Talking of spiders I have just seen a fly catch one. It was, of course, an ichneumon fly. One has many times heard of his habit of pouncing upon his racial enemy, puncturing and paralyzing him and finally carrying him off, walling him up and laying an egg in him, out of which comes a young ichneumon to feed upon his helpless vitals; but one does not often see the tragedy in the air. He held his fat prey quite firmly in his merciless jaws and he went with entrain, the villain! The victim spider and the assassin fly! One might moralize again.
It is hotter than ever, and the sunlight under the ground-glass bell has a factitious look, as if we had here a comedy with a scene of summer. A hawk-moth darts like a hummingbird in and out of the honeysuckle, and a very fine rose-chafer all in green and gold paces across this paragraph. I believe there are more rose-chafers this year than there ought to be, and Atma has a heavy bill against them in every stage of their existence, but they are such attractive depredators. When I find one making himself comfortable in the heart of a La France, I know very well that on account of the white grub he was once and the many white grubs he will be again I ought to kill him and think no more about it; but one hesitates to send a creature out of the world who exercises such good taste when he is in it. I know it is quite too foolish to write, but the extent of my vengeance upon such a one is only to put him into a common rose.
The birds are silent; the butterflies bask on the gravel like little ships with big sails. Even the lizards have sought temporary retirement between the flower-pots. I am the only person who is denied her natural shelter and compelled to resort to an umbrella. Tiglath-Pileser said the other day that he thought it was quite time I made some acknowledgment of the good it was doing me. It is doing me good—of course. But what strikes me most about it is the wonderful patience and fortitude people can display in having good done to them.
Chapter XIII
I HAVE had a morning of domestic details with the Average Woman. I don’t quite know whether one ought to write about such things, or whether one ought to draw a veil; I have not yet formed a precise opinion as to the function of the commonplace in matter intended for publication. But surely no one should scorn domestic details, which make our universal background and mainstay of existence. Theories and abstractions serve to adorn it and to give us a notion of ourselves: but we keep them mostly for lectures and sermons, the monthly reviews, the original young man who comes to tea. All would be glad to shine at odd times, but the most luminous demonstration may very probably be based upon a hatred of cold potatoes and a preference for cotton sheets. And of course no one would dare to scorn the average woman; she is the backbone of society. Personally I admire her very humbly, and respect her very truly. For many of us, to become an average woman is an ambition. I think I will go on.
Besides, Thalia interrupted us, and Thalia will always lend herself to a chapter.
The Average Woman is not affectionate but she is solicitous, and there was the consideration of my original situation and my tiresome health. Then she perceived that I had a garden and that it was a pretty garden. I said, indifferently, that people thought so; I knew it was a subject she would not pursue unless she were very much encouraged, and there was no reason at all why she should pursue it; she would always be a visitor in such a place, whereas there were many matters which she could treat with familiar intelligence. I was quite right; she wandered at once into tins of white enamel, where it seemed she had already spent several industrious hours. We sympathized deeply over the extent to which domestic India was necessarily enamelled, though I saw a look of criticism cross her face when I announced that I hoped one day to be rich enough not to possess a single article painted in that way—not a chair, not a table. I think she considered my declaration too impassioned, but she did not dissent from it. That is a circumstance one notes about the Average Woman: she never dissents from anything. She never will be drawn into an argument. One could make the most wild and whirling statement to her, if one felt inclined, and it is as likely as not that she would say “Yes indeed,” or “I think so too,” and after a little pause of politeness go on to talk about something else. I can’t imagine why one never does feel inclined.
We continued to discuss interior decoration, and I learned that she was preparing a hearth seat for her drawing-room, one of those low square arrangements projecting into the room before the fire, upon which two ladies may sit before dinner and imagine they look picturesque, while the rest of the assembled guests, from whom they quite cut off the cheerful blaze, wonder whether they do. The Average Woman declared that she could no longer live without one.
“As time goes on one notices that fewer and fewer average women can,” I observed absently, and hastily added, “I mean, you know, that of course very portly ladies—”
“Oh, I see,” said she. “No, of course not.”