truth more imperative than that of lying stoutly on occasion—for, indeed, there is often no other way of conveying the whole truth than by telling the part-lie.
A watchful sincerity to our great conception of ourselves is the first and last condition of our creating that finest work of art—a personality; for a personality, like a poet, is not only born, but made.
III.—The Arbitrary Classification of Sex
In an essay on Vauvenargues Mr. John Morley speaks with characteristic causticity of those epigrammatists "who persist in thinking of man and woman as two different species," and who make verbal capital out of the fancied distinction in the form of smart epigrams beginning "Les femmes." It is one of Shakespeare's cardinal characteristics that he understood woman. Mr. Meredith's fame as a novelist is largely due to the fact that he too understands women. The one spot on the sun of Robert Louis Stevenson's fame, so we are told, is that he could never draw a woman. His capacity for drawing men counted for nothing, apparently, beside this failure. Evidently the Sphinx has not the face of a woman for nothing. That is why no one has yet read her riddle, translated her mystic smile. Yet many people smile mysteriously, without any profound meanings behind their smile, with no other reason than a desire to mystify. Perhaps the Sphinx smiles to herself just for the fun of seeing us take her smile so seriously. And surely women must so smile as they hear their psychology so gravely discussed. Of course, the superstition is invaluable to them, and it is only natural that they should make the most of it. Man is supposed to be a complete ignoramus in
