"And could he find
A woman, in her womanhood, as great
As he was in his manhood, then, he sang,
The twain together well might change the world."
"But he never mocks;
For mockery is the fume of little hearts."
"For, in those days,
No knight of Arthur's noblest dealt in scorn;
But if a man were halt or hunched,—in him,
By those whom God had made full-fed and tall,
Scorn was allowed, as part of his defect."
Guinevere, in Idyls of the King.
THE MARKET.
I.
DEATH OR DISHONOR.
"How high, beneficent, sternly inexorable, if forgotten, is the duty laid, not on women only, but on every creature, in regard to these particulars!"—T. Carlyle.