eavily on the little one.
All this time there is nothing of the tumult of contest about her. Fiery
and combative as she generally is, when breaking the law in public
places she is the very soul of serene daring. She shows no heat, no
passion, no turbulence; she leaves these as extra weapons of defence to
women who are assailable. For herself she requires no such aids. She
knows her capabilities and the line of attack that best suits her, and
she knows, too, that the fewer points of contact she exposes the more
likely she is to slip into victory; the more she assumes, and the less
she argues, the slighter the hold she gives her opponents. She is
either perfectly good-humored or blankly innocent; she either smiles you
into indulgence or wearies you into compliance by the sheer hopelessness
of making any impression on her. She may, indeed, if of the very
vociferous and shrill-tongued kind, burst out into such a noisy
demonstration that you are glad to escape from her, no matter what
spoils you leave on her hands; just as a mastiff will slink away from a
bantam hen all heckled feathers and screeching cackle, and tremendous
assumption of doing something terrible if he does not look out. Any way
the little woman is unconquerable; and a tiny fragment of humanity at a
public show, setting all rules and regulations at defiance, is only
carrying out in the matter of benches the manner of life to which nature
has dedicated her from the beginning.

As a rule, the little woman is brave. When the lymphatic giantess falls
into a faint or goes off into hysterics, she storms, or bustles about,
or holds on like a game terrier, according to the work on hand. She will
fly at any man who annoys her, and bears herself as equal to the biggest
and strongest fellow of her acquaintance. In general she does it all by
sheer pluck, and is not notorious for subtlety or craft. Had Delilah
been a little woman she would never have taken the trouble to shear
Samson's locks. She would have defied him with all his strength
untouched on his head, and she would have overcome him too. Judith and
Jael were both probably large women. The work they went about demanded a
certain strength of muscle and toughness of sinew; but who can say that
Jezebel was not a small, freckled, auburn-haired Lady Audley of her
time, full of the concentrated fire, the electric force, the passionate
recklessness of her type? Regan and Goneril might have been beautiful
demons of the