The Friendships of Women Part 15

The true lesson of these charming stories is, that an inexhaustible self-abnegation and obedience forms the most heavenly trait and power of human nature. But it is a perversion to limit the application to woman. Moral excellence is the same in man as in woman. It is an outrage to make that meek submission to wrong, which shows so divinely in her, a duty; and it is equally an outrage to make that autocratic authority of man over woman, which he so complacently a.s.sumes, a right. The progressive emanc.i.p.ation of woman, revealed in history, will go on until she ceases to be, in any sense, "a mere appendage of man," and they become mutually as independent as they are mutually dependent.

It is very curious to study the extremes of dishonor and of honor, in which women, as such, have been held, at different periods, under various social conditions. In the Oriental world, in consequence of the character fostered in them by despotism, they have always been regarded by men with complacent condescension as toys, or with distrust and scorn as vicious inferiors. In the Cla.s.sic world, they were always treated as far inferior to the other s.e.x, and held up in literature in the most odious light. Euripides was surnamed the woman-hater, from the scorn with which he depicts the s.e.x. The comedies of Aristophanes are mercilessly sarcastic, in their portrayals of women: his "Ecclesia" might be taken for a freshly painted ironical picture of the "Woman's-rights Movement" of to-day.

And what a frightful picture of the Roman women Juvenal paints in his "Sixth Satire "! In the Christian world, the pagan type of woman, thought of as lower and wickeder than man, bore, for a long period, an aggravated form, imparted by an intense theological dogma. The theologians taught that woman--by the seduction of Adam and the introduction of original sin, which led to the crucifixion of Christ-- was the guiltiest and worst of human beings, the Temptress of Man and the Murderess of G.o.d. Hear how Tertullian raged against her: "She should always be veiled, clothed in mourning and in rags; that the eye may see in her a penitent, drowned in tears, and atoning for the sin of having ruined the human race. Woman! thou art the gateway of Satan."

The condition of women in the East has been unfavorably affected by polygamy, despotism, stagnant ignorance, their close confinement, and the profound sensual element in their religion. Yet there are exceptions to the rule there as well as elsewhere. It was a woman who recited the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments" to the Sultan. Oriental literature boasts many shining names of women. We have a pleasing introduction to some of them in Garcia de Ta.s.sy's essay on "The Female Poets of India." Ruckert's "Hamiisa," a collection of Arabic poetry, contains specimens from fifty-five female poets of Arabia.

The genius of the Mohammedan saint, Rabia, has been given to fame by her wonderful sayings, translated into many modern tongues. In spite of these examples, however, the superiority of the condition of Western women over Eastern is not only incontestable, but, as a whole, incomparable.

The difference of the character of Jesus from that of Mohammed, and the difference of the spirit which they showed in their personal relations with women, would legitimate just the difference now existing in the condition of women, respectively in Christian and Mohammedan lands. Pa.s.sing over other more notorious incidents, one anecdote will ill.u.s.trate this statement. After the battle of Bedr, a Jewess of Medina, named Asma, wrote some satirical couplets against Mohammed. Omeir, at dead of night, instigated by the prophet, crept into the apartment where Asma, surrounded by her children, lay asleep. Feeling stealthily with his hand, he removed her infant from her breast, and plunged his sword into her bosom with such force that it went through her back. The next morning, at prayers in the Mosque, Mohammed said, "Hast thou slain the daughter of Marwan?" "Yes; but is there cause of fear for what I have done?" The implacable prophet replied, "None whatever: two goats will not knock their heads together for it."

