PART III.

EXTRACTS FROM JOURNAL AND LETTERS

* * * * *

APPENDIX

PREFACE TO WOMAN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

* * * * *

The following essay is a reproduction, modified and expanded, of an

article published in "The Dial, Boston, July, 1843," under the title

of "The Great Lawsuit.--Man _versus_ Men; Woman _versus_ Women."

This article excited a good deal of sympathy, add still more interest.

It is in compliance with wishes expressed from many quarters that it

is prepared for publication in its present form.

Objections having been made to the former title, as not sufficiently

easy to be understood, the present has been substituted as expressive

of the main purpose of the essay; though, by myself, the other is

preferred, partly for the reason others do not like it,--that is, that

it requires some thought to see what it means, and might thus prepare

the reader to meet me on my own ground. Besides, it offers a larger

scope, and is, in that way, more just to my desire. I meant by that

title to intimate the fact that, while it is the destiny of Man, in

the course of the ages, to ascertain and fulfil the law of his being,

so that his life shall be seen, as a whole, to be that of an angel or

messenger, the action of prejudices and passions which attend, in the

day, the growth of the individual, is continually obstructing the holy

work that is to make the earth a part of heaven. By Man I mean both

man and woman; these are the two halves of one thought. I lay no

especial stress on the welfare of either. I believe that the

development of the one cannot be effected without that of the other.

My highest wish is that this truth should be distinctly and rationally

apprehended, and the conditions of life and freedom recognized as the

same for the daughters and the sons of time; twin exponents of a

divine thought.

I solicit a sincere and patient attention from those who open the

following pages at all. I solicit of women that they will lay it to

heart to ascertain what is for them the liberty of law. It is for

this, and not for any, the largest, extension of partial privileges

that I seek. I ask them, if interested by these suggestions, to search

their own experience and intuitions for better, and fill up with fit

materials the trenches that hedge them in. From men I ask a noble and

earnest attention to anything that can be offered on this great and

still obscure subject, such as I have met from many with whom I stand

in private relations.

And may truth, unpolluted by prejudice, vanity or selfishness, be

granted daily more and more as the due of inheritance, and only

valuable conquest for us all!

_November_, 1844.

WOMAN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

* * * * *

"Frailty, thy name is WOMAN."

"The Earth waits for her Queen."

The connection between these quotations may not be obvious, but it is

strict. Yet would any contradict us, if we made them applicable to the

other side, and began also,

Frailty, thy name is MAN.

The Earth waits for its King?

Yet Man, if not yet fully installed in his powers, has given much

earnest of his claims. Frail he is indeed,--how frail! how impure!

Yet often has the vein of gold displayed itself amid the baser ores,

and Man has appeared before us in princely promise worthy of his

future.

If, oftentimes, we see the prodigal son feeding on the husks in the

fair field no more his own, anon we raise the eyelids, heavy from

bitter tears, to behold in him the radiant apparition of genius and

love, demanding not less than the all of goodness, power and beauty.

We see that in him the largest claim finds a due foundation. That

claim is for no partial sway, no exclusive possession. He cannot be

satisfied with any one gift of life, any one department of knowledge

or telescopic peep at the heavens. He feels himself called to

understand and aid Nature, that she may, through his intelligence, be

raised and interpreted; to be a student of, and servant to, the

universe-spirit; and king of his planet, that, as an angelic minister

he may bring it into conscious harmony with the law of that spirit.

In clear, triumphant moments, many times, has rung through the spheres

the prophecy of his jubilee; and those moments, though past in time,

have been translated into eternity by thought; the bright signs they

left hang in the heavens, as single stars or constellations, and,

already, a thickly sown radiance consoles the wanderer in the darkest

night. Other heroes since Hercules have fulfilled the zodiac of

beneficent labors, and then given up their mortal part to the fire

without a murmur; while no God dared deny that they should have their

reward,

Siquis tamen, Hercule, siquis

Forte Deo doliturus erit, daia praemia nollet,

Sed meruise dari sciet, invitus que probabit,

Assensere Dei

Sages and lawgivers have bent their whole nature to the search for

truth, and thought themselves happy if they could buy, with the

sacrifice of all temporal ease and pleasure, one seed for the future

Eden. Poets and priests have strung the lyre with the heart-strings,

poured out their best blood upon the altar, which, reared anew from

age to age, shall at last sustain the flame pure enough to rise to

highest heaven. Shall we not name with as deep a benediction those

who, if not so immediately, or so consciously, in connection with the

eternal truth, yet, led and fashioned by a divine instinct, serve no

less to develop and interpret the open secret of love passing into

life, energy creating for the purpose of happiness; the artist whose

hand, drawn by a preexistent harmony to a certain medium, moulds it

to forms of life more highly and completely organized than are seen

elsewhere, and, by carrying out the intention of nature, reveals her

meaning to those who are not yet wise enough to divine it; the

philosopher who listens steadily for laws and causes, and from those

obvious infers those yet unknown; the historian who, in faith that all

events must have their reason and their aim, records them, and thus

fills archives from which the youth of prophets may be fed; the man of

science dissecting the statements, testing the facts and demonstrating

order, even where he cannot its purpose?

Lives, too, which bear none of these names, have yielded tones of no

less significance. The candlestick set in a low place has given light

as faithfully, where it was needed, as that upon the hill, In close

alleys, in dismal nooks, the Word has been read as distinctly, as when

shown by angels to holy men in the dark prison. Those who till a spot

of earth scarcely larger than is wanted for a grave, have deserved

that the sun should shine upon its sod till violets answer.

So great has been, from time to time, the promise, that, in all ages,

men have said the gods themselves came down to dwell with them; that

the All-Creating wandered on the earth to taste, in a limited nature,

the sweetness of virtue; that the All-Sustaining incarnated himself to

guard, in space and time, the destinies of this world; that heavenly

genius dwelt among the shepherds, to sing to them and teach them how

to sing. Indeed,

"Der stets den Hirten gnadig sich bewies."

"He has constantly shown himself favorable to shepherds."

And the dwellers in green pastures and natural students of the stars

were selected to hail, first among men, the holy child, whose life and

death were to present the type of excellence, which has sustained the

heart of so large a portion of mankind in these later generations.

Such marks have been made by the footsteps of _man_ (still, alas!

to be spoken of as the _ideal_ man), wherever he has passed

through the wilderness of _men_, and whenever the pigmies stepped

in one of those, they felt dilate within the breast somewhat that

promised nobler stature and purer blood. They were impelled to forsake

their evil ways of decrepit scepticism and covetousness of corruptible

possessions. Convictions flowed in upon them. They, too, raised the

cry: God is living, now, to-day; and all beings are brothers, for they

are his children. Simple words enough, yet which only angelic natures

can use or hear in their full, free sense.

These were the triumphant moments; but soon the lower nature took its

turn, and the era of a truly human life was postponed.

Thus is man still a stranger to his inheritance, still a pleader,

still a pilgrim. Yet his happiness is secure in the end. And now, no

more a glimmering consciousness, but assurance begins to be felt and

spoken, that the highest ideal Man can form of his own powers is that

which he is destined to attain. Whatever the soul knows how to seek,

it cannot fail to obtain. This is the Law and the Prophets. Knock and

it shall be opened; seek and ye shall find. It is demonstrated; it is

a maxim. Man no longer paints his proper nature in some form, and

says, "Prometheus had it; it is God-like;" but "Man must have it; it

is human." However disputed by many, however ignorantly used, or

falsified by those who do receive it, the fact of an universal,

unceasing revelation has been too clearly stated in words to be lost

sight of in thought; and sermons preached from the text, "Be ye

perfect," are the only sermons of a pervasive and deep-searching

influence.

But, among those who meditate upon this text, there is a great

difference of view as to the way in which perfection shall be sought.

"Through the intellect," say some. "Gather from every growth of life

its seed of thought; look behind every symbol for its law; if thou

canst _see_ clearly, the rest will follow."

"Through the life," say others. "Do the best thou knowest today.

Shrink not from frequent error in this gradual, fragmentary state.

Follow thy light for as much as it will show thee; be faithful as far

as thou canst, in hope that faith presently will lead to sight. Help

others, without blaming their need of thy help. Love much, and be

forgiven."

"It needs not intellect, needs not experience," says a third. "If you

took the true way, your destiny would be accomplished, in a purer and

more natural order. You would not learn through facts of thought or

action, but express through them the certainties of wisdom. In

quietness yield thy soul to the causal soul. Do not disturb thy

apprenticeship by premature effort; neither check the tide of

instruction by methods of thy own. Be still; seek not, but wait in

obedience. Thy commission will be given."

Could we indeed say what we want, could we give a description of the

child that is lost, he would be found. As soon as the soul can affirm

clearly that a certain demonstration is wanted, it is at hand. When

the Jewish prophet described the Lamb, as the expression of what was

required by the coming era, the time drew nigh. But we say not, see

not as yet, clearly, what we would. Those who call for a more

triumphant expression of love, a love that cannot be crucified, show

not a perfect sense of what has already been given. Love has already

been expressed, that made all things new, that gave the worm its place

and ministry as well as the eagle; a love to which it was alike to

descend into the depths of hell, or to sit at the right hand of the

Father.

Yet, no doubt, a new manifestation is at hand, a new hour in the day

of Man. We cannot expect to see any one sample of completed being,

when the mass of men still lie engaged in the sod, or use the freedom

of their limbs only with wolfish energy. The tree cannot come to

flower till its root be free from the cankering worm, and its whole

growth open to air and light. While any one is base, none can be

entirely free and noble. Yet something new shall presently be shown of

the life of man, for hearts crave, if minds do not know how to ask it.

Among the strains of prophecy, the following, by an earnest mind of a

foreign land, written some thirty years ago, is not yet outgrown; and

it has the merit of being a positive appeal from the heart, instead of

a critical declaration what Man should _not_ do.

"The ministry of Man implies that he must be filled from the divine

fountains which are being engendered through all eternity, so that, at

the mere name of his master, he may be able to cast all his enemies

into the abyss; that he may deliver all parts of nature from the

barriers that imprison them; that he may purge the terrestrial

atmosphere from the poisons that infect it; that he may preserve the

bodies of men from the corrupt influences that surround, and the

maladies that afflict them; still more, that he may keep their souls

pure from the malignant insinuations which pollute, and the gloomy

images that obscure them; that he may restore its serenity to the

Word, which false words of men fill with mourning and sadness; that he

may satisfy the desires of the angels, who await from him the

development of the marvels of nature; that, in fine, his world may be

filled with God, as eternity is." [Footnote: St. Martin]

Another attempt we will give, by an obscure observer of our own day

and country, to draw some lines of the desired image. It was suggested

by seeing the design of Crawford's Orpheus, and connecting with the

circumstance of the American, in his garret at Rome, making choice of

this subject, that of Americans here at home showing such ambition to

represent the character, by calling their prose and verse "Orphic

sayings"--"Orphics." We wish we could add that they have shown that

musical apprehension of the progress of Nature through her ascending

gradations which entitled them so to do, but their attempts are

frigid, though sometimes grand; in their strain we are not warmed by

the fire which fertilized the soil of Greece.

Orpheus was a lawgiver by theocratic commission. He understood nature,

and made her forms move to his music. He told her secrets in the form

of hymns, Nature as seen in the mind of God. His soul went forth

toward all beings, yet could remain sternly faithful to a chosen type

of excellence. Seeking what he loved, he feared not death nor hell;

neither could any shape of dread daunt his faith in the power of the

celestial harmony that filled his soul.

It seemed significant of the state of things in this country, that the

sculptor should have represented the seer at the moment when he was

obliged with his hand to shade his eyes.

Each Orpheus must to the depths descend;

For only thus the Poet can be wise;

Must make the sad Persephone his friend,

And buried love to second life arise;

Again his love must lose through too much love,

Must lose his life by living life too true,

For what he sought below is passed above,

Already done is all that he would do

Must tune all being with his single lyre,

Must melt all rooks free from their primal pain,

Must search all nature with his one soul's fire,

Must bind anew all forms in heavenly chain.

If he already sees what he must do,

Well may he shade his eyes from the far-shining view.

A better comment could not be made on what is required to perfect Man,

and place him in that superior position for which he was designed,

than by the interpretation of Bacon upon the legends of the Syren

coast "When the wise Ulysses passed," says he, "he caused his mariners

to stop their ears, with wax, knowing there was in them no power to

resist the lure of that voluptuous song. But he, the much experienced

man, who wished to be experienced in all, and use all to the service

of wisdom, desired to hear the song that he might understand its

meaning. Yet, distrusting his own power to be firm in his better

purpose, he caused himself to be bound to the mast, that he might be

kept secure against his own weakness. But Orpheus passed unfettered,

so absorbed in singing hymns to the gods that he could not even hear

those sounds of degrading enchantment."

