I have very seldom heard even the most
gentle and placable woman speak without a little feeling of bitterness
against those social institutions, those palaces swaggering in St.
James's, which are open to the men; while the ladies have but their
dingy three-windowed brick boxes in Belgravia or in Paddingtonia, or in
the region between the road of Edgware and that of Gray's Inn.
In my grandfather's time it used to be Freemasonry that roused their
anger. It was my grand-aunt (whose portrait we still have in the family)
who got into the clock-case at the Royal Rosicrucian Lodge at Bungay,
Suffolk, to spy the proceedings of the Society, of which her husband
was a member, and being frightened by the sudden whirring and striking
eleven of the clock (just as the Deputy-Grand-Master was bringing in the
mystic gridiron for the reception of a neophyte), rushed out into the
midst of the lodge assembled; and was elected, by a desperate unanimity,
Deputy-Grand-Mistress for life. Though that admirable and courageous
female never subsequently breathed a word with regard to the secrets
of the initiation, yet she inspired all our family with such a terror
regarding the mysteries of Jachin and Boaz, that none of our family have
ever since joined the Society, or worn the dreadful Masonic insignia.
It is known that Orpheus was torn to pieces by some justly indignant
Thracian ladies for belonging to an Harmonic Lodge.
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