was once his fellow-student and has passed through the different stages of
his professional life with him; the friends and chosen companions of the
actor are commonly actors; of the savant, savants; of the farmer, farmers;
of the sailor, sailors. So generally is this the case that it would almost
attract attention and cause amusement were the boon companion of the sea
captain a leading politician, and the intimate friend of the clergyman an
actor, or the dearest friend of the farmer an astronomer. Kind seeks kind.
The majority of men by choice frequent clubs where those of their own
calling are found, and especially as life advances and men sink deeper into
their professional grooves, they are found to seek fellowship mainly among
their fellow-workers. That this should be so is inevitable; common
amusements may create a certain bond between the young, but the performance
of common labours, necessitating identical knowledge, identical habits, and
modes of thought, forms a far stronger bond, drawing men far more
powerfully towards social intercourse and personal friendship and affection
than the centrifugal force of professional jealousies can divide them.

That the same condition would prevail where women became fellow-workers
with men might be inferred on abstract grounds: but practical experience
confirms this. The actor oftenest marries the actress, the male musician
the female; the reception-room of the literary woman or female painter is
found continually frequented by men of her own calling; the woman-doctor
associates continually with and often marries one of her own confreres; and
as women in increasing numbers share the fields of labour with men, which
have hitherto been apportioned to them alone, the nature and strength of
the sympathy arising from common labours will be increasingly clear.

The sharing by men and women of the same labours, necessitating a common
culture and therefore common habits of thought and interests, would tend to
fill that painful hiatus which arises so continually in modern conjugal