many drudges of the shop;

That there are men more stupid and actually more ugly than God would
have made them;

That there are those whose character is like a chestnut without a
kernel;

That the clergy are generally chaste;

That there are men so situated in life that they can never enter the
brilliant sphere in which honest women move, whether for want of a
coat, or from their bashfulness, or from the failure of a mahout to
introduce them.

But let us leave to each one the task of adding to the number of these
exceptions in accordance with his personal experience--for the object
of a book is above all things to make people think--and let us
instantly suppress one-half of the sum total and admit only that there
are one million of hearts worthy of paying homage to honest women.
This number approximately includes those who are superior in all
departments. Women love only the intellectual, but justice must be
done to virtue.

As for these amiable celibates, each of them relates a string of
adventures, all of which seriously compromise honest women. It would
be a very moderate and reserved computation to attribute no more than
three adventures to each celibate; but if some of them count their
adventures by the dozen, there are many more who confine themselves to
two or three incidents of passion and some to a single one in their