So the letter goes, maybe to
take its place as the 150th of the sacred writings, and make poor
Daffodilia, who has loved to count the growing score, happy with the
completion of the half-century.
But the disinclination goes not, though the poor passion has, of
course, its occasional leapings in the socket, and the pain has to come
at last, for all that dainty consideration, which, moreover, has been
all the time feeding larger capacities for suffering. For, of course, no
man thinks of marrying his twelfth love, though in the thirteenth there
is usually danger; and he who has jilted, so to say, an earl's daughter
as his sixth, may come to see
'The God of Love, ah! benedicite,
How mighty and how great a lord is he'
in the thirteenth Miss Simpkins.
But this is to write as an outsider: for that thirteenth, by a mystical
process which has given to each of its series in its day the same primal
quality, is, of course, not only the last, but the first. And, indeed,
with little casuistry, that thirteenth may be truly held to be the
first, for it is a fact determined not so much by the chosen maid as by
him who chooses, though he himself is persuaded quite otherwise. To him
his amorous career has been hitherto an unsuccessful pursuit, because
each followed fair in turn, when at length he has caught her flying
skirts, and looked into her face, has proved not that 'ideal'--
'That not impossible she
That shall command my heart and me'--
but another, to be shaken free again in disappointment.
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