Mrs. Warren's Daughter: A Story of the Woman's Movement — John Shaqi
Mrs. Warren's Daughter: A Story of the Woman's MovementJohnston, Harry
General
Mrs. Warren's Daughter: A Story of the Woman's Movement
Johnston, Harry
Feminism -- Fiction; Mothers and daughters -- Fiction; Women's rights -- Fiction
Being heiress eventually to L4,000 a year (a large income in pre-war
days) and of attractive appearance, she had no lack of suitors, even
though she thought modern dancing inane, and had little skill at
ball-games. I have indicated her appearance by some few phrases
already; but to enable you to visualize her more definitely I might
be more precise. She was a tall woman rather than large built, like
the young Juno when first wooed by Jove. Where she departed from the
Junonian type she turned towards Venus rather than Minerva; in spite
of being a mathematician. You meet with her sisters in physical
beauty among the Americans of Pennsylvania, where, to a stock mainly
Anglo-Saxon, is added a delicious strain of Gallic race; or you see
her again among the Cape Dutch women who have had French Huguenot
great grandparents. It is perhaps rather impertinent continuing
this analysis of her charm, seeing that she lives and flourishes
more than ever, twenty years after the opening of my story; not very
different in outward appearance at 48, as Lady Armstrong--for of
course, as you guess already, she married Major--afterwards Sir
Petworth--Armstrong--than she was at twenty-eight, the partner,
friend and helper of Vivien Warren.
Being in comfortable circumstances, highly educated, handsome,
attractive, with a mezzo-soprano voice of rare beauty and great
skill as a piano-forte accompanyist, she had not only suitors who
took her rejection without bitterness, but hosts of friends. She
knew all the nice London people of her day: Lady Feenix, who in some
ways resembled her, Diana Dombey, who did not _quite_ approve of
her, being a little uncertain yet about welcoming the New Woman, all
the Ritchies, married and unmarried, Lady Brownlow, the Duchess of
Bedford (Adeline), the Michael Fosters, most of the Stracheys (she
liked the ones I liked), the Hubert Parrys, the Ripons (how she
admired Lady Ripon, as who did not!), Mrs. Alfred Lyttelton, Miss
Lena Ashwell, the Bernard Shaws, the Wilfred Meynells, the H.G.
Wellses, the Sidney Webbs; and--leaving uninstanced a number of
other delightful, warm-blooded, pleasant-voiced, natural-mannered
people--the Rossiters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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