Lamartine says of the Armenians, with whom he was intimate at Damascus, "I could not turn my eyes from these beautiful and graceful women. Our visits and conversations were everywhere prolonged; and I found them as amiable as they were lovely. The customs of Europe, the dress and ways of the women of the West, were our chief topics. They did not seem to envy the lives of our women; and, on observing the grace, the amiability, the simplicity, the serenity of mind and heart which they preserved in the seclusion of their domestic life, it would be difficult to say what they could envy in our women of the world, who, in the turmoil of society, waste in a few years their beauty, their minds, and their health." And yet, allowing the utmost for this greater calm and contentment, our women would lose a boon, standing quite alone in its immense value, if they were to give up that liberty which is so fast gaining them a full share in every real privilege enjoyed by men. Christian women mingle on equal terms in our social, literary, patriotic, and religious festivals. Hindu or Mohammedan ladies are condemned merely to look in, through windows grated with bamboo slats, on the preaching of the priests, and on the banquets of their husbands. Perhaps our ignorance as to the facts, and our prejudices as to the principle, exaggerate the actual evils of polygamy in Asia. The most trustworthy travellers there testify that not one man in ten can afford to maintain more than one wife; and that not one in ten, of those who can afford it, will venture on the trial, if they have a child by the first. Besides, the dreadful mortality of wives in many parts of America--owing to excessive worry, household drudgery, and rapid child-bearing--amounts to polygamy, only it is successive instead of simultaneous.

But one privilege European and American women have, which they cannot easily over-estimate; namely, their exemption from the irresponsible despotism still exercised over a majority of their sisters. The whole force of public opinion and of civil law is pledged for their protection. In his travels in Khasmir, published in 1844, Vigne relates this horrid incident, which happened within his own knowledge. Mihan Singh, governor of Kabul, had a favorite wife, the mother of his only son, who was accused of an intrigue. Her son, fearing the worst, dashed his turban on the ground before his father-- the most imploring act an Oriental can use--and knelt, bareheaded, at his feet. But the enraged husband was inexorable, and caused his hapless wife to be baked alive. What a breadth of progress separates us from the state of society in which such a deed could be done openly, and without illegality, by a ruler! Can any woman be too grateful that she stands on this side of that breadth instead of on the other side? It is to be feared that her s.e.x is not always mindful enough of the duty of those who are free to be bravely sincere and true. Deceit is proper to the slave. Liberty imposes frankness. The Asiatic woman carefully covers her face, but leaves her legs naked, and considers her European sister shameless in reversing this custom, There are, however, more impenetrable veils than those outwardly put on. When we compare the simplicity of the primitive ages of the East with the guileful art and hardened worldliness of the fashionable society of the West, we are tempted to think, that the more woman has bared her face, the more she has masked her mind.

Truth requires us to qualify the view of the social condition of women which we derive from the comic poets, from the later Greek writers in general, and from the biting epigrams on women preserved in the Greek Anthology. That qualification may be drawn from the history of Sappho. The consenting conclusions of the best critical scholars of recent times--as may be seen in such works as Smith's "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography" and Miller's "Literature of Ancient Greece,"--have cleared her name from the foul aspersions thrown on it by the authors of a subsequent age, who interpreted her life and works by the unclean standards of their own. "Not a line in her fragments, rightly understood, can cast a cloud on her fair fame." In her time, sensual and sentimental love were not distinctly separated; and she expressed her pa.s.sionate but pure sentiments with a simple freedom and fervor afterwards grossly misconceived. It is to a friend of her own s.e.x that Sappho writes, "Equal to the G.o.ds seems to me the man who sits opposite to thee, and watches thy sweet mouth and charming smile. While I look at thee, my heart loses its force, my tongue ceases to speak, a subtile fire glides through my veins, and a rushing sound fills my ears." This mixture of feelings, this carrying on of friendships between men, or between women, in the language of pa.s.sionate love, without the implication of any thing corrupt, was a feature of the Greek character, unknown to nations of a poorer and colder temperament. It seems, as is set forth by Miller, in the fourth book of his "Dorians," that, in Lesbos, and some other parts of Greece, female societies were formed, each under the lead of some woman of distinguished genius, for the cultivation of poesy, music, refinement and grace of manners, and the other elegant arts.

Girls were sent from distant cities, and even from foreign lands, to be educated in these societies. Sappho was the head of one of them.

