interweaving of other cloths, and she elucidated the mystery of color,
tone, half-tone, light and shade so interestingly that Mary could
scarcely hear enough of her lore. She was acquainted with the colors
which a dark person may wear and those which are suitable to a fair
person, and the shades proper to be used by the wide class ranging
between these extremes she knew also, with a special provision for
red-haired and sandy folk and those who have no complexion at all.
Certain laws which she formulated were cherished by her daughter as
oracular utterances--that one should match one's eyes in the house
and one's hair in the street, was one; that one's hat and gloves and
shoes were of vastly more importance than all the rest of one's
clothing, was another; that one's hair and stockings should tone as
nearly as possible, was a third. Following these rules, she assured
her daughter, a woman could never be other than well dressed, and all
of these things Mary learned by heart and asked her mother to tell her
more, which her mother was quite able and willing to do.
XXVIII
When the sexual instinct is aroused men and dogs and frogs and
beetles, and such other creatures as are inside or outside of this
catalogue, are very tenacious in the pursuit of their ambition. We can
seldom get away from that which attracts or repels us. Love and hate
are equally magnetic and compelling, and each, being supernormal,
drags us willingly or woefully in their wake, until at last our blind
persistency is either routed or appeased and we advance our lauds or
gnash our teeth as the occasion bids us. There is no tragedy more
woeful than the victory of hate, nor any attainment so hopelessly
barren as the sterility of that achievement; for hate is finality, and
finality is the greatest evil which can happen in a world of movement.
Love is an inaugurator displaying his banners on captured peaks and
pressing forever to a new and more gracious enterprise, but the
victories of hate are gained in a ditch from which there is no horizon
visible and whence there does not go even one limping courier.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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