Moths by Ouida — page 301: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

MOTHS. Tee dence still pure in act, the woman of modern society is too often at once the feeblest and the foulest outcome of a false civilization. Useless as a butterfly, corrupt as a canker; untrue to even lovers and friends, because mentally incapable of comprehending what truth means; caring only for physical comfort and mental in- clination; tired of living, but afraid of dying; believing some in priests and some in physiologists, but none at all in virtue; sent to sleep by chloral, kept awake by strong waters and raw meat; bored at twenty, and exhausted at thirty, yet dying in the har- ness of pleasure rather than drop out of the race and live natu- rally; pricking their sated senses with the spur of lust and fan- cying it love; taking their passions as they take absinthe before dinner; false in everything, from the swell of their breast to the curls at their throat—beside them the guilty and tragic figures of old, the Medea, the Clytemnestra, the Phzedra, look almost pure, seem almost noble. When one thinks that they are only the shape of womanhood that comes hourly before so many men, one comprehends why the old Christianity that made womanhood sacred dies out day by day, and why the new Positivism, which would make her di- vine, can find no lasting roost. The faith of men can only live by the purity of women, and there is both impurity and feebleness at the core of the dolls of Worth, as the canker of the red phylloxera works at the root of the vine. But there is ‘‘ no harm” in them, that is the formula of society; there is ‘‘no harm” in them; they have never been found out, and they are altogether unconscious of any guilt. They believe they have a conscience, as they know they have a liver; but the liver troubles them sometimes, the conscience is only a word. | Lady Dolly had been a very guilty woman, but she never - thought so. Perhaps in real truth the shailow-bearted are never really guilty. ‘‘ They know not what they do” is & plea of mercy which they perchance deserve even no less than they need it. A day or two later she made some excuse and left the Riviera. ‘ Afier all,” she thought to herself, as the train ran into the heart of the rocks, and the palm-trees of Monte Carlo ceased to lift their plumes against the sky, ‘‘after all, it was quite true what I did tell her. I used to be horribly afraid of him, he can be such a brute. I never was really at ease till I saw my letters | on the back of the fire; now he can sulk, he can rage, he can quarrel with me if he choose, but he never can do meany harm, If he be ever so unpleasant about me, people will only laugh and say that a man always hates his wife’s mother, and I really am Vere’s mother, odd as it seems; I think Ilook quite as young as - ghe does; it is such a mistake, she will never paint, she puts ten years on to herself.” , Then she took the little glass out of her traveling-bag, and looked at her face; it was pretty, with soft curls touching the eyebrows under a black saucer of a hat with golden-colored feathers; she had a yellow rose at her throat, linked into her raccoon fur; she was satisfied with what she saw in the mirror; when she got into » . . , i : i oa 1 ia : 4 Ma %r so ‘ P P . " ' 1 At bY as RA ; yw : ’ 4 if ria ) 7 sail Pave Alo awe | obi y 7 7 ‘ Ee are ob we) comicbooks y } : Vi ' 7 »’ »' mae Yi k ; vai te PF Ne RETF eR pel bi Me bo UND if hb N