"Life is exalted in proportion to its organic and functional complexity;
"Woman's organism is more complex and her totality of function larger
than those of any other being inhabiting our earth;
"Therefore her position in the scale of life is the most exalted,--the
sovereign one."
This is compactly stated and quite unequivocal, although the three last
words of the conclusion are a step beyond the premises, and the main
fight of her opponents would no doubt be made on her definition of the
word _being_. The assumption that either sex of a given species is a
distinct "being" cannot probably be slid into the minor premise of the
argument without some objection from the opposing counsel. However, this
brings us at once to the main point, and the chapter called "The Organic
Argument," which opens with this syllogism, is really the pith of the
book, and would, perhaps, stand stronger without the other six hundred
pages. In this chapter she shows the strength of a system-maker, in the
rest the weaknesses of one; she feels obliged to apply her creed to
everything, to illustrate everything by its light, to find unexpected
confirmations everywhere, and to manipulate all the history of art,
literature, and society, till she conforms them all to her standard. She
recites, with no new power, historical facts that are already familiar;
and gives many pages to extracts from very well known poets and very ill
known prose-writers, to the exclusion of her own terse and vigorous
thought. All this is without a trace of book-making, but is done in
single-hearted zeal for views which are only damaged by the process.
These are merely literary defects; but Mrs. Farnham really suffers in
thought by the same unflinching fidelity to her creed. It makes her
clear and resolute in her statement; but it often makes her as one-sided
as the advocates of male supremacy whom she impugns. To be sure, her
theory enables her to extenuate some points of admitted injustice to
woman,--finding, for instance, in her educational and professional
exclusions a crude effort, on the part of society, to treat her as a
sort of bird-of-paradise, born only to fly, and therefore not needing
feet. Yet this authoress is obliged to assume a tone of habitual
antagonism towards men, from which the advocates of mere equality are
excused. Indeed, the technical Woman's-Rights movement has always
witnessed a very hearty coöperation among its advocates of both sexes,
and it is generally admitted that men are at least as ready to concede
additional rights as women to ask for them. But when one comes to Mrs.
Farnham's stand-point, and sees what her opinion of men really is, the
stanchest masculine ally must shrink from assigning himself to such a
category of scoundrels. The best criticism made on Michelet's theory of
woman as a predestined invalid was that of the sensible physician who
responded, "As if the Almighty did not know how to create a woman!"--and
Mrs. Farnham certainly proves too much in undertaking to expose the
blunders of Deity in the construction of a man. Assuming, as she
invariably does, the highest woman to be the typical woman, and the
lowest man to be the typical man, she can prove anything she pleases.
But even this does not content her; every gleam of tenderness and
refinement exhibited by man she transfers by some inexplicable
legerdemain of logic to the feminine side, and makes somehow into a new
proof of his hopeless inferiority; and she is landed at last in the
amazing paradox, that "the most powerful feminine souls have appeared in
masculine forms, thus far in human career." (Vol. II. p. 360.)
In short, her theory involves a necessity of perpetual overstatement.
The conception of a pure and noble young man, such as Richter delineates
in his Walt or Albano, seems utterly foreign to her system; and of that
fine subtilty of nature by which the highest types of manhood and
womanhood approach each other, as if mutually lending refinement and
strength, she seems to have no conception. The truth is, that, however
much we may concede to the average spiritual superiority of woman, a
great deal also depends on the inheritance and the training of the
individual. Mrs. Farnham, like every refined woman, is often shocked by
the coarseness of even virtuous men; but she does not tell us the other
side of the story,--how often every man of refinement has occasion to be
shocked by the coarseness of even virtuous women. Sexual disparities may
be much; but individual disparities are even more.
Mrs. Farnham is noble enough, and her book is brave and wise enough, to
bear criticisms which grow only from her attempting too much. The
difference between her book and most of those written on the other side
is, that in the previous cases the lions have been the painters, and
here it is the lioness. As against the exaggerations on the other side,
she has a right to exaggerate on her part. As against the theory that
man is superior to woman because he is larger, she has a right to plead
that in that case the gorilla were the better man, and to assert on the
other hand that woman is superior because smaller,--Emerson's mountain
and squirrel. As against the theory that glory and dominion go with the
beard, she has a right to maintain (and that she does with no small
pungency) that Nature gave man this appendage because he was not to be
trusted with his own face, and needed this additional covering for his
shame. As against the historical traditions of man's mastery, she does
well to urge that creation is progressive, and that the megalosaurus was
master even before man. It is, indeed, this last point which constitutes
the crowning merit of the book, and which will be permanently associated
with Mrs. Farnham's name. No one before her has so firmly grasped this
key to woman's historic position, that the past was an age of coarse,
preliminary labor, in which her time had not yet come. This theory, as
elucidated by Mrs. Farnham, taken with the fine statement of Buckle as
to the importance of the intuitive element in the feminine intellect,
(which statement Mrs. Farnham also quotes,) constitutes the most
valuable ground logically conquered for woman within this century. These
contributions are eclipsed in importance only by those actual
achievements of women of genius,--as of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Rosa
Bonheur, and Harriet Hosmer,--which, so far as they go, render all
argument superfluous.
In this domain of practical achievement Mrs. Farnham has also labored
well, and the autobiography of her childish years, when she only aspired
after such toils, has an interest wholly apart from that of her larger
work, and scarcely its inferior. Except the immortal "Pet Marjorie," one
can hardly recall in literature a delineation so marvellous of a
childish mind so extraordinary as "Eliza Woodson." The few characters
appear with an individuality worthy of a great novelist; every lover of
children must find it altogether fascinating, and to the most
experienced student of human nature it opens a new chapter of startling
interest.
_The Cliff-Climbers; or, The Lone Home in the Himalayas._ A Sequel to
"The Plant-Hunters." By CAPTAIN MAYNE REID, Author of "The Desert Home,"
"The Boy-Hunters," etc., etc. With Illustrations. Boston: Ticknor &
Fields.
Beloved of boys, the adventurous Mayne Reid continues from year to year
his good work as a story-teller. Since he held the youthful student a
spellbound reader of "The Desert Home," he has sent abroad a dozen
volumes, all excellent in their way, for the entertainment of his
ever-increasing audience. He has not, however, dealt quite fairly by his
boy-friends. He kept them waiting several years for the completion of
"The Plant-Hunters," and it is only now that he has found time to add
"The Cliff-Climbers" as a sequel to that fascinating story. While we
thank him for the book that gives us farther acquaintance with those
stirring individuals, Karl and Caspar, we cannot help reminding him how
long ago it is since we read "The Plant-Hunters," and wished for more.