Page:Poems of Anne Countess of Winchilsea 1903.djvu/120

 cxvi INTRODUCTION ���mind are necessities. For fashion she cares not at all, and discussions concerning brocades and laces infinitely weary her. A new gown in spring, when the lilies and the birds put on fresh attire, quite satisfies her ambition in the way of apparel. Against the so-called feminine accomplishments of her day she puts herself definitely on record. She simply will not, she declares, �in fading silks compose, Faintly, the inimitable Rose, Fill up an ill-drawn Bird, or paint on Glass, The Sovereign's blurred and undistinguished face, The threatening Angel and the Speaking Ass. �The courageous expression of tastes so unconventional inevitably made Ardelia the target for ill-natured jests, and the jests bore their natural fruit in bitterness of spirit. It is, however, the prejudice against women authors of which Ardelia is most acutely conscious. During her memorably unhappy visit to London, shortly after her retirement to Eastwell, the caustic social commentary that fell trippingly from the gay Almeria's tongue reached its unendurable climax when that young gossip pointed out with a sneer, " a poetess! a woman who writes, a common jest!" Then Ardelia's prudence and politeness give way to an indignant sense of justice. "Why," she exclaims, "should this poetess be a common jest? Does she make public boast of her skill ? Does she write a song so popular that the car-men sing it, and then allow her name to be flourished above it ? Does she cause herself to be painted with a laurel wreath and with commendatory verses encircling her picture? Does she write lampoons? " So the badgered Ardelia, stung by the secret knowledge of a tell-tale portfolio of rhymes down at Eastwell, frees her mind for the nonce. But she can never quite escape the benumbing conviction that a woman who delights in the groves and secret springs of the muses, who thus "deviates from the known and common ��� �