* * *

Many have been the discussions as to woman’s most powerful weapon.  The simple fact is, she is armed cap a pie(2).  Indeed, Every woman is a sort of feminine Proteus, not only in the myriad shapes she assumes, but also in her amenability to nothing but superior force.  Women form, perhaps, where men are concerned, the single exception to the rule that in union there is strength.  One woman often enough is irrepressible; two (be the second her own mother) break the charm an association of women is the feeblest of forces.

(2) Cf.  Cowper: 

They are all women, and they dart
Like Porcupines, from every part.
-Anacreontics

* * *

All women are rivals.  And this they never forget.  Consequently

Mistrust a truce between hostile ladies.

* * *

Amongst women, modesty is of infinitely more potent influence than is ability.  Yet

To a woman’s modesty ability is a wonderfully enhancing setting.  And

Modesty is the most complex and the most varied of emotions.  Perhaps

When modesty and frailty go hand in hand, there is no more delectable combination known to men; and Aphrodite has not the subtle charm of a Cynthia.  Perhaps this is why such

A wondrous halo of romance hangs about the name of a Heloise, of a Marguerite, of a Marianna Alcoforado; of a Concetta of Afragola; of a Catalina; of Robert le Diable’s Helena, of Isolde; of Lucia of Bologna, the enchantress of Ottaviano; of Francesca; of Guenevere; of the sweet seventeen-year old novice of Andouillets, Margarita, the fille who was “rosy as the morn”; of the Beguine who nursed Captain Shandy; of the fille de chamber who walked along the Quai de Conti with Yorick; of Ameilia Viviani, the inspirer of Shelly’s most ecstatic lyric; of Dryden’s masque-loving Lucretia.  For, after all,

Is the star any the less starry to the rapt star-gazer when he finds it to be a tremulous planet?

Cynthia may have blushed in heaven; bit did the blush make her any less lovely to the Latmian?

Only in the clear and unclouded pool is the star undimmed embosomed.

* * *

They say a woman is capricious.  But the consistency of woman’s capriciousness is only exceeded by the capriciousness of man’s consistency.

Man calls woman capricious simply because he is too stupid to comprehend the laws by which she is swayed.  Woman does not call man capricious.  —­The inference is obvious.

* * *

To women the profoundest mysteries of the universe give place to two things:  a lover, and a baby.—­But perhaps these are the profoundest mysteries of the universe.

* * *

How many women there be who, deeming themselves fitted to be the consorts of kings, yet comport themselves dutifully as the wives of wastrels!  And indeed,

Given beauty, cleverness, and grace, 44 there is no position to which a woman could not aspire; for