Page:The spirit of place, and other essays, Meynell, 1899.djvu/71

Rh and happily shuts up his couples—the gentle Dr. Primrose with his abominable Deborah; the excellent Mr. Burchell with the paltry Sophia; Olivia—but no, Olivia is not so certainly happy ever after; she has a captured husband ready for her in a state of ignominy, but she has also a forgotten farmer somewhere in the background—the unhappy man whom, with her father's permission, this sorry heroine had promised to marry in order that his wooing might pluck forward the lagging suit of the squire.

Olivia, then, plays her common trick upon the harmless Williams, her father conniving, with a provision that he urges with some demonstration of virtue: she shall consent to make the farmer happy if the proposal of the squire be not after all forthcoming. But it is so evident her author knew no better, that this matter may pass. It involves a point of honour, of which no one—neither the maker of the book nor anyone he made—is aware. What is better worth considering is the fact that Goldsmith was completely aware of the unredeemed vulgarity of the ladies of the Idyll, and cheerfully took it for granted as the thing to be expected from the mother-in-law of a country gentleman and the daughters of a scholar. The education of women