The man receives the acknowledgment invariably, even if he has done nothing to deserve it, and herein is the reason why many gifted women do not marry, and prefer to stand alone in effort and achievement rather than have their hardly won renown filched from them by unjust hands.

When Roger Seaton confessed to the girl Manella that his real desire was to bend and subdue Morgana's intellectuality to his own, he spoke the truth, not only for himself but for all men.

Absolutely disinterested love for a brilliantly endowed woman would be difficult to find in any male nature,--men love what is inferior to themselves, not superior.

Thus women who are endowed with more than common intellectual ability have to choose one of two alternatives--love, or what is called love, and child-bearing,--or fame, and lifelong loneliness.
The Marchese Rivardi, thinking along the usual line of masculine logic, had frequently turned over the problem of Morgana's complex character such as it appeared to him,--and had almost come to the conclusion that if he only had patience he would succeed in persuading her that wifehood and motherhood were more conducive to a woman's happiness than all the most amazing triumphs of scientific discovery and attainment.
He was perfectly right according to simple natural law,--but he chose to forget that women's mental outlook has, in these modern days, been greatly widened,--whether for their gain or loss it is not yet easy to say.

Even for men "much knowledge increaseth sorrow,"-- and it may be hinted that women, with their often overstrung emotions and exaggerated sentiments, are not fit to plunge deeply into studies which tax the brain to its utmost capacity and try the nerves beyond the level of the calm which is essential to health.