The boy falls in love with Virginia one day when he sees her horse-riding in Hyde Park. Virginia is a "wonderful amazon", and wins a race twice: the young Duke proposes to her on the spot. Unluckily, his guardians are also there, and pack him immediately off to Eton "in floods of tears".
You can't get more romantic or tender than that!
Of course, true love prevails, and Cecil (that's the name of the boy) seeks Virginia again, they stick together through happiness and trouble, and eventually marry when he comes of age. They live happily ever after.
I love the fact that it is Virginia's litheness and agility that won the heart of her "boy-lover", and I think the "amazon" metaphor is very successful, because an Amazon evokes female power and strength.
Women were often kept away from physical exercise, for a number of prudish reasons, all of them wrong (prudishness is always wrong). Though ancient Athens promoted sports and had physical education among the basic courses in the school curriculum, this was only for boys, not girls. Girls received little education. Sparta, Athens's rival, was somewhat better in the treatment of women, and girls were trained in sports as well as boys.
A book with a history of physical education for women (concentrating on France, however) is Mary Lynn Stewart's Physical Culture for French Women 1880s-1930s.
I wish you all a great Sunday! xxx
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