Mastery is a woman's standard of man. And
There is an element of the freest and frankest savagery in the most
refined and spiritual of women. (How otherwise
Can any one explain the extraordinary fable of Selene and Pan?(4)
--And man?
--But that man was ever a savage. It may be added that
The defenselessness of woman is a conventional fiction: she can avert an
attack by a look; she can terminate a siege by a taunt.
(4) Though Browning tried. See "Dramatic Idyls", "Pan and Luna"
* * *
Solomon has objurgated the invincibly garrulous woman. The invincibly
taciturn woman is so rare as to have escaped objurgation. Yet she too is
a terror to men.
* * *
Every woman is suspicious and jealous of any woman that opens a man's
eyes; even though she knows that
Never was there a woman who could and would deliberately wholly enlighten
a man.
And, yet, marvelous and curious amongst things curious and marvelous,
will but a woman fling artifice to the winds, and look and act and say as
great Nature prompts,--wildly, willfully, wantonly,--that woman will
captivate as no feminine wiles will ever captivate.
* * *
If the man were worth it, many a woman would dispense with the marriage
ceremony. For