"Ehret die Fanen!"
-Schiller
From woman, who e're she be, there seems to emanate a potency ineffable
to man,--impalpable, invisible, divine. It lies not in beauty or
grace, not even in manner or mein; and it requires neither wiles nor
artifice. It is not the growth of long and intimate acquaintance, for
often it acts spontaneously and at once; and neither the woman who
possesses it nor the man who succumbs to it can give it a name. For to
say that it consists in the effluence or influence of personality or
temperament, of affinity or passion, of sympathy or charm, is to say
nothing save that we know not what it is. All unknown to herself, it
wraps its owner round with airs the which to breathe uplifts the spirit,
and yet, may be, perturbs the heart, of man. Even its effects are
recondite and obscure. It allures; but how it allures now man shall
tell. It impels; but to what, does not appear. It rouses all manner of
hopes, stirs sleeping ambition, and desires and aspirations unappeasable;
but for what purport or to what end, none stays to inquire . It incites;
sometimes it enthralls. It innervates; it exhaults. Under its spell,
reason is flung to the winds, and matters of great mundane moment are
trivial and of no account: for it bewilders the wit and snatches the
judgment of sane and rational men. It is most powerful in youth; it is
most powerful upon youth; yet some retain it till far on in years, and no
age but feels its sway:--a veiled and mysterious force; sometimes
daemonical, often divine: at once the delight and the despair of man.
After all,
The man who declares he understands women, declares his folly. For,
If woman were not such a mystery, she would not be such an attraction.
For again,
What is known is ignored. (But woman need have no cause for
apprehension.) Besides,