She calls her house, "The House of the Servant of the Muses." She formed ardent friendships with many of her pupils. It is these friendships which she celebrates in most of her poems. They reveal the varied, affectionate intercourse sometimes known by the women of cla.s.sic Greece in their private apartments. The fragments which have reached our day preserve, as the names of the choicest friends of Sappho, Telesilla, Megara, Athis, Mnasidica; Anactoria, of Miletus; Gongyla, of Colophon; Eunica, of Salamis; and Damophila, of Pamphylia. The animosity of her allusions to her rivals, Gorgo and Andromeda, shows that she could hate as vigorously as she loved, and reminds us of the t.i.tle of Middleton's tragedy, "Women, beware Women!"

In the world of modern civilization, the tendency is in the opposite direction from that of the Oriental, Cla.s.sic, and early Christian worlds. It expresses reverence for woman as a moral superior. But the chivalrous impulse to exalt woman above man is as mistaken as the impulse to degrade her beneath him. Humanity is worshipful only as it exhibits worshipful attributes; and these attributes have the same rank, wherever they appear. A woman deserves to be honored above a man only as she has more than he of the highest qualities of humanity. The moment she demands precedence, the crown crumbles from her brows in fragments of dark decay. This lesson is finely taught in the ancient Hindu epic, the "Mahilbhiirata." As Radhika walked with Krishna, her soul was elated with pride, and she thought herself better than he; and she said, "O my beloved! I am weary, and I pray you to carry me upon your shoulders." Krishna sat down and smiled, and beckoned to her to mount. But, when she stretched forth her hand, he vanished from her sight; and she remained alone, with outstretched hand. Then Radhika wept bitterly.

The superiority ascribed to woman by fine minds in our era--a trait conspicuous, when we look from Tibullus to Frauenlob, from Pindar to Patmore--is often supposed to be her due, on account of some quality inherent in her mere femineity. It should be seen to be a consequence of the purer representation of goodness in her, by virtue of her personal renunciation of the struggle for precedence. Her mission is to set the example, and diffuse the spirit, of contented goodness-- goodness contenting itself with the universal growth of goodness. In what way can she ever fulfil this mission, except by attracting man likewise to withdraw from the selfish battle for social distinction, and devote himself to the private attainment of personal perfection, and the public benefaction of his race? The chivalric transference of authority from man to woman is a striking instance of the propensity of human nature to oscillate from one extreme to the other.

Some of the champions of the "rights of women," in our day, apparently commit the error of inverting the real desideratum, which is, to make men renounce and love like the finest women--not to make women exact and fight like the coa.r.s.est men. They act as if they thought men were both better and better off than women, and were to be taken as models by them. But our hope lies in the saint, not in the amazon. Woman, as seen in the Mary who sat at the feet of Christ, brings a heavenly ministration to rescue man from every thing discordant: woman, as seen in the Penthesilea who fought Achilles, offers man but a perverted reflection of himself.

The common belief, that human life began in a paradisal state, is a sentimental and mischievous error. The cradles of civilization are full of murder. First, for a period of unknown duration, raged the strife for precedence in physical power and its grossest symbols. In civilized nations, this strife is now, for the most part, reduced to boys and pugilists, who are always eager to try each other's strength, and to crow above a thrown antagonist. Next came the strife for precedence in social power, and its finer symbols of rank, wealth, position, and fame. This strife may be traced in every record of the past and present; is far more extensive, seductive, and tenacious than the former; and has been left behind, as yet, only by the saintliest exemplars of our race. The third period, the ideal period which we now await, is one in which there shall be no strife among mankind for comparative superiority over each other; but, in place of it, a universal co-operating struggle for intrinsic personal worth, a constant advancement in gaining the real prizes of being.

