‘I cannot bear to hear you speak of yourself
in that way.’
’But it is true. I know the sort of girl
he should marry. In the first place she should
be two years younger, and four years fresher.
She should be able not only to like him and love him,
but to worship him. How well I can see her!
She should have fair hair, and bright green-grey
eyes, with the sweetest complexion, and the prettiest
little dimples;—two inches shorter than
me, and the delight of her life should be to hang
with two hands on his arm. She should have a
feeling that her Silverbridge is an Apollo upon earth.
To me he is a rather foolish, but very, very sweet-tempered
young man;—anything rather than a god.
If I thought that he would get the fresh young girl
with the dimples then I ought to abstain.’
‘If he was in earnest,’ said Miss Cassewary,
throwing aside all this badinage and thinking of the
main point, ’if he was in earnest he will come
again.’
‘He was quite in earnest.’
‘Then he will come again.’
‘I don’t think he will,’ said Lady
Mabel. ’I told him that I was too old for
him, and I tried to laugh him out of it. He does
not like being laughed at. He was been saved,
and he will know it.’
‘But if he should come again?’
’I shall not spare him again. No;—not
twice. I felt it to be hard to do so once, because
I so nearly love him! There are so many of them
who are odious to me, as to whom the idea of marrying
them seems to be mixed somehow with an idea of suicide.’
‘Oh, Mabel!’
’But he is as sweet as a rose. If I were
his sister, or his servant, or his dog, I could be
devoted to him. I can fancy that his comfort
and his success and his name should be everything to
me.’
‘That is what a wife ought to feel.’
’But I could never feel him to be my superior.
That is what a wife ought to feel. Think of those
two young men and the difference between them!
Well;—don’t look like that at me.
I don’t often give way, and I dare say after
all I shall live to be the Duchess of Omnium.’
Then she kissed her friend and went away to her own
room.
Sir Timothy Beeswax
There had lately been a great Conservative reaction
in the country, brought about in part by the industry
and good management of gentlemen who were strong on
that side;—but due also in part to the
blunders and quarrels of their opponents. That
these opponents should have blundered and quarrelled,
being men active and in earnest, was to have been
expected. Such blunderings and quarrellings have
been a matter of course since politics have been politics,
and since religion has been religion. When men
combine to do nothing, how should there be disagreement?
When men combine to do much, how should there not
be disagreement? Thirty men can sit still, each
as like the other as peas. But put your thirty
men up to run a race, and they will soon assume different
forms. And in doing nothing, you can hardly do
amiss. Let the does of nothing have something
of action forced upon them, and they, too, will blunder
and quarrel.
