The shadows, however, which ladies preserve for their own private annoyance cast surprisingly little gloom over their pretty persons while they are before the world. A new dress, a coming ball, a race-meeting, or a picnic, are sufficient to dispel them at a moment’s notice; and though doubtless when these palliatives are exhausted, when they put their candles out at night, the darkness gathers all the thicker for its lucid interval of distraction, it is always something to have got rid of it even for an hour. That women feel very keenly, nobody who knows anything about them can doubt. That they feel very _deeply_ is a different question altogether. In some rare instances they may indeed be found, when the light they love is quenched, to sit by preference in darkness for evermore; but as a general rule the feminine organisation is thoroughly appreciative of the present, somewhat forgetful of the past, and exceedingly reckless of the future. For both sexes, however, there must in their course through life be shadows deep in proportion to the brilliancy of the sunshine in which they bask. “Shall we receive good at the hand of God,” says Job, “and shall we not receive evil?” thereby condensing into one pithy sentence perhaps the profoundest system of philosophy ever yet submitted to mankind. The evil always seems to us greater than the good, the shadows more universal than the sunshine; but with how little reason we need only reflect for a moment to satisfy ourselves. There is a gleam in which we often fondly hope to dispel our shadows, delusive as the “will-o’-the-wisp,” a light “that never yet was seen on sea or shore,” which is cruelly apt to lure us on reefs and quicksands, to guide us only to eventual shipwreck; but there is also a glimmer, faint and feeble here, yet capable of dispelling the darkest shadows that ever cross our path, which if we will only follow it truthfully and persistently for a very brief journey, shall cheer us heartily and guide us steadfastly till it widens and brightens into the glory of eternal day. CHAPTER XII GUINEVERE Amongst all the works of our great poet, works in which criticism, searching diligently for flaws, discovers every day new beauties, surely this noble poem is the very crown and masterpiece.