A woman's peccadilloes are generally worse than a man's. At all events they are more reprobated.
* * *
Abashment intensifies a woman's love for him so making her abashed. And
There is a shame that is sweeter than joy. (As
There is a fear more tremulous than delight.) For
Mastery is a woman's standard of man. And There is an element of the freest and frankest savagery in the most refined and spiritual of women. (How otherwise
Can any one explain the extraordinary fable of Selene and Pan?(4)
—And man?
—But that man was ever a savage. It may be added that
The defenselessness of woman is a conventional fiction: she can avert an attack by a look; she can terminate a siege by a taunt.
(4) Though Browning tried. See "Dramatic Idyls", "Pan and Luna"