Matter combines, dissolves, and re-combines. New forms of life and new
conditions of life appear and disappear. The very dust under our feet
has lived and breathed, and will live again. Nature waits to be
gracious, and is ever ready to reveal her mysteries as fast as man can
comprehend them. And though she speaks with a silent lip, she invites
all to share her bounties. Her wealth is infinite.
In every star, in every flower, in every blade of grass, in every grain
of sand, in everything visible and invisible, there is life, light, and
beauty. In everything there is power. We cannot look at a grain of sand,
insignificant as it may seem, without seeing in its composition the
material which enables us to read the golden record of the heavens. In
the falling raindrop, when converted into steam, we recognize the
existence of a power which has revolutionized the world. In the kiss of
the sunbeam we discover a magical influence which tints the flower,
gives color to everything in Nature, and by its impress presents us with
an exact and lifelike transcript of ourselves and of our friends. In the
lightning's flash we have a language in which we can converse with our
friends throughout the civilized world, at any moment we please.
When we consider what has been achieved in the way of scientific
discovery during the last half-century, who can tell what may not be
achieved in the next century, in the next ten centuries,--when the great
mysteries of Nature shall be more fully revealed, and when new
sciences, now unknown, shall disclose new principles, new forces, and
still subtler agencies?
In her desire to advance human knowledge, Nature invokes
interpreters--unborn interpreters--who, though far away in the distance,
will yet come, and when they do come, will interpret in accordance with
truth the mystical language in which her undiscovered secrets are
written, and thus extend the empire of thought until it becomes
infinite,--an empire in which man, still rising in the scale of
intelligence, will acquire divine powers, and assume the dignity of a
perfect manhood.
WOMAN AND HER SPHERE.
Woman, like a flower, sprang to life in a garden of flowers,--sprang
from the side of her lord, and took her place at his side, as a meet
companion to share his earth-life, his joys, and his sorrows.
The Greeks believed that the gods collected everything that is beautiful
in Nature, out of which they formed the first woman, and having crowned
her brow with sunshine, intrusted her with the irresistible power of
fascination.
It is certainly not less pleasant than natural to believe that woman was
made of a more refined material than man; and it is doubtless true that
every sincere worshipper of the beautiful delights to regard the "angel
of his dreams" not only as an incarnation of all that is lovable, but as
a divine spirituality,--a vision from a brighter and holier sphere.
An old writer remarks that in order to make an entirely beautiful woman,
it would be necessary to take the head from Greece, the bust from
Austria, the feet from Hindostan, the shoulders from Italy, the walk
from Spain, and the complexion from England. At that rate she would be a
mosaic in her composition; and the man who married her might well be
said to have "taken up a collection."
However mystical may be the origin of woman, it is certain that we
should look to the moral beauty of her life, rather than to her personal
charms, in estimating the true value of her character. In her nature
woman is a loyalist,--loyal to man and loyal to God. In all ages of the
world, in all countries and under all circumstances, she has ever been
distinguished for her patience, her fortitude, and her forbearance, as
well as for those still higher and diviner attributes, her love and her
devotion.
Endowed with charms which give her the power of conquest, woman ever
delights in making conquests; and though she may sometimes "stoop to
conquer," she never fails to elevate the conquered. With the smile of
love resting on her brow, she aims to fulfil her mission by scattering
flowers along the pathway of life, and inspiring the sterner sex with
reverence for her virtues and for the angelhood of her nature.
The true woman exhibits a true womanhood in all she does, in all she
says,--in her heart-life and in her world-life. Her love, once bestowed
on him who is worthy of it, increases with her years and becomes as
enduring as her life,--
"In death, a deathless flame."
Not only in the sincerity of her love, but in all her sympathies, in her
quick sense of duty, and in her devotion to all that is good, right, and
just, she discloses without being conscious of it the divinity of her
character.
