Puelline

The ‘young England’ poets, Dobell, Bulwer, Swinburne, Morris and Rosatti, seem to have effected an arrangement by which whatever any one of them writes the others shall criticise; and the quantity of hysterical admiration and puelline raising of hands and eyes and waving of applausive cambric that has already resulted from this camaraderie is really surprising, not to say alarming.

But a close study soon reveals in Dr. [Goldwin] Smith’s criticism the very defect of balance which he imputes more or less all round. His relation to the things he antagonises is at best a checking of the puerile by the puelline. As we go through his essays one by one, and note the method and the conclusions, it comes home to us that instead of a scientific tester of theories and theses we are listening to a gentleman in a state of covert irritation against things in general, with whom an instinct of opposition does duty for a body of principles.

Mr. Dickinson’s novel would have been stronger if he had kept in mind Talleyrand’s maxim, “Les superlatifs sont les cachets des sots;” since his hero’s extravagant swearing is puerile or even puelline—puelline at least in strength of language being a girl’s index of strength of character.

On the female side the menses do not start, the breasts fail to grow, the external genitalia remain puelline, the uterus and cervix are infantile and the ovarian follicles do not ripen.

Although my 5’10”/124# appearance could match the puelline configuration of the plaintiff in the eyes of the law . . . as ectomorphic, the sensual beauty of female youth might just sway the jurors’ sympathies more than the somewhat weathered skinniness of the middling-aged male!!!

My only comment (which Jane Nightwork is too puelline to comprehend) is don’t do your schism with nail scissors.