That severs day from night."
Or, at least, did once sever day from night,—and perhaps does still in Illyria. Old England must seek new images for her loves from gas and electric sparks,—not to say furnace fire.
I am obliged, by press of other work, to set down these notes in cruel shortness: and many a reader may be disposed to question utterly the standard by which the measurement is made. It will not be found, on reference
to my other books, that they encourage young ladies to go into convents; or undervalue the dignity of wives and mothers. But, as surely as the sun does sever day from night, it will be found always that the noblest and loveliest women are dutiful and religious by continual nature; and their passions are trained to obey them; like their dogs. Homer, indeed, loves Helen with all his heart, and restores her, after all her naughtiness, to the queenship of her household; but he never thinks of her as Penelope's equal, or Iphigenia's. Practically, in daily life, one often sees married women as good as saints; but rarely, I think, unless they have a good deal to bear from their husbands. Sometimes also, no doubt, the husbands have some trouble in managing St. Cecilia or St. Elizabeth; of which questions I shall be obliged to speak more seriously in another place: content, at present, if English maids know better, by Proserpina's help, what Shakspeare meant by the dim, and Milton by the glowing, violet.
CHAPTER II.
PINGUICULA.
(Written in early June, 1881.)
1. On the rocks of my little stream, where it runs, or leaps, through the moorland, the common Pinguicula is now in its perfectest beauty; and it is one of the offshoots of the violet tribe which I have to place in the minor collateral groups of Viola very soon, and must not put off looking at it till next year.