On the Characteristic Differences between the Sexes, and on the
Position and Influence of Woman in Society.
No. III.
_Resignation--Fortitude_.
In my first number I described woman as modest and timid, and man as
bold and courageous, and endeavored to explain the causes of this
characteristic difference between them. In the same number, however, I
showed that so strong are the humane feelings of woman, so powerful
are her kindly sympathies, that under peculiar circumstances she will
sometimes conquer all the weaknesses of her nature, triumph over all
opposing obstacles, and finally carry consolation and relief to man,
when overwhelmed by misfortunes of so appalling a character as even to
intimidate the hardier sex, and keep them at a distance. In my last I
pointed out the religious differences between the sexes together with
their causes, and the subject naturally invites me to compare them
together in relation to their _fortitude and resignation_ under
calamities and misfortunes.
I think there can be no doubt that woman is generally more resigned
than man under any very severe infliction which cannot be avoided. Her
calm resignation under the severest strokes of fortune, has been the
theme of eulogy for the poet, and the puzzle for the philosopher, from
the earliest times to the present. She who in her "hours of ease" is
so timid, so shrinking, so fearful of even a shadow, has always been
found in the dark hour of adversity to bear up with more fortitude and
resignation against the tide of woe than man. This character belongs
to woman even in the most savage state. She supports, in that state,
misfortunes both physical and moral with more resignation than man.
Ask, says Gisborne in his "Duties of Woman," among barbarians in the
ancient and the modern world who is the best daughter and wife, and
the answer is "she who bears with superior perseverance the
vicissitudes of the seasons, the fervor of the sun, the dews of
night." In fine, she who is most resigned and meek under the heavy and
intolerable burthen which is ever placed upon her.
Physicians tell us that woman supports sickness, pain and suffering,
much better than man. We are told that in the great earthquake in
Calabria, in 1783, which destroyed 40,000 persons, there was a very
noted difference between the men and women in regard to their
resignation. The very bodies of the sexes dug from the ruins marked
the difference in this respect between them--those of the women
exhibited calmness and resignation in the hour of death--their arms
were generally found hanging by their sides, or calmly folded over
their breasts; all struggle seemed to have ceased before death, and
they quietly submitted to their fate. Not so with the men. Their
bodies when dug from the ruins exhibited a mortal struggle to the
last--a leg thrust out here, an arm protruded there, and the whole
body thrown into an agonizing contortion, but too clearly marked the
fearful conflict which endured till the moment of dissolution, and the
great reluctance with which they let go their hold on life.
Let us then inquire into the causes of this difference between the
sexes, and we shall find them to spring out of circumstances already
pointed out and explained. I shall therefore be very brief on this
point.
I have already said that woman is physically weaker and consequently
less capable of laborious and constant exertion than man. The latter,
therefore, occupies the front station, whilst the former takes
possession of the back ground in the picture of human society. The
former is more self reliant, more bold, more confident and active--the
latter more modest, more timid, more dependent and passive. Man
depends on his activity, his energy and his strength, for the mastery
of all around him. Woman depends on her modesty, grace, beauty, in
fine upon her fascinations to command those energies which she finds
not within herself. _Activity_ is eminently the character of the one,
_passivity_ of the other. Now I have already pointed out the effect of
this dependence of woman on her feelings of devotion and religion. A
similar effect is produced on her resignation when visited by some
remediless calamity. Her weakness and dependence, at an early period
of her life admonish her of the hopelessness of all conflicts with the
mightier powers around her. When visited by any great misfortune,
therefore, whether the work of nature or of man, she is more resigned
and patient under her suffering, whilst man in the vain confidence of
his powers is disposed to battle and struggle with fate even to the
last.
Her religion, her superior devotional feelings, have likewise a mighty
influence in the production of that calm resignation which woman so
often exhibits amid the storms and calamities of this world. She has a
more abiding and implicit faith in the protection of heaven--her
trust, her reliance is greater; and whether she be overtaken by
calamity upon the land, or on the sea, she at once throws herself into
the arms of the divinity and quietly awaits the result. Man is like
the mariner aboard the ship--he must be always on the alert--he must
trim the sails, watch the midnight blast, and steer the ship on her
way over the rolling billows. Woman is like the passenger in the
vessel. She is carried forward by powers that are not hers, by
energies that she is unable to control. When then the tempest comes,
and the sea is lashed into the mountain wave--while every sailor is on
the deck at his post, battling against the storm, she is calm and
quiet within--she knows full well that all her efforts will be in
vain--she therefore looks to heaven for aid and protection: she trusts
in God whose arm alone is mighty, and able to save, and in the full
devotion of a confiding and trusting heart, she can truly exclaim:
"Secure I rest upon the wave
For thou, my God, hast power to save,
I know thou wilt not slight my call,
For thou dost mark the sparrow's fall;
And calm and peaceful is my sleep,
Rock'd in the cradle of the deep."[1]
There is certainly nothing which contrasts so beautifully with the
restless activity and feverish impatience of man, as the calm and
subdued countenance of woman in the hour of resignation, amid the
stern powers that are at work around her. How beautiful, how
transcendently lovely does the Thekla of Schiller's Wallenstein appear
in the camp surrounded by soldiers encased in iron. I borrow from the
graphic pen of M. B. Constant. "Sa voix si douce au travers le bruit
des armes, sa form delicate au milieu des hommes tout couverts de fer,
la pureté de son âme opposée a leurs calculs avides, son calm celeste
qui contraste avec leurs agitations, remplissent le spectateur d'une
emotion constante et melancholique, telle que ne la fait ressentir
nulle tragedie ordinaire."
[Footnote 1: These beautiful lines are taken from the Ocean Hymn,
published in the 10th number of the Messenger, from the pen of Mrs.
Emma Willard.]
Again, I have already explained how it happens that woman is capable
of suffering more than man in silence, without wearing even such an
aspect of countenance as may betray the internal agony. For the same
reason, of course, she has more resignation and fortitude.
Lastly, her physical organization renders her much more liable than
man to constitutional derangements, to periodical sickness, and
physical infirmities of all descriptions. Disease gradually inures the
mind to resignation and patience, and at last teaches us to bear with
fortitude all the ills we have. "We seldom," says Bulwer, "find men of
great animal health and power, possessed of much delicacy of mind.
That impetuous and reckless buoyancy of spirit which mostly
accompanies a hardy and iron frame, is not made to enter into the
infirmities of others;" and he might well have added, is not made to
bear its own infirmities and calamities with resignation and
fortitude, when at last overtaken by them. It is well, perhaps, in the
order of nature, that we should be afflicted sometimes. It improves
all our sensibilities, and strengthens our patience and resignation,
to have our thoughts occasionally directed to
"The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave,
The deep damp vault, the darkness, and the worm."
"Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco," is the noble motto which
disease and infirmity have written on the heart of many a female.
Having thus cursorily pointed out the causes of the superiority of
woman in regard to the resignation and fortitude with which she bears
misfortune, I cannot refrain from indulgence in a few remarks on the
admirable adaptation of the sexes to each other in this particular.
There is nothing more grateful to the feeling of piety, than to be
able to trace out in the works of nature, such adaptations as not only
mark the intelligence and unity of divinity, but proclaim in language
as clear as revelation itself, his unbounded benevolence and goodness.
It is this superior resignation and fortitude of woman, which so well
befits her to be the comfort and support of man in the hour of
remediless misfortune. Man is necessarily an active, restless,
energetic, impatient being. This character is generated by the
functions which he has to discharge in this world. He must not too
soon retire from the conflict. He must not bear too calmly and
quietly, the misfortunes and ills of this life. He must arouse
himself, and be in action. He must oppose and conquer all the
obstacles around him. In the beautiful language of one of the
ancients, "he must remember that nature has not intended him for a
lowspirited or ignoble being, but brought him into life in the midst
of this vast universe, as before a multitude assembled at some heroic
solemnity, that he might be a spectator of all her magnificence, and a
candidate for the high prize of glory." Under these circumstances
resignation and patience could not, perhaps ought not to have been
prominent traits in his character. Woman, however, moves in a
different sphere, and acquires, of course, a different character. Her
resignation and fortitude not only supports herself but man likewise,
amid the calamities of the world. "As the vine," says Irving, "which
has long twined its graceful foliage about the oak, and been lifted by
it into sunshine, will, when the hardy plant is rifled by the
thunderbolt, cling round it with its caressing tendrils, and bind up
its shattered boughs, so is it beautifully ordered by providence, that
woman, who is the mere dependent and ornament of man in his happier
hours, should be his stay and solace when smitten with sudden
calamity, winding herself into the rugged recesses of his nature,
tenderly supporting the drooping head, and binding up the broken
heart."
It is in the conjugal state where all the kind and humane attributes
of woman are augmented and softened by the mighty influence of human
love, that we most frequently behold her supporting and cheering her
partner, when visited by the rough blasts of adversity; and sometimes,
when all hope on this side the grave has fled, when his doom is fixed,
and disease or the execution of the law is quickly to hurry him into
another world, we find woman still his dearest solace, sometimes
encouraging him by examples which mark so much devotion, so much
self-sacrifice, as frequently to rise into the region of the moral
sublime. It is well known that the stoic religion of the ancients
justified suicide, when the individual, after a due consideration of
all the circumstances, came to the conclusion that he had fulfilled
all his more glorious destinies on earth. Hence it was frequently
considered a duty incumbent on man to put an end to his existence,
when calamity and misfortune seemed to mark him out as a nuisance on
earth. Hence, too, according to Dr. Smith, this religion may be
considered as "the noblest death-song ever sung by man." We must go
back then, to antiquity, when this religion was prevalent, and of
course when suicide was justified, to see what woman is capable of
doing to console or encourage her husband in the midst of his
calamities.
Pliny the younger, tells us of a neighbor, in the humbler walks of
life, who was visited by a loathsome, painful disease, of an incurable
character. Himself and wife came to the conclusion that it would be
better for him to end his existence; and in order that she might
encourage him to execute this resolve, she determined to die with him.
The death which she chose, was truly characteristic of that devoted
affection which she had so constantly felt for him whilst alive. She
was bound in his arms, and in this condition they precipitated
themselves from a window into the sea beneath. Montaigne seems to have
been particularly struck with this act of heroism on the part of a
female who was of an humble and obscure family, and remarks, that
"even amongst that condition of people, it is no very new thing to see
some examples of uncommon good nature."
----"Extrema per illos
Justitia excedens terris vestigia facit."
Seneca, the philosopher and tutor of Nero, was condemned to death by
his pupil, in the decline of life, after having married Pompeia
Paulina, a young and noble Roman lady, who loved and was loved
devotedly by him. She too, in the plenitude of her grief and
affection, nobly determined to die with her husband, and thus to
encourage him by her example, quietly but firmly to bear the last
struggle of humanity. She, however, was saved, after having opened her
veins, by the emissaries of Nero, who feared the effect which this act
of self-immolation might produce on the excitable populace of Rome.
Plutarch, in one of his most interesting Dialogues, makes Daphneus
assert that there is something divine in the love of woman, and
compares it to the sun that animates all nature. He places the
greatest felicity in conjugal love, and gives us as an
exemplification, the very interesting tale of the adventures of
Eppopina, which passed before the eyes of Plutarch, as he was at that
time living in the house of Vespasian. Sabinus, the husband of
Eppopina, being vanquished by the troops of the Emperor Vespasian,
concealed himself in a deep cavern between Franche Compté and
Champagne. The unbounded affection of Eppopina and her untiring
researches, soon enabled her to find the hiding place of him who
commanded all the affections of her heart. She determined to be the
consoler and the comforter of her husband, who was buried from the
world. She accordingly shut herself up with him, attended on him in
that dark cavern for many years, and bore children whilst there; and
all this she encountered for his sake. When brought before Vespasian,
who was astonished at her heroism and fortitude, she said to him, "I
have lived more happily under ground, than thou in the light of the
sun, and in the enjoyment of power."
But one of the most celebrated examples on record, of the ardent
desire of woman to console and encourage her husband in the dismal
hour of despair, is furnished by Arria, the wife of Cecina Pætus. This
Pætus, after the defeat by the troops of the Emperor Claudius of the
army of Scribonianus, whose party he had espoused, was condemned to
death by the same emperor. It was the custom under the emperors, to
leave condemned individuals to terminate their existence themselves,
provided they could have the resolution to do it. Pætus wavered and
hesitated. The dreadful struggle which it cost him, made a deeper
impression upon the devoted and tender heart of Arria than even the
sentence of death had inflicted. After caressing and encouraging him
by the most tender offices to nerve himself to the act, she took the
poniard which he wore by his side, and exclaiming, "Pætus, do thus!"
she plunged it into her own bosom; then drawing it from the reeking
wound, she presented the dagger to her husband "with this noble,
generous, and immortal saying:" _Pæte non dolet!_ "Pætus, it is not
painful!"[2]
[Footnote 2: This death has afforded Martial the subject of one of his
most elegant epigrams, which has been thus rendered:
"When to her husband Arria gave the sword,
Which from her chaste, her bleeding breast she drew,
She said, 'My Pætus, this I do not feel;
But, oh! the wound that must be made by you!'