Then the wretched experiences of hate and jealousy, with their thousandfold sins and pains, will rapidly lessen. There will be no motives for envy and opposition, since the aims of men will be alike; and the gain of each, so far from being a loss to the rest, will be a gain to all. Let there be no strife for precedence, and all society must be the wiser, purer, and happier for every spiritual gain made by any member of it. Ambitious rivalry is wretchedness, and sure to end in sickening disappointment. Disinterested aspiration, equally to women and to men, is the benign mother of happiness.

We read in the Norse mythology, that the G.o.ds tied Loki, the impersonation of the evil principle, to three sharp rocks, and hung a snake over him in such a way, that its venom should drip on his face.

But, in this dreadful case, there was one who did not forsake him.

His wife Sigyn sat close by his head, and held a bowl to catch the torturing drops. As often as the bowl was full, she emptied it with the utmost haste; because, during that time, the drops struck on his face, and made him scream with agony. Her patience in holding the bowl, and her speed in emptying it, never failed. It is a forcible emblem of the ministration of woman to man. But, for man to impose a service of this nature on woman as her duty, is a cruel arrogance and wrong. The voluntary spirit of such a service teaches the one lesson which man himself needs to learn for his own salvation.

The laborious life of a statesman, a merchant, a banker, or a mechanic, is not rewarded by tender emotions, but by power, applause, or money. The heart of such a man, too often, gradually ossifies, becomes insensible to those fine and n.o.ble fruitions which imperatively demand leisure, and a steady lucid sensibility. The hard devotions of an external utility devour the riches of the imagination, and destroy the overflow of the affections. But the woman, who, shielded from the harsh frictions of the world, makes her soul a pure and still mirror of every form of celestial truth and good, may well be an inspiring prophetess for those who reverence and love her. Such a woman is, in some degree, a living representative of that star-girt face of the Virgin Mary which the medieval Church lifted into the night, and floated above the boiling nationalities of Europe. A Poppiea drawn by mules shod with gold, five hundred a.s.ses kept to supply her with baths of milk for the softening of her skin-- is the enemy--and disgrace of both s.e.xes. The true type and glory of the one s.e.x, the admiration and salvation of the other, are displayed in such an example as that of the last hours of Madame Roland, who, riding in the death-cart to the guillotine, with an infirm and aged man who was broken down with terror and grief, devoted herself with heroic benevolence to comfort and sustain him. In order to spare him the double agony of seeing her execution previous to his own, with a sublime abnegation she refused the offered privilege of being the first victim, soothed and supported the trembling old man, saw him perish, then calmly bared her neck to the knife.

In one of De Tocqueville's letters to the ill.u.s.trious Madame Swetchine occurs a pa.s.sage marked by rare insight and weight. The n.o.ble writer urges that the clergy, without teaching special political doctrines, ought to instill into their hearers certain grand sentiments and loyalties, such as the feeling that every man belongs more to collective humanity than he does to himself. He then adds this impressive testimony: "During my somewhat long experience of public life, nothing has struck me more than the influence of women in developing public spirit--an influence the greater because indirect. I do not hesitate to say, that they give to every nation a moral temperament, which is shown in its politics. A hundred times I have seen weak men becoming of real political value, because they had by their side women who supported them, not by advice as to particulars, but by fortifying their feelings, and directing their ambition. More frequently, I must confess, I have seen the domestic influence gradually transforming a man, naturally n.o.ble and generous, into a cowardly, commonplace, selfish office-seeker, thinking of public affairs merely as a means of making himself comfortable; and this, simply by daily contact with a well-conducted woman, a faithful wife, an excellent mother, from whose mind the grand notion of public duty was entirely absent."

The hardening exposures, the gnawing jealousies, of overmuch fashionable society, with its shallow and bitter emulations, do far more to contract and sour the spirit of woman, to falsify and deprave her heart, to belittle and spoil her mind, to degrade and veneer her character, than any professional career can well be supposed to do.

