| | | | That lovely woman fulfils only half her mission when she | is unpersonable instead of beautiful, all young men, and all | pretty girls secure in the consciousness of their own | perfections will agree. Indeed, it is cruel to hear the way in | which heady youth despises ugly girls or fading women, | however clever, whose charm lies in their cleverness only, | with a counteraction in their plainness. To hear them, one | would think that hardness of feature, like poverty, was a | crime voluntarily perpetrated, and that contempt was a | righteous retribution for the offence. Yet their preference, | though so cruelly expressed, is to a certain extent the right | thing. When we are young, the beauty of women has a | supreme attraction beyond all other possessions or | qualities, and there are self-evident reasons why it should | be so. It is only as we grow older that we know the value | of brains, and, | | while still admiring beauty ~~ as indeed who does not ~~ | admire it as one passing by on the other side; as a grace to | look at, but not to hold, unless accompanied by something | more lasting. This is in the middle term of a man's life. | Old age, perhaps with the unconscious yearning of regret, | goes back to the love of youth and beauty for their own | sake; extremes meeting here as in almost all other | circumstances. The danger is when a young man, obeying | the natural impulse of his age and state, marries beauty | only, with nothing of more durable wear beneath. The | mind sees what it brings, and we love the ideal we create | rather than the reality that exists. A pretty face, the unworn | nerves of youth, the freshness of hope that has not yet been | soured by disappointment or chilled by experience, a neat | stroke at croquet, and a merry laugh easily excited, made a | girl a goddess to a boy who is what he himself calls in love | and his friends call spoony. She may be narrow, selfish, | spoilt, unfit to bear the burdens of life and unable to meet | her trials patiently; she may be utterly unpractical and silly | ~~ one of those who never mature but only grow old, and | remain great overgrown children to the end ~~ without | judgment, forethought, common sense, or courage; but he | sees nothing of all this. To him she is perfect, the

| "jolliest girl in the world,"

if he is slangy, or the

| "dearest,"

if he is affectionate; and he neither sees nor | heeds her potential faults. It is only when she has stepped | down from her pedestal to the level of the nursery floor that | he finds out she is but a woman after all, and perhaps an | exceptionally weak and peevish one. Then he knows that | he would have done better for himself had he married that | plain brave-hearted girl who would have had him to a dead | certainty if he had asked her, but whom he so unmercifully | laughed at and disregarded when he was making love to his | fascinating charmer. As years go on and reduce the Hebe | and Hecate of eighteen to much the same kind of woman at | forty, with perhaps the advantage of Hecate's side if of the | sort that ripens well and improves by keeping the man feels | that he has been a fool after the manner of Bunyan's | Passion; that he has eaten up his present in the past, and | had all his good things at once. If he had but looked at the | future, and been able to wait! But in those days he wanted | beauty that does not last, and cared nothing for brains that | do; and so, having made his election, must abide by it, and | eat bitter bread from the yeast of his own brewing. Many a | man has cursed, his whole life long, the youthful | infatuation that made him; marry a pretty fool. Take the | case of a rising politician whose fair-faced wife is either too | stupid to care about his position, or else who imperils it by | her folly. If amiable and affectionate, and in her own silly | little way ambitious, she does him incalculable mischief by | exaggeration, and by saying and doing exactly the things | that are most damaging to him; if stupid, she is just so | much deadweight that he has to carry with him while | swimming up the stream. She is very lovely certainly, and | people crowd her drawing-room to look at her; but a | plain-featured, sensible, shrewd woman with no beauty to speak | of but with tact and cleverness, would have helped him in | his career far better than would Venus herself if brainless. | And so he finds out when it is too late to change M. for N. | in the marriage service. The successful men of small | beginnings are greatly liable to this curse of wifely | hindrance. A barrister once briefless and now in silk, an | artist once obscure and now famous, who in the days of | impecuniosity and Bohemianism married their landlady's | pretty daughters, and towards the meridian of life find | themselves in the front ranks of , with a wife | apiece who drops her h's and multiplies her s's, know the | full bitterness of the bread baked from that hasty brewing | of theirs. Each woman may have been beautiful in her | youth, and each man may have loved his own very | passionately; but if she has nothing to supplement her | beauty, if she has no brains to fall back upon, and by which | she can be educated up to his present social position as the | wife of his successful maturity, she is a mistake. Mr. | Dickens was quite right to kill off pretty childish Dora in | David Copperfield. If she had lived | she would have been like Flora in Bleak | House, who indeed was Dora grown old but not | matured, with all the grace and beauty of her youth gone, | and nothing else to take their place. | Men do not care for brains in excess in women. They like a | sympathetic intellect which can follow them, and seize | their thoughts as quickly as they are uttered, but they do not | much care for any clear special knowledge of facts; and | even the most philosophic among them would rather not be | set right in a classical quotation, an astronomical | calculation, or the exact hearing of a political question by a | lovely being in tarlatane whom he was graciously | unbending to instruct. Neither do they want anything very | strongminded. To most men, indeed, the feminine | strongmindedness that can discuss immoral problems | without blushing, and despise religious observances as | useful only to weak souls, is a quality as unwomanly as a | well-developed biceps or a huge fist would be. It is | sympathy, not antagonism, it is companionship, not rivalry, | still less supremacy, that they like in women; and some | women with brains as well as learning ~~ for the two are | not the same thing ~~ understand this, and keep their blue | stockings well covered by their petticoats. Others, | enthusiasts for the freedom of thought and intellectual | rights, show theirs defiantly, and meet with their reward. | Men shrink from them. Even clever men, able to meet | them on their own ground, do not feel drawn to them, while | all but high-class minds are dwarfed and humiliated by | their learning, and their moral courage. And this is what no | man likes to feel in the presence of a woman, and because | of her superiority. But the brains most useful to women, | and most befitting their work in life, are those which show | themselves in common sense, in good judgment, and that | kind of patient courage which enables them to bear small | crosses and great trials alike with dignity and good temper. | Mere intellectual culture, however valuable it may be in | itself, does not reach to the worth of this kind of moral | power; for as the true domain of woman is the home, and | her way of ordering her domestic life the best test of her | faculties, mere intellectual culture does not help in this; | and, in fact, is often a hindrance rather than a help. What | good is there in one's wife being an accomplished | mathematician, a sound scholar, a first-rate musician, a | deeply-read theologian, if she cannot keep the accounts | square, knows nothing of the management of children, lets | herself be cheated by the servants and the tradespeople, has | not her eyes opened to dirt and disorder, and gives way to a | fretful temper on the smallest provocation? The pretty fool | who spends half her time in trying on new dresses and | studying the effect of colours, and who knows nothing | beyond the last new novel and the latest plate of fashions, is | not a more disastrous wife than the woman of profound | learning whose education has taught her nothing practical. | They stand at the opposite ends of the same stick, and | neither end gives the true position of women. Indeed, if, | one must have a fool in one's house, the pretty one would | be the best, as, at the least, pleasant to look at; which is | something gained. The intellectual fool, with her head | always in books and