She could no more--but on her Pætus still,
She fix'd her feeble, her expiring eyes;
And when she saw him raise the pointed steel,
She sunk--and seem'd to say, 'Now Arria dies!'"]
Such instances as these we do not find in modern times, because the
introduction of a more humane and rational religion, together with
juster and more philosophical notions upon the subject of morality,
have taught us that under no circumstances short of _absolute
necessity_, can suicide be justified. But we are not to infer that
woman is not as kind, as tender now as in the days of antiquity, when
her religious creed did not forbid suicide. What, for example, can
show more kind solicitude, more tender anxiety about the last moments
of a condemned husband, than the letter written by Lady Jane Grey to
her husband Lord Guilford Dudley, a short time previous to his
execution, when she herself at the same time was lying under a
sentence of condemnation. "Do not let us meet, Guilford," she says,
"we must see each other no more, until we are united in a better
world. We must forget our joys so sweet, our loves so tender and so
happy. You must now devote yourself to none but serious thoughts. No
more love, no more happiness here upon earth! We must now think of
nothing but death! Remember, my Guilford, that the people are waiting
for you, to see how a man can die. Show no weakness as you approach
the scaffold; your fortitude would be overcome perhaps, were you to
see me. You could not quit your poor Jane without tears; and tears and
weakness must be left to us women. Adieu, my Guilford adieu! be a
man--be firm at the last hour--let me be proud of you." Well then
might Guilford die like a hero, when he had such a wife to encourage
and be proud of him. And who was this tender, kind, consoling wife, in
the hour of death? Her political history is known to all. Almost
forced for a moment to wear the crown of England, she incurred the
guilt of treason, was condemned to death at the very time when she
forgets herself in trying to impart resignation and fortitude to her
husband, and was executed a few days afterwards. She is described as
having been lovely beyond measure. Her features were beautifully
regular, and her large and mild eyes were the reflection of a pure and
virtuous soul, peaceful and unambitious. Yet even she could forget
blood and royalty, and all the weakness of her own nature, and the
terrors of her own execution, to impart moral courage and resignation
to a husband about to die.
Many most affecting instances of the same kind might be cited from the
French revolution; but my limits will permit me to adduce no more. I
hope then, all my readers are ready to acknowledge the justice of the
celebrated eulogy which the Duke de Lioncourt passed upon the merits
of woman in this particular--a eulogy whose justice and truth his
condition and career in life, seem to have well befitted his head to
comprehend and his heart to feel. "Their friendship," says he, "is
inviolable, their fidelity unshaken, their courage invincible. They
are intimidated by no difficulty, and bid defiance to dangers. Amiable
woman! while man desponds, she animates him with new hopes. When he is
sick, she ministers unto him; when in distress, she comforts him, bids
him live, and makes him in love with himself. And well can she sooth
and comfort him: she is all patience, she is all fortitude. The
endearments of her smiles, the melting accents of her voice, and her
bewitching softness, beguile him of his sorrows, and make his prison a
palace." Enough has been said to prove the admirable adaptation of the
sexes to each other in the particular under discussion, and to show
what a kind ministering angel woman can become in the dark hour of
adversity.
It has been truly remarked, that when a married man falls into
adversity, he is more apt to retrieve his situation in the world than
a single one, "because his spirits are soothed and relieved by
domestic endearments, and his self-respect is kept alive by finding
that though all abroad is darkness and humiliation, yet there is still
a little world of love at home of which he is the monarch." He can
truly say, "if I am unacceptable to all the world beside, there is one
whom I entirely love, that will receive me with joy and transport, and
think herself obliged to double her kindness and caresses of me, from
the gloom with which she sees me overcast. I need not dissemble the
sorrow of my heart to be agreeable there; that very sorrow quickens
her affection." Let every husband then remember this, and never keep
from his wife his misfortunes, no matter how heartrending they may be.
Woman is always full of resources on these occasions, and will ever
submit with cheerfulness to every privation, which her altered
circumstances may demand. There is many a husband who has never known
the true character and value of his wife, until he has seen her
resignation, fortitude, and almost angelic cheerfulness under the dark
clouds of misfortune. It is then "she openeth her mouth in wisdom; and
in her tongue is the law of kindness." Then may the husband well
acknowledge that he has found a truly virtuous woman, and her price to
him at least, is far above all rubies. One of the most beautiful tales
of Washington Irving, is that which is entitled "The Wife," and owes
its great merit to the singular beauty with which he describes the
fortitude and encouraging cheerfulness of a young wife whose husband
is ruined. Women even who have been reckless and dissipated, and have
ruined their husbands by their extravagance, have frequently reformed
in adversity, and become the stay and solace of their husbands when
stript of all their possessions. It is then we may truly say of the
reformed woman in the language of holy writ, "she looketh well to the
ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness." Even
Bulwer, in his England and the English, makes his fictitious Mrs.
Thurston, after ruining her husband by her extravagance, occasioned by
vanity and ambition, consent with cheerfulness to assume the coarser
and more homely garments of penury, and forget her own proud self in
the desire to console and comfort her ruined husband. And Miss
Edgeworth too, in that beautiful romance, "The Absentee," after
misfortune had visited the Clonbronny family, makes the vain and
haughty Lady Clonbronny, who was so desirous to reside in London, and
whose very heart and soul yearned after the society of the fashionable
circles of that great metropolis, consent to return to her deserted
castle in Ireland, on the _reasonable condition_ that she might never
be mortified with the sight of the old _yellow damask curtains_ which
hung in the windows of the hall. Well then may we truly say of woman
what Cicero so beautifully asserted of the genuine friend. She doubles
our enjoyments by the pleasures which they afford her, and she halves
our sorrows by the comforts, and consolations, and sympathies which
_she_ affords us.
"'Tis woman's smiles that lull our cares to rest;
Dear woman's charms that give to life its zest:
'Tis woman's hand that smooths affliction's bed,
Wipes the cold sweat, and stays the sinking head."
_Intellectual Differences between the Sexes_.
I shall now proceed to the consideration of the differences between
the sexes in regard to their intellectual powers; and here we shall
find differences of the most marked and important character, which
perhaps have more puzzled the philosophers, and given rise to more
speculation, sophism and false reasoning, than any others observable
between the sexes. At one time a spirit of gallantry and blind
devotion, at another time of revenge and jealousy, has mixed itself
more or less with the spirit of speculation upon this subject, and of
course warped and biassed the conclusions of authors. Hobbes, in his
writings, has asserted that if the interests or passions of men, could
ever be steadily opposed to the mathematical axiom that the whole is
equal to all the parts, its truth would quickly be denied and boldly
reasoned against. It stands because neither interest nor feeling is
opposed to it. Out feelings are more or less to be guarded against in
all our moral speculations, but particularly in discussions relative
to the comparative merits of the sexes.
