because you have not found a pearl. You fall an easy prey to the first woman who flatters you, and plume yourself on having gained a victory without fighting a battle. The fortress so easily won is probably but weakly garrisoned, and capitulates ere long to a fresh assailant. When this has happened two or three times, you veil your discomfiture under an affectation of philosophy and vow that women are all alike, quoting perhaps a consolatory scrap from Catullus—
'Quid levins plumâ? pulvis. Quid pulvere? ventus.
Quid vento? mulier. Quid muliëre? nihil?'
But Roman proverbs and Roman philosophy are unworthy and delusive. There is a straight stick in the wood if you will be satisfied with it when found; there is a four-leaved shamrock amongst the herbage if you will only seek for it honestly on your knees. Should there be but one in a hundred women,
