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Possibly the writer was thinking of two rival Dianas who ride to cut each other down, and who are a nuisance and danger to the entire field. One, if not both of them, has generally to be picked up as the result of this jealous riding.
Of course advice is readily given her, favourable or otherwise to the suitor, but nobody can compel her to wed a man she is not inclined to. This total absence of coercion is no marvel, however, for in the forest there are no fortune-hunters, dowries being unknown, and there are no Dianas to join in the chase after a rent-roll.
This eulogium instantly calmed my romantic curiosity, for I felt no inclination to seek Dianas and Sylvanders among a generation of blacksmiths. The good woman who encouraged me with this piece of information certainly thought I was a journeyman locksmith.
Two more candles in the hands of bronze Dianas on the marble mantelpiece, lighted up a coloured copy of Barraud's picture of John Warde on Blue Ruin; while Mr. Ralph Lambton, on his horse Undertaker, with his hounds and men, occupied a frame on the opposite wall.
I do not say that they believed it as they believed in the vital articles of Christian faith, but that they accepted it with the same spirit as they accepted the martyrology of the Church; and that to the fine gentlemen and ladies of the court, those jolly satyrs and careless nymphs, those Cupids and Psyches, and Dianas and Venuses, were of the same verity as the Fathers of the Desert, the Devil, and the great body of the saints.
"Oh, Anne, you don't understand," said Diana in vexation. "I didn't mean THAT . . . it's so hard to explain. Never mind, you'll understand sometime, when your own turn comes." "Bless you, dearest of Dianas, I understand now. What is an imagination for if not to enable you to peep at life through other people's eyes?" "You must be my bridesmaid, you know, Anne.
'Brass can do better than the gold what has stood the fire, said the second. The third contented herself with wondering 'what ladies was made of'; and the fourth took the first in a quartette of 'Shameful! with which the Dianas concluded.
And what is it in Rakope's cheeks and chin, and rare red lips and pearly teeth, that makes one think of peaches and of rosebuds and of honey, and of many other things that are nicest of the nice? Away, away with your washed-out, watery Venuses, your glassy-eyed Junos, your disdainful, half-masculine Dianas! Away with all your pretended and pretentious beauties of the older Northern world!
"And," added Samson Carrasco, "if they fail us, we can call them by the names of the ones in print that the world is filled with, Filidas, Amarilises, Dianas, Fleridas, Galateas, Belisardas; for as they sell them in the market-places we may fairly buy them and make them our own.
Bringing up the rear, the place of greatest danger, comes Tiger Lily, proudly erect, a princess in her own right. She is the most beautiful of dusky Dianas and the belle of the Piccaninnies, coquettish, cold and amorous by turns; there is not a brave who would not have the wayward thing to wife, but she staves off the altar with a hatchet.
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