I do not think any less of the ladies for the ease of my conquests: I know how impossible it is for the poor dears to resist my charms; but oh the happiness of mediocrity!
I was occupied for a whole season searching for the being whom I called my star. My fancy was so pleased with the idea of basking in her radiance, I had so fully persuaded myself to be guided by her light to all things great and high, I had learned to think of her with so much devotion, that I could not give up my hope of finding her somewhere. I went to all the popular summer-resorts in turn, meeting only disappointment. The star type of girls did not seem to be the mode that season: I could see no trace of her I came to find. Though saddened, I was too young to despair: in my usual clear and sensible manner I thought the matter over. After all, I reflected, I suppose I can find a woman worthy of me who is not a star. I doubt not the poets were sincere in their civility to persons of the other sex. The exaggeration arose from the absence of any really superior man with whom to compare them. They seemed stars in contrast with the existing male species: I had not yet appeared.
Another summer found me renewing my search with unabated vigor, but this time on a different basis, having determined to lay romance aside—to seek for nothing above me—to be content with an equal. If with her I should not be ecstatically happy—if our ménage would not quite rival that of Adam and Eve in the garden of Paradise—yet a certain amount of modern bliss might be extracted from the companionship of an agreeable woman who could appreciate and sympathize with my tastes and be my friend through life.
I employed my second summer in looking for a sympathetic woman, with the intention of making her my wife. May I never see such a hard-working, distracting season again! Not that such women were hard to find—they were only too plenty: at one time I had six who were devoted to me. One sympathized with my love of music; we sang duets together in the evening; it was delightful, for I need hardly say that I sing as I do everything else—remarkably well. Another sympathized with my sketching propensities. We rambled in the woods together with boxes and colors. I found it charming. "Nothing amateurish" about my style, Miss Pinklake said. A third sympathized with my taste for horses: my restive Nero was the "sweetest pet" she ever saw. (My groom says, "He's the divvil hisself, Muster Charley.") With her I rode in the afternoon. She told me—Miss Vernon, you know her? brunette, deuced pretty—she said one day, when we were taking a canter together, "I can believe those wonderful stories of the Centaurs when I see you ride, Mr. Highrank." She had a pleasant voice, and such a figure! I had almost decided to propose to her one day, and was even thinking of the words I should use, when the pale Miss Anabel Lee came walking along the road by us, looking like a fairy, her hat hanging on her arm filled with wild flowers, and her dress looped with ferns. As she passed she raised her beautiful blue eyes to mine, and at the same time—it might have been chance—she pressed a bunch of forget-me-nots to her lips. I remembered I had an engagement to walk with Miss Lee on the beach that night: there was a lovely moon—we talked poetry. It was Miss Annie Darling who said I "waltzed divinely." Miss Annie laid her hand on one's sleeve when she talked to one, mutilated her fan with various tappings on a fellow's shoulder for being naughty, as she called it ("naughty" meant giving her a kiss in a dark corner of the verandah), said saucy things to the snobs, and used her eyes. She walked with the Grecian bend. When I had a serious fit there was young Miss Carenaught, who was plain and read the reviews, spoke sharply against fashion, and knew a man of my education "must despise the butterfly existence of the surrounding throng." Sometimes she would invite me to go with her to catch beetles and queer insects—"not that she needed my help," she would say, "but my intellectual society was indeed a treat in this crowded desert."
All this was very agreeable, but also very perplexing. At the end of the season I found myself as far from making a choice as ever. If I indulged one taste at the expense of the others, I should become a less perfect man; nor could I decide in which of my pursuits I needed sympathy the most—music, painting, dancing, riding, reading. Alas! could I find one woman congenial in all my moods I would marry her immediately. Wearied by the attentions of so many, I yet feared an imperfect life spent with but one. I saw that I had made another mistake, and retired to my country-seat, "The Beauties," to recruit.
I know there is a modern idea that women are the equals of men (the poets, you remember, thought them superior), and many may consider it odd that I did not find it so. I do not wish to offend. To those who hold that opinion I modestly suggest my unfortunate superiority as the probable cause of my failure. I do not blame the ladies, be it understood.
Again I sat down to plan and reflect. I looked mournfully on the past and less hopefully on the future. The obstacles were beginning to dishearten me, but even after a second failure I dared not relinquish my quest: my mother's wishes must be fulfilled. A woman worthy of me: behold the difficulty! What course of action should I now pursue?
At last I had a flash of brain-light on the subject. I would look for the purely good, rejecting the intellectual entirely. I would plunge into the country and seek a bride fresh from the hands of Nature, a wild flower without fashion, guile or brains—one who in leaving me free to follow my own pursuits would yet adorn my life with charms of the heart—a heart that had known no love but mine.
It was in the most beautiful month of autumn that I made this resolve, which I lost no time in putting into execution. I wrote to my old college friend, Dick Hearty, that I would spend a month with him: he had often invited me to visit him in the country. I counted on doing enough love-making in that time to win my wild rose, and at my return I would bring home my bride. I reasoned that in those unsophisticated regions, in the shadow of the virgin forest, the trammels of long courtship and other fashionable follies are unknown: heart meets heart as the pure woodland streams meet each other and become one.
Before I set out I gave a dinner-party at The Beauties to announce to my gentleman friends the joyful event. At the dessert I rose and proposed the health of my future bride.