Richard Forrest, Bachelor — page 106: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

WOMEN ARE WITCHES. 97 CHAPTER XI. WOMEN ARE WITCHES. What more difficult task, Iask, cana man set himself than to try to amuse, and keep amused, another member of his own sex who has been disappointed in love? Where can there be found a more thankless, disagree- able, uncomfortable creature than such aone? Heis a bur- den to himself, and (unless he be a grand exception to the common rule) to all those around him. Men are universally accepted to be the sterner sex, and I do not deny them that privilege, but that they are the stronger morally, I may be allowed to state, I have my doubts. Nine women out of ten, to whom the course of true love has proved rough and thorny, will live their ac- customed daily lives as calmly and placidly as ever, and show little of the heart sorrow they endure in their faces or actions. But alas! with the ‘‘masters of creation,’’ it is apt to be otherwise. Should the fair one frown instead of smile, or, if she smile, do so for a hated rival’s benefit, why, my lord promptly proceeds to take the world into his confidence by showing how piqued he is. The first unwit- ting offender who comes within reach is liable to receive upon his or her head all the vials of a wrath seething within the manly bosom and only awaiting a victim. It is quite the same thing whether it be the tax collector ora friend requesting him to dine, each, individually, should know better than to bother him at such a time, etc., ete., etc. | Try to cheer him up or sympathize with him, and he (COMME NO KS (©) AL