It cannot be doubted, that many a woman, who displays herself, as good as naked, in brilliant drawing-room a.s.semblies, spends half her existence in the frivolity of crowded dinners, suppers, and b.a.l.l.s, is more corrupted and bronzed than she could be by studying medicine, theology, jurisprudence, or political economy, and taking a zealous part in the affairs of her country. Let not the greater and nearer evil be neglected in a prejudiced imagination of a lesser and remoter one. Where do you find an exterior of politeness covering an interior of indifference or guile? a flaming demonstrativeness in front of a soul of ice? a beautiful show of n.o.bleness and happiness, with a haggard reality of weariness and woe underneath? In the glare and fuss of society. And where do you find, purely shielded behind manners all frost, a heart all celestial fire? under conditions of unpretending simplicity, an experience ever fresh and serene, full of joy and dignity, and endlessly progressive? In those who lead lives of quiet sincerity and humility, consecrated to choice studies and chosen friends. What sweet charm or commanding grandeur or satisfying worth can be looked for in persons, the highest palpitations of whose hearts are raised by the touches of pride, money, and vanity? More patience, sincerity, studious seclusion, meditative consecration, and steady sympathy are the foremost want of our age.

The two arts of letter-writing and conversation, invaluable both as instruments of pleasure and of culture, seem to be dying out before the encroachment of innumerable trifles, absorbing amus.e.m.e.nts, tyrannical egotisms, and that pernicious flood of ephemeral literature, whose varieties are daily sp.a.w.ned upon all tables. The long, careful letters, full of thought, full of true personal interest and earnest general sentiment, so common two or three generations ago, are all but unknown now. There is no time left for them.

Conversation, too, has become the ghost of what it was. Where are the famous talkers now? Where are the circles in which conversation is carried on as the loftiest and richest of the social arts? The sustained comparison of views, interchange and discussion of opinions, acc.u.mulation of knowledge, argument, wit, sympathy, on themes of intense interest and solemn import, once so common in cultivated society, where all listened while each successively spoke, have given way before the telegraph, the newspaper, the pamphlet, the book, the platform, the swift diffusion of all information and the incessant hurry of everybody. Letter-writing is an indirect exchange of thoughts. Conversation is a personal exchange of life. The obvious decline of the former is a great loss; the notorious decline of the latter is a greater loss.

There is no way in which those women who are able to give the tone and set the fashion in society, can do so much good as by endeavoring to reinstate conversation, and to teach in every company the n.o.bleness of leisure and attention, that each one who speaks shall be inspired to the fullest training of his best powers by the listening expectation of the rest. No one can talk well amidst a rude jabber of voices, or a perpetual succession of interruptions. Subtile thought, sacred sentiment, eloquent emotion, and artistic speech, are coy: they must have the encouragement of respectful audience. Conversation becomes the crowning art and luxury of life, the most completely satisfying of all employments, when groups of friends regularly meet, under the rules of gracious breeding, with leisure, with confidence in each other, with no jealous ambitions, no intolerant partisanship, but with catholic purposes of improvement. Instead of such meetings of choice friends, we now have mobs of people, drawn together by every sort of fact.i.tious motive--crowds who crush each other's dresses, desperately bow and smirk at each other; exchange intolerable commonplaces, with unmeaning conventionality; affect to listen to music, which no one can hear or would care for if he could hear; mix all their buzzing voices in one oceanic roar; or, when there is room, break up into whispering knots; then charge together upon the supper-table, as if it were a fortress to be taken by storm, and are unspeakably relieved when the a.s.sembly is over. As company is held in fashionable society now, the talk is not tenaciously kept to important themes, for ends of conviction, culture, light, or joy, but is a hodge-podge of trifles, an incoherent succession of unconsidered remarks. Each one speaks with his neighbor, regardless of all the rest of the guests, as if it were an evil to be silent, or an absurdity to expect that anybody could say any thing worth being listened to by all. Some one has said, with much piquancy, "Lectures are soliloquies reared on the ruins of conversation." Madame Mole suggestively remarks, "At the Hotel Rambouillet conversation was the all-sufficient amus.e.m.e.nt: we hear of neither cards nor music; for, wizen the habit of changing all thoughts and sentiments into words has become natural and easy, it offers so great a variety in itself that society needs no other. That form of talk alone can be called conversation in which what we really think and feel is called out, and flows the quicker from the pleasure of seeing it excite thoughts and feelings in others."