Shortly after the revival of letters, when the institution of chivalry
was still in successful operation, there seemed to be a combination
among the literati in Europe, to place woman in every respect above
man. The celebrated Boccaccio, the most beautiful writer, one of the
most devoted lovers, and perhaps the greatest favorite of his time
with women, led on the van of this band of gallant authors. In his
work "On Illustrious Women," he runs through the whole circle of
history and fable. He ransacks the Grecian, Roman and sacred
histories, and brings together Cleopatra and Lucretia, Flora and
Portia, Semiramis and Sappho, Athalia and Dido, &c.--and lavishes out
his sweetest praises on charming woman. We are not to wonder then at
his popularity and authority among the women of his age, when we
remember his devotion and his eulogy. His harangue against the
marriage of christian widows, did not however share the same
popularity with those to whom it was addressed, although backed by
quotations and ingenious explanations thereof, from the apostle Paul.
Boccaccio was followed by a host of imitators, singing the praises of
the sex. Throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the tide of
discussion, if I may be allowed the expression, ran almost wholly on
the side of the females. Love, polytheism, christianity, and the
worship of the saints, were strongly blended by the over-zealous
gallantry of the times, into one incongruous heterogeneous compound,
calculated to excite the smile of the philosopher, and the frown of
the theologian. Ruscelli, for example, one of the most celebrated
writers of his day, maintains the decided superiority of woman over
man. "But the effect of his reasoning," says a modern writer, "is
destroyed by the confused impression which is made on the mind of the
reader by the mixture of divinity and platonism; by blending through
the whole the name of God and woman; by placing Moses by the side of
Petrarch and of Dante; and by giving in the same page, and even in the
same period, quotations from Boccaccio and St. Augustine, from Homer
and from St. John." "This however," says the same writer, "must
necessarily be found in a country where we often meet with the ruins
of a temple of Jupiter in the neighborhood of a church, a statue of
St. Peter upon a column of Trajan, and a Madonna beside an Apollo."
Throughout the whole of this period it seems to have been ungallant in
the highest degree in an author not to place woman decidedly above man
in every particular. Even in intellectual power she was considered as
superior; and in perusing the voluminous proofs which were so
industriously, and sometimes so ingeniously brought forward to prove
it, we find ourselves as bewildered as the _femme de chambre_ of
Molière, under the learned remarks of the doctor upon the death of the
coachman. The poor woman at last exclaims, "Le Medecin peut dire ce
qu'il veut, mais le cocher est mort." Whatever may have been written
or said in praise of the intellectual powers of woman during the very
gallant period of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it is now a
conceded point, that under the actual constitution of society, and
with the superior education of our sex, the intellectual endowments
and developments of man are generally found superior to those of woman
at the age of maturity. In fact, the remark is susceptible of the
greatest possible extension. Among all the barbarous nations--among
the half civilized, as well as among the refined and polished, we find
the intellectual powers of man every where and in every age superior
to those of woman.[3]
[Footnote 3: I do not mean to assert here that woman has been found
inferior to man in _every_ department or modification of the
intellect; for in some kinds of intelligence she always has been, as
we shall soon see, man's superior;--but my meaning is, that in the
higher department of the intellectual powers, and in the general range
of the mind, man is superior to woman.]
It is fable alone which tells us of whole nations of Amazons. There is
no well authenticated history of any people where the women have taken
the lead, and governed the men by their superior intellectual
endowments. Of course, as already remarked, individual exceptions
prove nothing. We are here concerned with masses of individuals; and
from the foundation of the world to the present time, we find that man
has been uniformly the commander in the field; he has formed the
material of the armies; he has led them to battle, won the victories
and achieved the conquest. He has directed at the council board; his
eloquence has been most powerfully felt in the senate and the popular
assembly; he has established and pulled down dynasties--built up and
overthrown empires, and achieved the mighty and convulsive revolutions
of the nations of the earth. All the great, and learned, and lucrative
occupations of life are filled by him. 'Tis he who studies the
wondrous mechanism of our frame, the nature and character of our
diseases and physical infirmities, and applies the healing balm to the
suffering individual stretched on the couch of pain and sickness. 'Tis
he who made the law--who studies its complicate details, its massive
literature and profound reasoning, and traces out the chain of system
and order, which like the delicate thread of the labyrinth, runs
through the whole range of its subtleties and sinuosities. 'Tis he who
has studied most profoundly and elaborately the record of man's fall
and redemption. 'Twas he who conducted the children of Israel, under
the guidance of heaven, out of Egypt, through the wilderness, into the
promised land of Canaan. 'Twas a man who first preached the new gospel
of Christ at Jerusalem, before the assembled nation, on the great day
of Pentecost. It is man upon whom devolves the sacred functions of
preaching and spreading the gospel through the world. It is
"He that negotiates between God and man,
As God's ambassador, the grand concerns
Of judgment and of mercy."
It is he whose sublime and warning eloquence is heard from the pulpit,
arousing and awakening the apathy of the listless, and stimulating the
ardor of the pious. 'Tis man who carries forward, by his restless
energies, all the complicate business of that great commerce, which
binds together by the indissoluble ties of interest, all the nations
of the earth. 'Tis he who creates the stocks, charters companies of
enterprise, and works by his skill the mighty machinery of capital and
trade. And if we look to the rich and varied fields of literature and
science, we shall find his footstep every where, and see that his
labors have reared the choicest fruit, and produced the most stately
and enduring trees. We cannot then for a moment question his past and
present intellectual superiority in society.
But whence arises this actual superiority? Is it the result of nature?
or is it the result of education in that enlarged sense which I have
already explained in my first number? Is the capacity of man naturally
greater than that of woman? or are they born with equal natural
endowments in this respect? and are the great differences which we
observe in the full maturity of age, generated by the different
circumstances under which they act, and the different positions which
they occupy in society? I have already said that we have no data by
which this question can be positively and satisfactorily settled; that
long before the child arrives at that age at which we are able to
detect the development of the intellectual powers, his education both
physical and moral, has already advanced to such an extent as to
render all our deductions from mere experiment and observation
entirely fallacious. I am inclined however to the belief, that there
is _no natural_ difference between the intellectual powers of man and
woman, and that the differences observable between them in this
respect at mature age, are wholly the result of education, physical
and moral. At all events, I think I shall be able to show that the
difference in education is fully sufficient to explain these
differences, without looking to any other causes.
First then, we find that the education which boys receive from
teachers, is much more scientific and complete than that of the girls.
