| | | | Between the time of the raw school-girls and that of the | finished young lady is the short season of the nymph, when | the physical enjoyment of life is perhaps at its keenest, and | a girl is not afraid to use her limbs as nature meant her to | use them, nor ashamed to take pleasure in her youth and | strength. This is the time when a sharp run down a steep | hill, with the chance of a tumble midway, is an exercise by | no means objected to; when clambering over gates, stiles, | and even crabbed stone walls is not refused because of the | undignified display of ancle which the adventure involves; | when leaping a ditch comes in as one of the ordinary | accidents of a marshland walk; and when the fun of riding | is infinitely enhanced if the horse is only half broken, or | bare-backed. The nymph, a out-of-door, breezy, healthy | girl; more after the pattern of the Greek Oread than the | Amazon, is found only in the country; and for the most part | only in the remoter districts of the country. In the town she | degenerates into fastness, according to the law which | makes evil merely the misdirection of force, as dirt is only | matter | | in the wrong place. But among the mountains, in the | secluded midland villages, or out on the thinly-populated | moorland tracts, the nymph may be found in the full | perfection of her nature. And a very beautiful kind of | nature it is; though it is to be feared that certain ladies of | the stricter sort would call her

"tomboy,"

and that | those of a still narrower way of thought, unable to | distinguish between unconventionality and vulgarity, would | hold her to be decidedly vulgar ~~ which she is not ~~ and | would wonder at her mother for

"letting her go on so." |

You fall upon the nymph at all hours and in all | seasons. Indeed, she boasts that no weather ever keeps her | indoors, and prefers a little roughness of the elements to | anything too luscious or sentimental. A fresh wind, a sharp | frost, a blinding fall of snow, or a pelting shower of rain are | all high jinks to the nymph, to whom it is rare fun to come | in like a water-dog, dripping from every hair, or shaking | the snow in masses from her hat and cloak. She prefers this | kind of thing to the most suggestive beauty of the | moonlight, or to the fervid heats of summer, and thinks a | long walk in the crisp sharp frost, with the leaves crackling | under her feet, worth all the nightingales in the wood. And | yet she loves the spring and summer too for the sake of the | flowers and the birds and the beasts and the insects they | bring forth; for the nymph is almost always a naturalist of | the perceptive and self-taught kind, and has a marvelous | faculty for finding out nests and rare habitats, and for | tracking unusual trails to their hidden homes. | There is no prettier sight among girls than the nymph when | thoroughly at her ease, and enjoying herself in her own | peculiar way. That wonderful grace of unconsciousness | which belongs to savages and animals belongs to her also, | and she moves with a supple freedom which affectation or | shyness would equally destroy. To see her running down a | green field, with the sunlight falling on her, her light dress | blown into coloured clouds by the wind, her step a little too | long for the correct town-walk, but so firmly planted and | yet so light, so swift and so even, her cheeks freshly | flushed by exercise, her eyes bright and fearless, her teeth | just shown below her lip as she comes forward with a | ringing laugh, carrying a young bird which she has just | caught, or a sheaf of wild flowers for which she has been | periling her neck, is to see a beautiful and gracious picture | which one remembers with pleasure all one's life after. Or | you meet her quite alone on a wide bleak moor, with her | hat in her hand and her hair blowing across her face, | looking for plovers' eggs, or ferns and orchids down in the | damp hollows. She is by no means dressed according to | the canons of Le Follet, and yet | she always manages to have something picturesque about | her ~~ something that would delight an artist's taste, and | that is in perfect harmony with herself and her | surroundings, which she wears with a profound ignorance | as to how well it suits her, or at least with only an | instinctive knowledge that it is the right thing for her. She | may be shy as she meets you; if she is passing out of the | nymph state into that of conscious womanhood, she will | shy; but if still a nymph with no disturbing influences at | work, she will probably look at you with a fixed, | perplexing, half-provoking look of frank curiosity, which | you can neither notice nor take advantage of; the trammels | of conventional life fettering one side heavily, if not the | other. Shocking as it is to say, the nymph may sometimes | be met on the top of a haycart, and certainly in the hayfield, | where she is engaged in scattering the

"cocks,"

if | not in raising them, and where even the haymakers | themselves ~~ and they are not a notably romantic race ~~ | do not grumble at the extra trouble she gives them, because | of her evident delight in her misdeeds. Besides, she has a | bright word for them as she passes; for the nymph has | democratic tendencies, and is frank and

"affable"