Those who, now-a-days, have a reputation as good talkers are rather declaimers, haranguers, orators, than conversers. True conversationalists seem to be nearly obsolete; because our social gatherings, whether in the drawing-room or at the table, do not furnish the needed conditions. To shine as a talker, one must override others by sheer vociferation and monopoly, treading his way amidst insincere applause and general dislike, over the injured self- love of every one present, to the throne of monologue. Such a condition is equally incompatible with what is best in character, in manners, and in personal communion.

For the revival of conversation, an improvement of character is necessary--a purification and deepening of the interior life. It grows out of friendship and the fervor of n.o.ble interests. And to these the fickleness and thinness of soul attendant on ignorance and selfishness, as well as on miscellaneous dissipation, are fatal.

For sparks electric only strike On souls electrical alike; The flash of intellect expires Unless it meet congenial fires.

There can be no deep and enduring union of human beings without truthfullness, earnestness, aspiration. It is glorious for people to meet who ascend to meet. For social conquests, as well as for private content, the aggrandizement of individual character and experience is the mightiest talisman. As with the increase of esteem and confidence the spiritual veils are lifted, one by one, the person itself charms because the soul is seen, and seen to be divine. Even in those examples where beauty is the hook, grace is the bait, and virtue the line, with which hearts are caught. When we see wisdom and goodness the guests of another's eyes, love becomes the guest of our own. The great evil of an excessive devotion to society and fashion is the mechanical hollowness and insincerity it breeds--an evil as fatal to happiness as it is to virtue. Economy of force is the governing standard with those who are too constantly in contact with the world, too much given to the spirit of crowded company and fashion.

Conscientious truthfullness, earnest discrimination, and a behavior honestly adapted to the facts of feeling and duty, are too expensive, would quickly drain to death the fop, the self-seeker, and the coquette. Accordingly, indifference is the shield of polite society, and affectation is the valve of artificial characters; but sincerity of soul is the first charm of manners, and extent of sympathy is the proper measure of happiness. The soul, dried and hardened by the heat and wear of crowds, or exhausted by dissipation, measures its success by how much it can exclude, how much it despises, how much it can save; but the glory of youth, the joy of genius, the height and charm of life, is the exuberance of the expenditure of force they can afford. Their standard of success is how much their sympathies can include, how much they can revere and love and serve. It is littleness and misery to make a private h.o.a.rd of the good of the universe. The amount it lavishes measures the wealth of the rich and happy soul. That will be a blessed day when we make our social parties not for the purpose of ostentation or luxury, not to give dinners or suppers in return for those to which we have been invited, not to secure acquaintances who will aid in gratifying our external ambition, but simply to enjoy the society of friends whom we honor and love, to enhance our interior life by sincere spiritual intercourse, the reflection of minds and hearts. Wherever human beings meet, the bazaar of Fate stands open.

Another duty, closely allied with the foregoing, and especially inc.u.mbent on the finest and highest women, is to improve the common standard of good manners. This is a region of influence of momentous importance, and for which the most honored and beloved women have a pre-eminent adaptation by their beauty, grace, docility, and sympathetic ease of self-sacrifice. To a.s.sociate with a quick-witted woman is an education. The last words of Madame Pompadour, addressed to her withdrawing confessor, just before her final breath, were, "Wait a moment, father; and we will go out together." In a democratic age and country like ours, many causes are at work to lower the average standard of manners by generating universal self-a.s.sertion, arrogance, and irreverence. As compared with the gracious type of chivalric manners exhibited in the best specimens of three or four centuries ago, it must be confessed that sweetness of dignity, abundance of courtesy, gentleness, magnanimity, have suffered badly.

