I doubt, indeed, if the
spring is exactly what it used to be, or if, as we get on in years [no
one ever speaks of "getting on in years" till she is virtually settled
in life], its promises and suggestions do not seem empty in comparison
with the sympathies and responses of human friendship, and the
stimulation of society. Sometimes nothing is so tiresome as a perfect
day in a perfect season.
I only imperfectly understand this. The Parson says that woman is
always most restless under the most favorable conditions, and that
there is no state in which she is really happy except that of change.
I suppose this is the truth taught in what has been called the "Myth
of the Garden." Woman is perpetual revolution, and is that element
in the world which continually destroys and re-creates. She is the
experimenter and the suggester of new combinations. She has no
belief in any law of eternal fitness of things. She is never even
content with any arrangement of her own house. The only reason the
Mistress could give, when she rearranged her apartment, for hanging a
picture in what seemed the most inappropriate place, was that it had
never been there before. Woman has no respect for tradition, and
because a thing is as it is is sufficient reason for changing it.
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