Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/225

 create a party of his own. Manifold occupations supply a salutary rebuke of pettiness, and help to drive the matter from his mind. If it be a woman, much time and feminine resource will be lavished in self-exoneration. She will go to and fro in a vigorous canvass of society, to create a clan and clothe it in the plaid of her sprightly confidences. Its bucklers coldly gleam in every assembly.

There are some vices which circulate through the world without invading the seclusion of woman. She cannot imagine what they are; consequently they remain so vague that she has no more blame for them than for the nebulæ in Orion. Financial operations, for instance, are so intricate that she shrinks from following, and so foreign to the course of her life that they secure a languid attention. Her lover or husband can easily make it appear to her that his violations of trust are either the knavery and carelessness of others, or admissible procedures; and, if she is as deeply in love as he is in offence, she will resort to connivance rather than divorce. Jessica plunders her father, and then calls out to her lover,—

"Here, catch this casket; it is worth the pains."

But, not being quite sure if she has taken enough, she returns to gild herself "with some more ducats." It was a highly profitable "irregularity:"—

"Two sealed bags of ducats, Of double ducats, stol'n from me by my daughter! And jewels,—two stones, two rich and precious stones, Stol'n by my daughter!"