“It’s abominable!” exclaims Mrs. A., in high indignation, “and I wonder, Mr. A. you ain’t ashamed to read it.”
Mr. A. resumes the book, and his lady continues to listen with great interest, though apparently wholly absorbed by her crochet-work.
All things considered therefore, and inasmuch as we prefer the naturalness of a witty woman to the artificialness of a learned woman, we confess to a liking for the Celestial Nose feminine, while we abhor the masculine. It is not, however, every female Celestial Nose that we admire (Heaven, for our peace’s sake forbid—they are so numerous). It must be of the purest and most delicate chiselling; have no tendency to cogitativeness, lest it should look as if its owner thought; and its hue must be of the palest and most evanescent flesh-tint. These are essential to indicate that delicacy of mind which alone makes wit in a woman fascinating and which pardons breaches of strict morality committed from the purest and most benevolent intentions.
This sounds rather paradoxical, but an old Jacobite song will illustrate our meaning. The story goes that a gudewife concealed a north country cousin, one of the adherents of Charlie, in the house, unknown to the gudeman; and her ingenuity is sorely puzzled to account for certain suspicious phenomena which strike him on his coming home:—
“Hame came our gudeman at e’en, And hame came he, And there he saw a pair o’ boots, Where nae the boots should be.
“‘And how came these boots here, And whase can they be? And how came thæ boots here Without the leave of me?’ ‘Boots!’ quo’ she; (_with amazement_) ‘Aye, boots!’ quo’ he.
“‘Ye auld blind dotard carle, And blinder mat ye be! (_indignantly_) It’s but a pair o’ water-stoups, My minnie sent to me.’ ‘Water-stoups?’ quo’ he, ‘Aye, water-stoups;’ quo’ she.” (_with impudent determination_).
And so in like manner she unblushingly persists, in order to preserve her guest’s life, that a saddle-horse is a milking cow, and a man’s coat a pair of blankets. Now we are sure this dear woman had a Celestial Nose; nothing else would have had the ready wit and impudent assurance to attempt so to befool her gudeman, and to persist, with the addition of no slight abuse of his dotard blindness, in her palpable falsehoods; yet we defy any one not to love the good woman, and excuse her breaches of morality for the sake of her hospitable benevolence.