Meanwhile, not a few believe, and men themselves have expressed the

opinion, that the time is come when Eurydice is to call for an

Orpheus, rather than Orpheus for Eurydice; that the idea of Man,

however imperfectly brought out, has been far more so than that of

Woman; that she, the other half of the same thought, the other chamber

of the heart of life, needs now take her turn in the full pulsation,

and that improvement in the daughters will best aid in the reformation

of the sons of this age.

It should be remarked that, as the principle of liberty is better

understood, and more nobly interpreted, a broader protest is made in

behalf of Woman. As men become aware that few men have had a fair

chance, they are inclined to say that no women have had a fair chance.

The French Revolution, that strangely disguised angel, bore witness in

favor of Woman, but interpreted her claims no less ignorantly than

those of Man. Its idea of happiness did not rise beyond outward

enjoyment, unobstructed by the tyranny of others. The title it gave

was "citoyen," "citoyenne;" and it is not unimportant to Woman that

even this species of equality was awarded her. Before, she could be

condemned to perish on the scaffold for treason, not as a citizen, but

as a subject. The right with which this title then invested a human

being was that of bloodshed and license. The Goddess of Liberty was

impure. As we read the poem addressed to her, not long since, by

Beranger, we can scarcely refrain from tears as painful as the tears

of blood that flowed when "such crimes were committed in her name."

Yes! Man, born to purify and animate the unintelligent and the cold,

can, in his madness, degrade and pollute no less the fair and the

chaste. Yet truth was prophesied in the ravings of that hideous fever,

caused by long ignorance and abuse. Europe is conning a valued lesson

from the blood-stained page. The same tendencies, further unfolded,

will bear good fruit in this country.

Yet, by men in this country, as by the Jews, when Moses was leading

them to the promised land, everything has been done that inherited

depravity could do, to hinder the promise of Heaven from its

fulfilment. The cross, here as elsewhere, has been planted only to be

blasphemed by cruelty and fraud. The name of the Prince of Peace has

been profaned by all kinds of injustice toward the Gentile whom he

said he came to save. But I need not speak of what has been done

towards the Red Man, the Black Man. Those deeds are the scoff of the

world; and they have been accompanied by such pious words that the

gentlest would not dare to intercede with "Father, forgive them, for

they know not what they do."

Here, as elsewhere, the gain of creation consists always in the growth

of individual minds, which live and aspire, as flowers bloom and birds

sing, in the midst of morasses; and in the continual development of

that thought, the thought of human destiny, which is given to eternity

adequately to express, and which ages of failure only seemingly

impede. Only seemingly; and whatever seems to the contrary, this

country is as surely destined to elucidate a great moral law, as

Europe was to promote the mental culture of Man.

Though the national independence be blurred by the servility of

individuals; though freedom and equality have been proclaimed only to

leave room for a monstrous display of slave-dealing and slave-keeping;

though the free American so often feels himself free, like the Roman,

only to pamper his appetites end his indolence through the misery of

his fellow-beings; still it is not in vain that the verbal statement

has been made, "All men are born free and equal." There it stands, a

golden certainty wherewith to encourage the good, to shame the bad.

The New World may be called clearly to perceive that it incurs the

utmost penalty if it reject or oppress the sorrowful brother. And, if

men are deaf, the angels hear. But men cannot be deaf. It is

inevitable that an external freedom, an independence of the

encroachments of other men, such as has been achieved for the nation,

should be so also for every member of it. That which has once been

clearly conceived in the intelligence cannot fail, sooner or later, to

be acted out. It has become a law as irrevocable as that of the Medes

in their ancient dominion; men will privately sin against it, but the

law, as expressed by a leading mind of the age,

"Tutti fatti a semblanza d'un Solo,

Figli tutti d'un solo riscatto,

In qual'ora, in qual parte del suolo

Trascorriamo quest' aura vital,

Siam fratelli, siam stretti ad un patto:

Maladetto colui che lo infrange,

Che s'innalza sul finoco che piange

Che contrista uno spirto immortal." [Footnote: Manzoni]

"All made in the likeness of the One.

All children of one ransom,

In whatever hour, in whatever part of the soil,

We draw this vital air,

We are brothers; we must be bound by one compact;

Accursed he who infringes it,

Who raises himself upon the weak who weep,

Who saddens an immortal spirit."

This law cannot fail of universal recognition. Accursed be he who

willingly saddens an immortal spirit--doomed to infamy in later, wiser

ages, doomed in future stages of his own being to deadly penance, only

short of death. Accursed be he who sins in ignorance, if that

ignorance be caused by sloth.

We sicken no less at the pomp than the strife of words. We feel that

never were lungs so puffed with the wind of declamation, on moral and

religious subjects, as now. We are tempted to implore these

"word-heroes," these word-Catos, word-Christs, to beware of cant

[Footnote: Dr. Johnson's one piece of advice should be written on

every door: "Clear your mind of cant." But Byron, to whom it was so

acceptable, in clearing away the noxious vine, shook down the

building. Sterling's emendation is worthy of honor:

"Realize your cant, not cast it off."]

above all things; to remember that hypocrisy is the most hopeless as

well as the meanest of crimes, and that those must surely be polluted

by it, who do not reserve a part of their morality and religion for

private use. Landor says that he cannot have a great deal of mind who

cannot afford to let the larger part of it lie fallow; and what is true

of genius is not less so of virtue. The tongue is a valuable member,

but should appropriate but a small part of the vital juices that are

needful all over the body. We feel that the mind may "grow black and

rancid in the smoke" even "of altars." We start up from the harangue

to go into our closet and shut the door. There inquires the spirit,

"Is this rhetoric the bloom of healthy blood, or a false pigment

artfully laid on?" And yet again we know where is so much smoke, must

be some fire; with so much talk about virtue and freedom, must be

mingled some desire for them; that it cannot be in vain that such have

become the common topics of conversation among men, rather than schemes

for tyranny and plunder, that the very newspapers see it best to

proclaim themselves "Pilgrims," "Puritans," "Heralds of Holiness." The

king that maintains so costly a retinue cannot be a mere boast, or

Carabbas fiction. We have waited here long in the dust; we are tired

and hungry; but the triumphal procession must appear at last.

Of all its banners, none has been more steadily upheld, and under none

have more valor and willingness for real sacrifices been shown, than

that of the champions of the enslaved African. And this band it is,

which, partly from a natural following out of principles, partly

because many women have been prominent in that cause, makes, just now,

the warmest appeal in behalf of Woman.

Though there has been a growing liberality on this subject, yet

society at large is not so prepared for the demands of this party, but

that its members are, and will be for some time, coldly regarded as

the Jacobins of their day.

"Is it not enough," cries the irritated trader, "that you have done

all you could to break up the national union, and thus destroy the

prosperity of our country, but now you must be trying to break up

family union, to take my wife away from the cradle and the

kitchen-hearth to vote at polls, and preach from a pulpit? Of course,

if she does such things, she cannot attend to those of her own sphere.

She is happy enough as she is. She has more leisure than I

have,--every means of improvement, every indulgence."

"Have you asked her whether she was satisfied with these

_indulgences_?"

"No, but I know she is. She is too amiable to desire what would make

me unhappy, and too judicious to wish to step beyond the sphere of her

sex. I will never consent to have our peace disturbed by any such

discussions."

"'Consent--you?' it is not consent from you that is in question--it is

assent from your wife."

"Am not I the head of my house?"

"You are not the head of your wife. God has given her a mind of her own.

"I am the head, and she the heart."

"God grant you play true to one another, then! I suppose I am to be

grateful that you did not say she was only the hand. If the head

represses no natural pulse of the heart, there can be no question as

to your giving your consent. Both will be of one accord, and there

needs but to present any question to get a full and true answer. There

is no need of precaution, of indulgence, nor consent. But our doubt is

whether the heart _does_ consent with the head, or only obeys its

decrees with a passiveness that precludes the exercise of its natural

powers, or a repugnance that turns sweet qualities to bitter, or a

doubt that lays waste the fair occasions of life. It is to ascertain

the truth that we propose some liberating measures."

Thus vaguely are these questions proposed and discussed at present.

But their being proposed at all implies much thought, and suggests

more. Many women are considering within themselves what they need that

they have not, and what they can have if they find they need it. Many

men are considering whether women are capable of being and having more

than they are and have, _and_ whether, if so, it will be best to

consent to improvement in their condition.

This morning, I open the Boston "Daily Mail," and find in its "poet's

corner" a translation of Schiller's "Dignity of Woman." In the

advertisement of a book on America, I see in the table of contents

this sequence, "Republican Institutions. American Slavery. American

Ladies."

I open the "_Deutsche Schnellpost_" published in New York, and

find at the head of a column, _Juden und Frauenemancipation in

Ungarn_--"Emancipation of Jews and Women in Hungary."

The past year has seen action in the Rhode Island legislature, to

secure married women rights over their own property, where men showed

that a very little examination of the subject could teach them much;

an article in the Democratic Review on the same subject more largely

considered, written by a woman, impelled, it is said, by glaring wrong

to a distinguished friend, having shown the defects in the existing

laws, and the state of opinion from which they spring; and on answer

from the revered old man, J. Q. Adams, in some respects the Phocion of

his time, to an address made him by some ladies. To this last I shall

again advert in another place.

These symptoms of the times have come under my view quite

accidentally: one who seeks, may, each month or week, collect more.

The numerous party, whose opinions are already labeled and adjusted

too much to their mind to admit of any new light, strive, by lectures

on some model-woman of bride-like beauty and gentleness, by writing

and lending little treatises, intended to mark out with precision the

limits of Woman's sphere, and Woman's mission, to prevent other than

the rightful shepherd from climbing the wall, or the flock from using

any chance to go astray.

Without enrolling ourselves at once on either side, let us look upon

the subject from the best point of view which to-day offers; no

better, it is to be feared, than a high house-top. A high hill-top, or

at least a cathedral-spire, would be desirable.

It may well be an Anti-Slavery party that pleads for Woman, if we

consider merely that she does not hold property on equal terms with

men; so that, if a husband dies without making a will, the wife,

instead of taking at once his place as head of the family, inherits

only a part of his fortune, often brought him by herself, as if she

were a child, or ward only, not an equal partner.

We will not speak of the innumerable instances in which profligate and

idle men live upon the earnings of industrious wives; or if the wives

leave them, and take with them the children, to perform the double

duty of mother and father, follow from place to place, and threaten to

rob them of the children, if deprived of the rights of a husband, as

they call them, planting themselves in their poor lodgings,

frightening them into paying tribute by taking from them the children,

running into debt at the expense of these otherwise so overtasked

helots. Such instances count up by scores within my own memory. I have

seen the husband who had stained himself by a long course of low vice,

till his wife was wearied from her heroic forgiveness, by finding that

his treachery made it useless, and that if she would provide bread for

herself and her children, she must be separate from his ill fame--I

have known this man come to install himself in the chamber of a woman

who loathed him, and say she should never take food without his

company. I have known these men steal their children, whom they knew

they had no means to maintain, take them into dissolute company,

expose them to bodily danger, to frighten the poor woman, to whom, it

seems, the fact that she alone had borne the pangs of their birth, and

nourished their infancy, does not give an equal right to them. I do

believe that this mode of kidnapping--and it is frequent enough in all

classes of society--will be by the next age viewed as it is by Heaven

now, and that the man who avails himself of the shelter of men's laws

to steal from a mother her own children, or arrogate any superior

right in them, save that of superior virtue, will bear the stigma he

deserves, in common with him who steals grown men from their

mother-land, their hopes, and their homes.

I said, we will not speak of this now; yet I _have_ spoken, for

the subject makes me feel too much. I could give instances that would

startle the most vulgar and callous; but I will not, for the public

opinion of their own sex is already against such men, and where cases

of extreme tyranny are made known, there is private action in the

wife's favor. But she ought not to need this, nor, I think, can she

long. Men must soon see that as, on their own ground, Woman is the

weaker party, she ought to have legal protection, which would make

such oppression impossible. But I would not deal with "atrocious

instances," except in the way of illustration, neither demand from men

a partial redress in some one matter, but go to the root of the whole.

If principles could be established, particulars would adjust

themselves aright. Ascertain the true destiny of Woman; give her

legitimate hopes, and a standard within herself; marriage and all

other relations would by degrees be harmonized with these.

But to return to the historical progress of this matter. Knowing that

there exists in the minds of men a tone of feeling toward women as

toward slaves, such as is expressed in the common phrase, "Tell that

to women and children;" that the infinite soul can only work through

them in already ascertained limits; that the gift of reason, Man's

highest prerogative, is allotted to them in much lower degree; that

they must be kept from mischief and melancholy by being constantly

engaged in active labor, which is to be furnished and directed by

those better able to think, &c., &c.,--we need not multiply instances,

for who can review the experience of last week without recalling words

which imply, whether in jest or earnest, these views, or views like

these,--knowing this, can we wonder that many reformers think that

measures are not likely to be taken in behalf of women, unless their

wishes could be publicly represented by women?

