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both of sovereign and subject; by a turn of the scale destroys the
charming equilibrium of the sexes, the one robust in bodily strength,
the other all-powerful in feminine weakness--strength on one side,
beauty on the other; makes one a master and the other a servant, while
without marriage one is a slave, the other a queen.
To make Love prosaically decent, how gross! to deprive it of all
impropriety, how dull!
Lord David was ripening. Forty; 'tis a marked period. He did not
perceive this, and in truth he looked no more than thirty. He considered
it more amusing to desire Josiana than to possess her. He possessed
others. He had mistresses. On the other hand, Josiana had dreams.
The Duchess Josiana had a peculiarity, less rare than it is supposed.
One of her eyes was blue and the other black. Her pupils were made for
love and hate, for happiness and misery. Night and day were mingled in
her look.
Her ambition was this--to show herself capable of impossibilities. One
day she said to Swift, "You people fancy that you know what scorn is."
"You people" meant the human race.
She was a skin-deep Papist. Her Catholicism did not exceed the amount
necessary for fashion. She would have been a Puseyite in the present
day. She wore great dresses of velvet, satin, or moire, some composed of
fifteen or sixteen yards of material, with embroideries of gold and
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