Why did you insist on marrying Mrs. Omicron? She had the reputation of
being a good housekeeper (as girls go); she was a serious girl,
kind-hearted, of irreproachable family, having agreeable financial
expectations, clever, well-educated, good-tempered, pretty. But the
truth is that you married her for none of these attributes. You
married her because you were attracted to her; and what attracted you
was a mysterious, never-to-be-defined quality about her--an effluence,
an emanation, a lurking radiance, an entirely enigmatic charm. In the
end "charm" is the one word that even roughly indicates that element
in her personality which caused you to lose your head about her. A
similar phenomenon is to be observed in all marriages of inclination.
A similar phenomenon is at the bottom of most social movements. Why,
the Men's League for Women's Suffrage itself certainly came into being
through the strange workings of that same phenomenon! You married Mrs.
Omicron doubtless because she was "suitable," but her "suitability,"
for you, consisted in the way she breathed, the way she crossed a
room, a transient gesture, a vibration in her voice, a blush, a
glance, the curve of an arm--nothing, nothing--and yet everything!
You may condescend towards this quality of hers, Mr. Omicron--you may
try to dismiss it as "feminine charm," and have done with it. But you
cannot have done with it. And the fact will ever remain that you are
incapable of supplying it yourself, with all your talents and your
divine common sense. You are an extremely wise and good man, but you
cannot ravish the senses of a roomful of people by merely walking
downstairs, by merely throwing a shawl over your shoulders, by a
curious depression in the corner of one cheek. This gift of grace is
not yours. Wise as you are, you will be still wiser if you do not
treat it disdainfully. It is among the supreme things in the world. It
has made a mighty lot of history, and not improbably will make some
more--even yours.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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