No gentle and lofty mind can turn from the reading of Digby's "Broad Stone of Honor" to that of Thackeray's "Book of Sn.o.bs," without deep pain. Here is a field of influence superlatively fitted for the activity of women, and worthy of the aspirations of the most favored and admirable representatives of the s.e.x. Opinions may ascend; but manners descend.

The chief source of complacency to petty natures is in contemplating the weaknesses of their superiors. Pride nourishes itself by gazing on inferiors, and heightening the contrast. But the true habit of virtue is to stoop graciously, to lift inferiors towards itself, and to look reverentially on the merits of superiors, lifting itself with aspiring docility towards them.

Among the people of the present age, there is no need of teaching the lessons of social scorn or envy; but there is need of teaching the lessons of disinterested reverence and aspiration. It must therefore be a profitable service to hold up for the contemplation and study of women the examples of the n.o.ble sway, the delightful charm exerted by such women as the grand d.u.c.h.ess Louise of Weimar, Madame Recamier, Madame Swetchine, or the d.u.c.h.ess of Orleans. Each one of these deserves the homage of being patterned after:

For she was of that better clay That treads not oft this earthly stage: Such charmed spirits lose their way, But once or twice into an age.

They seemed to shed dignity, wisdom, virtue, repose, and bliss around them wherever they moved, and to put all persons in their debt by the boons unconsciously emitted from their being and their manners. We cannot hold too constant or too worshipful communion with such characters: it is equally a culture and an enjoyment. The secret of their divine skill is not flattery, but deferential treatment. They take for granted, that their friends have n.o.ble qualities and admirable aims, and treat them accordingly, with a respectful attention which heightens the self-respect of its recipients. Neglect is insolent, and contempt is injurious. He who suffers them is hurt and lowered. One blessed magic there is, as guileless as it is supreme. This charm, this witchcraft, is a sincere and honoring attention.

Woman can more keenly than man "taste the pure enjoyment that results from the mere growth and exercise of good feelings." Who so well as she knows how much more true pleasure there is in one peaceful moment of modest goodness than in all the excitement that waits on the gaudy game of ambition? She is never so happy, as when doing most and asking least.

The d.u.c.h.ess de Duras wrote to a friend, "Madame de Montcalm has been sick: she is eaten up by politics: they are her vulture." To man, genius is an instrument, which he must use to achieve triumphs: to woman, it is a load, which she must trans.m.u.te into blessings. Thus far in human history, it has been much easier for the most gifted of our race to be unhappy than to be happy; because happiness is an equilibrium of inner powers and outer conditions, and the most extraordinary gifts are surest to destroy or prevent that adjustment.

The divine remedy is self-sacrifice, self-detachment, and the attuning of the soul by the laws of the ideal world, the perfect state of society.

Poor and feeble souls exact most from the world. Rich and soaring souls have a self-sufficing modesty, which, in its own exuberance, asks but little from others. The lark, when, at sunrise, she rises, singing, above our sight, shows that it was not from lack of power to climb, that she made the humble choice to build her nest in the gra.s.s. Here lies the most elect office of woman--to attract and train men to the sober and blissful ends of wisdom and love, and withdraw their pa.s.sions from the wretched ends of folly, on which so many waste their lives, in ploughing the air, sowing the sea, and trying to catch the wind with a net. The redemption of the worst men will be effected when they make voluntary acquisition of what the best women possess by instinct, and spontaneously exhibit; namely, that disinterested love of goodness, which is willing to give all and ask nothing. Happy is he, and he alone safely happy, who gives affection to his fellows, as the sun gives light to the creation. It receives not directly back from single objects what it gives them; but, from the whole, all that it radiates is returned. It is so with the good man and his race. Persons may not return the reverence and love he lavishes, but humanity will. For what is his total feeling towards the collective individuals that const.i.tute his race, except the glorified reverberation from humanity, back into his experience, of what his own soul has sent forth?