The latter are sent to school but a few years, and those during the
earlier period of their lives, before the development of the reasoning
powers. What they learn at school, therefore, must be acquired by the
exercise of memory alone, and not by the employment of the far higher
powers of judgment, reason and reflection. These latter powers are not
generally developed before the age of seventeen or eighteen, and in
some cases still later. It is for this reason we so often find the
mature man failing to fulfil the promise of his youth. In the early
part of our lives we learn principally by memory, and the boy with the
most ready memory therefore, is he who treasures up the knowledge
generally acquired in youth with most facility. He, therefore, is apt
to pass for the brightest genius. But it may happen that this bright
youth may never develope to any extent the reasoning powers; and if
so, he will rarely go much beyond the mere smartness and quickness of
youth. Memory will ever be his principal and greatest faculty, and
with it alone he can never travel out of the common routine of
knowledge, or disenthral himself from the dominion of mere precedent
and example. On the other hand, we frequently see the dull boy
developing at the age of maturity a large share of the reasoning
power, and infinitely surpassing, in stretch of mind and depth of
research, the individual who far outstripped him in his boyhood. Every
man can readily call to mind illustrations of the remarks here made.
Newton never exhibited any very great range of faculty till he
commenced the study of the mathematics; and Dean Swift, the great wit
and philosopher, is said to have been rather a dull boy.
Now then, just at the period when the reasoning faculties are about
developing themselves--when a new intellectual apparatus is just
coming into play, by which we are capable of achieving at school, in
one or two years, more than we have done by all our past labors--the
girl is taken from her studies, enters into society, plunges into all
the scenes of gaiety and fashion, and is frequently married before
that age at which the boy is sent to college. It is impossible then,
under the prevalence of such a system as this, to give an education at
all scientific to the female. Her mind at school is not sufficiently
developed to receive such an education. You frequently find our female
teachers professing to teach the higher branches of science, such as
chemistry, natural philosophy, moral and mental philosophy, and
political economy. I do not pretend to call in question the capacity
of such teachers, or their ability to teach what they profess to do;
but I do assert that most of our young ladies are not competent at the
time they are sent to school to acquire such knowledge. They skip, at
so early a period of life, as lightly and fantastically over the
buried treasures of science, as they would over the floor of the ball
room. I have never known an individual, no matter how apparently
bright his intellect--no matter how much Latin and Greek, and Grammar
and English he had studied, who was capable, at the age of sixteen, of
mastering the abstruse principles of the philosophy of the human mind.
Such a science as this absolutely requires a development of the higher
powers of the mind, before it can be studied with any degree of
success; and that development very rarely takes place before the age
of seventeen, no matter how stimulating may have been the previous
education of the youth.
But again: not only is the female stopped in her studies at a time of
life when she is becoming most capable of acquiring knowledge, but,
even whilst at school, her studies are of a lighter character,
contributing more to _accomplishment and grace_, but far less to
intellectual vigor than those of the boy. Much of her time is consumed
in music, painting, needle work, &c. while the boy is laboring over
his Greek and Latin. I do not pretend to condemn this difference in
education. It arises principally from the opposite position of the two
sexes in society, as we shall soon see. But I would like to see a
classical education become more fashionable among the ladies than it
has heretofore been. I would not insist upon such studies at a later
period of life, when the mind might be capable of mastering those of a
higher and more useful order; but between the ages of ten and fifteen,
there is nothing with which I am acquainted that can be so
advantageously studied as the Latin and Greek. "The grammatical
education," it has been justly observed by D. Stewart, "which boys
receive while learning Latin, by teaching them experimentally the aid
which the memory derives from general rules, prepares them for
acquiring habits of generalization when they afterwards enter on their
philosophical studies." I am happy to find the great authority of Mr.
Stewart to be decidedly in favor of giving to females a classical
education. In a foot note of Vol. III of Philosophy of the Human Mind,
he says: "Latin, I observe with pleasure, is now beginning to enter
more into the system of female education, and nothing could have so
long delayed so obvious an improvement, but those exceptionable
passages with which the Latin classics abound, and from which it is
devoutly to be wished that the common school books were carefully
purged, in editions fitted for the perusal of youth of both sexes."
Not only, however, are boys confined to studies which invigorate and
discipline the mind more thoroughly than those of the girls, but they
are much more stimulated and encouraged by parents, guardians, and
friends, to persevere in the arduous, and at first excessively
disagreeable career of study and literary labor. Whilst the father is
perfectly contented with the most superficial knowledge--with the
little music, and the few graces and accomplishments which his
daughter acquires at a boarding school--he watches narrowly the
progress of his son. He stimulates him by every means to assiduity and
exertion. He impresses upon his mind the important truth, that his
standing, his career in after life, his ultimate success, all may
depend upon these his preparatory exertions. It is to be expected,
under this unequal system of stimulation, that the efforts of the boys
will generally be greater than those of the girls.
Those who have not reflected much upon this subject, can form no
adequate conception of the vast influence exerted over the minds of
students by that discipline which depends upon a well directed system
of opinion and encouragement, entirely extraneous to the school or the
academy. Those who have attempted to teach the children of savages in
New Zealand and New Holland, in the isles of the Pacific, or on our
own continent, have all borne witness to the truth of this remark. For
example, a teacher in New Zealand tells us that the first day his
scholars met they were exceedingly anxious to learn; it was a new
thing: they, and their parents too, expected some sudden, mysterious
kind of benefit which was to result from this system, requiring no
great lapse of time, or exertion on the part of the children. In a day
or two the confinement and tedium of school hours became intolerable;
the children became lazy in spite of all the efforts of the teacher.
Parents knew not the advantages of an education, and consequently did
not enforce the regular attendance of the pupils, nor stimulate them
to exertion; and for this reason the school soon became a total
failure.
From all these causes combined, we are not to wonder that the
education of a boy up to the age of seventeen or eighteen, is of a
more invigorating character than that of the girl. At this age the
girl is taken home to be _turned out_, as it is termed, and the boy is
sent, when the parent's circumstances will admit it, to college. The
college education, therefore, of the young men, may be considered as a
clear superaddition to that which young ladies receive. It is the
college education which is decidedly the most efficacious, when
properly conducted, in nurturing and developing the higher powers of
the mind. The lecturers in well endowed institutions, are generally
men of superior attainments and intellectual powers. The division of
mental labor, in consequence of the number of professors, renders each
one more perfect in his department. The library and apparatus are
great advantages not possessed at common schools. Well delivered
lectures too, upon the text of some good author, though they may not
impart a greater fund of positive information than might be acquired
by reading, yet they deeply interest the attention, and stimulate the
exertions of the student; they awaken a spirit of inquiry and
research; they teach him to examine and sift all he peruses with a
skeptical mind. They break the charm which is created by mere
precedent and written authority, and furnish, if I may so express
myself, the leading strings by which we are gently led forth to more
hardy and manly explorations in the field of science and literature.
