The Love Affairs of an Old Maid | Page 9

tears over and which she most liberally detests in herself. She calls it
her private demon, and says she knows that one of the devils, in the
woman who was possessed of seven, was the devil of wit.

Wit is a weapon of defence, and was no more intended to be an
attribute of woman than is a knowledge of fire-arms or a fondness for
mice. A witty woman is an anomaly, fit only for literary circles and to
be admired at a distance.
It is of no use to advise Rachel to curb her tongue. So tender-hearted
that the sight of an animal in pain makes her faint; so humble-minded
that she cannot bear to receive an apology, but, no matter what has been
the offence, cuts it off short and hastens to accept it before it is uttered,
with the generous assurance that she, too, has been to blame; yet she
wounds cruelly, but unconsciously, with her tongue, which cleaves like
a knife, and holds up your dearest, most private foibles on stilettos of
wit for the public to mock at. Not that she is personal in her allusions,
but her thorough knowledge of the philosophy of human nature and the
deep, secret springs of human action lead her to witty, satirical
generalizations, which are so painfully true that each one of her hearers
goes home hugging a personal affront, while poor Rachel never dreams
of lacerated feelings until she meets averted faces or hears a whisper of
her heinous sin. This grieves her wofully, but leaves her with no mode
of redress, for who dare offer balm to wounded vanity? I believe her
when she says she "never wilfully planted a thorn in any human
breast."
She scarcely had entered before I saw that she had something on her
mind. And it was not long before she began to confide, but in an
impersonal way.
There is something which makes you hold your breath before you enter
the inner nature of some one who has extraordinary depth. You feel as
if you were going to find something different and interesting, and
possibly difficult or explosive. It is dark, too, yet you feel impelled to
enter. It is like going into a cave.
Most people are afraid of Rachel. Sometimes I am. But it is the alluring,
hysterical fear which makes a child say, "Scare me again."
Imagine such a girl in love. Rachel is in love. She would not say with
whom--naturally. At least, naturally for Rachel. I felt rather helpless,

but as I knew that all she wanted was an intelligent sympathizer, not
verbal assistance, I was willing to blunder a little. I knew she would
speedily set me right.
"You are too clever to marry," I said at a hazard.
"That is one of the most popular of fallacies," she answered me
crushingly. "Why can't clever women marry, and make just as good
wives as the others? Why can't a woman bend her cleverness to see that
her house is in order, and her dinners well cooked, and buttons sewed
on, as well as to discuss new books and keep pace with her husband
intellectually? Do you suppose because I know Greek that I cannot be
in love? Do you suppose because I went through higher mathematics
that I never pressed a flower he gave me? Do you imagine that Biology
kills blushing in a woman? Do you think that Philosophy keeps me
from crying myself to sleep when I think he doesn't care for me, or
growing idiotically glad when he tells me he does? What rubbish
people write upon this subject! Even Pope proved that he was only a
man when he said,
"'Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies, And Venus sets
ere Mercury can rise.'
"Did you ever read such foolishness?"
"Often, my dear, often. But console yourself. A wiser than Pope says,
'The learned eye is still the loving one.'"
"Browning, of course. I ought not to be surprised that the prince of
poets should be clever enough to know that. It is from his own
experience. 'Who writes to himself, writes to an eternal public.' You see,
Ruth, men can't help looking at the question from the other side,
because they form the other side. You might cram a woman's head with
all the wisdom of the ages, and while it would frighten every man who
came near her into hysterics, it wouldn't keep her from going down
abjectly before some man who had sense enough to know that higher
education does not rob a woman of her womanliness. Depend upon it,
Ruth, when it does, she would have been unwomanly and masculine if

she hadn't been able to read. And it is the man who marries a woman of
brains