The pleasures of female society are almost denied the Chinaman; he cannot fall in love before marriage because of the absence of an object for his love.

"The faculty of love produces a subjective ideal; and craves for a corresponding objective reality.

And the longer the absence of the objective reality, the higher the ideal becomes; as in the mind of the hungry man ideal foods get more and more exquisite." In Meadows' "Essay on Civilisation in China," there is a charming story, translated from the Chinese, of love at first sight, given in illustration of the author's contention that "it is the men to whom women's society is almost unknown that are most apt to fall violently in love at first sight.

Violent love at first sight is a general characteristic of nations where the sexes have no intercourse before marriage....

The starved cravings of love devour the first object":-- "A Chinese who had suffered bitter disenchantments in marriage retired with his infant son to the solitude of a mountain inaccessible for little-footed Chinese women.