All these are advantages _exclusively_ enjoyed by our young men, and
hence, so far as the school education of the sexes is concerned, there
is no question that men have decidedly the advantage over women.
This then must certainly be looked upon as one of the most powerfully
operating causes of the intellectual differences between the sexes.
But it is only a proximate cause, and the question immediately
presents itself, how has it happened that the young men have been so
much more universally and deeply educated in all ages and countries?
And here we are led to a consideration of the effects of that more
enlarged and general education which arises from physical and moral
causes, independently of mere teachers. I have already explained the
causes which assign to woman the domestic sphere, and all the
occupations pertaining to it, and to man the out of door world with
all the business, occupations, and cares pertaining to its management.
These separate, distinct, and widely different spheres in which the
two sexes move, as we have already observed, generate characters
distinctly marked and widely different. And it is not to be wondered
at that these characters, so totally different, belonging to persons
moving in different spheres, should require different kinds and
degrees of intellectual powers. Woman is domestic in her habits, she
requires therefore a knowledge of all those minutiæ--all those details
which can best befit her for her domestic occupations. She is more
concerned with the individual than with the multitude. She feels more
deeply interested in a mere family, than in a whole nation. Hence she
studies individual character, individual disposition, and the motives
by which individuals are governed, more than she does the general
traits of the multitude, the distinctive character of nations, or the
great and general principles by which they are governed. Woman is the
delight and ornament of the social circle. She therefore aims to
acquire that knowledge, and become possessed of those graces and
accomplishments which may cause her to be admired by all while she is
walking the golden round of her pleasures and duties; her object is
rather to please and fascinate the imagination than to instruct the
understanding. She is more humane, more tender, sympathetic, and moral
than man, and, consequently, she is more interested in the study of
the feelings and the passions than in that of the understanding and
the intellectual powers. In general she is more eager for the perusal
of all that addresses itself to the fancy and the feelings, such as
novels, romances, and poems, than for the study of philosophy and
science. In fine she is much more literary than scientific.
_Abstraction and Generalization_.
We can now easily account for that great difference which we observe
in the intellectual powers of the sexes, dependent on habits of
abstraction and generalization. Undoubtedly one of the greatest and
most useful powers of the human mind, is that by which we are enabled
to classify and generalize our ideas--that power which enables us,
from the observance of multitudes of facts and details, to seize on
those which possess a resemblance, to arrange them together under
genera and species, and thus to arrive at general principles or facts
applicable to thousands of cases which may occur in our passage
through life. It is this power of abstraction and generalization which
may be truly said to give to our reasoning faculties the wings of the
eagle. We are enabled thereby to soar to a height, and command an
extension of prospect which cannot be reached by those who do not
cultivate this power. It is the great labor saving machinery in the
economy of the human mind, and belongs in all its perfection only to a
few gifted and educated minds, capable of rising to an altitude far,
very far beyond the common intellectual level. According to the degree
in which this noble faculty is possessed, the metaphysicians have made
a division of the human race, very unequal as to numbers, into _men of
general principles_ or _philosophers_, and _men of detail_. The former
possessing minds inured to habits of abstraction and generalization,
the latter more conversant with mere individuals and individual
character, with the details and minutiæ of common life, and therefore
better suited to the ordinary routine of every day duties in the
common transactions of the world. But if I may borrow the sentiment of
Mr. Burke, when the path is broken up, the high waters out, and the
file affords no precedent, then men who possess minds of comprehension
and generalization, are required to lead the way through the chaos of
difficulties and dangers which surround them.
When we compare the sexes together in this particular, we see that man
has generally, and _necessarily_ must have, from the very nature and
requisitions of that extended sphere in which he moves, a greater
share of this power of abstraction and generalization than is commonly
found developed in the female mind. The confined sphere in which woman
moves, requires, as I have already observed, close attention to all
the details and minutiæ of the little events daily and hourly
transpiring around her. Instead of studying the general traits of
character which belong alike to the whole human family, she studies
most deeply the individual characters of those who compose her
household, and her circle of friends and relatives. Her mind becomes
one of detail and minute observation, rather than of abstraction and
generalization. The intellectual eye of woman is like the pleasing
microscope; it detects little objects, and movements, and motives,
upon the theatre of life, which wholly escape the duller but more
comprehensive vision of our sex. Man, in the wider sphere in which he
moves, deals not so much with the individual as with masses of
individuals. Take for example the statesman. Is he a legislator? Then
he must make laws not only for the few individuals with whom he has
been raised, but for the whole nation. In doing this he is obliged to
discard the mere individual from his mind, and look to the population
in the aggregate. He must abstract himself from the consideration of
the minutiæ, the little details and peculiar circumstances which
operate _exclusively_ on his own little narrow neighborhood, and
attend to those general circumstances which affect alike the condition
of the whole body politic. His intellectual vision should not be too
microscopic. He must look to generals rather than particulars. The
minute vision of the fly would perhaps best survey the little specks
and blemishes that may exist on the vast and mighty fabric of St.
Peter's church, but it requires the more comprehensive vision of a man
to survey the whole building at a glance. In like manner the honest,
high minded, intellectual statesman looks to the good of the
whole--discards the more petty consideration of self and friends. In
contemplating the compound fabric of mind, law, and human rights, if
he survey mere individual peculiarities with too intense a vision he
will never be able to form in the mind one comprehensive, connected
whole with the position and relation of all the prominent and distinct
parts fully exhibited and well defined. Now there are few women who
can wholly abstract themselves from the influence of those peculiar
circumstances which operate exclusively on the circle in which they
move. The circle they live in, conceals from them the rest of the
world. The general remark made on this subject by Madame de Stael in
her _Corinne_, is particularly applicable to woman. "The smallest
body," says she, "placed near your eye, hides from it the body of the
sun; and it is the same with the little _coterie_ in which you live.
Neither the voice of Europe nor of posterity can make you insensible
to the noise of your neighbor's family; and therefore whoever would
live happily, and give scope to his genius, must first of all choose
carefully the atmosphere by which he is to be surrounded."
_Politics and Patriotism_.