"questions,"

and her | children dropping off like sheep for the want of womanly | care is something more than flesh and blood can tolerate. | The pretty fool cannot help herself. If nature was but a | stepmother to her, and left out the best part of her wits | while taking such especial care of her face, it is no fault of | hers; but the intellectual fool is a case of maladministration | of powers, for which she alone is responsible; and in this | particular alternative between beauty and brains we would | go in for beauty without a shadow of doubt. | Ball-rooms and dinner-tables are the two places where | certain women most shine. In the ball-room Hebe is the | queen, and has it all her own way, without fear of rival save | such as are of her own class. A very few men who care for | dancing for its own sake certainly will dance with Hecate if | she is light on hand, keeps accurate time, and manages her | feet with scientific precision; but to the ruck of youths, | Hebe, who jerks herself into step every second round, but | whose lovely face and perfect figure make up for | everything, is the partner they all besiege. Only to those | exceptional few who regard dancing as a serious art would | she be a bore with her three jumps and a hop; while Hecate, | waltzing like an angel, would be divine, in spite of her high | cheek-bones, and light green eyes . But at a | dinner-table, where a man likes to talk between the dishes, | a sympathetic listener, if not absolutely frightful, and with | pleasant manners, to whom he can air his stalest stories and | recount his personal experiences, is preferable to the | prettiest girl if a simpleton, and able only to show her small | white teeth in a silly smile and say

"yes"

and

| "indeed"

in the wrong places. The ball-room may be | taken to represent youth, and the dinner-table maturity. | The one is the apotheosis of mere beauty, in clouds of | white muslin and a heaven of flirting; the other is solid | enjoyment, with brains to talk to and beauty to look at, in | just the proportion that makes life perfect. A well-ordered | dinner-table is a social microcosm; and, being so, this is the | blue riband of the arrangement. | Every woman is bound to make the best of herself. The | strongminded women who hold themselves superior to the | obligations of dress and manner, and all the pleasant little | artificial graces belonging to an artificial civilization, and | who think any sacrifice made to appearance just so much | waste of power, are awful creatures, ignorant of the real | meaning of their sex ~~ social Graae wanting in every | charm of womanhood, and to be diligently shunned by the | wary. This making the best of themselves is a very | different thing from making dress and personal vanity the | first considerations in life. Where women in general fail is | in the exaggerations into which they fall on this and on | almost every other question. They are apt to be either | demireps or devotees, frights or flirts, fashionable to an | extent that lands them in illimitable folly and drags their | husbands' names through the mire; or they are so dowdy | that they disgrace a well-ordered drawing-room, and in an | evening party, among nicely-dressed women, stand out as | living sermons on slovenliness. If they are clever they are | too commonly blue-stockings, and let the whole household | go by the board for the sake of their fruitless studies; and if | they are domestic and good managers they sink into mere | servants, never open a book sage their daily ledger, and | never have a thought beyond the cheesemonger's bill and | the butcher's prices. They want that fine balance, that | accurate self-measurement and knowledge of results, which | goes by the name of common sense, and which is the best | manifestation of brains they can give, and the one which | men most prize. It is the most valuable working form of | intellectual power, and has most endurance and vitality; | and it is the form which helps a man on in life, when he has | found it in his wife quite as much as money or a good | connexion. So that, on the whole, brains are before beauty | in the solid things of life. For admiration, and personal | love, and youthful enjoyment, beauty of course is supreme, | but as we cannot be always young or always apt for | pleasure; it is as well to provide for the days when the | daughters of music shall be brought low, and the years | draw nigh which have no pleasure in them.