"That can never be necessary," cry the other side. "All men are

privately influenced by women; each has his wife, sister, or female

friends, and is too much biased by these relations to fail of

representing their interests; and, if this is not enough, let them

propose and enforce their wishes with the pen. The beauty of home

would be destroyed, the delicacy of the sex be violated, the dignity

of halls of legislation degraded, by an attempt to introduce them

there. Such duties are inconsistent with those of a mother;" and then

we have ludicrous pictures of ladies in hysterics at the polls, and

senate-chambers filled with cradles.

But if, in reply, we admit as truth that Woman seems destined by

nature rather for the inner circle, we must add that the arrangements

of civilized life have not been, as yet, such as to secure it to her.

Her circle, if the duller, is not the quieter. If kept from

"excitement," she is not from drudgery. Not only the Indian squaw

carries the burdens of the camp, but the favorites of Louis XIV.

accompany him in his journeys, and the washerwoman stands at her tub,

and carries home her work at all seasons, and in all states of health.

Those who think the physical circumstances of Woman would make a part

in the affairs of national government unsuitable, are by no means

those who think it impossible for negresses to endure field-work, even

during pregnancy, or for sempstresses to go through their killing

labors.

As to the use of the pen, there was quite as much opposition to

Woman's possessing herself of that help to free agency as there is now

to her seizing on the rostrum or the desk; and she is likely to draw,

from a permission to plead her cause that way, opposite inferences to

what might be wished by those who now grant it.

As to the possibility of her filling with grace and dignity any such

position, we should think those who had seen the great actresses, and

heard the Quaker preachers of modern times, would not doubt that Woman

can express publicly the fulness of thought and creation, without

losing any of the peculiar beauty of her sex. What can pollute and

tarnish is to act thus from any motive except that something needs to

be said or done. Woman could take part in the processions, the songs,

the dances of old religion; no one fancied her delicacy was impaired

by appearing in public for such a cause.

As to her home, she is not likely to leave it more than she now does

for balls, theatres, meetings for promoting missions, revival

meetings, and others to which she flies, in hope of an animation for

her existence commensurate with what she sees enjoyed by men.

Governors of ladies'-fairs are no less engrossed by such a charge,

than the governor of a state by his; presidents of Washingtonian

societies no less away from home than presidents of conventions. If

men look straitly to it, they will find that, unless their lives are

domestic, those of the women will not be. A house is no home unless it

contain food and fire for the mind as well as for the body. The female

Greek, of our day, is as much in the street as the male to cry, "What

news?" We doubt not it was the same in Athens of old. The women, shut

out from the market-place, made up for it at the religious festivals.

For human beings are not so constituted that they can live without

expansion. If they do not get it in one way, they must in another, or

perish.

As to men's representing women fairly at present, while we hear from

men who owe to their wives not only all that is comfortable or

graceful, but all that is wise, in the arrangement of their lives, the

frequent remark, "You cannot reason with a woman,"--when from those of

delicacy, nobleness, and poetic culture, falls the contemptuous phrase

"women and children," and that in no light sally of the hour, but in

works intended to give a permanent statement of the best

experiences,--when not one man, in the million, shall I say? no, not

in the hundred million, can rise above the belief that Woman was made

_for Man_,--when such traits as these are daily forced upon the

attention, can we feel that Man will always do justice to the

interests of Woman? Can we think that he takes a sufficiently

discerning and religious view of her office and destiny _ever_ to

do her justice, except when prompted by sentiment,--accidentally or

transiently, that is, for the sentiment will vary according to the

relations in which he is placed? The lover, the poet, the artist, are

likely to view her nobly. The father and the philosopher have some

chance of liberality; the man of the world, the legislator for

expediency, none.

Under these circumstances, without attaching importance, in

themselves, to the changes demanded by the champions of Woman, we hail

them as signs of the times. We would have every arbitrary barrier

thrown down. We would have every path laid open to Woman as freely as

to Man. Were this done, and a slight temporary fermentation allowed to

subside, we should see crystallizations more pure and of more various

beauty. We believe the divine energy would pervade nature to a degree

unknown in the history of former ages, and that no discordant

collision, but a ravishing harmony of the spheres, would ensue.

Yet, then and only then will mankind be ripe for this, when inward and

outward freedom for Woman as much as for Man shall be acknowledged as

a _right_, not yielded as a concession. As the friend of the

negro assumes that one man cannot by right hold another in bondage, so

should the friend of Woman assume that Man cannot by right lay even

well-meant restrictions on Woman. If the negro be a soul, if the woman

be a soul, apparelled in flesh, to one Master only are they

accountable. There is but one law for souls, and, if there is to be an

interpreter of it, he must come not as man, or son of man, but as son

of God.

Were thought and feeling once so far elevated that Man should esteem

himself the brother and friend, but nowise the lord and tutor, of

Woman,--were he really bound with her in equal worship,--arrangements

as to function and employment would be of no consequence. What Woman

needs is not as a woman to act or rule, but as a nature to grow, as an

intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely and unimpeded, to

unfold such powers as were given her when we left our common home. If

fewer talents were given her, yet if allowed the free and full

employment of these, so that she may render back to the giver his own

with usury, she will not complain; nay, I dare to say she will bless

and rejoice in her earthly birth-place, her earthly lot. Let us

consider what obstructions impede this good era, and what signs give

reason to hope that it draws near.

I was talking on this subject with Miranda, a woman, who, if any in

the world could, might speak without heat and bitterness of the

position of her sex. Her father was a man who cherished no sentimental

reverence for Woman, but a firm belief in the equality of the sexes.

She was his eldest child, and came to him at an age when he needed a

companion. From the time she could speak and go alone, he addressed

her not as a plaything, but as a living mind. Among the few verses he

ever wrote was a copy addressed to this child, when the first locks

were cut from her head; and the reverence expressed on this occasion

for that cherished head, he never belied. It was to him the temple of

immortal intellect. He respected his child, however, too much to be an

indulgent parent. He called on her for clear judgment, for courage,

for honor and fidelity; in short, for such virtues as he knew. In so

far as he possessed the keys to the wonders of this universe, he

allowed free use of them to her, and, by the incentive of a high

expectation, he forbade, so far as possible, that she should let the

privilege lie idle.

Thus this child was early led to feel herself a child of the spirit.

She took her place easily, not only in the world of organized being,

but in the world of mind. A dignified sense of self-dependence was

given as all her portion, and she found it a sure anchor. Herself

securely anchored, her relations with others were established with

equal security. She was fortunate in a total absence of those charms

which might have drawn to her bewildering flatteries, and in a strong

electric nature, which repelled those who did not belong to her, and

attracted those who did. With men and women her relations were

noble,--affectionate without passion, intellectual without coldness.

The world was free to her, and she lived freely in it. Outward

adversity came, and inward conflict; but that faith and self-respect

had early been awakened which must always lead, at last, to an outward

serenity and an inward peace.

Of Miranda I had always thought as an example, that the restraints

upon the sex were insuperable only to those who think them so, or who

noisily strive to break them. She had taken a course of her own, and

no man stood in her way. Many of her acts had been unusual, but

excited no uproar. Few helped, but none checked her; and the many men

who knew her mind and her life, showed to her confidence as to a

brother, gentleness as to a sister. And not only refined, but very

coarse men approved and aided one in whom they saw resolution and

clearness of design. Her mind was often the leading one, always

effective.

When I talked with her upon these matters, and had said very much what

I have written, she smilingly replied; "And yet we must admit that I

have been fortunate, and this should not be. My good father's early

trust gave the first bias, and the rest followed, of course. It is

true that I have had less outward aid, in after years, than most

women; but that is of little consequence. Religion was early awakened

in my soul,--a sense that what the soul is capable to ask it must

attain, and that, though I might be aided and instructed by others, I

must depend on myself as the only constant friend. This

self-dependence, which was honored in me, is deprecated as a fault in

most women. They are taught to learn their rule from without, not to

unfold it from within.

"This is the fault of Man, who is still vain, and wishes to be more

important to Woman than, by right, he should be."

"Men have not shown this disposition toward you," I said.

"No; because the position I early was enabled to take was one of

self-reliance. And were all women as sure of their wants as I was, the

result would be the same. But they are so overloaded with precepts by

guardians, who think that nothing is so much to be dreaded for a woman

as originality of thought or character, that their minds are impeded

by doubts till they lose their chance of fair, free proportions. The

difficulty is to got them to the point from which they shall naturally

develop self-respect, and learn self-help.

"Once I thought that men would help to forward this state of things

more than I do now. I saw so many of them wretched in the connections

they had formed in weakness and vanity. They seemed so glad to esteem

women whenever they could.

"'The soft arms of affection,' said one of the most discerning

spirits, 'will not suffice for me, unless on them I see the steel

bracelets of strength.'

"But early I perceived that men never, in any extreme of despair,

wished to be women. On the contrary, they were ever ready to taunt one

another, at any sign of weakness, with,

"'Art thou not like the women, who,'--

The passage ends various ways, according to the occasion and rhetoric

of the speaker. When they admired any woman, they were inclined to

speak of her as 'above her sex.' Silently I observed this, and feared

it argued a rooted scepticism, which for ages had been fastening on

the heart, and which only an age of miracles could eradicate. Ever I

have been treated with great sincerity; and I look upon it as a signal

instance of this, that an intimate friend of the other sex said, in a

fervent moment, that I 'deserved in some star to be a man.' He was

much surprised when I disclosed my view of my position and hopes, when

I declared my faith that the feminine side, the side of love, of

beauty, of holiness, was now to have its full chance, and that, if

either were better, it was better now to be a woman; for even the

slightest achievement of good was furthering an especial work of our

time. He smiled incredulously. 'She makes the best she can of it,'

thought he. 'Let Jews believe the pride of Jewry, but I am of the

better sort, and know better.'

"Another used as highest praise, in speaking of a character in

literature, the words 'a manly woman.'

"So in the noble passage of Ben Jonson:

'I meant the day-star should not brighter ride,

Nor shed like influence, from its lucent seat;

I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet,

Free from that solemn vice of greatness, pride;

I meant each softest virtue there should meet,

Fit in that softer bosom to abide,

Only a learned and a _manly_ soul

I purposed her, that should with even powers

The rock, the spindle, and the shears control

Of destiny, and spin her own free hours.'"

"Me thinks," said I, "you are too fastidious in objecting to this.

Jonson, in using the word 'manly,' only meant to heighten the picture

of this, the true, the intelligent fate, with one of the deeper

colors."

"And yet," said she, "so invariable is the use of this word where a

heroic quality is to be described, and I feel so sure that persistence

and courage are the most womanly no less than the most manly

qualities, that I would exchange these words for others of a larger

sense, at the risk of marring the fine tissue of the verse. Read, 'A

heavenward and instructed soul,' and I should be satisfied. Let it not

be said, wherever there is energy or creative genius, 'She has a

masculine mind.'"

* * * * *

This by no means argues a willing want of generosity toward Woman. Man

is as generous towards her as he knows how to be.

Wherever she has herself arisen in national or private history, and

nobly shone forth in any form of excellence, men have received her,

not only willingly, but with triumph. Their encomiums, indeed, are

always, in some sense, mortifying; they show too much surprise. "Can

this be you?" he cries to the transfigured Cinderella; "well, I should

never have thought it, but I am very glad. We will tell every one that

you have '_surpassed your sex_.'"

In every-day life, the feelings of the many are stained with vanity.

Each wishes to be lord in a little world, to be superior at least over

one; and he does not feel strong enough to retain a life-long

ascendency over a strong nature. Only a Theseus could conquer before

he wed the Amazonian queen. Hercules wished rather to rest with

Dejanira, and received the poisoned robe as a fit guerdon. The tale

should be interpreted to all those who seek repose with the weak.

But not only is Man vain and fond of power, but the same want of

development, which thus affects him morally, prevents his

intellectually discerning the destiny of Woman: The boy wants no

woman, but only a girl to play ball with him, and mark his pocket

handkerchief.

Thus, in Schiller's Dignity of Woman, beautiful as the poem is, there

is no "grave and perfect man," but only a great boy to be softened and

restrained by the influence of girls. Poets--the elder brothers of

their race--have usually seen further; but what can you expect of

every-day men, if Schiller was not more prophetic as to what women

must be? Even with Richter, one foremost thought about a wife was that

she would "cook him something good." But as this is a delicate

subject, and we are in constant danger of being accused of slighting

what are called "the functions," let me say, in behalf of Miranda and

myself, that we have high respect for those who "cook something good,"

who create and preserve fair order in houses, and prepare therein the

shining raiment for worthy inmates, worthy guests. Only these

"functions" must not be a drudgery, or enforced necessity, but a part

of life. Let Ulysses drive the beeves home, while Penelope there piles

up the fragrant loaves; they are both well employed if these be done

in thought and love, willingly. But Penelope is no more meant for a

baker or weaver solely, than Ulysses for a cattle-herd.

The sexes should not only correspond to and appreciate, but prophesy

to one another. In individual instances this happens. Two persons love

in one another the future good which they aid one another to unfold.

