etimes to be taken
with bitter herbs--a peerage will not quite do instead of leadership to
the man who meant to lead; and this delicate-limbed sylph of twenty
meant to lead. For such passions dwell in feminine breasts also. In
Gwendolen's, however, they dwelt among strictly feminine furniture, and
had no disturbing reference to the advancement of learning or the
balance of the constitution; her knowledge being such as with no sort
of standing-room or length of lever could have been expected to move
the world. She meant to do what was pleasant to herself in a striking
manner; or rather, whatever she could do so as to strike others with
admiration and get in that reflected way a more ardent sense of living,
seemed pleasant to her fancy.

"Gwendolen will not rest without having the world at her feet," said
Miss Merry, the meek governess: hyperbolical words which have long come
to carry the most moderate meanings; for who has not heard of private
persons having the world at their feet in the shape of some half-dozen
items of flattering regard generally known in a genteel suburb? And
words could hardly be too wide or vague to indicate the prospect that
made a hazy largeness about poor Gwendolen on the heights of her young
self-exultation. Other people allowed themselves to be made slaves of,
and to have their lives blown hither and thither like empty ships in
which no will was present. It was not to be so with her; she would no
longer be sacrificed to creatures worth less than herself, but would
make the very best of the chances that life offered her, and conquer
circumstances by her exceptional cleverness. Certainly, to be settled
at Offendene, with the notice of Lady Brackenshaw, the archery club,
and invitations to dine with the Arrowpoints, as the highest lights in
her scenery, was not a position that seemed to offer remarkable
chances; but Gwendolen's confidence lay chiefly in herself. She felt
well equipped for the mastery of life. With regard to much in her lot
hitherto, she held herself rather hardly dealt with, but as to her
"education," she would have admitted that it had left her under no
disadvantages. In the school-room her quick mind had taken readily that
strong starch of unexplained rules and disconnected facts which saves
ignorance from any painful sense of limpness; and what remained of all
things knowable, she was conscious of being sufficiently acquainted
with through novels, plays and poems. About her Fr