hat a woman hates other women
individually; but I think it would be quite true to say that she detests
them in a confused heap. And this is not because she despises her own
sex, but because she respects it; and respects especially that sanctity
and separation of each item which is represented in manners by the idea
of dignity and in morals by the idea of chastity.

*****

V. THE COLDNESS OF CHLOE

We hear much of the human error which accepts what is sham and what is
real. But it is worth while to remember that with unfamiliar things
we often mistake what is real for what is sham. It is true that a very
young man may think the wig of an actress is her hair. But it is equally
true that a child yet younger may call the hair of a negro his wig.
Just because the woolly savage is remote and barbaric he seems to be
unnaturally neat and tidy. Everyone must have noticed the same thing in
the fixed and almost offensive color of all unfamiliar things, tropic
birds and tropic blossoms. Tropic birds look like staring toys out of
a toy-shop. Tropic flowers simply look like artificial flowers,
like things cut out of wax. This is a deep matter, and, I think, not
unconnected with divinity; but anyhow it is the truth that when we
see things for the first time we feel instantly that they are fictive
creations; we feel the finger of God. It is only when we are thoroughly
used to them and our five wits are wearied, that we see them as wild and
objectless; like the shapeless tree-tops or the shifting cloud. It is
the design in Nature that strikes us first; the sense of the crosses and
confusions in that design only comes afterwards through experience and
an almost eerie monotony. If a man saw the stars abruptly by accident he
would think them as festive and as artificial as a firework. We talk of
the folly of painting the lily; but if we saw the lily without warning
we should think that it was painted. We talk of the devil not being
so black as he is painted; but that very phrase is a testimony to the
kinship between what is called vivid and what is called artificial. If
the modern sage had only one glimpse of grass and sky, he would say that
grass was not as green as it was painted; that sky was not as blue as it
was painted. If one could see the whole universe suddenly, it would look
like a bright-colored toy, just as the South American hornbill looks
like a bright-colored toy. And so they are--both of them, I mean.

But it was