This is imperfectly or rarely done in the general life. Man has gone

but little way; now he is waiting to see whether Woman can keep step

with him; but, instead of calling but, like a good brother, "You can

do it, if you only think so," or impersonally, "Any one can do what he

tries to do;" he often discourages with school-boy brag: "Girls can't

do that; girls can't play ball." But let any one defy their taunts,

break through and be brave and secure, they rend the air with shouts.

This fluctuation was obvious in a narrative I have lately seen, the

story of the life of Countess Emily Plater, the heroine of the last

revolution in Poland. The dignity, the purity, the concentrated

resolve, the calm, deep enthusiasm, which yet could, when occasion

called, sparkle up a holy, an indignant fire, make of this young

maiden the figure I want for my frontispiece. Her portrait is to be

seen in the book, a gentle shadow of her soul. Short was the career.

Like the Maid of Orleans, she only did enough to verify her

credentials, and then passed from a scene on which she was, probably,

a premature apparition.

When the young girl joined the army, where the report of her exploits

had preceded her, she was received in a manner that marks the usual

state of feeling. Some of the officers were disappointed at her quiet

manners; that she had not the air and tone of a stage-heroine. They

thought she could not have acted heroically unless in buskins; had no

idea that such deeds only showed the habit of her mind. Others talked

of the delicacy of her sex, advised her to withdraw from perils and

dangers, and had no comprehension of the feelings within her breast

that made this impossible. The gentle irony of her reply to these

self-constituted tutors (not one of whom showed himself her equal in

conduct or reason), is as good as her indignant reproof at a later

period to the general, whose perfidy ruined all.

But though, to the mass of these men, she was an embarrassment and a

puzzle, the nobler sort viewed her with a tender enthusiasm worthy of

her. "Her name," said her biographer, "is known throughout Europe. I

paint her character that she may be as widely loved."

With pride, he shows her freedom from all personal affections; that,

though tender and gentle in an uncommon degree, there was no room for

a private love in her consecrated life. She inspired those who knew

her with a simple energy of feeling like her own. "We have seen," they

felt, "a woman worthy the name, capable of all sweet affections,

capable of stern virtue."

It is a fact worthy of remark, that all these revolutions in favor of

liberty have produced female champions that share the same traits, but

Emily alone has found a biographer. Only a near friend could have

performed for her this task, for the flower was reared in feminine

seclusion, and the few and simple traits of her history before her

appearance in the field could only have been known to the domestic

circle. Her biographer has gathered them up with a brotherly devotion.

No! Man is not willingly ungenerous. He wants faith and love, because

he is not yet himself an elevated being. He cries, with sneering

scepticism, "Give us a sign." But if the sign appears, his eyes

glisten, and he offers not merely approval, but homage.

The severe nation which taught that the happiness of the race was

forfeited through the fault of a Woman, and showed its thought of what

sort of regard Man owed her, by making him accuse her on the first

question to his God,--who gave her to the patriarch as a handmaid,

and, by the Mosaical law, bound her to allegiance like a serf,--even

they greeted, with solemn rapture, all great and holy women as

heroines, prophetesses, judges in Israel; and, if they made Eve listen

to the serpent, gave Mary as a bride to the Holy Spirit. In other

nations it has been the same down to our day. To the Woman who could

conquer a triumph was awarded. And not only those whose strength was

recommended to the heart by association with goodness and beauty, but

those who were bad, if they were steadfast and strong, had their

claims allowed. In any age a Semiramis, an Elizabeth of England, a

Catharine of Russia, makes her place good, whether in a large or small

circle. How has a little wit, a little genius, been celebrated in a

Woman! What an intellectual triumph was that of the lonely Aspasia,

and how heartily acknowledged! She, indeed, met a Pericles. But what

annalist, the rudest of men, the most plebeian of husbands, will spare

from his page one of the few anecdotes of Roman women--Sappho!

Eloisa! The names are of threadbare celebrity. Indeed, they were not

more suitably met in their own time than the Countess Colonel Plater

on her first joining the army. They had much to mourn, and their great

impulses did not find due scope. But with time enough, space enough,

their kindred appear on the scene. Across the ages, forms lean, trying

to touch the hem of their retreating robes. The youth here by my side

cannot be weary of the fragments from the life of Sappho. He will not

believe they are not addressed to himself, or that he to whom they

were addressed could be ungrateful. A recluse of high powers devotes

himself to understand and explain the thought of Eloisa; he asserts

her vast superiority in soul and genius to her master; he curses the

fate that casts his lot in another age than hers. He could have

understood her; he would have been to her a friend, such as Abelard

never could. And this one Woman he could have loved and reverenced,

and she, alas! lay cold in her grave hundreds of years ago. His sorrow

is truly pathetic. These responses, that come too late to give joy,

are as tragic as anything we know, and yet the tears of later ages

glitter as they fall on Tasso's prison bars. And we know how

elevating to the captive is the security that somewhere an

intelligence must answer to his.

The Man habitually most narrow towards Woman will be flushed, as by

the worst assault on Christianity, if you say it has made no

improvement in her condition. Indeed, those most opposed to new acts

in her favor, are jealous of the reputation of those which have been

done.

We will not speak of the enthusiasm excited by actresses,

improvisatrici, female singers,--for here mingles the charm of beauty

and grace,--but female authors, even learned women, if not

insufferably ugly and slovenly, from the Italian professor's daughter

who taught behind the curtain, down to Mrs. Carter and Madame Dacier,

are sure of an admiring audience, and, what is far better, chance to

use what they have learned, and to learn more, if they can once get a

platform on which to stand.

But how to get this platform, or how to make it of reasonably easy

access, is the difficulty. Plants of great vigor will almost always

struggle into blossom, despite impediments. But there should be

encouragement, and a free genial atmosphere for those of move timid

sort, fair play for each in its own kind. Some are like the little,

delicate flowers which love to hide in the dripping mosses, by the

sides of mountain torrents, or in the shade of tall trees. But others

require an open field, a rich and loosened soil, or they never show

their proper hues.

It may be said that Man does not have his fair play either; his

energies are repressed and distorted by the interposition of

artificial obstacles. Ay, but he himself has put them there; they have

grown out of his own imperfections. If there _is_ a misfortune in

Woman's lot, it is in obstacles being interposed by men, which do

_not_ mark her state; and, if they express her past ignorance, do

not her present needs. As every Man is of Woman born, she has slow but

sure means of redress; yet the sooner a general justness of thought

makes smooth the path, the better.

Man is of Woman born, and her face bends over him in infancy with an

expression he can never quite forget. Eminent men have delighted to

pay tribute to this image, and it is an hackneyed observation, that

most men of genius boast some remarkable development in the mother.

The rudest tar brushes off a tear with his coat-sleeve at the hallowed

name. The other day, I met a decrepit old man of seventy, on a

journey, who challenged the stage company to guess where he was going.

They guessed aright, "To see your mother." "Yes," said he, "she is

ninety-two, but has good eyesight still, they say. I have not seen her

these forty years, and I thought I could not die in peace without." I

should have liked his picture painted as a companion-piece to that of

a boisterous little boy, whom I saw attempt to declaim at a school

exhibition--

"O that those lips had language! Life has passed

With me but roughly since I heard thee last."

He got but very little way before sudden tears shamed him from the

stage.

Some gleams of the same expression which shone down upon his infancy,

angelically pure and benign, visit Man again with hopes of pure love,

of a holy marriage. Or, if not before, in the eyes of the mother of

his child they again are seen, and dim fancies pass before his mind,

that Woman may not have been born for him alone, but have come from

heaven, a commissioned soul, a messenger of truth and love; that she

can only make for him a home in which he may lawfully repose, in so

far as she is

"True to the kindred points of Heaven and home."

In gleams, in dim fancies, this thought visits the mind of common men.

It is soon obscured by the mists of sensuality, the dust of routine,

and he thinks it was only some meteor or ignis fatuus that shone. But,

as a Rosicrucian lamp, it burns unwearied, though condemned to the

solitude of tombs; and to its permanent life, as to every truth, each

age has in some form borne witness. For the truths, which visit the

minds of careless men only in fitful gleams, shine with radiant

clearness into those of the poet, the priest, and the artist.

Whatever may have been the domestic manners of the ancients, the idea

of Woman was nobly manifested in their mythologies and poems, whore

she appears as Site in the Ramayana, a form of tender purity; as the

Egyptian Isis, [Footnote: For an adequate description of the Isis, see

Appendix A.] of divine wisdom never yet surpassed. In Egypt, too, the

Sphynx, walking the earth with lion tread, looked out upon its marvels

in the calm, inscrutable beauty of a virgin's face, and the Greek

could only add wings to the great emblem. In Greece, Ceres and

Proserpine, significantly termed "the great goddesses," were seen

seated side by side. They needed not to rise for any worshipper or any

change; they were prepared for all things, as those initiated to their

mysteries knew. More obvious is the meaning of these three forms, the

Diana, Minerva, and Vesta. Unlike in the expression of their beauty,

but alike in this,--that each was self-sufficing. Other forms were

only accessories and illustrations, none the complement to one like

these. Another might, indeed, be the companion, and the Apollo and

Diana set off one another's beauty. Of the Vesta, it is to be

observed, that not only deep-eyed, deep-discerning Greece, but ruder

Rome, who represents the only form of good man (the always busy

warrior) that could be indifferent to Woman, confided the permanence

of its glory to a tutelary goddess, and her wisest legislator spoke of

meditation as a nymph.

Perhaps in Rome the neglect of Woman was a reaction on the manners of

Etruria, where the priestess Queen, warrior Queen, would seem to have

been so usual a character.

An instance of the noble Roman marriage, where the stern and calm

nobleness of the nation was common to both, we see in the historic

page through the little that is told us of Brutus and Portia.

Shakspeare has seized on the relation in its native lineaments,

harmonizing the particular with the universal; and, while it is

conjugal love, and no other, making it unlike the same relation as

seen in Cymbeline, or Othello, even as one star differeth from another

in glory.

"By that great vow

Which did incorporate and make us one,

Unfold to me, yourself, your other half,

Why you are heavy. ...

Dwell I but in the suburbs

Of your good pleasure? If it be no more,

Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife."

Mark the sad majesty of his tone in answer. Who would not have lent a

life-long credence to that voice of honor?

"You are my true and honorable wife;

As dear to me as are the ruddy drops

That visit this sad heart."

It is the same voice that tells the moral of his life in the last

words--

"Countrymen,

My heart doth joy, that, yet in all my life,

I found no man but he was true to me."

It was not wonderful that it should be so.

Shakspeare, however, was not content to let Portia rest her plea for

confidence on the essential nature of the marriage bond:

"I grant I am a woman; but withal,

A woman that lord Brutus took to wife.

I grant I am a woman; but withal,

A woman well reputed--Cato's daughter.

Think you I am _no stronger than my sex_,

Being so fathered and so husbanded?"

And afterward in the very scene where Brutus is suffering under that

"insupportable and touching loss," the death of his wife, Cassius

pleads--

"Have you not love enough to bear with me,

When that rash humor which my mother gave me

Makes me forgetful?

_Brutus_.--Yes, Cassius, and henceforth,

When you are over-earnest with your Brutus,

He'll think your mother chides, and leaves you so."

As indeed it was a frequent belief among the ancients, as with our

Indians, that the _body_ was inherited from the mother, the

_soul_ from the father. As in that noble passage of Ovid, already

quoted, where Jupiter, as his divine synod are looking down on the

funeral pyre of Hercules, thus triumphs--

"Neo nisi _materna_ Vulcanum parte potentem,

Sentiet. Aeternum est, a me quod traxit, et expers

Atque immune neois, nullaque domabile flamma

Idque ego defunctum terra coelestibus oris

Accipiam, cunctisque meum laetabile factum

Dis fore confido.

"The part alone of gross _maternal_ flame

Fire shall devour; while that from me he drew

Shall live immortal and its force renew;

That, when he's dead, I'll raise to realms above;

Let all the powers the righteous act approve."

It is indeed a god speaking of his union with an earthly Woman, but it

expresses the common Roman thought as to marriage,--the same which

permitted a man to lend his wife to a friend, as if she were a chattel

"She dwelt but in the suburbs of his good pleasure."

Yet the same city, as I have said, leaned on the worship of Vesta, the

Preserver, and in later times was devoted to that of Isis. In Sparta,

thought, in this respect as in all others, was expressed in the

characters of real life, and the women of Sparta were as much Spartans

as the men. The "citoyen, citoyenne" of France was here actualized.

Was not the calm equality they enjoyed as honorable as the devotion of

chivalry? They intelligently shared the ideal life of their nation.

Like the men they felt:

"Honor gone, all's gone:

Better never have been born."

They were the true friends of men. The Spartan, surely, would not

think that he received only his body from his mother. The sage, had he

lived in that community, could not have thought the souls of "vain and

foppish men will be degraded after death to the forms of women; and,

if they do not then make great efforts to retrieve themselves, will

become birds."

