“Hush, Beatrix!  Do not jest with sacred things, and remember of what parentage you come,” cries my lady.  Beatrix was ordering her ribbons, and adjusting her tucker, and performing a dozen provokingly pretty ceremonies, before the glass.  The girl was no hypocrite at least.  She never at that time could be brought to think but of the world and her beauty; and seemed to have no more sense of devotion than some people have of music, that cannot distinguish one air from another.  Esmond saw this fault in her, as he saw many others—­a bad wife would Beatrix Esmond make, he thought, for any man under the degree of a Prince.  She was born to shine in great assemblies, and to adorn palaces, and to command everywhere—­to conduct an intrigue of politics, or to glitter in a queen’s train.  But to sit at a homely table, and mend the stockings of a poor man’s children! that was no fitting duty for her, or at least one that she wouldn’t have broke her heart in trying to do.  She was a princess, though she had scarce a shilling to her fortune; and one of her subjects—­the most abject and devoted wretch, sure, that ever drivelled at a woman’s knees—­was this unlucky gentleman; who bound his good sense, and reason, and independence, hand and foot, and submitted them to her.

And who does not know how ruthlessly women will tyrannize when they are let to domineer? and who does not know how useless advice is?  I could give good counsel to my descendants, but I know they’ll follow their own way, for all their grandfather’s sermon.  A man gets his own experience about women, and will take nobody’s hearsay; nor, indeed, is the young fellow worth a fig that would.  ’Tis I that am in love with my mistress, not my old grandmother that counsels me:  ’tis I that have fixed the value of the thing I would have, and know the price I would pay for it.  It may be worthless to you, but ’tis all my life to me.  Had Esmond possessed the Great Mogul’s crown and all his diamonds, or all the Duke of Marlborough’s money, or all the ingots sunk at Vigo, he would have given them all for this woman.  A fool he was, if you will; but so is a sovereign a fool, that will give half a principality for a little crystal as big as a pigeon’s egg, and called a diamond:  so is a wealthy nobleman a fool, that will face danger or death, and spend half his life, and all his tranquillity, caballing for a blue ribbon; so is a Dutch merchant a fool, that hath been known to pay ten thousand crowns for a tulip.  There’s some particular prize we all of us value, and that every man of spirit will venture his life for.  With this, it may be to achieve a great reputation for learning; with that, to be a man of fashion, and the admiration of the town; with another, to consummate a great work of art or poetry, and go to immortality that way; and with another, for a certain time of his life, the sole object and aim is a woman.