all events, as exhibited by women; it being, not so
much an imputation on chastity, as a charge of conceited foolishness. An
English woman who typifies the _begueule_ may be spotless as snow; but
she is presumed to have snow's other quality, and at the same time to be
a thoroughly absurd and intolerable creature. Well, here is the point of
difference. Fastidiousness of speech is not a direct outcome of
Puritanism, as our literature sufficiently proves; it is a refinement of
civilization following upon absorption into the national life of all the
best things which Puritanism had to teach. We who know English women by
the experience of a lifetime are well aware that their careful choice of
language betokens, far more often than not, a corresponding delicacy of
mind. Landor saw it as a ridiculous trait that English people were so
mealy-mouthed in speaking of their bodies; De Quincey, taking him to task
for this remark, declared it a proof of blunted sensibility due to long
residence in Italy; and, whether the particular explanation held good or
not, as regards the question at issue, De Quincey was perfectly right. It
is very good to be mealy-mouthed with respect to everything that reminds
us of the animal in man. Verbal delicacy in itself will not prove an
advanced civilization, but civilization, as it advances, assuredly tends
that way.

XXIII.

All through the morning, the air was held in an ominous stillness.
Sitting over my books, I seemed to feel the silence; when I turned my
look to the window, I saw nothing but the broad, grey sky, a featureless
expanse, cold, melancholy. Later, just as I was bestirring myself to go
out for an afternoon walk, something white fell softly across my vision.
A few minutes more, and all was hidden with a descending veil of silent
snow.

It is a disappointment. Yesterday I half believed that the winter drew
to its end; the breath of the hills was soft; spaces of limpid azure
shone amid slow-drifting clouds, and seemed the promise of spring. Idle
by the fireside, in the gathering dusk, I began to long for the days of
light and warmth. My fancy wandered, leading me far and wide in a dream
of summer England. . . .

This is the valley of the Blythe. The stream ripples and glances over
its brown bed warmed with sunbeams; by its bank the green flags wave and
rustle, and, all about, the meadows shine in pure gold of buttercups. The
hawthorn hedges are a mass of gleaming bl