(By the way, it is very expressive of the hard intellectuality of the

merely _mannish_ mind, to speak thus of birds, chosen always by

the _feminine_ poet as the symbols of his fairest thoughts.)

We are told of the Greek nations in general, that Woman occupied there

an infinitely lower place than Man. It is difficult to believe this,

when we see such range and dignity of thought on the subject in the

mythologies, and find the poets producing such ideals as Cassandra,

Iphigenia, Antigone, Macaria; where Sibylline priestesses told the

oracle of the highest god, and he could not be content to reign with

a, court of fewer than nine muses. Even Victory wore a female form.

But, whatever were the facts of daily life, I cannot complain of the

age and nation which represents its thought by such a symbol as I see

before me at this moment. It is a zodiac of the busts of gods and

goddesses, arranged in pairs. The circle breathes the music of a

heavenly order. Male and female heads are distinct in expression, but

equal in beauty, strength and calmness. Each male head is that of a

brother and a king,--each female of a sister and a queen. Could the

thought thus expressed be lived out, there would be nothing more to be

desired. There would be unison in variety, congeniality in difference.

Coming nearer our own time, we find religion and poetry no less true

in their revelations. The rude man, just disengaged from the sod, the

Adam, accuses Woman to his God, and records her disgrace to their

posterity. He is not ashamed to write that he could be drawn from

heaven by one beneath him,--one made, he says, from but a small part

of himself. But in the same nation, educated by time, instructed by a

succession of prophets, we find Woman in as high a position as she has

ever occupied, No figure that has ever arisen to greet our eyes has

been received with more fervent reverence than that of the Madonna.

Heine calls her the _Dame du Comptoir_ of the Catholic church,

and this jeer well expresses a serious truth.

And not only this holy and significant image was worshipped by the

pilgrim, and the favorite subject of the artist, but it exercised an

immediate influence on the destiny of the sex. The empresses who

embraced the cross converted sons and husbands. Whole calendars of

female saints, heroic dames of chivalry, binding the emblem of faith

on the heart of the best-beloved, and wasting the bloom of youth in

separation and loneliness, for the sake of duties they thought it

religion to assume, with innumerable forms of poesy, trace their

lineage to this one. Nor, however imperfect may be the action, in our

day, of the faith thus expressed, and though we can scarcely think it

nearer this ideal than that of India or Greece was near their ideal,

is it in vain that the truth has been recognized, that Woman is not

only a part of Man, bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, born

that men might not be lonely--but that women are in themselves

possessors of and possessed by immortal souls. This truth undoubtedly

received a greater outward stability from the belief of the church

that the earthly parent of the Saviour of souls was a woman.

The Assumption of the Virgin, as painted by sublime artists, as also

Petrarch's Hymn to the Madonna, [Footnote: Appendix B.] cannot have

spoken to the world wholly without result, yet oftentimes those who

had ears heard not.

See upon the nations the influence of this powerful example. In Spain

look only at the ballads. Woman in these is "very Woman;" she is the

betrothed, the bride, the spouse of Man; there is on her no hue of the

philosopher, the heroine, the savante, but she looks great and noble.

Why? Because she is also, through her deep devotion, the betrothed of

Heaven. Her upturned eyes have drawn down the light that casts a

radiance round her. See only such a ballad as that of "Lady Teresa's

Bridal," where the Infanta, given to the Moorish bridegroom, calls

down the vengeance of Heaven on his unhallowed passion, and thinks it

not too much to expiate by a life in the cloister the involuntary

stain upon her princely youth. [Footnote: Appendix C.] It was this

constant sense of claims above those of earthly love or happiness that

made the Spanish lady who shared this spirit a guerdon to be won by

toils and blood and constant purity, rather than a chattel to be

bought for pleasure and service.

Germany did hot need to _learn_ a high view of Woman; it was

inborn in that race. Woman was to the Teuton warrior his priestess,

his friend, his sister,--in truth, a wife. And the Christian statues

of noble pairs, as they lie above their graves in stone, expressing

the meaning of all the by-gone pilgrimage by hands folded in mutual

prayer, yield not a nobler sense of the place and powers of Woman than

belonged to the _altvater_ day. The holy love of Christ which

summoned them, also, to choose "the better part--that which could not

be taken from them," refined and hallowed in this nation a native

faith; thus showing that it was not the warlike spirit alone that left

the Latins so barbarous in this respect.

But the Germans, taking so kindly to this thought, did it the more

justice. The idea of Woman in their literature is expressed both to a

greater height and depth than elsewhere.

I will give as instances the themes of three ballads:

One is upon a knight who had always the name of the Virgin on his

lips. This protected him all his life through, in various and

beautiful modes, both from sin and other dangers; and, when he died, a

plant sprang from his grave, which so gently whispered the Ave Maria

that none could pass it by with an unpurified heart.

Another is one of the legends of the famous Drachenfels. A maiden, one

of the earliest converts to Christianity, was carried by the enraged

populace to this dread haunt of "the dragon's fabled brood," to be

their prey. She was left alone, but undismayed, for she knew in whom

she trusted. So, when the dragons came rushing towards her, she showed

them a crucifix and they crouched reverently at her feet. Next day the

people came, and, seeing these wonders, were all turned to the faith

which exalts the lowly.

The third I have in mind is another of the Rhine legends. A youth is

sitting with the maid he loves on the shore of an isle, her fairy

kingdom, then perfumed by the blossoming grape-vines which draped its

bowers. They are happy; all blossoms with them, and life promises its

richest vine. A boat approaches on the tide; it pauses at their foot.

It brings, perhaps, some joyous message, fresh dew for their flowers,

fresh light on the wave. No! it is the usual check on such great

happiness. The father of the count departs for the crusade; will his

son join him, or remain to rule their domain, and wed her he loves?

Neither of the affianced pair hesitates a moment. "I must go with my

father,"--"Thou must go with thy father." It was one thought, one

word. "I will be here again," he said, "when these blossoms have

turned to purple grapes." "I hope so," she sighed, while the prophetic

sense said "no."

And there she waited, and the grapes ripened, and were gathered into

the vintage, and he came not. Year after year passed thus, and no

tidings; yet still she waited.

He, meanwhile, was in a Moslem prison. Long he languished there

without hope, till, at last, his patron saint appeared in vision and

announced his release, but only on condition of his joining the

monastic order for the service of the saint.

And so his release was effected, and a safe voyage home given. And

once more he sets sail upon the Rhine. The maiden, still watching

beneath the vines, sees at last the object of all this patient love

approach--approach, but not to touch the strand to which she, with

outstretched arms, has rushed. He dares not trust himself to land, but

in low, heart-broken tones, tells her of Heaven's will; and that he,

in obedience to his vow, is now on his way to a convent on the

river-bank, there to pass the rest of his earthly life in the service

of the shrine. And then he turns his boat, and floats away from her

and hope of any happiness in this world, but urged, as he believes, by

the breath of Heaven.

The maiden stands appalled, but she dares not murmur, and cannot

hesitate long. She also bids them prepare her boat. She follows her

lost love to the convent gate, requests an interview with the abbot,

and devotes her Elysian isle, where vines had ripened their ruby fruit

in vain for her, to the service of the monastery where her love was to

serve. Then, passing over to the nunnery opposite, she takes the veil,

and meets her betrothed at the altar; and for a life-long union, if

not the one they had hoped in earlier years.

Is not this sorrowful story of a lofty beauty? Does it not show a

sufficiently high view of Woman, of Marriage? This is commonly the

chivalric, still more the German view.

Yet, wherever there was a balance in the mind of Man, of sentiment

with intellect, such a result was sure. The Greek Xenophon has not

only painted us a sweet picture of the domestic Woman, in his

Economics, but in the Cyropedia has given, in the picture of Panthea,

a view of Woman which no German picture can surpass, whether lonely

and quiet with veiled lids, the temple of a vestal loveliness, or with

eyes flashing, and hair flowing to the free wind, cheering on the hero

to fight for his God, his country, or whatever name his duty might

bear at the time. This picture I shall copy by and by. Yet Xenophon

grew up in the same age with him who makes Iphigenia say to Achilles,

"Better a thousand women should perish than one man cease to see

the light."

This was the vulgar Greek sentiment. Xenophon, aiming at the ideal

Man, caught glimpses of the ideal Woman also. From the figure of a

Cyrus the Pantheas stand not afar. They do not in thought; they would

not in life.

I could swell the catalogue of instances far beyond the reader's

patience. But enough have been brought forward to show that, though

there has been great disparity betwixt the nations as between

individuals in their culture on this point, yet the idea of Woman has

always cast some rays and often been forcibly represented.

Far less has Woman to complain that she has not had her share of

power. This, in all ranks of society, except the lowest, has been hers

to the extent that vanity would crave, far beyond what wisdom would

accept. In the very lowest, where Man, pressed by poverty, sees in

Woman only the partner of toils and cares, and cannot hope, scarcely

has an idea of, a comfortable home, he often maltreats her, and is

less influenced by her. In all ranks, those who are gentle and

uncomplaining, too candid to intrigue, too delicate to encroach,

suffer much. They suffer long, and are kind; verily, they have their

reward. But wherever Man is sufficiently raised above extreme poverty,

or brutal stupidity, to care for the comforts of the fireside, or the

bloom and ornament of life, Woman has always power enough, if she

choose to exert it, and is usually disposed to do so, in proportion to

her ignorance and childish vanity. Unacquainted with the importance of

life and its purposes, trained to a selfish coquetry and love of petty

power, she does not look beyond the pleasure of making herself felt at

the moment, and governments are shaken and commerce broken up to

gratify the pique of a female favorite. The English shopkeeper's wife

does not vote, but it is for her interest that the politician

canvasses by the coarsest flattery. France suffers no woman on her

throne, but her proud nobles kiss the dust at the feet of Pompadour

and Dubarry; for such flare in the lighted foreground where a Roland

would modestly aid in the closet. Spain (that same Spain which sang of

Ximena and the Lady Teresa) shuts up her women in the care of duennas,

and allows them no book but the breviary; but the ruin follows only

the more surely from the worthless favorite of a worthless queen.

Relying on mean precautions, men indeed cry peace, peace, where there

is no peace.

It is not the transient breath of poetic incense that women want; each

can receive that from a lover. It is not life-long sway; it needs but

to become a coquette, a shrew, or a good cook, to be sure of that. It

is not money, nor notoriety, nor the badges of authority which men

have appropriated to themselves. If demands, made in their behalf, lay

stress on any of these particulars, those who make them have not

searched deeply into the need. The want is for that which at once

includes these and precludes them; which would not be forbidden power,

lest there be temptation to steal and misuse it; which would not have

the mind perverted by flattery from a worthiness of esteem; it is for

that which is the birthright of every being capable of receiving

it,--the freedom, the religious, the intelligent freedom of the

universe to use its means, to learn its secret, as far as Nature has

enabled them, with God alone for their guide and their judge.

Ye cannot believe it, men; but the only reason why women over assume

what is more appropriate to you, is because you prevent them from

finding out what is fit for themselves. Were they free, were they wise

fully to develop the strength and beauty of Woman; they would never

wish to be men, or man-like. The well-instructed moon flies not from

her orbit to seize on the glories of her partner. No; for she knows

that one law rules, one heaven contains, one universe replies to them

alike. It is with women as with the slave:

"Vor dem Sklaven, wenn er die Kette bricht,

Vor dem frelen Menschen erzittert nicht."

Tremble not before the free man, but before the slave who has chains

to break.

In slavery, acknowledged slavery, women are on a par with men. Each is

a work-tool, an article of property, no more! In perfect freedom, such

as is painted in Olympus, in Swedenborg's angelic state, in the heaven

where there is no marrying nor giving in marriage, each is a purified

intelligence, an enfranchised soul,--no less.

"Jene himmlische Gestalten

Sie fragen nicht nach Mann und Welb,

Und keine kielder, keine Falten

Umgeben den verklarten Leib."

The child who song this was a prophetic form, expressive of the

longing for a state of perfect freedom, pure love. She could not

remain here, but was translated to another air. And it may be that the

air of this earth will never be so tempered that such can bear it

long. But, while they stay, they must bear testimony to the truth they

are constituted to demand.

That an era approaches which shall approximate nearer to such a temper

than any has yet done, there are many tokens; indeed, so many that

only a few of the most prominent can here be enumerated.

The reigns of Elizabeth of England and Isabella of Castile foreboded

this era. They expressed the beginning of the new state; while they

forwarded its progress. These were strong characters, and in harmony

with the wants of their time. One showed that this strength did not

unfit a woman for the duties of a wife and a mother; the other, that

it could enable her to live and die alone, a wide energetic life, a

courageous death. Elizabeth is certainly no pleasing example. In

rising above the weakness, she did not lay aside the foibles ascribed

to her sex; but her strength must be respected now, as it was in her

own time.

