“Look indeed at the very name,” said the Doctor, putting on his gravest look of provocation to the ladies.—“Look at the very name—Woman, evidently meaning either man's woe—or abbreviated from woe to man, because by woman was woe brought into the world.”
And when a girl is called a lass, who does not perceive how that common word must have arisen? Who does not see that it may be directly traced to a mournful interjection, alas! breathed sorrowfully forth at the thought the girl, the lovely and innocent creature upon whom the beholder has fixed his meditative eye, would in time become a woman,—a woe to man!
There are other tongues in which the name is not less significant. The two most notoriously obstinate things in the world are a mule and a pig. Now there is one language in which pige means a young woman: and another in which woman is denoted by the word mulier: which word, whatever grammarians may pretend, is plainly a comparative, applied exclusively and with peculiar force to denote the only creature in nature which is more mulish than a mule. Comment, says a Frenchman, pourroit-on aymer les Dames, puis qu'elles se nomment ainsi du dam et dommage qu'elles apportent aux hommes!4
4 BOUCHET.
INTERCHAPTER XXIV.
A TRUE STORY OF THE TERRIBLE KNITTERS E' DENT WHICH WILL BE READ WITH INTEREST BY HUMANE MANUFACTURERS, AND BY MASTERS OF SPINNING JENNIES WITH A SMILE.—BETTY YEWDALE.—THE EXCURSION—AN EXTRACT FROM, AND AN ILLUSTRATION OF.
O voi ch' avete gl' intelletti sani,
Mirate la dottrina, che s' asconde
Sotto 'l velame degli versi strani.
DANTE.