Menny essays hav bin writ on the natur ov woman, setting forth her
aspirashuns, her genius, her impulses, the delikate mechanicks ov her
pashuns, the aroma ov her heart, the soft leading strings ov her
dispisishun, the cast iron fortitude ov her resolves, and the lurid
glare ov her love and her hate.
I hav read menny ov these, only tew be more solid in mi long cultivated
opinyun, that woman and her character in the lump, iz like the ranebo in
the East, butiful beyond language, full ov promis and impossible tew
paint.
In mi philosophy, rude and untutored, i call woman the lesser light, the
moon, gentle as an angel, stealing softly along the buzzum ov the skey
on an errand ov love, light for the hour ov darkness, pashunt watcher
while the world sleeps, queen ov the night, jeweled with stars.
I compare woman to a vine full ov tendrils, which can't reach perfection
without a pole to climb, and then often mounting far above the pole.
Man i call the sun, filling the earth with phrenzy, woman the moon, that
chastens the twilight, and steals through the lattice to play on the
hearth-stone.
Each one haz their sphear, and the loss ov either would be the blotting
out ov the sun, or the moon.
Each one haz their appointment, which should not be changed.
When the moon gits between the earth and the sun, then we alwus have an
eclipse. I beleave that a kind Providence, the arktekt ov men, monkeys
and things, haz given me and mi wife two paths to travell, side by side,
and both ending at the same goal.
Sum think that the lives ov the sexes are a mere competition, that what
one iz both may be, i shall beleave this when the roze bush bears
butternuts and the thistle sheds perfume.
Amung charakteristicks so butiful, it would be strange if we shouldn't
find a variety, sum even that are unlovely, for perfeckshun don't
inhabit this world, not even in the disguize ov a woman.
Thare is two patches in the paradise ov the female garden, that is
devoted to the culture of two funny, and very contrary vegatables, one
is lokated in the south east corner of the heart, and the other at the
northern, or frigid end.
[Illustration: COQUETT AND PRUDE.]
The southern crop is coquetry, and the northern one is prudery.
Sumtimes these patches are cultivated more assidiously, to the neglekt
ov awl the rest, and form the staple crop of the heart.
Coquetry is the cussidness ov an artful pashun, that feels its oats just
enuff to want to kick up all the time, and don't seem to care who gits
hurt.
It lays in wait, in its butiful wrought net, like a spider for its
viktim, and seems to take more fun in ketching a fly, than in keeping
him.
A coquett is a good deal like a rare bush, in the springtime of life it
is full of flowers, and in the fall, full of thorns.
Thare are sum blossoms that are fore-runners of fruit, but the fragrant
glory of a coquett is not of this breed.
This pashun iz like avarice, it eats up all the other good ones, and
spends its old age, racked with the horrors of an ill digestion.
Coquetts are generally long lived, faded emblems of viktorys without
honour, mournful az a cypruss, chanting their own dirges.
Prudery iz nothing more than the tropikal fruits of the hearts gardens
raized at the north end ov it, prudes, and coquets, are the extremes of
the same pashuns, and the philosophers tell us, that "extremes meet." A
prude skorns tew make a conquest, not upon principle, but bekause she
kant, she hates a man with her love.
A prude iz nothing more than an ill looking coquet, give the prude buty,
and yer have got a coquet, and the bitterest prudes the world ever saw,
are the old, and battle worn coquets, who are too decrepid to take the
field.
Coquets, and prudes, ought tew be compelled to hunt in couples, so that
when the coquet haz wounded the game, the prude kan nuss the dieing
viktim.
But prudes and coquetts never agree; two ov a trade seldom do. Both ov
these pashuns are disgusting, and the old age ov both iz bitterness.
Prudery iz the remorse ov cunning that haz been foiled; and coquettry
seems to be the abandon ov art and buty.
Prudes owe mutch ov their success to their inability to find enny
temptashuns, and coquetts are made more viscious by flatterys.
But a true woman dont cultivate neither ov these patches in her heart;
the ever elegant perceptions ov her instincts teaches her not to take up
the sword ov the coquett, nor the remorseless pruning-hook of the prude.
It seems to me, the more that I gaze at it, that a prude iz nothing more
than a coquett gone to seed.
I would rather be a coquett than a prude; thare iz some fun in it--thare
is viktory in it; while prudery, at best, iz only a defeat in an
inglorious cauze.
Coquetts sumtimes git marrid, but they are az hard to tame az a
patridge, and aint worth enny more after they are tamed, besides being a
heap more jealous than a mother-in-law to their daughters; while a
prude, for a wife, iz but the bluest kind ov a school-marm at home on a
furlough.
In conclusion, I would say, in all kindness, to the coquetts, that they
seldom hav but one fust-class man in their nets; all that they bag
afterward are of the same breed az themselves; and to the prudes I would
suggest that wimmin are growing more plenty every year, and that thare
are but few ov them, who insist upon it, that will pay the wear and tear
ov a humiliating and laborious siege.