Mary Stuart and Elizabeth seem types, moulded by the spirit of the

time, and placed upon an elevated platform, to show to the coming ages

Woman such as the conduct and wishes of Man in general is likely to

make her. The first shows Woman lovely even to allurement; quick in

apprehension and weak in judgment; with grace and dignity of

sentiment, but no principle; credulous and indiscreet, yet artful;

capable of sudden greatness or of crime, but not of a steadfast

wisdom, nor self-restraining virtue. The second reveals Woman

half-emancipated and jealous of her freedom, such as she has figured

before or since in many a combative attitude, mannish, not equally

manly; strong and prudent more than great or wise; able to control

vanity, and the wish to rule through coquetry and passion, but not to

resign these dear deceits from the very foundation, as unworthy a

being capable of truth and nobleness. Elizabeth, taught by adversity,

put on her virtues as armor, more than produced them in a natural

order from her soul. The time and her position called on her to act

the wise sovereign, and she was proud that she could do so, but her

tastes and inclinations would have led her to act the weak woman. She

was without magnanimity of any kind.

We may accept as an omen for ourselves that it was Isabella who

furnished Columbus with the means of coming hither. This land must pay

back its debt to Woman, without whose aid it would not have been

brought into alliance with the civilized world.

A graceful and meaning figure is that introduced to us by Mr.

Prescott, in the Conquest of Mexico, in the Indian girl Marina, who

accompanied Cortez, and was his interpreter in all the various

difficulties of his career. She stood at his side, on the walls of the

besieged palace, to plead with her enraged countrymen. By her name he

was known in New Spain, and, after the conquest, her gentle

intercession was often of avail to the conquered. The poem of the

Future may be read in some features of the story of "Malinche."

The influence of Elizabeth on literature was real, though, by sympathy

with its finer productions, she was no more entitled to give name to

an era than Queen Anne. It was simply that the fact of having a female

sovereign on the throne affected the course of a writer's thoughts. In

this sense, the presence of a woman on the throne always makes its

mark. Life is lived before the eyes of men, by which their

imaginations are stimulated as to the possibilities of Woman. "We will

die for our king, Maria, Theresa," cry the wild warriors, clashing

their swords; and the sounds vibrate through the poems of that

generation. The range of female character in Spenser alone might

content us for one period. Britomart and Belphoebe have as much room

on the canvas as Florimel; and, where this is the case, the haughtiest

Amazon will not murmur that Una should be felt to be the fairest type.

Unlike as was the English queen to a fairy queen, we may yet conceive

that it was the image of a queen before the poet's mind that called up

this splendid court of women. Shakspeare's range is also great; but he

has left out the heroic characters, such as the Macaria of Greece, the

Britomart of Spenser. Ford and Massinger have, in this respect, soared

to a higher flight of feeling than he. It was the holy and heroic

Woman they most loved, and if they could not paint an Imogen, a

Desdemona, a Rosalind, yet, in those of a stronger mould, they showed

a higher ideal, though with so much less poetic power to embody it,

than we see in Portia or Isabella, the simple truth of Cordelia,

indeed, is of this sort. The beauty of Cordelia is neither male nor

female; it is the beauty of virtue.

The ideal of love and marriage rose high in the mind of all the

Christian nations who were capable of grave and deep feeling. We may

take as examples of its English aspect the lines,

"I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not honor more."

Or the address of the Commonwealth's man to his wife, as she looked

out from the Tower window to see him, for the last time, on his way to

the scaffold. He stood up in the cart, waved his hat, and cried, "To

Heaven, my love, to Heaven, and leave you in the storm!"

Such was the love of faith and honor,--a love which stopped, like

Colonel Hutchinson's, "on this side idolatry," because it was

religious. The meeting of two such souls Donne describes as giving

birth to an "abler soul."

Lord Herbert wrote to his love,

"Were not our souls immortal made,

Our equal loves can make them such."

In the "Broken Heart," of Ford, Penthea, a character which engages my

admiration even more deeply than the famous one of Calanthe, is made

to present to the mind the most beautiful picture of what these

relations should be in their purity. Her life cannot sustain the

violation of what she so clearly feels.

Shakspeare, too, saw that, in true love, as in fire, the utmost ardor

is coincident with the utmost purity. It is a true lover that exclaims

in the agony of Othello,

"If thou art false, O then Heaven mocks Itself!"

The son, framed, like Hamlet, to appreciate truth in all the beauty of

relations, sinks into deep melancholy when he finds his natural

expectations disappointed. He has no other. She to whom he gave the

name, disgraces from his heart's shrine all the sex.

"Frailty, thy name is Woman."

It is because a Hamlet could find cause to say so, that I have put the

line, whose stigma has never been removed, at the head of my work.

But, as a lover, surely Hamlet would not have so far mistaken, as to

have finished with such a conviction. He would have felt the faith of

Othello, and that faith could not, in his more dispassionate mind,

have been disturbed by calumny.

In Spain, this thought is arrayed in a sublimity which belongs to the

sombre and passionate genius of the nation. Calderon's Justina resists

all the temptation of the Demon, and raises her lover, with her, above

the sweet lures of mere temporal happiness. Their marriage is vowed at

the stake; their goals are liberated together by the martyr flame into

"a purer state of sensation and existence."

In Italy, the great poets wove into their lives an ideal love which

answered to the highest wants. It included those of the intellect and

the affections, for it was a love of spirit for spirit. It was not

ascetic, or superhuman, but, interpreting all things, gave their

proper beauty to details of the common life, the common day. The poet

spoke of his love, not as a flower to place in his bosom, or hold

carelessly in his hand, but as a light toward which he must find wings

to fly, or "a stair to heaven." He delighted to speak of her, not only

as the bride of his heart, but the mother of his soul; for he saw

that, in cases where the right direction had been taken, the greater

delicacy of her frame and stillness of her life left her more open

than is Man to spiritual influx. So he did not look upon her as

betwixt him and earth, to serve his temporal needs, but, rather,

betwixt him and heaven, to purify his affections and lead him to

wisdom through love. He sought, in her, not so much the Eve as the

Madonna.

In these minds the thought, which gleams through all the legends of

chivalry, shines in broad intellectual effulgence, not to be

misinterpreted; and their thought is reverenced by the world, though

it lies far from the practice of the world as yet,--so far that it

seems as though a gulf of death yawned between.

Even with such men the practice was, often, widely different from the

mental faith. I say mental; for if the heart were thoroughly alive

with it, the practice could not be dissonant. Lord Herbert's was a

marriage of convention, made for him at fifteen; he was not

discontented with it, but looked only to the advantages it brought of

perpetuating his family on the basis of a great fortune. He paid, in

act, what he considered a dutiful attention to the bond; his thoughts

travelled elsewhere; and while forming a high ideal of the

companionship of minds in marriage, he seems never to have doubted

that its realization must be postponed to some other state of being.

Dante, almost immediately after the death of Beatrice, married a lady

chosen for him by his friends, and Boccaccio, in describing the

miseries that attended, in this case,

"The form of an union where union is none,"

speaks as if these were inevitable to the connection, and as if the

scholar and poet, especially, could expect nothing but misery and

obstruction in a domestic partnership with Woman.

Centuries have passed since, but civilized Europe is still in a

transition state about marriage; not only in practice but in thought.

It is idle to speak with contempt of the nations where polygamy is an

institution, or seraglios a custom, while practices far more debasing

haunt, well-nigh fill, every city and every town, and so far as union

of one with one is believed to be the only pure form of marriage, a

great majority of societies and individuals are still doubtful whether

the earthly bond must be a meeting of souls, or only supposes a

contract of convenience and utility. Were Woman established in the

rights of an immortal being, this could not be. She would not, in some

countries, be given away by her father, with scarcely more respect for

her feelings than is shown by the Indian chief, who sells his daughter

for a horse, and beats her if she runs away from her new home. Nor, in

societies where her choice is left free, would she be perverted, by

the current of opinion that seizes her, into the belief that she must

marry, if it be only to find a protector, and a home of her own.

Neither would Man, if he thought the connection of permanent

importance, form it so lightly. He would not deem it a trifle, that he

was to enter into the closest relations with another soul, which, if

not eternal in themselves, must eternally affect his growth. Neither,

did he believe Woman capable of friendship, [Footnote: See Appendix D,

Spinoza's view] would he, by rash haste, lose the chance of finding a

friend in the person who might, probably, live half a century by his

side. Did love, to his mind, stretch forth into infinity, he would not

miss his chance of its revelations, that he might the sooner rest from

his weariness by a bright fireside, and secure a sweet and graceful

attendant "devoted to him alone." Were he a step higher, he would not

carelessly enter into a relation where he might not be able to do the

duty of a friend, as well as a protector from external ill, to the

other party, and have a being in his power pining for sympathy,

intelligence and aid, that he could not give.

What deep communion, what real intercourse is implied in sharing the

joys and cares of parentage, when any degree of equality is admitted

between the parties! It is true that, in a majority of instances, the

man looks upon his wife as an adopted child, and places her to the

other children in the relation of nurse or governess, rather than that

of parent. Her influence with them is sure; but she misses the

education which should enlighten that influence, by being thus

treated. It is the order of nature that children should complete the

education, moral and mental, of parents, by making them think what is

needed for the best culture of human beings, and conquer all faults

and impulses that interfere with their giving this to these dear

objects, who represent the world to them. Father and mother should

assist one another to learn what is required for this sublime

priesthood of Nature. But, for this, a religious recognition of

equality is required.

Where this thought of equality begins to diffuse itself, it is shown

in four ways.

First;--The household partnership. In our country, the woman looks for

a "smart but kind" husband; the man for a "capable, sweet-tempered"

wife. The man furnishes the house; the woman regulates it. Their

relation is one of mutual esteem, mutual dependence. Their talk is of

business; their affection shows itself by practical kindness. They

know that life goes more smoothly and cheerfully to each for the

other's aid; they are grateful and content. The wife praises her

husband as a "good provider;" the husband, in return, compliments her

as a "capital housekeeper." This relation is good so far as it goes.

Next comes a closer tie, which takes the form either of mutual

idolatry or of intellectual companionship. The first, we suppose, is

to no one a pleasing subject of contemplation. The parties weaken and

narrow one another; they lock the gate against all the glories of the

universe, that they may live in a cell together. To themselves they

seem the only wise; to all others, steeped in infatuation; the gods

smile as they look forward to the crisis of cure; to men, the woman

seems an unlovely syren; to women, the man an effeminate boy.

The other form, of intellectual companionship, has become more and

more frequent. Men engaged in public life, literary men, and artists,

have often found in their wives companions and confidants in thought

no less than in feeling. And, as the intellectual development of Woman

has spread wider and risen higher, they have, not unfrequently, shared

the same employment; as in the case of Roland and his wife, who were

friends in the household and in the nation's councils, read, regulated

home affairs, or prepared public documents together, indifferently. It

is very pleasant, in letters begun by Roland and finished by his wife,

to see the harmony of mind, and the difference of nature; one thought,

but various ways of treating it.

This is one of the best instances of a marriage of friendship. It

was only friendship, whose basis was esteem; probably neither party

knew love, except by name. Roland was a good man, worthy to esteem,

and be esteemed; his wife as deserving of admiration as able to do

without it.

Madame Roland is the fairest specimen we yet have of her class; as

clear to discern her aim, as valiant to pursue it, as Spenser's

Britomart; austerely set apart from all that did not belong to her,

whether as Woman or as mind. She is an antetype of a class to which

the coming time will afford a field--the Spartan matron, brought by

the culture of the age of books to intellectual consciousness and

expansion. Self-sufficingness, strength, and clearsightedness were, in

her, combined with a power of deep and calm affection. She, too, would

have given a son or husband the device for his shield, "Return with it

or upon it;" and this, not because she loved little, but much. The

page of her life is one of unsullied dignity. Her appeal to posterity

is one against the injustice of those who committed such crimes in the

name of Liberty. She makes it in behalf of herself and her husband. I

would put beside it, on the shelf, a little volume, containing a

similar appeal from the verdict of contemporaries to that of mankind,

made by Godwin in behalf of his wife, the celebrated, the by most men

detested, Mary Wolstonecraft. In his view, it was an appeal from the

injustice of those who did such wrong in the name of virtue. Were this

little book interesting for no other cause, it would be so for the

generous affection evinced under the peculiar circumstances. This man

had courage to love and honor this woman in the face of the world's

sentence, and of all that was repulsive in her own past history. He

believed he saw of what soul she was, and that the impulses she had

struggled to act out were noble, though the opinions to which they had

led might not be thoroughly weighed. He loved her, and he defended her

for the meaning and tendency of her inner life. It was a good fact.

Mary Wolstonecraft, like Madame Dudevant (commonly known as George

Sand) in our day, was a woman whose existence better proved the need

of some new interpretation of Woman's Rights than anything she wrote.

