Ever the feminine fades into mystery,
Pales undistinguished into the powers of nature,
There working with earnest force in silence,
Bashful and beautiful in its reserves.
Divination seems heightened and raised to its highest power in woman,
like mercury, the more sensitive to the breath of its atmosphere;--the
most delicate metre of character, as if in the finest persons, the sex
predominated to give the salient graces and gifts peculiar to woman.
The difference appears to be of bias, not of positive power, of thought
and feeling differently disposed, and where the extremes merge towards
unity, not easily discriminated. Still, each preserves its distinctive
traits under all differences, neither being mistaken for the other. A
woman's thought is not taken for a man's, nor the contrary; though the
outward expression were the same, each preserves its sexual tone and
color. Any seeming exceptions are counterfeits, and confirm the law
that sentiment is feminine, thought masculine, by whomsoever expressed;
neither can blend fully and confound the other under any metamorphosis,
sex being a constant factor individualizing the personality of souls.
The ancient philosophers had so good an opinion of the sex, that they
ascribed all sciences to the Muses, all sweetness and morality to the
Graces, and prophetic inspiration to the Sibyls.
Women have been subject alike to the admiration and contempt of men. It
were handsomer to quote the poet's praises than blame, the Greek poets
Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides especially. I like to enrich my
pages with some of their fine lines, and not less for the new interest
taken in the sex.
_Æschylus._
"Wedlock is a state preordained of Destiny, and its
Obligations are more binding than an oath."
"Bite thy lips or ever thou speak words of impurity."
"Can heaven's fair beams show a fond wife a sight
More welcome than her husband from his wars
Returned with glory, when she opes the gate
And springs to welcome him."
_Euripides._
"Men need not try where women fail."
"To a father waxing old
Nothing is dearer than a daughter; sons
Have spirits of a higher pitch, but less inclined
To sweet endearing tenderness."
"Happy is it so to place
A daughter; yet it pains a father's heart
When he delivers to another's house
A child, the object of his tender care."
"A wise man in his house should find a wife
Gentle and courteous, or no wife at all."
"With silence of the tongue
And cheerfulness of look I entertained
My husband; where my province to command
I knew, and where to yield obedience to him."
"When the wife endures
The ungentle converse of a husband rude
In manners, in his person rude, to die
Were rather to be wished."
"If well accorded, the connubial state
From all its strings speaks perfect harmony;
If ill at home, abroad the harsh notes jar,
And with rude discord wound the ear of peace."
"For women are by nature formed
To feel some consolation when their tongue
Gives utterance to the afflictions they endure."
"O trebly blest the placid lot of those,
Whose hearth-foundations are in pure love laid,
Where husband's breast with tempered ardor glows,
And wife, oft mother, is in heart a maid."
_Sophocles._
"Note well a house that is prosperous among men, and you Will find
virtue among its women folk."
"Seek not thy fellow-citizens to guide
Till thou canst order well thine own fireside."