Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/407

 instinct to baffle man's profoundest forethought. In one of her Greek aspects she was called [Greek: Anêsidôros], bestower of presents, like those of Ceres, colored like the golden-bearded rye and corn.

Lydgate married Miss Rosamond, that piece of unexceptionable blondness, whose temper during matrimonial crises was so cool and even as to amount to the highest provocation. A perfectly well-regulated bit of Nature's chasteness was this wife, who went about the town prevaricating and misrepresenting when her husband's affairs had become involved, telling fresh fibs to cover the flanks of her first ones; thus building a track that shunted him off into ever new embarrassments. Infantile bloominess of flesh and even-tempered eyes were nothing but the skim of tortuous pride; and a lie dropped from her lips the prettiest product in the world.

Shakspeare fancied that Caliban's mother, Sycorax, was a "blue-eyed hag." Bianca Capello, a woman of solid and whole-souled powers of mischief, was the "golden-haired" sorceress of Venice.

The women of the Huzules, a Sclavonic tribe that has settled in the Carpathian range, are vastly superior to the men. The blonde type predominates. They ride horses astride, and in morals are perfect Messalinas, filling the villages with intrigues which frequently have most tragic terminations.

So was Helen Jegado a pure blonde. She lived in the time of Louis Philippe; and a great many persons fell victims to her genius for murder. No less than