It is evident from these thrilling recitals that I was not a good
mind-reader of woman character; but they were as sweet as angels when
I was at home, and evidently the unwonted self-restraint to thus
appear reacted very forcibly when the widower was out of sight.
I vowed in my wrath that I would never again speak to a woman outside
my own immediate family. I tried in vain to hire men nurses, and I
sympathized with Paolo Orsini, who slipped a cord around the neck
of Isabella di Medici, and strangled her; I almost envied Curzon of
Simopetra who had never seen a woman. But I soon found that this
misanthropy was unjust, that I misjudged the pure depths of life's
river by a little dirty froth floating upon the surface.
Women can no more be lumped together in level community than men can
be. There is an ample variety of tenacious womanly characters between
the extremes marked by Miriam beating her timbrels, and Cleopatra
applying the asp; Cornelia, caring for nothing but her Roman jewels;
Guyon, rapt in God; Lucrezia Borgia raging with bowl and dagger, and
Florence Nightingale sweetening the memory of the Crimean war with
philanthropic deeds.
What group of men can be brought together more distinct in
individuality, more contrasted in diversity of traits and destiny,
than such women as Eve in the garden of Eden, Mary at the foot of the
cross, Rebecca by the well, Semiramis on her throne, Ruth among the
corn, Jezabel in her chariot, Lais at a banquet, Joan of Arc in
battle, Tomyris striding over the field with the head of Cyrus in
a bag of blood, Perpetua smiling on the lions in the amphitheatre,
Martha cumbered with many cares, Pocahontas under the shadow of the
woods, Saint Theresa in the Convent, Madame Roland on the scaffold,
Mother Agnes at Port Royal, exiled DeStael wielding her pen as a
sceptre, and Mrs.
Pages:
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118