to Adiante Adister for her sole use and benefit, making
almost a man of her, and an unshackled man, owing no
dues to posterity. Those estates in the hands
of a woman are in the hands of her husband; and the
husband a gambler and a knave, they are in the hands
of the Jews —or gone to smoke. Let
them go. A devilish malignity bequeathed them:
let them go back to their infernal origin. And
when they were gone, his girl would soon discover
that there was no better place to come to than her
home; she would come without an asking, and alone,
and without much prospect of the intrusion of her
infamous Hook-nose in pursuit of her at Earlsfont.
The money wasted, the wife would be at peace.
Here she would have leisure to repent of all the
steps she had taken since that fatal one of the acceptance
of the invitation to the Embassy at Vienna. Mr.
Adister had warned her both against her going and against
the influence of her friend Lady Wenchester, our Ambassadress
there, another Welsh woman, with the weathervane head
of her race. But the girl would accept, and
it was not for him to hold out. It appeared to
be written that the Welsh, particularly Welsh women,
were destined to worry him up to the end of his days.
Their women were a composition of wind and fire.
They had no reason, nothing solid in their whole
nature. Englishmen allied to them had to learn
that they were dealing with broomstick witches and
irresponsible sprites. Irishwomen were models
of propriety beside them: indeed Irishwomen might
often be patterns to their English sisterhood.
Mr. Adister described the Cambrian ladies as a kind
of daughters of the Fata Morgana, only half human,
and deceptive down to treachery, unless you had them
fast by their spinning fancy. They called it
being romantic. It was the ante-chamber of madness.
Mad, was the word for them. You pleased them
you knew not how, and just as little did you know
how you displeased them. And you were long hence
to be taught that in a certain past year, and a certain
month, and on a certain day of the month, not forgetting
the hour of the day to the minute of the hour, and
attendant circumstances to swear loud witness to it,
you had mortally offended them. And you receive
your blow: you are sure to get it: the one
passion of those women is for vengeance. They
taste a wound from the lightest touch, and they nurse
the venom for you. Possibly you may in their
presence have had occasion to praise the military virtues
of the builder of Carnarvon Castle. You are
by and by pierced for it as hard as they can thrust.
Or you have incidentally compared Welsh mutton with
Southdown:—you have not highly esteemed
their drunken Bards:—you have asked what
the Welsh have done in the world; you are supposed
to have slighted some person of their family—a
tenth cousin!—anything turns their blood.
Or you have once looked straight at them without speaking,
and you discover years after that they have chosen
to foist on you their idea of your idea at the moment;
and they have the astounding presumption to account
this misreading of your look to the extent of a full
justification, nothing short of righteous, for their
treachery and your punishment! O those Welshwomen!