| to all classes alike. She needs to be a little looked after in | this direction, not for mischief but for manners; for, if not | judiciously checked, she may become in time coarse. | There are seamy sides to everything, and the nymph does | not escape the general law. | If the nymph condescends to any game at all, it is croquet, | at which she is inexorably severe. She knows nothing of | the little weakness which makes her elder sisters overlook | the patent spooning of the favourite curate, even though he | is opposed to them ~~ nothing of the tender favouritism | which pushes on an awkward partner by deeds of helping | outside the law. The nymph, who has no weakness or | tenderness of that kind, knows only the game; and the game | has not elastic boundaries. Therefore she is inflexible in | her justice to one side and the other. Is it not the game? she | says when reproached with being disagreeable and | unamiable. But even croquet is slow to the nymph, who | has been known to handle a bat not discreditably, and who | is an adept at firing at a mark with real powder and ball. If | she lives near a lake, a river, or the sea, she is first-rate at | boating, can feather her oar and back water with the skill of | a veteran oarsman, and can reef a sail or steer close without | the slightest hesitation or nervousness. She is also a | famous swimmer, and takes the water like a duck; and at an | ordinary summer seaside resort, if by chance she ever | profanes herself by showing off there, attracts quite a | crowd of beach loungers to watch her feats by the bathing | machines. She is a great walker, wherever she lives; and, if | a mountaineer, is a clever cragswoman, making it a point of | honour to go to the top of the most difficult and dangerous | mountains in her neighbourhood, and coaxing her brothers | to let her join them and their friends in expeditions which | require both nerve and strength. Her greatest sphere of | social glory is a picnic, where she always heads the | exploring party, clambering up the rocks of the waterfall, or | diving down into the close-smelling caves, or sealing the | crumbling walls of the ruin before | anyone else can come up to her. She is specially | happy at old ruins, where she flits in and out among the | broken columns, and under the mouldering arches, like a | spirit of the place disturbed unduly. Sometimes she climbs | up by the unseen means, till she reaches a point where it | makes one dizzy to see her; and sometimes she startles her | company by the sudden bleating of a sheep, or the wild | hoot of an owl. For she can imitate the sounds of animals | for the most part with wonderful accuracy; though she can | also sing simple ballads without music, with sweetness, and | correctly. She is fond of all animals, and fears none. She | will pass through a field thronged with wild-looking cattle | without the least hesitation; and makes friends even with | the yelping farm-dogs that come snapping and snarling at | her heels. In winter she feeds the wood-birds by flocks, | and always takes care that the horses have a handful of corn | or a lump of carrot when she goes to see them, and that the | cows are the better for her visit by a bunch of Lucerne, or a | fat fresh cabbage leaf. The home beasts show their | pleasure when they hear her fleet footstep on the paved | yard; and her favourite pony whinnies to her in a peculiar | voice as she passes his stable door. These are her friends, | and their love for her is her reward. | In her early days the nymph was notorious for her | dilapidated attire, perplexing mother and nurse to mend, or | to understand why or how it had come about. But as her | favourite hiding-place was in a forked branch midway up | an old tree in the shrubbery, or a natural arbour which she | had cut out for herself in the very heart of the underwood, it | was scarcely to be wondered at if cloth and cotton testified | to the severity of her retreats. She has still mysterious rents | in her skirts, got no one knows how; and her mother still | laments over her aptitude for rags, and wishes she could be | brought to see the beauty of unstained apparel. She is | given to early rising ~~ to the indeed of rising at some quite | wild hour in the morning, for walks before breakfast, and | the like innocent insanities. Sometimes she takes it in hand | to educate herself in certain stoicisms, and goes without | butter at breakfast, or without breakfast altogether, if she | thinks that thereby she will grow stronger or less inclined to | self-indulgence. For drink she will never touch wine or | beer; but she likes now milk, and is great in her capacity for | water. | The nymph is almost always of the middle-class. It is next | to impossible indeed that she should be found in the higher | ranks, where girls are not left to themselves, and where no | one lives in far-away country places out of the reach of | public opinion, and beyond the range of pubic overlooking. | Some years ago, before the railroads and monster hotels | had made the mountain districts like Hampstead or | Richmond on a Sunday afternoon, the nymph was to be | found in great abundance down in Cumberland and | Westmoreland. By the more remote lakes, like Battermere | and Hawes Water, and in the secluded valleys running up | from the larger lakes, you would come upon square | stuccoed houses, generally abominably ugly, where the | nymph was mistress of the situation. She might be met | riding about alone in a flapping straw hat, long before hats | were fashionable headgear for women, and in a blue baize | skirt for all the riding-habit thought necessary; or she might | be encountered on the wild fell sides, or on the mountain | heights, or in her boat sculling among the lonely lake islets, | or gathering water-lilies in the bays. In the desolate stretch | of moorland country to the north of Skiddaw the whole | female population a few years ago was the nymph kind; but | railroads and the penny-post, cheap trains, fashion, and | fine-ladyism have penetrated even into the heart of the wild | mountains, and now the nymph there is only a transitional | typed ~~ not, as formerly, a fixed class. | The nymph is the very reverse of a flirt. She has no | inclination that way, and looks shy and awkward at the men | who pay her compliments, or attempt anything like | sentimentality. But she is not superior to boys, who are her | chosen companions and favourites. A bold, brave boy, who | just overtops her in skill and daring, is her delight; but | anything over twenty is

"awfully old,"

whole | forty and sixty are so remote that the lines blur and blend | together, and have no distinction. By and by the nymph | becomes a staid young woman, and marries. If she goes | into a close town and has children, very often her vigorous | health gives way, and we see her in a few years nervous, | emaciated, consumptive, and with a pitiful yearning for |

"home"

more pathetic than all the rest. But if she | remains where she is, in the fresh pure air of her native | place, she retains her youth and strength long after the age | when ordinary women lose theirs, and her children are | celebrated as magnificent specimens of the future | generation. We often see in country places matrons of over | forty who are still like young women, both in looks and | bearing, both in mental innocence and physical power. | They have the shy and innocent look of girls; they blush | like girls; they know less evil than almost any town-bred | girl of eighteen, mothers of stalwart youths though they | may be; they can walk, and laugh, and take pleasure in their | lives like girls; and their daughters find them as much | sisters as mothers. It is not quite the same thing if they do | not marry; for among the saddest sights of social life is that | terrible fading and withering away of comely, healthy, | vigorous young country girls, who slowly pass from | nymphs, full of grace and beauty, of happiness and power, | to antiquated virgins, soured, useless, debilitated, and out of | nature. Of these, too, there are plenty in country places; but | perhaps some scheme be will some day set afoot which | | shall redress the overweighted balance, and bring to the | service of the future some of the healthiest and best of our | women. Meanwhile the fresh, innocent, breezy nymph is a | charming study; and may the time be far distant which, | shall see her tamed and civilized out of existence | altogether.