s with rage. There is no earthly means of convincing
your wife that there is not the slightest reason for your son's not
going to school in the fact that he has never had chilblains.
That evening, after dinner, you hear this atrocious creature finishing
a long conversation with a woman with these words: "He wanted to send
Charles to school, but I made him see that he would have to wait."
Some husbands, at a conjuncture like this, burst out before everybody;
their wives take their revenge six weeks later, but the husbands gain
this by it, that Charles is sent to school the very day he gets into
any mischief. Other husbands break the crockery, and keep their rage to
themselves. The knowing ones say nothing and bide their time.
A woman's logic is exhibited in this way upon the slightest occasion,
about a promenade or the proper place to put a sofa. This logic is
extremely simple, inasmuch as it consists in never expressing but one
idea, that which contains the expression of their will. Like everything
pertaining to female nature, this system may be resolved into two
algebraic terms--Yes: no. There are also certain little movements of the
head which mean so much that they may take the place of either.
THE JESUITISM OF WOMEN.
The most jesuitical Jesuit of Jesuits is yet a thousand times less
jesuitical than the least jesuitical woman,--so you may judge what
Jesuits women are! They are so jesuitical that the cunningest Jesuit
himself could never guess to what extent of jesuitism a woman may go,
for there are a thousand ways of being jesuitical, and a woman is such
an adroit Jesuit, that she has the knack of being a Jesuit without
having a jesuitical look. You can rarely, though you can sometimes,
prove to a Jesuit that he is one: but try once to demonstrate to a woman
that she acts or talks like a Jesuit. She would be cut to pieces rather
than confess herself one.
She, a Jesuit! The very soul of honor and loyalty! She a Jesuit! What
do you mean by "Jesuit?" She does not know what a Jesuit is: what is
a Jesuit? She has never seen or heard of a Jesuit! It's you who are
a Jesuit! And she proves with jesuitical demonstration that you are a
subtle Jesuit.
Here is one of the thousand examples of a woman's jesuitism, and this
example constitutes the most terrible of the petty troubles of married
life; it is perhaps the most serious.
Induced by a desire the thousandth time expressed by Caroline, who
complained
|