It is in sacred history that we find the earliest record of woman's
virtues, acquirements, and achievements. It is there that we read of
women who were not only distinguished for their exalted piety and
exemplary habits of life, but who often excelled even the great men of
renown in sagacity of purpose and in the exercise of sceptred power. It
is in sacred history that we have the earliest account of the social and
domestic relations of the human family, the most prominent of which is
the institution of marriage.
The first marriage of which we have any account took place in a garden,
without the usual preliminaries and ceremonies which have marked its
solemnization in subsequent periods of the world's history; yet we must
believe that it was the most august and sublime wedding that ever
occurred. The witnesses of the ceremony were none other than the angels
of God. Nature presented her choicest flowers, and the birds of
Paradise sang the bridal hymn, while earth and sky rejoiced in the
consummation of the "first match made in heaven."
It may be presumed, perhaps, that all matches are made in heaven; yet
somehow or other, sad mistakes occur when least expected. Even our first
parents, though placed in a garden of innocence, encountered a serpent
in their pathway. It need not seem very strange, therefore, that "the
course of true love never did run smooth." Yet there are but few who
would not concur with Tennyson in thinking--
"'Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all."
In affairs of the heart there is no such thing as accounting for the
freaks of fancy, or the choice of dissimilar tastes. Singular as it may
be, most people admire contrasts. In other words, like prefers unlike;
the tall prefer the short; the beautiful the unbeautiful; and the
perverse the reverse. In this way Nature makes up her counterparts with
a view to assimilate her materials and bring harmony out of discord. It
is from accords and discords that we judge of music and determine its
degree of excellence. In wedded life even discords have their uses,
since a family jar now and then is often attended with the happiest
results, by bringing into timely exercise a higher degree of mutual
forbearance, and inspiring the heart with a purer, sincerer, and diviner
appreciation of the "silken tie."
There is no topic, perhaps, of deeper interest to a woman than that of
wedlock. It is an event, when it does occur, which brightens or blasts
forever her fondest hopes and her purest affections. The matrimonial
question is therefore the great question of a woman's life. In deciding
it, she takes a risk which determines the future of her heart-life. When
the motive is stamped with the imperial seal of Heaven, it is certain
the heart will recognize it as genuine, and trust in it. The language of
love speaks for itself, sometimes in mysteries, sometimes in
revelations. It is a telegraphic language which every woman understands,
though written in hieroglyphics. Hence the preliminaries to wedlock,
usually called courtships, are as various in their methods as the whims
of the parties. In many parts of the world these methods are as amusing
as they are singular.
In royal families matrimonial alliances are controlled by State policy,
and the negotiations conducted through the agencies of ministerial
confidants. In some Oriental countries, parents contract their sons and
daughters in marriage while yet in their infancy, nor allow the parties
an interview until of marriageable age, when the wedding ceremonies are
performed, and the happy pair unveiled to behold each other for the
first time. At such a moment "a penny for their thoughts" would be cheap
enough. The philosophy of this absurd custom seems to be based on the
classical idea that "love is blind." This may be true; yet blind though
it be, the heart will always have its preference, and contrive some way
or other to express it.
In some of the Molucca Islands, when a young man is too bashful to speak
his love, he seizes the first opportunity that offers of sitting near
the object of his affection, and tying his garments to hers. If she
allows him to finish the knot, and neither cuts nor loosens it, she
truly gives her consent to the marriage. If she merely loosens it, he is
at liberty to try his luck again at a more propitious moment; but if she
cuts the knot, there is an end of hope.
In Lapland it is death to marry a girl without the consent of her
friends. When a young man proposes marriage, the friends of both parties
meet to witness a race between them. The girl is allowed, at starting,
the advantage of a third part of the race; if her lover does not
overtake her, it is a penal offence for him ever to renew his offers of
marriage. If the damsel favors his suit, she may run fast at first, to
try his affection; but she will be sure to linger before she comes to
the end of the race. In this way all marriages are made in accordance
with inclination; and this is the probable reason of so much domestic
contentment in that country.
