst girls : that it is a matter 

 of no importance which loves most or even first, the 

 man or the woman. The stronger feeling on the wom- 

 an's side is a phase of the relations between men and 

 women which always has been and always will be; but 

 the open acknowledgment of it is certainly much more 

 common now than forty years ago. Nothing changes 

 nature, and especially in youth it is natural for the man 

 to take the initiative. The cultivation of pride in a 

 woman is much to be desired, and would never deter a 

 man who was really in earnest in his pursuit. In fact, 



