I cannot tell; but very different, doubtless, from ours. We have but to glance at here a page and there a page of the past records of the race, to feel quite sure that woman’s ideal man has varied much in the tide of time. Passing by prehistoric man, lest I wound the susceptibilities of such as claim that he never existed, and coming forward to the days of Homer, we must suppose that the sentimental daughters of the literary gentlemen of that day—the chiefs, to wit, who patronized the blind bard—for rhapsody divine bartering the prosaic but sustaining bacon—we must reckon it as probable that these young women yearned—if yearning were in vogue at that early period—yearned to be led from the parental roof by some Achilles of a youth, tall, broad-chested, agile as a panther, strong as a lion, with thews of steel, soul of adamant, eye of consuming fire. Juvenal, again, if we may pluck a leaf at random, tells us that, in his day, a sentimental married woman who would shriek at a mouse, let us say, was capable of braving the sea in a leaky old hulk, eloping with all that was left of a gladiator after twenty years’ hacking in the arena. And now, making a spring forward into the last quarter of the nineteenth century, we find the ideal of the upper ten dozen of New York society, for example, to be a nice young man who parts his hair and his name in the middle, leads in the “german”[[1]] and gets all his “things”[[2]] in London. [And this sufficed till but recently. Of late, however, as I read in the papers, the best society of New York has grown more exacting, and no one need now aspire to be looked upon as a lion—a knight without fear and without reproach—unless, after devoting for some years half his time and all his mind, as it were, to the art, he can “handle the reins” well enough to pass for a real stage-driver. The ’bus-drivers themselves, however, whimsically enough, are not held in half the estimation of their imitators and rivals (just as mock-turtle soup is deemed by many superior to the genuine decoction). They may actually be hired at two dollars a day, more or less, and seem positively glad to get that, being to all outward seeming entirely unconscious of the glamour attaching to their ennobling art.][[3]]

But to judge by the books they devoured with such eagerness, and the heroes they thought so captivating, the ideals, thirty years ago, of the Virginia young women—I may not speak for others—were very different from any of those above depicted. At that period the influence of Byron’s powerful genius was still plainly discernible in many works of fiction, especially those by female authors. Now, just ascertain cordials lose all their piquancy by being diluted, so the morbid creations of Byron’s unhealthy muse emerged, after passing through the alembic of female fancy, very pale heroes indeed; pale, in truth, in a double sense. For, at one time, I remember, a bloodless countenance was about all that was required to constitute a hero over whom all our girls went mad. The fellow was invariably dismally cold and impassive “in outward seeming;” but the authoress would contrive to suggest to the reader, by a hint here and there, that this coldness was in outward seeming only,—that this stern, haughty possessor of the broad, pallid brow (against which he ever and anon pressed his hand as though in pain) was the clandestine owner of feelings fit to be compared only to a stream of lava,—a cold crust above, concealing a fiery flood beneath; an iceberg, in a word, with a volcano in its bosom. There are no such icebergs, I believe, and it is equally certain that there are no such men; and I used to think, in those days, that if there were such, and one of this type were found hanging around a girl, the circumstance would afford her big brother’s boot legitimate occasion for an honorable activity. And I still think that this heroic treatment, as the faculty would term it, would find its justification, at least from a sanitary point of view. For it is to be remarked that in romances infested with this form of hero, there was, among the heroines, a veritable epidemic of brain-fever; whatever that may be. But the young ladies of my acquaintance, assigning jealousy as the source of these ferocious sentiments, could not be brought to my way of thinking; and of all of a certain bevy of girls with whom I associated, I believe that Mary Rolfe was furthest gone in her adoration of these august animals that dwelt apart.

Now, although a romantic temperament has its compensations,—compensations so varied and so valuable that, on the whole, it must be regarded as a blessing,—yet its dangers are as obvious. For of what avail is an Ideal without its Counterpart? Now, it is in searching for and finding this Counterpart that lies the danger to a girl of imaginative turn,—the danger, in plain English, of falling in love without a just and reasonable regard for the loaves and fishes of this prosaic world.

Now, even from the preliminary and partial sketch of the Don already made, you will see (though less clearly than when the drawings shall have been completed and the colors rubbed in) that he was a man likely to make a vivid impression on the imagination of a girl like Mary. I should be sorry, indeed, to have you suppose that such likelihood arose from any resemblance on his part to the type of novel-hero so fascinating to her imagination. And yet he appealed to that imagination most strongly. Of course the mystery surrounding him had much to do with this. Of late she had found herself continually asking herself who he could be. Was he a Virginian? Hardly, else some one would know him. Then, why had he come to Virginia? Was he an English nobleman, travelling incognito? Perhaps! But no! from several observations that he had let drop, he could scarcely be that. He was a gentleman, certainly; but then, what need has a gentleman of mystery? Had he committed any—? Impossible! And so, da capo,—who can he be? More than once she had caught herself stamping her little foot and muttering impatiently, “What is he to me?” But his image kept returning to her mind. The truth is, she was getting what the girls used to call, in those days, “interested,”—a word which means far more with women than with us men. “In love” is what we should call it; but that is an expression which women are chary of using, unless of men. According to their philosophy, it is tacitly assumed that, as it is not the proper thing for a woman to fall in love until she has been asked to, she never does; and I believe this to be true, as a rule. In fact, it seems to me that falling in love, as it is called, is, with women, a purely voluntary act. When entreated to lose their hearts they lose them, should it seem judicious, all things considered, so to do; if not, not. But as in Latin grammar, so in life: there are exceptions to all rules; and while, in nine cases out of ten, women are guided by judgment and reason, men impelled by passion and instinct, in their matrimonial ventures, yet there is, after all, a tenth case (all my readers are tenth cases if they will) where a woman, deluded by her imagination, wrecks her life on breakers that seemed, to others at least, too apparent to need a beacon. Nor are the weaker sisters most liable to blunders of this kind; for it seems to me that I have remarked that gifted women are most apt to throw themselves away on men entirely unworthy of them; led captive by the ideals their own hearts have fashioned; making gods of stocks and stones.

[1] Dance of the period.
[2] Clothes.
[3] If our fierce Bushwhacker could but witness the annual parade of our New York Coaching Club, he would be heartily ashamed of this venomous passage.—Ed.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Never, perhaps, was there a merrier Christmas party than that which was now laughing and chattering as they seated themselves before that noble hickory fire which lit up the Hall with its ruddy glow. The pleasantest thing of all was to see the happy change that had come over the Don. He was a different man. That air of self-restraint and conscious reserve, which had never left him before, had entirely vanished. It was evident that, whatever his motives for concealing his musical talents, it was an immense relief to him to have abandoned the singular rôle he had been playing; and his long-imprisoned feelings had bounded up like a released spring. We hardly knew him. He was not only unconstrained and cheerful, he was even jolly. “I say, old boy,” said he, slapping Jones on the shoulder, “you must not suppose that it was I who laid that trap for you yesterday evening. My playing was purely unintentional,—even involuntary. But who could have resisted Uncle Tom?” This was the first time he had ever called my grandfather by that name.