In ancient times marriageable women were the subjects of bargain and
sale, and were more generally obtained by purchase than courtship. The
prices paid in some instances seem incredible, if not extortionate. Of
course, "pearls of great price" were not to be had for the mere asking.
Jacob purchased his wife, Rachel, at a cost of fourteen years hard
labor.
The Babylonians, who were a practical people, gathered their
marriageable daughters once a year from every district of their country,
and sold them at auction to bachelors, who purchased them for wives,
while the magistrates presided at the sales. The sums of money thus
received for the beautiful girls were appropriated as dowries for the
benefit of the less beautiful. Of course rich bachelors paid liberal
prices for their choice, while poor bachelors, in accepting the less
beautiful, generally obtained the best wives, with the addition of a
handsome sum of money. In this way all parties were accommodated who
aspired to matrimonial felicity.
But in these modern times most of our young men, instead of purchasing
their wives, prefer to sell themselves at the highest price the market
affords. Fortune-hunting is therefore regarded as legitimate. In the
mind of a fast young man wealth has a magical influence, which is sure
to invest the possessor, if a marriageable young lady, however
unattractive, with irresistible charms. If his preliminary inquiry--Is
she rich?--be answered in the affirmative, the siege commences at once.
Art is so practised as to conceal art, and create, if possible, a
favorable impression. An introduction is sought and obtained. Interview
follows interview in quick succession. The declaration is made; the
diamond ring presented and graciously accepted; consent obtained, and
the happy day set. Rumor reports an eligible match in high life, and the
fashionable world is on tiptoe with expectation.
But instead of its being an "affair of the heart," it is really a very
different affair,--nothing but a hasty transaction in fancy stocks. And
if the officiating clergyman were to employ an appropriate formula of
words in celebrating the nuptials, he would address the parties thus:--
"Romeo, wilt thou have this delicate constitution, this bundle of silks
and satins, this crock of gold, for thy wedded wife?"--"I will."
"Juliet, wilt thou have this false pretence, this profligate in
broadcloth, this unpaid tailor's bill, for thy wedded husband?"--"I
will."
The happy pair are then pronounced man and wife. And what is the result?
A brief career of dissipation, a splendid misery, a reduction to
poverty, domestic dissension, separation, and finally a divorce. But how
different is the result when an honest man, actuated by pure motives,
marries a sincere woman, whose only wealth consists in her love and in
her practical good sense!
It is man who degrades woman, not woman who degrades man. Asiatic
monarchs have ever regarded woman, not as a companion, but as a toy, a
picture, a luxury of the palace; while men of common rank throughout
Asia and in many parts of Europe treat her as a slave, a drudge, a
"hewer of wood and a drawer of water," and make it her duty to wait,
instead of being waited on; to attend, instead of being attended. Out of
this sordid idea of woman's destiny has grown in all probability the
custom of regarding her as property. Influenced by this idea, there are
still some persons to be found among the lower classes, even in our own
country, who do not hesitate to sell, buy, or exchange their wives for a
material consideration. Some of our American forefathers, in the early
settlement of Jamestown, purchased their wives from England, and paid
in tobacco, at the rate of one hundred and fifty pounds each, and
thought it a fair transaction. Perhaps this is the reason why ladies are
so generally disgusted with the use of the "Virginia weed."
But the doctrine that woman was created the inferior of man, though
venerable for its antiquity, is not less fallacious than venerable. It
is simply an assertion which does not appear to be sustained by
historical facts. It is true that woman is called in Scripture the
"weaker vessel;" weaker in physical strength she may be, but it does not
follow that she is weaker in mind, wit, judgment, shrewdness, tact, or
moral power.
