Page:Randolph, Paschal Beverly; Eulis! the history of love.djvu/46

Rh is supposed King Edward was in love." In other words she dropped a cloth which men ought never to behold; and Edward acted the part of a true gentleman, in preserving her from ridicule and shame, by turning an accident fouls would giggle at, into one commanding profound reverence and chivalric respect from all who pride themselves on being men.

Old Elias Ashmole, the very highest British authority on the points here involved, writing about them, says: "The Order of the Garter, by its motto, seems to challenge inquiry, and defy reproach. Everybody must know the story that refers the origin of the name to a piece of gallantry; either the Queen or the Countess of Salisbury having been supposed to have dropped one of those very useful pieces of female attire at a dance. [Here follows some Latin, the gist of which I have already given in the conclusion of the last section. P. B. R.] The ensign of the order, in jewelry or enamel, was worn originally on the left arm. Being in the form of a bracelet to the arm, it might possibly divert the attention of the men from the reputed original; it might be dropped and resumed without confusion; and the only objection I can see to the use of such an ornament is the hazard of mistake from the double meaning of the term periscelis, which signifies not only a garter, but breeches, which our English ladies never wear."

That settles the point. The garter was a girder, which the lady dropped; and the true gentleman picked it up, pinned it to his breast, and challenged the world's respect for himself and woman forever and forevermore. Glorious Edward!

XVIII. Isn't it curious that the generality of even educated people fail to see that the idea of sex as a principle, and in all its implications, runs through everything, even language? In French there's no it, as with us, but everything is il or elle,—heher [sic] or she. We all know that human speech is the result of the gradual development of the race through ages of time; its different forms being determined by the differences of latitude, soil, climate, physical and other concomitant surroundings. Letters are but external symbols of human thought; and in them all two basic ideas predominate—i.e., the male and female. The letter D and its equivalents, the Egyptian