“Ehret die Fanen!”

·        Schiller

 

 

From woman, who e’re she be, there seems to emanate a potency ineffable to man,--impalpable, invisible, divine.  It lies not in beauty or grace, not even in manner or mein; and it requires neither wiles nor artifice.  It is not the growth of long and intimate acquaintance, for often it acts spontaneously and at once; and neither the woman who possesses it nor the man who succumbs to it can give it a name.  For to say that it consists in the effluence or influence of personality or temperament, of affinity or passion, of sympathy or charm, is to say nothing save that we know not what it is.   All unknown to herself, it wraps its owner round with airs the which to breathe uplifts the spirit, and yet, may be, perturbs the heart, of man.  Even its effects are recondite and obscure.  It allures; but how it allures now man shall tell.  It impels; but to what, does not appear.  It rouses all manner of hopes, stirs sleeping ambition, and desires and aspirations unappeasable; but for what purport or to what end, none stays to inquire .  It incites; sometimes it enthralls. It innervates; it exhaults.  Under its spell, reason is flung to the winds, and matters of great mundane moment are trivial and of no account: for it bewilders the wit and snatches the judgment of sane and rational men.  It is most powerful in youth; it is most powerful upon youth; yet some retain it till far on in years, and no age but feels its sway:--a veiled and mysterious force; sometimes daemonical, often divine: at once the delight and the despair of man.

After all,

The man who declares he understands women, declares his folly.  For,

If woman were not such a mystery, she would not be such an attraction.

For again,

What is known is ignored.  (But woman need have no cause for

apprehension.) Besides,

Men may be classified; women never.  This is why

Generalizing in the case of women is useless; since

Woman is a species of which every woman is a variety.  And every man must

make up his mind to this, that

Every woman is a study in herself.  However,

If women were comprehensible to men, men and women would be friends, not

lovers (But the race is safe). The simple fact is that

Womanliness is the supreme attraction, in however fair or however frail a

personality it is embodied.   And

The sacred function of all womanhood is to kindle in man the divine spark by means 30 of the mystic flame that burns ever in the vestal breast.

 

* * *

 

Every true woman’s orbit is determined by two forces: Love and Duty.

Which is another way of saying that

Women, like the lark, are true to the kindred points of heaven and home.