And yet she hath no strength to stand alone,—
Once she had playmates, fancies of her own,
And she did love them. They are past away
As fairies vanish at the break of day;
And like a spectre of an age departed,
Or unsphered angel woefully astray,
She glides along—the solitary-hearted.
Perhaps it is scarcely possible for you to imagine that a woman finds it impossible to marry because of being too beautiful, too wise, and too good. In Western countries it is not impossible at all. You must try to imagine entirely different social conditions—conditions in which marriage depends much more upon the person than upon the parents, much more upon inclination than upon anything else. A woman’s chances of marriage depend very much upon herself, upon her power of pleasing and charming. Thousands and tens of thousands can never get married. Now there are cases in which a woman can please too much. Men become afraid of her. They think, “She knows too much, I dare not be frank with her”—or, “She is too beautiful, she never would accept a common person like me”—or, “She is too formal and correct, she would never forgive a mistake, and I could never be happy with her.” Not only is this possible, but it frequently happens. Too much excellence makes a misfortune. I think you can understand it best by the reference to the very natural prejudice against over-educated women, a prejudice founded upon experience and existing in all countries, even in Japan. Men are not attracted to a woman because she is excellent at mathematics, because she knows eight or nine different languages, because she has acquired all the conventions of high-pressure training. Men do not care about that. They want love and trust and kindliness and ability to make a home beautiful and happy. Well, the poem we have been reading is very pathetic because it describes a woman who can not fulfil her natural destiny, can not be loved—this through no fault of her own, but quite the reverse. To be too much advanced beyond one’s time and environment is even a worse misfortune than to be too much behind.