Such beings as these, rich in genius, of most tender sympathies,

capable of high virtue and a chastened harmony, ought not to find

themselves, by birth, in a place so narrow, that, in breaking bonds,

they become outlaws. Were there as much room in the world for such, as

in Spenser's poem for Britomart, they would not run their heads so

wildly against the walls, but prize their shelter rather. They find

their way, at last, to light and air, but the world will not take off

the brand it has set upon them. The champion of the Rights of Woman

found, in Godwin, one who would plead that cause like a brother. He

who delineated with such purity of traits the form of Woman in the

Marguerite, of whom the weak St. Leon could never learn to be

worthy,--a pearl indeed whose price was above rubies,--was not false

in life to the faith by which he had hallowed his romance. He acted,

as he wrote, like a brother. This form of appeal rarely fails to touch

the basest man:--"Are you acting toward other women in the way you

would have men act towards your sister?" George Sand smokes, wears

male attire, wishes to be addressed as "Mon frere;"--perhaps, if she

found those who were as brothers indeed, she would not care whether

she were brother or sister. [Footnote: A note appended by my sister in

this place, in the first edition, is here omitted, because it is

incorporated in another article in this volume, treating of George

Sand more at length.--[ED.]] We rejoice to see that she, who expresses

such a painful contempt for men in most of her works, as shows she

must have known great wrong from them, depicts, in "La Roche Mauprat,"

a man raised by the workings of love from the depths of savage

sensualism to a moral and intellectual life. It was love for a pure

object, for a steadfast woman, one of those who, the Italian said,

could make the "stair to heaven."

This author, beginning like the many in assault upon bad institutions,

and external ills, yet deepening the experience through comparative

freedom, sees at last that the only efficient remedy must come from

individual character. These bad institutions, indeed, it may always be

replied, prevent individuals from forming good character, therefore we

must remove them. Agreed; yet keep steadily the higher aim in view.

Could you clear away all the bad forms of society, it is vain, unless

the individual begin to be ready for better. There must be a parallel

movement in these two branches of life. And all the rules left by

Moses availed less to further the best life than the living example of

one Messiah.

Still the mind of the age struggles confusedly with these problems,

better discerning as yet the ill it can no longer bear, than the good

by which it may supersede it. But women like Sand will speak now and

cannot be silenced; their characters and their eloquence alike

foretell an era when such as they shall easier learn to lead true

lives. But though such forebode, not such shall be parents of it.

[Footnote: Appendix E.] Those who would reform the world must show that

they do not speak in the heat of wild impulse; their lives must be

unstained by passionate error; they must be severe lawgivers to

themselves. They must be religious students of the divine purpose with

regard to man, if they would not confound the fancies of a day with

the requisitions of eternal good. Their liberty must be the liberty of

law and knowledge. But as to the transgressions against custom which

have caused such outcry against those of noble intention, it may be

observed that the resolve of Eloisa to be only the mistress of

Abelard, was that of one who saw in practice around her the contract

of marriage made the seal of degradation. Shelley feared not to be

fettered, unless so to be was to be false. Wherever abuses are seen,

the timid will suffer; the bold will protest. But society has a right

to outlaw them till she has revised her law; and this she must be

taught to do, by one who speaks with authority, not in anger or haste.

If Godwin's choice of the calumniated authoress of the "Rights of

Woman," for his honored wife, be a sign of a new era, no less so is an

article to which I have alluded some pages back, published five or six

years ago in one of the English Reviews, where the writer, in doing

fall justice to Eloisa, shows his bitter regret that she lives not now

to love him, who might have known bettor how to prize her love than

did the egotistical Abelard.

These marriages, these characters, with all their imperfections,

express an onward tendency. They speak of aspiration of soul, of

energy of mind, seeking clearness and freedom. Of a like promise are

the tracts lately published by Goodwyn Barmby (the European Pariah, as

he calls himself) and his wife Catharine. Whatever we may think of

their measures, we see in them wedlock; the two minds are wed by the

only contract that can permanently avail, that of a common faith and a

common purpose.

We might mention instances, nearer home, of minds, partners in work

and in life, sharing together, on equal terms, public and private

interests, and which wear not, on any side, the aspect of offence

shown by those last-named: persons who steer straight onward, yet, in

our comparatively free life, have not been obliged to run their heads

against any wall. But the principles which guide them might, under

petrified and oppressive institutions, have made them warlike,

paradoxical, and, in some sense, Pariahs. The phenomena are different,

the law is the same, in all these cases. Men and women have been

obliged to build up their house anew from the very foundation. If they

found stone ready in the quarry, they took it peaceably; otherwise

they alarmed the country by pulling down old towers to get materials.

These are all instances of marriage as intellectual companionship. The

parties meet mind to mind, and a mutual trust is produced, which can

buckler them against a million. They work together for a common,

purpose, and, in all these instances, with the same implement,--the

pen. The pen and the writing-desk furnish forth as naturally the

retirement of Woman as of Man.

A pleasing expression, in this kind, is afforded by the union in the

names of the Howitts. William and Mary Howitt we heard named together

for years, supposing them to be brother and sister; the equality of

labors and reputation, even so, was auspicious; more so, now we find

them man and wife. In his late work on Germany, Howitt mentions his

wife, with pride, as one among the constellation of distinguished

English-women, and in a graceful, simple manner. And still we

contemplate with pleasure the partnership in literature and affection

between the Howitts,--the congenial pursuits and productions--the

pedestrian tours wherein the married pair showed that marriage, on a

wide enough basis, does not destroy the "inexhaustible" entertainment

which lovers find in one another's company.

In naming these instances, I do not mean to imply that community of

employment is essential to the union of husband and wife, more than to

the union of friends. Harmony exists in difference, no less than in

likeness, if only the same key-note govern both parts. Woman the poem,

Man the poet! Woman the heart, Man the head! Such divisions are only

important when they are never to be transcended. If nature is never

bound down, nor the voice of inspiration stifled, that is enough. We

are pleased that women should write and speak, if they feel need of

it, from having something to tell; but silence for ages would be no

misfortune, if that silence be from divine command, and not from Man's

tradition.

While Goetz Von Berlichingen rides to battle, his wife is busy in the

kitchen; but difference of occupation does not prevent that community

of inward life, that perfect esteem, with which he says,

"Whom God loves, to him gives he such a wife."

Manzoni thus dedicates his "Adelchi."

"To his beloved and venerated wife, Enrichetta Luigia Blondel, who,

with conjugal affection and maternal wisdom, has preserved a virgin

mind, the author dedicates this 'Adelchi,' grieving that he could not,

by a more splendid and more durable monument, honor the dear name, and

the memory of so many virtues."

The relation could not be fairer, nor more equal, if she, too, had

written poems. Yet the position of the parties might have been the

reverse as well; the Woman might have sung the deeds, given voice to

the life of the Man, and beauty would have been the result; as we see,

in pictures of Arcadia, the nymph singing to the shepherds, or the

shepherd, with his pipe, alluring the nymphs; either makes a good

picture. The sounding lyre requires not muscular strength, but energy

of soul to animate the hand which would control it. Nature seems to

delight in varying the arrangements, as if to show that she will be

fettered by no rule; and we must admit the same varieties that she

admits.

The fourth and highest grade of marriage union is the religious, which

may be expressed as pilgrimage toward a common shrine. This includes

the others: home sympathies and household wisdom, for these pilgrims

must know how to assist each other along the dusty way; intellectual

communion, for how sad it would be on such a journey to have a

companion to whom you could not communicate your thoughts and

aspirations as they sprang to life; who would have no feeling for the

prospects that open, more and more glorious as we advance; who would

never see the flowers that may be gathered by the most industrious

traveller! It must include all these.

Such a fellow-pilgrim Count Zinzendorf seems to have found in his

countess, of whom he thus writes:

"Twenty-five years' experience has shown me that just the help-meet

whom I have is the only one that could suit my vocation. Who else

could have so carried through my family affairs? Who lived so

spotlessly before the world? Who so wisely aided me in my rejection of

a dry morality? Who so clearly set aside the Pharisaism which, as

years passed, threatened to creep in among us? Who so deeply discerned

as to the spirits of delusion which sought to bewilder us? Who would

have governed my whole economy so wisely, richly and hospitably, when

circumstances commanded? Who have taken indifferently the part of

servant or mistress, without, on the one side, affecting an especial

spirituality; on the other, being sullied by any worldly pride? Who,

in a community where all ranks are eager to be on a level, would, from

wise and real causes, have known how to maintain inward and outward

distinctions? Who, without a murmur, have seen her husband encounter

such dangers by land and sea? Who undertaken with him, and

_sustained_, such astonishing pilgrimages? Who, amid such

difficulties, would have always held up her head and supported me? Who

found such vast sums of money, and acquitted them on her own credit?

And, finally, who, of all human beings, could so well understand and

interpret to others my inner and outer being as this one, of such

nobleness in her way of thinking, such great intellectual capacity,

and so free from the theological perplexities that enveloped me!"

Let any one peruse, with all intentness, the lineaments of this

portrait, and see if the husband had not reason, with this air of

solemn rapture and conviction, to challenge comparison? We are

reminded of the majestic cadence of the line whose feet stop in the

just proportion of Humanity,

"Daughter of God and Mati, accomplished Eve!"

An observer [Footnote: Spangenberg] adds this testimony:

"We may, in many marriages, regard it as the best arrangement, if the

man has so much advantage over his wife, that she can, without much

thought of her own, be led and directed by him as by a father. But it

was not so with the count and his consort. She was not made to be a

copy; she was an original; and, while she loved and honored him, she

thought for herself, on all subjects, with so much intelligence, that

he could and did look on her as a sister and friend also."

Compare with this refined specimen of a religiously civilized life the

following imperfect sketch of a North American Indian, and we shall

see that the same causes will always produce the same results, The

Flying Pigeon (Ratchewaine) was the wife of a barbarous chief, who had

six others; but she was his only true wife, because the only one of a

strong and pure character, and, having this, inspired a veneration, as

like as the mind of the man permitted to that inspired by the Countess

Zinzendorf. She died when her son was only four years old, yet left on

his mind a feeling of reverent love worthy the thought of Christian

chivalry. Grown to manhood, he shed tears on seeing her portrait.

THE FLYING PIGEON.

"Ratchewaine was chaste, mild, gentle in her disposition, kind,

generous, and devoted to her husband. A harsh word was never known to

proceed from her mouth; nor was she ever known to be in a passion.

Mabaskah used to say of her, after her death, that her hand was shut

when those who did not want came into her presence; but when the

really poor came in, it was like a strainer full of holes, letting all

she held in it pass through. In the exercise of generous feeling she

was uniform, It was not indebted for its exercise to whim, nor

caprice, nor partiality. No matter of what nation the applicant for

her bounty was, or whether at war or peace with her nation; if he were

hungry, she fed him; if naked, she clothed him; and, if houseless, she

gave him shelter. The continued exercise of this generous feeling kept

her poor. And she has been known to give away her last blanket--all

the honey that was in the lodge, the last bladder of bear's oil, and

the last piece of dried meat.

"She was scrupulously exact in the observance of all the religious

rites which her faith imposed upon her. Her conscience is represented

to have been extremely tender. She often feared that her acts were

displeasing to the Great Spirit, when she would blacken her face, and

retire to some lone place, and fast and pray."

To these traits should be added, but for want of room, anecdotes which

show the quick decision and vivacity of her mind. Her face was in

harmony with this combination. Her brow is as ideal and the eyes and

lids as devout and modest as the Italian picture of the Madonna, while

the lower part of the face has the simplicity and childish strength of

the Indian race. Her picture presents the finest specimen of Indian

beauty we have ever seen. Such a Woman is the sister and friend of all

beings, as the worthy Man is their brother and helper.

With like pleasure we survey the pairs wedded on the eve of missionary

effort They, indeed, are fellow-pilgrims on the well-made road, and

whether or no they accomplish all they hope for the sad Hindoo, or the

nearer savage, we feel that in the burning waste their love is like to

be a healing dew, in the forlorn jungle a tent of solace to one

another. They meet, as children of one Father, to read together one

book of instruction.

We must insert in this connection the most beautiful picture presented

by ancient literature of wedded love under this noble form.

It is from the romance in which Xenophon, the chivalrous Greek,

presents his ideal of what human nature should be.

The generals of Cyrus had taken captive a princess, a woman of

unequalled beauty, and hastened to present her to the prince as that

part of the spoil he would think most worthy of his acceptance. Cyrus

visits the lady, and is filled with immediate admiration by the

modesty and majesty with which she receives him. He finds her name is

Panthea, and that she is the wife of Abradatus, a young king whom she

entirely loves. He protects her as a sister, in his camp, till he can

restore her to her husband.

After the first transports of joy at this reunion, the heart of

Panthea is bent on showing her love and gratitude to her magnanimous

and delicate protector. And as she has nothing so precious to give as

the aid of Abradatus, that is what she most wishes to offer. Her

husband is of one soul with her in this, as in all things.

The description of her grief and self-destruction, after the death

which ensued upon this devotion, I have seen quoted, but never that of

their parting when she sends him forth to battle. I shall copy both.

