Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

58 " Virginibus Ptterisque '
difficult piece of art before every one in this
world who cares to set about explaining his
own character to others. Words and acts
are easily wrenched from their true signifi-
cance ; and they are all the language we
have to come and go upon. A pitiful job we
make of it, as a rule. For better or worse,
people mistake our meaning and take our
emotions at a wrong valuation. And gener-
ally we rest pretty content with our failures ;
we are content to be misapprehended by cack-
ling flirts ; but when once a man is moonstruck
with this affection of love, he makes it a
point of honour to clear such dubieties away.
He cannot have the Best of her Sex misled
upon a point of this importance ; and his
pride revolts at being loved in a mistake.
He discovers a great reluctance to return
on former periods of his life. To all that
has not been shared with her, rights and
duties, bygone fortunes and dispositions, he
can look back only by a difficult and repug-
nant effort of the will. That he should have
wasted some years in ignorance of what