We can now easily explain why woman has, in general, less patriotism,
and is more unfitted for the field of politics than man. The very
intensity of her domestic and social virtues makes her less patriotic
than man. The ardor with which she loves her husband, her children,
her intimate friends and associates, concentrates the mind within the
little circle by which she is surrounded, and clips the wings of that
more expanded but less ardent love which embraces whole states and
nations. Her _individuality_ is much too strong for the feeling of
patriotism. She is, in this respect, like the knight of the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries, who coveted individual honor and glory
alone. He lived only for his mistress, his God, and himself, and did
not like to share his glories and his honors with an army, a nation,
or mankind. Hallam, in his "Middle Ages," has pronounced the Achilles
of Homer to be the most beautiful picture that ever was portrayed of
this character (of chivalry). And strange as it may appear, the
political character of woman in general, bears a very close and
striking analogy to that of Achilles; who has been pronounced by
competent judges, to be the most terrific human personage ever
portrayed in prose or poetry. In search of individual glory and renown
Achilles consents to join the allied army of Greece, with his
myrmidons, in the siege of Troy. He receives an insult from Agamemnon,
the chief of the Grecian forces, who determines to take from him a
captive female slave. Instantly he resolves on revenge; his patriotism
yields to his intense feeling of individuality, and he sullenly
withdraws his troops from the field of battle, remains unmoved while
the Trojans are gaining victory after victory, until they begin to
burn the ships; then the security of himself and his particular
friends required that he should drive back the Trojan army.
Reluctantly he consents that Patroclus might lead forth the myrmidons
to battle, but with strict injunction to retire from the field the
moment the Trojans were beaten from the ships. Patroclus goes forth
and is slain by Hector, the great rival of Achilles in war. Then is
the wrath and jealousy of Achilles raised against the Trojan hero who
has slain Patroclus, for whom his bosom throbbed with the intensest
friendship. He now arms himself for the fight, and consents to go
forth to battle; not for any love he has for Greece, not for any
hatred which he bears to the Trojan state, but because he loved
Patroclus and his own glory, and hated Hector, who had wreathed his
brow with the laurel won by the death of his dearest friend.
Such is the patriotism of woman. Her husband and children are more to
her than her country. You never hear of woman consenting to sacrifice
her son for the country's welfare; the reverse is much apter to be the
result. She would sooner sacrifice the welfare of the nation, for the
promotion and happiness of her family. In the various political
contests of our country, it has sometimes been my lot to be present
when ladies have received intelligence of the defeat of brothers,
husbands, &c. in their political aspirations. Such defeats I have
generally found to disgust them at once with the whole subject of
politics, and almost instantly to extinguish the little patriotism
which their political hopes had kindled. It is well known that
misfortune of all kinds has a most wonderful influence in darkening
the picture which the imagination sketches of the future. Pope has
admirably hit off this feature of the mind in his allusion to the
pensioner who suddenly has his pension stopped.
"Ask men's opinions, Scoto now can tell
How trade increases, and the world goes well;
Strike off his pension, by the setting sun,
And Britain, if not Europe, is undone."
So have I known ladies, from the defeat of their husbands at a county
election, to predict more disaster and calamity to the nation, than if
an army were on the frontier or a revolution threatened from within. I
have known brother arrayed against brother, and father against son in
politics, so decisively as to attempt to defeat each other's election;
but I do not know that I have ever yet seen a mother, sister, or wife,
whose politics were of that stern, unbending character which would
lead her to vote, if allowed, against a son, brother, or husband
opposed to her in political sentiments. Their affections and
sympathies for those connected with them, are sure to triumph over the
general feelings of patriotism and justice.
Woman therefore cannot make a good politician, because she has too
much feeling, too much sympathy and kindness for her friends; her very
virtues lead to injustice. Let us take, on this subject, the testimony
of a lady who is well acquainted with the whole moral and mental
constitution of her sex. "I never heard," says Mrs. Jameson, "a woman
_talk_ politics, as it is termed, that I could not discern at once the
motive, the affection, the secret bias which swayed her opinions and
inspired her arguments. If it appeared to the Grecian sage so
'difficult for a man not to love himself, nor the things that belong
to him, but justice only,' how much more for a woman." Bulwer, too,
tells us that women always make prejudiced politicians in England. "No
one will assert," says he, "that these soft aspirants have any ardor
for the public--any sympathy with measures that are pure and
unselfish. No one will deny that they are first to laugh at principles
which, it is but just to say, the education we have given precludes
them from comprehending--and to excite the parental emotions of the
husband, by reminding him that the advancement of his sons requires
interest with the minister." Again, he says, "how often has the
worldly tenderness of the mother been the secret cause of the
tarnished character and venal vote of the husband; or to come to a
pettier source of emotion, how often has a wound or an artful
pampering to some feminine vanity, led to the renunciation of one
party, advocating honest measures, or the adherence to another
subsisting upon courtly intrigues." Doctor Johnson is reported by
Boswell to have said, that in these matters no woman stops short of
integrity.
Women, therefore, whose husbands are engaged in political life, ought
ever to recollect their foibles in this respect, and beware of
yielding too much to their sympathies and partialities, lest they ruin
the political reputation of their husbands, or alienate their
affections by too much tampering in matters which do not belong to
them. Madame Junot thinks that the constant interference of Josephine
in politics, her constant, ardent desire to serve her friends,
weakened very much the attachment of Napoleon for her. Nothing so much
tormented Charles II, as the constant intermeddling of his mistresses
in politics; and one reason of his very sincere attachment to Nell
Gwyn was, that she rarely gave herself any concern about the political
squabbles of the day. She never interfered, except on behalf of her
own children and one or two friends.
But although woman is much apter to err in politics than man, we must
ever bear in mind, as some mitigation and justification of her errors,
that they arise in a great measure from those kindly feelings, those
strong sympathies, those family endearments and social ties which,
whilst they mark her unfitness for the ruder arena of political life,
demonstrate unequivocally the goodness of her heart.
Even women of corrupt hearts do sometimes manifest strongly the most
amiable feelings and tender sympathies in their political intrigues;
take, for example, the Duchess de Longueville, that bold, arbitrary,
intriguing, profligate, vain, facetious heroine of the _Fronde_, who
is described as making rebels by her smiles--or if that were not
enough, she was not scrupulous; without principle and without shame,
nothing was too much! Now "think of this same woman," says a modern
writer, "protecting the virtuous philosopher Arnauld, when he was
denounced and condemned; and from motives which her worst enemies
could not malign, secreting him in her house, unknown even to her own
servants; preparing his food herself, watching for his safety, and at
length saving him. Her tenderness, her patience, her discretion, her
disinterested benevolence, not only defied danger, (that were little
to a woman of her temper) but endured a lengthened trial, all the
ennui caused by the necessity of keeping her house, continual
self-control, and the thousand small daily sacrifices which to a vain,
dissipated, proud, impatient woman, must have been hard to bear."
