It is only by
unintermittent snubbing that the pretty ones can keep us in
our place. Men, as Miss Howe or Miss Harlowe would have
said, 'are such encroachers.' For my part, I am body and
soul with the women; and after a well-married couple, there
is nothing so beautiful in the world as the myth of the
divine huntress. It is no use for a man to take to the
woods; we know him; Anthony tried the same thing long ago,
and had a pitiful time of it by all accounts. But there is
this about some women, which overtops the best gymnosophist
among men, that they suffice themselves, and can walk in a
high and cold zone without the countenance of any trousered
being. I declare, although the reverse of a professed
ascetic, I am more obliged to women for this ideal than I
should be to the majority of them, or indeed to any but
one, for a spontaneous kiss. There is nothing so
encouraging as the spectacle of self-sufficiency. And when
I think of the slim and lovely maidens, running the woods
all night to the note of Diana's horn; moving among the old
oaks, as fancy-free as they; things of the forest and the
starlight, not touched by the commotion of man's hot and
turbid life-although there are plenty other ideals that I
should prefer--I find my heart beat at the thought of this
one. 'Tis to fail in life, but to fail with what a grace!
That is not lost which is not regretted.
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