The sterner sex need not flatter themselves, therefore, that superiority
of muscle necessarily implies superiority of mind. History sufficiently
discloses the fact that woman has often proved herself not only a match,
but an over-match, for man, in wielding the sceptre, the sword, and the
pen, to say nothing of the tongue. Illustrations of this great fact,
like coruscations of light, sparkle along the darkened track of the
ages, and abound in the living present.
But in looking into the broad expanse of the historical past, we cannot
attempt to do more than glance here and there at a particular star,
whose undiminished lustre has given it a name and a fame, not only
glorious, but immortal. As in all ages there have been representative
men, so in all ages there have been representative women, who crowned
the age in which they lived with honor, and gave tone to its sentiment
and character.
In the career of Semiramis, who lived about two thousand years before
the Christian era, we have a crystallization of those subtle attributes
of female character, which are not less remarkable for their diversity
than extensive in their power and influence. It will be remembered that
she was the reputed child of a goddess, a foundling exposed in a desert,
fed for a year by doves, discovered by a shepherd, and adopted by him as
his own daughter. When grown to womanhood, she married the governor of
Nineveh, and assisted him in the siege and conquest of Bactria. The
wisdom and tact which she manifested in this enterprise, and especially
her personal beauty, attracted the attention of the King of Assyria, who
mysteriously relieved her of her husband, obtained her hand in wedlock,
resigned to her his crown, and declared her queen and sole empress of
Assyria. The aspirations of Semiramis became at once unbounded; and
fearing her royal consort might repent the hasty step he had taken, she
abruptly extinguished his life, and soon succeeded in distinguishing her
own. She levelled mountains, filled up valleys, built aqueducts,
commanded armies, conquered neighboring nations, penetrated into Arabia
and Ethiopia, amassed vast treasures, founded many cities, and wherever
she appeared, spread terror and consternation. Under her auspices and by
means of her wealth, Babylon, the capital of her empire, became the most
renowned and magnificent city in the world. Her might was invincible;
her right she regarded as co-extensive with her power. Her prompt action
was the secret of her success.
When she was informed, on one occasion, that Babylon had revolted, she
left her toilet half made, put herself at the head of an armed force,
and instantly quelled the revolt. She was a woman of strong passions and
of strong mind, and, what is now very uncommon, of strong nerves. And
yet her peerless beauty and the fascination of her manners appear to
have been as irresistible as the sway of her sceptre. The fatality of
her personal charms, her inordinate love of power, and the evils which
arise from the indulgence of vain aspirations, indicate the lessons
which are taught by her career. In the twenty-fifth year of her reign,
her life was suddenly terminated by the violent hand of her own son.
After death she was transformed, as it was believed, into a dove, under
the symbol of which she received divine honors throughout Assyria.
It would seem that literary women were not less known in ancient times
than at the present day. Sappho took her place in the galaxy of literary
fame six hundred years before Christ. So sublime, and yet so sweet, were
her lyric strains that the Greeks pronounced her the tenth Muse.
Longinus cites from her writings specimens of the sublime, and extols
her genius as unrivalled. Beneficent as talented, she instituted an
academy of music for young maidens, wrote nine books of lyric verse, and
many other compositions of great merit. But of all her writings,
however, only one or two of her odes have survived. Her fate was an
unhappy one. She became violently enamoured of a young man of Mitylene,
who was so ungallant as not to reciprocate her attachment; and being
reduced to a state of hopeless despair, she precipitated herself into
the sea from the steep cliff of Leucate, ever since called the "Lover's
Leap."
In this connection we ought not to omit the name of Aspasia, who, at a
period two centuries later than Sappho, emerged like a star in a
darkened sky and charmed the age in which she lived with the
fascinations of her rhetoric. She was not less stately and queen-like in
her person than accomplished in her manners. It is said of her, that
she possessed rhetorical powers which were unequalled by the public
orators of her time; she was as learned as eloquent. Plato says she was
the instructress of Socrates. She also instructed Pericles in the arts
of oratory, and afterwards married him. He was largely indebted to her
for his finish of education and elegance of manners, for which he was so
much distinguished.
