Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/116

 candidate for her hand would, unless he were the possessor of incredible perfections, have desperate difficulty in winning mine.

I did feel reasonably competent, nevertheless, to discuss eligible sons-in-law with Cornelia. The young men of to-day are not notably better or worse than the young men of twenty years ago, nor is the problem of choice among them essentially altered. I know a good man when I see him, as well as Cornelia does. But what is a good daughter or a good daughter-in-law nowadays? It is a horrid question. It leads one into the hot air of clashing ideals.

With respect to girls, I admit at once that I am in a state of confusion and uncertainty, and that I may appear to be in a place where the light is dim, not merely because girls, between the period of George Sand and the period of Miss Amy Lowell, are said to have changed rapidly and essentially, but also because in the vast and engrossing literature of this subject I have remained homo unius libri, a man of one book—of strictly limited experience. As I remarked to Cornelia in all humility, only a day or two ago, if there is one thing of which I am more densely ignorant than another, it is women, including