In this banter is not unfairly expressed a sort of reasoning we have sometimes heard gravely maintained. We women will not be "the toys of men." We renounce the toilette and all those charms which the mirror reflects and teaches; we will be the equal friends of men, not bound to them by the ties of a silly fondness, or such as a passing imagination creates. Good. But as the natural attraction between the sexes must, under some shape, still exist, it may be worth while for these female theorists to consider, whether a little folly and love, is not a better combination, than much philosophy and a coarser passion; for such, they may depend upon it, is the alternative which life presents to us. Love and imagination are inextricably combined; in our old English the same word, _Fancy_, expressed them both.
Strange to say, the princess has selected two _widows_, (both of whom have children, and one an infant,)--Lady Blanche and Lady Psyche--for the chief assistants, or tutors, in her new establishment. Our hopeful pupils put themselves under the tuition of Lady Psyche, who proves to be a sister of one of them, Florian. This leads to their discovery. After Lady Psyche has delivered a somewhat tedious lecture, she recognises her brother.
"'My brother! O,' she said; 'What do you here? And in this dress? And these? Why, who are these? a wolf within the fold! A pack of wolves! the Lord be gracious to me! A plot, a plot, a plot to ruin all!'"
All three appeal to Psyche's feelings. The appeal is effectual, though the reader will probably think it rather wearisome: it is one of those passages he will wish were abridged. The lady promises silence, on the condition that they will steal away, as soon as may be, from the forbidden ground on which they have entered.
"To take The dip of certain strata in the north."
The new pupils are summoned to attend her.
"She stood Among her maidens higher by the head, Her back against a pillar, her foot on one Of those tame leopards. Kitten-like it rolled, And paw'd about her sandal. I drew near: My heart beat thick with passion and with awe; And from my breast the involuntary sigh Brake, as she smote me with the light of eyes, That lent my knee desire to kneel, and shook My pulses, till to horse we climb, and so Went forth in long retinue, following up The river, as it narrow'd to the hills."