"Toney Belton, you deserve to have your eyes scratched out by a bevy of beautiful damsels for your disparaging opinion of the last best gift."
"Let them scratch; for women are like cats."
"Like cats?"
"There is a striking similitude between them; and when a man with a pulpy brain and a penetrable bosom falls into the hands of a beautiful and fascinating woman, he is much in the condition of an unfortunate mouse in the paws of a remorseless pussy. Indeed, nearly all truly faithful and devoted lovers have to undergo an ordeal like that of the helpless captive in feline clutches. The cruel cat will at one moment pat her victim softly on the head, and fondle it with the utmost affection, as if it were the most precious treasure she had in the world; she will apparently repent of her intention to hold it in captivity, and will permit it to escape and run half-way over the floor, when, with a sudden spring, she will pounce upon it again and hold it fast, regardless of its squeals for mercy. Just so with a pretty woman and her lover. Next to a tabby cat, the most remorseless and cruel creature in the world is a woman who has a man completely in her power. Indeed, there is so great a congeniality of disposition between the female sex and the feline species that maidens, when they become elderly and are not otherwise occupied, almost invariably take to nursing cats,—there being a mysterious affinity which draws them together."
"Do you want me to believe that a woman will not marry a man until she has first tortured the soul out of him, and made him utterly miserable? Why, they say that marriages are made in heaven."
"In heaven they may be made, Thomas; but, if so, they are caught on the horns of the moon as they are coming down; for I tell you that hardly any woman ever marries the right man, and hardly any man ever marries the right woman. You have only to open your eyes and you will perceive this without the aid of an opera-glass."
"My observations have led me to no such conclusions."
"Have you never observed, oh, most sagacious Thomas, that no pretty woman ever had an adorer without wishing to torment him with a rival? And is it not a singular fact that she usually selects some male animal to occupy that position who is in every respect the inferior of the worthy man whom she is endeavoring to drive to distraction? Does she not take every occasion to inflate the vanity of him whom she cares nothing about, and to humiliate the man whom she really loves? Now, there are Claribel Carrington and Imogen Hazlewood,—they are both pretty women."
"Pretty! They are both surpassingly beautiful, though not at all alike!—the former a blonde, with deep blue eyes and golden tresses; the latter a brunette, with locks as dark as a feather fallen from the wings of night, and black eyes, from which Cupid, who continually lurks under the long lashes, borrows the barbs for the arrows with which he mortally wounds multitudes of unlucky swains."
"Do not be poetical, Thomas. Pray take your foot from the stirrup and dismount before Pegasus carries you to the clouds, and you lose an opportunity of listening to plain, sensible prose. Each one of these young ladies has a devoted lover."