wit, that the sort of man capable of transmitting high talents to a son
is ordinarily a man who does not have a son at all, at least in
wedlock, until he has advanced into middle life. The reasons which
impel him to yield even then are somewhat obscure, but two or
three of them, perhaps, may be vaguely discerned. One lies in the
fact that every man, whether of the first-class or of any other class,
tends to decline in mental agility as he grows older, though in the
actual range and profundity of his intelligence he may keep on
improving until he collapses into senility. Obviously, it is mere
agility of mind, and not profundity, that is of most value and effect
in so tricky and deceptive a combat as the duel of sex. The aging
man, with his agility gradually withering, is thus confronted by
women in whom it still luxuriates as a function of their relative
youth. Not only do women of his own age aspire to ensnare him,
but also women of all ages back to adolescence. Hence his average
or typical opponent tends to be progressively younger and younger
than he is, and in the end the mere advantage of her youth may be
sufficient to tip over his tottering defences. This, I take it, is why
oldish men are so often intrigued by girls in their teens. It is not that
age calls maudlinly to youth, as the poets would have it; it is
that age is no match for youth, especially when age is male and
youth is female. The case of the late Henrik Ibsen was typical. At
forty Ibsen was a sedate family man, and it is doubtful that he ever
so much as glanced at a woman; all his thoughts were upon the
composition of "The League of Youth," his first social drama. At
fifty he was almost as preoccupied; "A Doll's House" was then
hatching. But at sixty, with his best work all done and his decline
begun, he succumbed preposterously to a flirtatious damsel of
eighteen, and thereafter, until actual insanity released him, he
mooned like a provincial actor in a sentimental melodrama. Had it