I am convinced that the easiest business in the world must be the writing of epigrams on Woman. I have been reading, of late, in a new volume of "Maxims and Fables." It came to me with the compliments of the author, in lieu of a small debt which he has kept outstanding for several years. Although the writer contradicts himself on every third or fourth page, I am justified in calling the book a very able bit of work for the reason that the ordinary book on this subject contradicts itself on every other page. No one who glances through this volume will fail to understand why the psychology of Woman should be a favourite subject with very young and very light thinkers. It is the only form of literature that calls for absolutely no equipment in the author. Writing a play, for instance, presupposes some acquaintance with a few plays already written. No one can succeed as a novelist without a fair knowledge of the technique of millinery or a tolerable mastery of stock exchange slang. The writer of scientific articles for the magazines must have fancy, and the writer of advertisements must have poetry and wit. But to produce a book of epigrams on Woman requires nothing but an elementary knowledge of spelling and the courage necessary to put the product on the market.
The secret of the thing is so simple that it would be a pity to keep it from the comparatively few persons who have failed to discover it. It consists entirely in the fact that whatever one says about Woman is true. And not only that, but every statement that can possibly be made on the subject is sure to ring true, which is much better even than being true. On every other subject under the sun there is always one opinion which sounds a little more convincing than every other opinion. There are, for example, people who insist that birds of a feather do not necessarily flock together more frequently than birds of a different feather do; and they will assert that if you step on a worm with real firmness the chances of his turning are much less than if you did not step on him at all. Nevertheless, there is undeniably a truer ring about the assertion that birds do flock together than about the assertion that they do not, and we accept more readily the worm that turns than the worm that remains peaceful under any provocation. But this is not the case with aphorisms about the gentler sex. There, everything sounds as plausible as everything else.
Let me be specific. Right at the beginning of the volume to which I have alluded, I came across the following apothegm: "Long after Woman has obtained the right to vote she will continue to face the wrong way when she steps from a street-car." "How true," I said to myself. Well, a few days later, while glancing through the pages at the end of the volume, my eye fell on the following lines: "Now that Woman is learning to face the right way when she steps from a street-car, she has demonstrated her right to the ballot." "How true." But I had scarcely expressed my approval when it occurred to me that I had read the same thing elsewhere in the book. And when I searched out the earlier passage and compared the two and found that they did not say the same thing, but quite the opposite thing, it did not seem to make a very great difference after all. They both sounded plausible. I recited one sentence aloud and then the other, and they rang equally true; and the more I repeated them the truer they rang.
Delighted with my chance discovery I proceeded to make a thorough study of "Maxims and Fables" with the object of bringing together the author's widely scattered observations on the same topic under their appropriate heads. The work went slowly at first; but after a little while I found I could pick out a maxim and turn almost instinctively to one that directly contradicted it. The occupation is fascinating as well as instructive. It sheds a new light on the conditions of human knowledge and the workings of the human mind. Consider, if you will, the following half-dozen sentences that I succeeded in compiling in less than ten minutes. They all deal with the question of a woman's age:
"A woman is as old as she looks.
"A woman is as old as she says.
"A woman is as old as she would like to be.
"A woman is as old as the only man that counts would have her be.
"A woman is as old as any particular situation requires.
"A woman is as old as her dearest woman friends say she is."