Again, let us look to the celebrated Duchess de Pompadour--the
corrupt, profligate, and intriguing mistress of that weak, effeminate,
heartless monarch, King Lewis XV, whose abandoned, lewd court, is so
well described as plunged in the sink of corruption and debauchery,
and dead to all shame of decency and morality. Even she is represented
by some of the wisest men of the day, as being exceedingly kind and
beneficent to her friends, or tender and sympathetic in the highest
degree towards misfortune of all kinds, when the parties concerned had
not in any manner wounded her feminine vanity or prejudices. How
interesting even does this woman become in that scene in which
Marmontel, pleading the claims of Boissy to a pension, so works on her
feelings by the recital of the galling poverty of Boissy, as to make
her exclaim, "Good God! you make me shudder. I'll go and recommend him
to the king." Marmontel was so much influenced by her kind attentions
to her personal friends, of whom he was one, that he every where
speaks of her in the most grateful terms as one not only willing to do
a kindness, but to do it in the most flattering, affectionate and
pleasing manner, frequently adding little injunctions or
recommendations, which communicated the highest pleasure whilst they
imposed no heavy obligation. For example, when he applied to the king,
through Mad. de P. for a favor relative to a work of his entitled the
"_Poetique_," he says, "I owe this testimony to the memory of this
beneficent woman, that at this simple and easy method of publicly
deciding the king in my favor, her beautiful countenance beamed with
joy. 'Most willingly,' said she, 'will I ask for you this favor of the
king, and it will be granted.' She obtained it without difficulty, and
in announcing it to me, 'You must give,' said she, 'all possible
solemnity to this presentation; and on the same day all the royal
family and all the ministers, must receive your work from your own
hand.'"
When, however, any prejudice exists in the mind of woman, from pique
at the conduct of a particular individual, or from any cause which
wounds her feminine vanity, you may in vain expect such kindness and
sympathy. All a woman's benevolence is dried up the moment the object
of it becomes _disagreeable_ to her. Madame de Pompadour disliked the
king of Prussia, and she could never be prevailed on to do anything
for d'Alembert, because he was a great admirer eulogist of that
celebrated monarch. Racine basked in the royal sunshine of courtly
favor, while Madame de Maintenon was the ascendant at court. He
happened one day, in presence of the king and Madame de M. in one of
those fits of absence for which he was remarkable, to observe that the
theatre had fallen into disrepute, because the managers selected plays
of too inferior a character, such as those of Scarron, &c. Now Scarron
had been the husband of Maintenon, and from that day poor Racine, the
immortal tragedian of France, was never more invited into the royal
presence, or loaded with the royal favors.
Not only, however, does woman's feelings, sympathies, prejudices, &c.
make her an unsafe and most partial, and sometimes very unjust
politician, but her mind is rarely of that order, from reasons already
pointed out, which will enable her to take large, and comprehensive,
and unbiassed views of political subjects. Woman's individuality is
too strong for general principles and abstract considerations. She has
too much pleasure in the particulars and details around her, to
develope much of the higher and more comprehensive powers of
generalization. She judges of the great characters who are moving
forward the mighty drama of politics as she would judge of beaux in a
ball room, or friends and relatives in a parlor. Henrietta, queen of
Charles I, is an admirable specimen of female politicians. She viewed
the characters of great men with all the sensations of a woman.
"Describing the Earl of Strafford," says D'Israeli, in his Curiosities
of Literature, "to a confidential friend, and having observed that he
was a great man, she dwelt with far more interest on his _person_.
'Though not _handsome_,' said she, 'he was _agreeable_ enough, and he
had the finest _hands_ of any man in the world.'" The same author
tells us, that when "landing at Burlington Bay in Yorkshire, she
lodged on the quay; the parliament's admiral barbarously pointed his
cannon at the house; and several shot reaching it, her favorite Jermyn
requested her to fly; she safely reached a cavern in the fields, but,
recollecting that she had left a _lapdog asleep_ in its bed, she flew
back, and, amidst the cannon-shot returned with this other
_favorite_." Well might this have been termed a complete _woman's_
victory. With such feelings, and sympathies, and judgments as these,
however amiable and pure they may be, you can never expect to meet
with the comprehensive views and well arranged plans of the great
statesman: a Jermyn or a lapdog may disarrange or defeat them.
The peculiarities and minuteness of woman's speculations may be
observed on all subjects, even on the graver and more impressive topic
of religion. Although the celebrated Eloisa was deeply learned in all
the cumbrous learning of the schools and the fathers, yet when
speaking of the apostles, she seems to forget their religious
character in order that she might express her astonishment that "even
in the company of their master, they were so _rustic_ and _ill-bred_,
that regardless of _common decorum_, as they passed through cornfields
they plucked the ears and ate them like children. Nor did they _wash
their hands_ before they sat down to table." Pope, who in his Abelard
and Eloisa, has followed with wonderful exactness, the real history of
these two lovers, makes Eloisa, when speculating on the use of
letters, think of no advantage but those furnished to lovers.
"Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid,
Some banished lover, or some captive maid."
This is truly characteristic of the woman, and it manifests an order
of mind admirably adapted to the circumscribed sphere in which nature
seems to have destined her to move. But it does not suit the wide
arena of the statesman. Go, for example, into the great deliberative
body of this country, and listen to the polemical combats of the minds
that are there brought together, and mark particularly the powerful
effusions of that individual with the master mind of this country--I
had like to have said of the age in which he lives--and you will be
amazed at the vast power of generalization and consequent condensation
which his capacious mind displays. Is it the complicate and difficult
subject of the banking system which has fallen under his review, then
observe how he passes by unheeded, the petty details and minute
histories of the little institutions around him which engage the
little minds of the body, and fixes his eagle gaze on the great and
prominent points of the subject; shows you that the _general_ nature
of man, and the _general_ nature of this institution, is the same at
Amsterdam, at Venice, at London, as at Philadelphia, Washington, or
Baltimore. He points out the great and general circumstances which
lead on to the corruption and final destruction of the system, and
shows you that the straining and breaking of our banks in by-gone
times, was not the result of chance and accident, but of causes as
fixed and unerring in their operation as the law of gravity or the
force of elasticity. Or is he on the great subject of the dangers to
be apprehended from irresponsible power in the hands of a dominant
majority, then observe how his mind ranges over the history of the
past, and culls from the page of Greece and Rome, and even from that
more sacred one of Israel's people, the great lessons which they
inculcate upon this point. He shows you that the contests of
patricians and plebeians, the forcible establishment of the power of
the tribunes in ancient Rome, and the division of a modern parliament
into the lords and commons, or the fearful disputes between the _tiers
état_ and the nobles and clergy in France, all prove the same great
truth and teach the same great lesson, _that every great interest to
be safe, must have the means of defending itself_. Such a mind as this
when it fails, fails (if I may use the language of the logician) from
not attending to specific and individual differences in the
application of general principles: it fails because while leaping from
the Appenines to the Alps, and from the Alps to the Pyrennees, it does
not perceive the rivulets, the flowers, the little hills and dales
which lie beneath. Such a mind is the very opposite of that of woman.