And
at last he wrote of the woman who left her own children to go in search
of--the wonderful! But what, then, were the children? Oh, it was comical:
a wanderer laughs at anything so comical.
What does the sage know of woman?
To begin with, he was not a sage at all till he grew old, and all he knew
of woman then was from memory. But then, again, he can have no memory of
her, seeing he never knew her. The man who has an aptitude for wisdom
busies himself jealously with his little aptitude and nothing else;
cultivates and cherishes it; holds it forth and lives for it.
We do not turn to woman for wisdom. The four wisest heads in the world,
who have delivered their findings on the subject of woman, simply sat and
invented her out of their own heads--octogenarians young or old they were,
that rode on oxen. They knew nothing of woman in holiness, woman in
sweetness, woman as an indispensable, but they wrote and wrote about her.
Think of it! Without finding her.
Heaven save me from growing wise! And I will mumble the same to my last
turn: Heaven save me from growing wise!
* * * * *
Just cold enough now for a little outing I have had in mind: the
snow-peaks lie rosy in the sun, and my copper saucepan points to fair.
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