It is very striking to see the difference between the women of this type, the petites maîtresses who require the utmost attention and almost servility from man, and the noble dignity of service which the pure woman can afford to give—which she finds, indeed, that it belongs to the very purity and nobleness of her womanhood to give. It is the old story of the ill-assured position which is afraid of its own weakness, and the security which can afford to descend—the rule holding good for other things besides mere social place.
Another characteristic of the spoilt woman is the changeableness and excitability of her temper. All suavity and gentleness and delightful gaiety and perfect manners when everything goes right, she startles you by her outburst of petulance when the first cross comes. If no man is a hero to his valet, neither is a spoilt woman a heroine to her maid; and the lady who has just been the charm of the drawing-room, upstairs in her boudoir makes her maid go through spiritual exercises to which walking on burning ploughshares is the only fit analogy. A length of lace unstarched, a ribbon unsewed, a flower set awry, anything that crumples only one of the myriad rose-leaves on which she lies, and the spoilt woman raves as much as if each particular leaf had become suddenly beset with thorns.
If a dove was to be transformed to a hawk the change would not be more complete, more startling, than that which occurs when the spoilt woman of well-bred company manners puts off her mask to her maid, and shows her temper over trifles. Whoever else may suffer the grievances of life, she cannot understand that she also must be at times one of the sufferers with the rest; and if by chance the bad moment comes, the person accompanying it has a hard time of it. There are spoilt women also who have their peculiar exercises in thought and opinion, and who cannot suffer that any one should think differently from themselves, or find those things sacred which to them are accursed. They will hear nothing but what is in harmony with themselves, and they take it as a personal insult when men or women attempt to reason with them, or even hold their own without flinching.
This kind is to be found specially among the more intellectual of a family or a circle; women who are pronounced "clever" by their friends, and who have been so long accustomed to think themselves clever that they have become spoilt mentally as others are personally, and fancy that minds and thoughts must follow in their direction, just as eyes and hands must follow and attend their sisters. The spoilt woman of the mental kind is a horrid nuisance generally. She is greatly given to large discourse; but discourse of a kind that leans all to one side, and that denies the right of any one to criticise, doubt, or contradict, is an intellectual Tower of Pisa under the shadow of which it is not pleasant to live.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
Pages x and 24 are blank in the original.
The following words appear with and without hyphens. They have been left as in the original.
| ball-room | ballroom |
| business-like | businesslike |
| hearth-rug | hearthrug |
| house-keeper | housekeeper |
| house-keeping | housekeeping |
| man-like | manlike |
| now-a-days | nowadays |
| over-head | overhead |
Variations in spelling have been left as in the original. Examples include the following:
| center | centre |
| learned | learnt |
| spoiled | spoilt |