The other day I wrote to a distant friend and put to him Horace’s light question:—
“Quæ circumvolitas agilis thyma?”
Back came the answer: “I am running races with my three little girls. What is there better to do?” A man of gravity and distinction playing with his little daughters has what a politician would call a “pull” upon the gods for the highest joy of existence. From that play-ground he bears away the nectar of incomparable flowers, and the pollen on his thighs will freshen the whole hive of the world.
We may be sure that there is something wrong when we hear it growled around that young maidenhood is insipid in art, and that virility—a murrain seize the word—demands a Harriet Martineau, or the like, for a good, substantial feast of the imagination. Not assuming to know a great deal about virile women, I can venture the statement that truly virile men adore the young girl. She is the heroine of the iron-willed, vastly capable, boy-hearted fellows who make the world move. There is always a love of simple, elemental pleasures in great masculine natures. Precious little they care for artificial cheeks and pencilled eyebrows. Better a healthy, dewy-lipped milkmaid, singing behind the hedge, than a bediamonded old heiress whose teeth have ground luxuries some three dozen long years.
At all events my own preference for the blushing young heroine is unalterable, and I am eager to see her come back, garlanded and happy, to take her rightful place in both life and romance. I long to read yet one more book wherein the sound-hearted story-teller gives full run to that quintessential joy of loving which only the young girl can inspire. I am tired of bacon and potatoes; give me some of old Gervase Markham’s simples—
“The king-cup, the pansy with the violet,
The rose that loves the shower,
The wholesome gilliflower.”