THE poet says, no doubt, woman was. It may be that these charming creatures are endowed with a moral chemistry, enabling them to extract sweets from bitters, and to feel a thrill of pleasure amidst the throbs of pain: but certain it is, that woman's life commonly affords no slight opportunities for exercising such amiable instincts, if nature did really intend them such endow

"Man was born to suffer"-

ments.

This hard fate of woman-kind is not peculiar to the present generation. About two thousand years ago, according to Euripides, a lady's lot was very little better. When the Argonauts went in quest of the golden fleece, it is a mistake to say, with some writers, that

VERY ILL-USED INDIVIDUALS.

125

this is a mere poetical description of some bargee sheep-stealers on a marauding expedition: it seems more like a ship-load of gentlemen (instead of ladies) going out to India on a matrimonial speculation: for, certain it is, that one Mr. Jason succeeded in eloping with a rich Miss Medea, a lady of handsome fortune. Well

this Miss Medea, now Mrs. Jason-feeling herself, in course of time, cruelly ill-used, philosophised as follows. She said,

"Of all living creatures, I really believe we women have the hardest lot. If we don't positively out-bid and buy a husband-like a lady of fortune we have small chance of any at all: and when we have one, it's all a lottery how he will turn out. If he is all that is desirable, I grant life is delightful; but rather than be linked to a bad one, I would rather die. As to applying to the Divorce Court, it is so damaging to your character. No; we must sit and pine at home, though the horrid men can go out to their amusements and their club." * And then she comes to the hardest part of all, having "to look to,"-" to have all one's hopes and interests centered,' 66 ' on one mortal being only."+

This "looking to one mortal being only," this hard fate of having one troublesome inconstant

* Πρὸς ἡλικας τραπείς.

† Πρὸς μίαν ψυχὴν βλέπειν.

being the very pivot of our fortunes, and the centre of our hopes and fears-entwined, as it were, round the very fibres of our hearts, which throb at the mercy of these heedless, thoughtless creatures-this is the fate of widows as well as wives, provided they have "the affliction of an only son."-A favourite son and heir of all, like Ned, proved much the same to the fond and devoted Mrs. Walford.

And now her anxieties were to commence. For, having addressed a letter to the Vice-President of King's College, ostensibly requesting to be certified as to the time of her son's residence, but not without a secret hope of receiving some complimentary assurances as to the promise of her son, she received a letter, characterised by that peculiar mixture of kindness and plainspeaking for which the Vice-President was remarkable.

Mr. Walesby said he thought it only right to repeat, that every exertion must be made to qualify her son for taking full advantage of College lectures, as also for going through his academical course with credit. He implied, that there were various indications of that "no father," of which Mrs. Walford had informed him; and said, in other terms, that since from our fathers we have had the discipline of life,

ALL IN THE DARK.

127

and from our mothers the kindness and the consolations, her son seemed, as usual, to have had too much of the latter sort of blessing, altogether unqualified by the correctives of the former.

However uneasy these remarks made the mother for a time, still, when Ned came homealready metamorphosed by all the newest Oxford fashions he did seem so much improved, so much more manly, and in every respect so interesting, that a glow of satisfaction and delight came over the delighted mother; and all the group of cares and dark forebodings fled, as usual, before the beams of present happiness.

Pope says, in truthful and harmonious numbers,

"God from all creatures hides the book of fate."

Supposing Life like a three-volume novel, we may try in vain to read the last part first—not one leaf can we turn over in advance tic, tic, tic, goes the solemn clock of Time-the same unsympathetic pace for every one. However breathless our impatience, not an Act can we skip in the Drama, nor dispense with the formality of hours or minutes, whether in the winter or the summer of our fortunes: but out of the mass, black with sorrow in the background, Providence so mercifully doles out the bitter

portion for the day-that our greatest troubles, as the world measures them, are by no means the seasons of our greatest unhappiness.

But the book of fate is a closed volume also in another respect. While our eyes are gladdened by our own pleasant pages, we little think of the black chapter that has at the same time opened to some other person: and should we chance to hear it, we might be puzzled indeed to trace the yet disjointed links, if warned that there was also a subtle chain by which the throbbings of that stranger's heart would one day quicken the pulses of our own.

Mrs. Walford, we know, was a kind-hearted, charitable person; but when, in the village at the end of the park, she was sure that every lying-in woman had the loan of the customary bag and her quantum of caudle and small groceries, and every old granny had coals and other comforts she felt at ease, and her heart glowed with a sense of temporary satisfaction, "that the world was so happy just at present." Perhaps this is as it should be. Some persons try very hard—or at least talk as if they did—but all to no purpose, to sympathise with all the world at once. They are not, perhaps, aware that the heart is so tuned and tempered, that it will not thump very violently without some regard to