So charming were Aspasia's conversational powers that the Athenians
sought every opportunity to introduce their wives into her presence,
that they might learn from her the art of employing an elegant diction.
On one occasion when the Athenian army had been disheartened, she
appeared in the public assembly of the people and pronounced an oration,
which so thrilled their breasts as to inspire new hopes, and induce them
to rally and redeem their cause.
Among female sovereigns but few have evinced more tact or talent in an
emergency than Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra. She was a native of Syria, a
descendant of Ptolemy; married Odenatus, a Saracen, and after his death
succeeded to the throne, about the year of our Lord 267. She had been
highly educated, wrote and spoke many different languages, had studied
the beauties of Homer and Plato under the tuition of Longinus, and was
not less renowned for her beauty, melody of voice, and elegance of
manners, than for her heroic deeds. In the five years of her reign she
conducted many warlike expeditions, extended her empire, compelling
Cappadocia, Bithynia, and Egypt to recognize her authority, and
acknowledge her "Queen of the East,"--a favorite title which she had
assumed. Her power had now become so extended as to alarm the Roman
government for their own safety, who sent Aurelian with a formidable
army to subjugate and reduce her empire to a province. Zenobia, after
being defeated in two severe battles, retired with her forces to
Palmyra, her capital, fortified it, and resolved never to surrender.
Aurelian invested the city with his entire army, and in the course of
the siege was severely wounded by an arrow, and being thus disabled, the
progress of the siege was so far retarded as to give the citizens of
Rome occasion to utter against him bitter invectives, and to question
the character of the "arrow" that had pierced him. In other words, they
accused him of complicity. In his letter of self-justification to the
senate, he says, "The Roman people speak with contempt of the war I am
waging against a woman. They are ignorant of the character and the power
of Zenobia. It is impossible to enumerate her warlike preparations of
stones and arrows, and every species of missile weapons. The walls of
the city are strongly guarded, and artificial fires are thrown from her
military engines. The fear of punishment has armed her with desperate
courage. Still I trust in the gods for a favorable result."
In this letter the stern and proud Roman general frankly admits the
might of woman. Feeling humiliated and almost despairing of success, he
now attempted to procure a surrender of the city by negotiation, and
offered the most liberal advantages to the queen. In her reply she said
to him, "It is not by negotiation, but by arms, that the submission you
require of me can be obtained." This laconic reply was certainly worthy
of a heroine and a queen. Yet after a protracted and desperate defence,
and finding that her allies, instead of coming to her relief as they
promised, had accepted bribes from the enemy to remain at a distance,
she saw that all was lost, and mounting her fleetest dromedary, sought
to escape into Persia, but was overtaken on the banks of the Euphrates
and captured. When brought into the presence of her conqueror, and asked
how she dared resist the power of Rome, she replied, "Because I
recognize Aurelian alone as my sovereign."
Zenobia was sent to Rome to grace the triumph of Aurelian. She entered
the city on foot, preceded by her own chariot, with which she had
designed, in the event of having won the victory, to make her grand
entry into Rome as the triumphant "Queen of the East." But the fortunes
of war subverted her ambitious scheme, and subjected her to the
mortification of gracing a Roman triumph; yet for this indignity she
felt that she was somewhat compensated in knowing that her appearance in
Rome would create a sensation. In the grand procession she followed her
chariot, so laden with jewels and chains of gold as to require the
support of a slave to prevent her from fainting beneath the weight.
After enjoying the satisfaction of a triumph, Aurelian treated his
beautiful captive with kind consideration, and provided for her a
delightful residence on the banks of the Tiber, where she passed the
remainder of her days, honored by all as a matron of rare virtue and
accomplishments. She lived to educate her daughters, and to see them
contract noble alliances. Her descendants were ranked among the first
citizens of Rome, and did not become extinct until after the fifth
century.