“Ye lee, ye lee, ye ill womyn,
Sae loud I hear ye lee;
The ill-faured’st wife i’ the kingdom of Fife
Is comely compared wi’ thee.”
He could stand all the other marvels of the Sabbat, but that was too much for his credulity.
No doubt many of these Ugly Princesses are endowed with excellent sterling qualities. The old Border legend says there never was a happier match than that of “Muckle-mou’ed Meg,” though her husband married her reluctantly with a halter tightening round his neck. But such advantages lie below the surface, and take some time in being appreciated. The first process of captivation is what I don’t understand—unless, indeed, there are sparkles in the quartz, invisible to common eyes, that tell the experienced gold-seeker of a rich vein near.
Well, we will allow the proposition with which we started; but do you suppose its converse would hold equally good—that every woman could love once if she wished it? Nine out of ten of them would, I dare say, answer boldly in the affirmative; but in a few rather sad and weary faces you might read something more than a doubt about this; and lips, not so red and full as they once were, on which the wintry smile comes but rarely, could tell perhaps a different story. The precise mould that will fit some fancies is as hard to find as the slipper of Cendrillon; and so, in default of the fairy chaussure, the small white foot goes on its road unshod, and the stones and briers gall it cruelly.
With men it does not so much matter. They have always the counteracting resources of bodily and mental exertion, against which the affections can make but little head. Indeed, some of the most distinguished in arts, in arms, if not in song, seem to have gone down to their graves without ever giving themselves time to indulge in any one of these. Perhaps they never missed 26 a sentiment which would have been very much in their way if they had felt it. If all tales are true, mathematics are a very effectual Nénuphar. But with women it is different. They can’t be always clambering up unexplored peaks, or inventing improvements in gunnery, or commanding irregular corps, or bringing in faultless reform bills, or finding out constellations, or shooting big game, or resorting to any of our thousand-and-one safety-valves to superfluous excitement. Are crochet, or crossed letters, or charity-schools, or even Cochins and Crève-cœurs, so entirely engrossing as to drown forever the reproaches of nature, that will make herself heard? If not, surely the most phlegmatically proper of her sex does sometimes feel sad and dissatisfied when she thinks that she has never been able to care for any one more than for her own brother. It must seem hard that, when the frost of old age comes on, she shall not have even a memory to look upon to warm her. But in the world here, such temptations to discontent abound; but the most guileless votary of the Sacré Cœur might confess regrets and misgivings like these without meriting any extra allowance of fast and scourge.
If we were to reckon up the cases we have heard of women who have “gone wrong,” and made, if not mésalliances, at least marriages inexplicable on any rational grounds, it would fill up a long summer’s day, even without drawing on darker recollections of post-nuptial transgression. In these last cases, perhaps, the altar and absolute indifference was a more dangerous element than Mrs. Malaprop’s “little aversion,” which is, at all events, a positive, thing to work upon. Lethargies are harder to cure, they say, than fevers. Certainly they have the warning examples of others who have so erred, and paid for it by a life-long repentance; but that never has stopped them yet, and never will. Remember the reply of the débutante to her austere parent when the latter refused to take her to a ball, saying that “she had seen the folly of such things.” “I want to see the folly of them too.” Few of us men can realize the feeling that, with our sisters, may account for, though not excuse, much folly and sin. They see others happy all around them: it is hard to fast when so many are feasting. So there comes a shameful sense of ignorance—a vague, eager desire for knowledge—a terror of an isolation deepening and darkening upon them, and a determination, at any risks, to balk at least that enemy—and so, like the poor lady of Shalott, they grow restless, and reckless, and rebellious at last. They are safe where they are, but the days have so much of dull sameness that there is a sore temptation in the unknown peril. “Better,” they say, “than the close atmosphere of the guarded castle and the phantasms of fairy-land, one draught of the fresh outer air—one glimpse of real life and nature—one taste of substantial joys and sorrows that shall wake all the pulses of womanhood, even though the experience be brief and dearly bought, though the web woven while we sat dreaming must surely be rent in twain—ay, even though the curse, too, may follow very swiftly, and the swans be waiting at the gate that shall bear us down to our burying.”
If staid and cold-blooded virgins and matrons are not exempt from these disagreeable self-reproaches, how did it fare with Cecil Tresilyan, in whom the energy of a strong temperament was stirring like the spring-sap in a young oak-tree? Should she die conscious of the possession of such a wealth of love, with none to share or inherit it? She had seen such numbers of her friends and acquaintance “pair off,” that she began to envy at last the facility of attachment that she had been wont to hold in scorn. Very many reflections of “lovers lately wed” had been cast upon her mirror, and yet the One knightly shadow was long in coming. Can it be that yonder gleam through the trees is the flash of his distant armor?