From an
early age I preferred the society of girls to boys, and the latter
did not like me, as I was too effeminate for them. We could not play
together, as they called me "Mademoiselle," and teased me in a variety
of ways. On the other hand, I got on very well with girls of my own
age, and they found me very sensible and steady. I was about twelve or
thirteen, and I could not account for the preference. The vague idea
which attracted me to them was, I think, that men are at liberty to do
many things which women cannot, and the latter consequently had, in
my eyes, the charm of being weak and beautiful creatures, subject in
their daily life to rules of conduct which they did not attempt to
override. All those whom I had known were the pattern of modesty.
The first feeling which stirred in me was one of pity, so to speak,
coupled with the idea of assisting them in their becoming resignation,
of liking them for their reserve, and making it easier for them. I
quite felt my own intellectual superiority; but even at that early
age, I felt that the woman who is very beautiful or very good, solves
completely the problem of which we, with all our hard-headedness, make
such a hash. We are mere children or pedants compared to her. I as yet
understood this only vaguely, though I saw clearly enough that beauty
is so great a gift that talent, genius, and even virtue are nothing
when weighed in the balance with it; so that the woman who is really
beautiful has the right to hold herself superior to everybody and
everything, inasmuch as she combines not in a creation outside of
herself, but in her very person, as in a Myrrhine vase, all the
qualities which genius painfully endeavours to reproduce.
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