keeping, but to the tender care of every man with whom
she comes in contact. When a wife goes wrong a
hypocritical world rises in well-simulated wrath--which is too
often envy--and hurls its anathema maranatha at the head
of the "designing villain," as tho' his companion in crime
were born without brains and reared without instruction!
The "injured husband"--who probably drove his wife to the
devil by studied neglect that starved her heart and wounded
her vanity--is regarded with contempt if he does not "make
a killing" for a crime against the social code which he would
himself commit.

I paint man as I find him, not as I would have him. I did not
create him, or did his Architect ask my advice; hence it is
no fault of mine that his virtue's frail as ocean foam--not
mine the blame that while half a god he's all a beast.
Mentally and sexually man is a polygamist, and, whatever
its moral value may be, monogamy does violence to the
law of his being. It is a barrier against which he ever beats
like some wild beast of prey against restraining bars. Give
him Psyche to wife and Sappho for mistress and he were
not content--would swim a river to make mad love to some
freckled maid. It is likely that Leander had at home a wife
he dearly loved when he lost his life trying to reach fair
Hero's bower. That the Lord expects little even of the best
of men when subjected to beauty's blandishments is proven
by his partiality to various princes and patriarchs who,
in matters of gallantry, may be regarded as pace-setters.

I am not the apologist of the godless rake, the defender of