If they have been read by any of my readers, they may be so again with

profit in this connection, for never were the heroism of a true Woman,

and the purity of love in a true marriage, painted in colors more

delicate and more lively.

"The chariot of Abradatus, that had four perches and eight horses, was

completely adorned for him; and when he was going to put on his linen

corslet, which was a sort of armor used by those of his country,

Panthea brought him a golden helmet, and arm-pieces, broad bracelets

for his wrists, a purple habit that reached down to his feet, and

hung in folds at the bottom, and a crest dyed of a violet color. These

things she had made, unknown to her husband, and by taking the measure

of his armor. He wondered when he saw them, and inquired thus of

Panthea: 'And have you made me these arms, woman, by destroying your

own ornaments?' 'No, by Jove!' said Panthea, 'not what is the most

valuable of them; for it is you, if you appear to others to be what I

think you, that will be my greatest ornament.' And, saying that, she

put on him the armor, and, though she endeavored to conceal it, the

tears poured down her checks. When Abradatus, who was before a man of

fine appearance, was set out in those arms, he appeared the most

beautiful and noble of all, especially being likewise so by nature.

Then, taking the reins from the driver, he was just preparing to mount

the chariot, when Panthea, after she had desired all that were there

to retire, thus said:

"'O Abradatus! if ever there was a woman who had a greater regard to

her husband than to her own soul, I believe you know that I am such an

one; what need I therefore speak of things in particular? for I reckon

that my actions have convinced you more than any words I can now use.

And yet, though I stand thus affected toward you, as you know I do, I

swear, by this friendship of mine and yours, that I certainly would

rather choose to be put under ground jointly with you, approving

yourself a brave man, than to live with you in disgrace and shame; so

much do I think you and myself worthy of the noblest things. Then I

think that we both lie under great obligations to Cyrus, that, when I

was a captive, and chosen out for himself, he thought fit to treat me

neither as a slave, nor, indeed, as a woman of mean account, but he

took and kept me for you, as if I were his brother's wife. Besides,

when Araspes, who was my guard, went away from him, I promised him,

that, if he would allow me to send for you, you would come to him, and

approve yourself a much better and move faithful friend than Araspes.'

"Thus she spoke; and Abradatus, being struck with admiration at her

discourse, laying, his hand gently on her head, and lifting up his

eyes to heaven, made this prayer: 'Do thou, O greatest Jove! I grant

me to appear a husband worthy of Panthea, and a friend worthy of

Cyrus, who has done us so much honor!'

"Having said this, he mounted the chariot by the door of the driver's

seat; and, after he had got up, when the driver shut the door,

Panthea, who had now no other way to salute him, kissed the seat of

the chariot. The chariot then moved, and she, unknown to him,

followed, till Abradatus turning about, and seeing her, said: 'Take

courage, Panthea! Fare you happily and well, and now go your ways.' On

this her women and servants carried her to her conveyance, and, laying

her down, concealed her by throwing the covering of a tent over her.

The people, though Abradatus and his chariot made a noble spectacle,

were not able to look at him till Panthea was gone."

After the battle--

"Cyrus calling to some of his servants, 'Tell me, said he, 'has any

one seen Abradatus? for I admire that he now does not appear.' One

replied, 'My sovereign, it is because he is not living, but died in

the battle as he broke in with his chariot on the Egyptians. All the

rest, except his particular companions, they say, turned off when they

saw the Egyptians' compact body. His wife is now said to have taken up

his dead body, to have placed it in the carriage that she herself was

conveyed in, and to have brought it hither to some place on the river

Pactolus, and her servants are digging a grave on a certain elevation.

They say that his wife, after setting him out with all the ornaments

she has, is sitting on the ground with his head on her knees.' Cyrus,

hearing this, gave himself a blow on the thigh, mounted his horse at a

leap, and, taking with him a thousand horse, rode away to this scene

of affliction; but gave orders to Gadatas and Gobryas to take with

them all the rich ornaments proper for a friend and an excellent man

deceased, and to follow after him; and whoever had herds of cattle

with him, he ordered them to take both oxen, and horses, and sheep in

good number, and to bring them away to the place where, by inquiry,

they should find him to be, that he might sacrifice these to

Abradatus.

"As soon as he saw the woman sitting on the ground, and the dead body

there lying, he shed tears at the afflicting sight, and said: 'Alas!

thou brave and faithful soul, hast thou left us, and art thou gone?'

At the same time he took him by the right hand, and the hand of the

deceased came away, for it had been cut off with a sword by the

Egyptians. He, at the sight of this, became yet much more concerned

than before. The woman shrieked out in a lamentable manner, and,

taking the hand from Cyrus, kissed it, fitted it to its proper place

again, as well as she could, and said: 'The rest, Cyrus, is in the

same condition, but what need you see it? And I know that I was not

one of the least concerned in these his sufferings, and, perhaps, you

were not less so; for I, fool that I was! frequently exhorted him to

behave in such a manner as to appear a friend to you, worthy of

notice; and I know he never thought of what he himself should suffer,

but of what he should do to please you. He is dead, therefore,' said

she, 'without reproach, and I, who urged him on, sit here alive.'

Cyrus, shedding tears for some time in silence, then spoke:--'He has

died, woman, the noblest death; for he has died victorious! Do you

adorn him with these things that I furnish you with.' (Gobryas and

Gadatas were then come up, and had brought rich ornaments in great

abundance with them.) 'Then,' said he, 'be assured that he shall not

want respect and honor in all other things; but, over and above,

multitudes shall concur in raising him a monument that shall be worthy

of us, and all the sacrifices shall be made him that are proper to be

made in honor of a brave man. You shall not be left destitute, but,

for the sake of your modesty and every other virtue, I will pay you

all other honors, as well as place those about you who will conduct

you wherever you please. Do you but make it known to me where it is

that you desire to be conveyed to.' And Panthea replied: 'Be

confident, Cyrus, I will not conceal from you to whom it is that I

desire to go.'

"He, having said this, went away with great pity for her that she

should have lost such a husband, and for the man that he should have

left such a wife behind him, never to see her more. Panthea then gave

orders for her servants to retire, 'till such time,' said she, 'as I

shall have lamented my husband as I please.' Her nurse she bid to

stay, and gave orders that, when she was dead, she would wrap her and

her husband up in one mantle together. The nurse, after having

repeatedly begged her not to do this, and meeting with no success, but

observing her to grow angry, sat herself down, breaking out into

tears. She, being beforehand provided with a sword, killed herself,

and, laying her head down on her husband's breast, she died. The nurse

set up a lamentable cry, and covered them both, as Panthea had

directed.

"Cyrus, as soon as he was informed of what the woman had done, being

struck with it, went to help her if he could. The servants, three in

number, seeing what had been done, drew their swords and killed

themselves, as they stood at the place where she bad ordered them. And

the monument is now said to have been raised by continuing the mound

on to the servants; and on a pillar above, they say, the names of the

man and woman were written in Syriac letters.

"Below were three pillars, and they were inscribed thus, 'Of the

servants.' Cyrus, when he came to this melancholy scene, was struck

with admiration of the woman, and, having lamented over her, went

away. He took care, as was proper, that all the funeral rites should

be paid them in the noblest manner, and the monument, they say, was

raised up to a very great size."

* * * * *

These be the ancients, who, so many assert, had no idea of the dignity

of Woman, or of marriage. Such love Xenophon could paint as subsisting

between those who after death "would see one another never more."

Thousands of years have passed since, and with the reception of the

Cross, the nations assume the belief that those who part thus may meet

again and forever, if spiritually fitted to one another, as Abradatus

and Panthea were, and yet do we see such marriages among them? If at

all, how often?

I must quote two more short passages from Xenophon, for he is a writer

who pleases me well.

Cyrus, receiving the Armenians whom he had conquered--

"'Tigranes,' said he, 'at what rate would you purchase the regaining

of your wife?' Now Tigranes happened to be _but lately married_,

and had a very great love for his wife." (That clause perhaps sounds

_modern_.)

"'Cyrus,' said he, 'I would ransom her at the expense of my life.'

"'Take then your own to yourself,' said he. ...

"When they came home, one talked of Cyrus' wisdom, another of his

patience and resolution, another of his mildness. One spoke of his

beauty and smallness of his person, and, on that, Tigranes asked his

wife, 'And do you, Armenian dame, think Cyrus handsome?' 'Truly,' said

she, 'I did not look at him.' 'At whom, then, _did_ you look?'

said Tigranes. 'At him who said that, to save me from servitude, he

would ransom me at the expense of his own life.'"

From the Banquet.--

"Socrates, who observed her with pleasure, said, 'This young girl has

confirmed me in the opinion I have had, for a long time, that the

female sex are nothing inferior to ours, excepting only in strength of

body, or, perhaps, his steadiness of judgment.'"

* * * * *

In the Economics, the manner in which the husband gives counsel to his

young wife presents the model of politeness and refinement. Xenophon

is thoroughly the gentleman; gentle in breeding and in soul. All the

men he describes are so, while the shades of manner are distinctly

marked. There is the serene dignity of Socrates, with gleams of

playfulness thrown across its cool, religious shades, the princely

mildness of Cyrus, and the more domestic elegance of the husband in

the Economics.

There is no way that men sin more against refinement, as well as

discretion, than in their conduct toward their wives. Let them look at

the men of Xenophon. Such would know how to give counsel, for they

would know how to receive it. They would feel that the most intimate

relations claimed most, not least, of refined courtesy. They would not

suppose that confidence justified carelessness, nor the reality of

affection want of delicacy in the expression of it.

Such men would be too wise to hide their affairs from the wife, and

then expect her to act as if she knew them. They would know that, if

she is expected to face calamity with courage, she must be instructed

and trusted in prosperity, or, if they had failed in wise confidence,

such as the husband shows in the Economics, they would be ashamed of

anger or querulous surprise at the results that naturally follow.

Such men would not be exposed to the bad influence of bad wives; for

all wives, bad or good, loved or unloved, inevitably influence their

husbands, from the power their position not merely gives, but

necessitates, of coloring evidence and infusing feelings in hours when

the--patient, shall I call him?--is off his guard. Those who

understand the wife's mind, and think it worth while to respect her

springs of action, know bettor where they are. But to the bad or

thoughtless man, who lives carelessly and irreverently so near another

mind, the wrong he does daily back upon himself recoils. A Cyrus, an

Abradatus, knows where he stands.

* * * * *

But to return to the thread of my subject.

Another sign of the times is furnished by the triumphs of Female

Authorship. These have been great, and are constantly increasing.

Women have taken possession of so many provinces for which men had

pronounced them unfit, that, though these still declare there are some

inaccessible to them, it is difficult to say just _where_ they

must stop.

The shining names of famous women have cast light upon the path of the

sex, and many obstructions have been removed. When a Montague could

learn better than her brother, and use her lore afterwards to such

purpose as an observer, it seemed amiss to hinder women from preparing

themselves to see, or from seeing all they could, when prepared. Since

Somerville has achieved so much, will any young girl be prevented from

seeking a knowledge of the physical sciences, if she wishes it? De

Stael's name was not so clear of offence; she could not forget the

Woman in the thought; while she was instructing you as a mind, she

wished to be admired as a Woman; sentimental tears often dimmed the

eagle glance. Her intellect, too, with all its splendor, trained in a

drawing-room, fed on flattery, was tainted and flawed; yet its beams

make the obscurest school-house in New England warmer and lighter to

the little rugged girls who are gathered together on its wooden bench.

They may never through life hear her name, but she is not the less

their benefactress.

The influence has been such, that the aim certainly is, now, in

arranging school instruction for girls, to give them as fair a field

as boys. As yet, indeed, these arrangements are made with little

judgment or reflection; just as the tutors of Lady Jane Grey, and

other distinguished women of her time, taught them Latin and Greek,

because they knew nothing else themselves, so now the improvement in

the education of girls is to be made by giving them young men as

teachers, who only teach what has been taught themselves at college,

while methods and topics need revision for these new subjects, which

could better be made by those who had experienced the same wants.

Women are, often, at the head of these institutions; but they have, as

yet, seldom been thinking women, capable of organizing a new whole for

the wants of the time, and choosing persons to officiate in the

departments. And when some portion of instruction of a good sort is

got from the school, the far greater proportion which is infused from

the general atmosphere of society contradicts its purport. Yet books

and a little elementary instruction are not furnished in vain. Women

are better aware how great and rich the universe is, not so easily

blinded by narrowness or partial views of a home circle. "Her mother

did so before her" is no longer a sufficient excuse. Indeed, it was

never received as an excuse to mitigate the severity of censure, but

was adduced as a reason, rather, why there should be no effort made

for reformation.

Whether much or little has been done, or will be done,--whether women

will add to the talent of narration the power of systematizing,--whether

they will carve marble, as well as draw and paint,--is not important.

But that it should be acknowledged that they have intellect which needs

developing--that they should not be considered complete, if beings of

affection and habit alone--is important.