People then took it quite
as a matter of course--rather a credit to the family than otherwise.
Guy and I discussed, often and gravely, the relative merits of Evadne
the violet-haired, Helen, Cleopatra, and a hundred others, just as, on
the steps of White's, or in the smoking-room at the "Rag," men compare
the points of the _debutantes_ of the season.
His knowledge of feminine psychology--it _must_ have been theoretical,
for he was not seventeen--implied a study and depth of research that was
quite surprising; but I am bound to state that his estimate of the
strength of character and principle inherent in the weaker sex was any
thing but high; nearly, indeed, identical with that formed by the
learned lady who, to the question, "Did she think the virtue of any
single one of her sisterhood impregnable?" replied "_C'est selon_." He
often used to astonish my weak mind by his observations on this head. I
did not know till afterward that Sir Henry Fallowfield, the Bassompierre
of his day, came for the Christmas pheasant-shooting every year into
Guy's neighborhood, and that he had already imbibed lessons of
questionable morality, sitting at the gouty feet of that evil Gamaliel.
He spoke of and to women of every class readily whenever he got the
chance, always with perfect _aplomb_ and self-possession; and I have
heard older men remark since, that in him it did not appear the
precocity of "the rising generation," but rather the confidence of one
who knew his subject well.
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