The call of woman, in this age, then, is not to be a brawling politician, clamoring for her share in the authorities and honors of the world, launching jokes, sarcasms, and sneers to the right and the left. Clearly, her genuine work, beyond the family circle, is to set an example of modest devotion to personal improvement and the social weal. Sir Philip Sidney describes a horseman who "stirred the bridle so gently, that it did rather distil virtue than use violence." That is, in some sense, a type of the proper power of woman. It is her heavenly mission to influence by yielding, rule by obeying, conquer by surrender, and put the crowning grace of joy and glory on her s.e.x by ministering to the hurts and wants of humanity. Kindled by her example, and compensated by her smile, man will aspire to complete his highest destiny. Her destiny will be fulfilled with his, and in it; his in hers, and with it. They cannot be really separated; since woman as the inspirer and rewarder of man, in the most intense action at the top of society, moulds him by her ideal of him reflected in his imagination. Womanhood is by no means to be personified in the exclusive aspect of a nurse; but as artist, teacher, law-giver, queen, as well. The just personification of womanhood must include the total aspects and offices of humanity. She has as good a claim as man to them all. But let no hasty advocate insist on adding to the totality of true and permanent features in that personification, any of those vicious, accidental, and temporary features incident to the imperfect stages through which humanity has been pa.s.sing, and is still pa.s.sing, in its progressive evolution.

There is one respect, not often thought of, in which the various ethnic pantheons, from those of the rawest barbarism to those of the most intellectual civilization, possess deep interest and instructiveness. Their leading personages, G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, reveal to us the chief types of human character from which they were created. The heavens and h.e.l.ls of mythology are the higher and lower reflections, or upward and downward echoes, of the earth; and the supernatural beings who people them are idealizations of men and women, more or less richly draped with attributes suggested by the phenomena of the universe. The groups of feminine figures furnished by mythology, therefore, afford a most striking exhibition of the typical groups of women which must have been known in the mythological ages of the world. Conceived in this way, with what thoughtfullness we should contemplate the Graces, the Muses, the Furies, the Fates, Nemesis, Vesta, Fortuna, Diana, Eris, Ceres, the majestic port of Juno, the frosty splendor of Minerva, the melting charm of Venus, the snaky horror of Medusa, Egvptian Isis, throned among the stars, and Scandinavian Hela, crouching in her grisly house!

It is a characteristic of satirists, in every age, that they cla.s.s women together, as if they were all alike. Every fair view of the subject shows how false such a conclusion is. There is more freshness, subtilty, spontaneity, variety, in womanly characters than in manly. Their range, between the extremes of the demure and the hoydenish, is greater. The feminine types, Helen and Penelope, or Clytemnestra and Antigone, are as distinct as the masculine types, Agamemnon and Ulysses, or OEdipus and Philoctetes. The injustice of the vulgar saying, "It is just like a woman," implying that there are no differences among women, makes one indignant. Have we not seen women to whom death seems an indignity--looking, in every feature and glance, as immortal as Pallas Athene? And have we not seen women whose hideous shape and fiendish spirit suggested an alliance with antediluvian monsters? Is there not a Volumnia, as chaste as that star seen in winter dawns shivering on the cold forehead of the morning? And is there not a Messalina, who would receive embraces in a bath of blood? Is there not a Fulvia, who takes the head of the murdered Cicero in her hands, and tears his dumb tongue with her bodkin? And are there not a Saint Elizabeth and a Lady G.o.diva, capable of supernal deeds of self-denial and heroism for the sake of blessing the poor? The personality of any one of the best representatives of womanhood is as vivid and delicate as though moulded from a sensitive leaf instead of clay; yet of such strength as to be rich in frankness and courage, and sublime in patience. In fact, the distinction of woman is as much greater than that of men psychologically as it is physiologically. But her choicest vocation must always lie in the domestic range of the personal relations, and throughout the heights and depths of the spiritual life. Let her become there all that the capacities of human nature prophesy, and man will rapidly be perfected everywhere else.

The number of claimants contending for the prizes of society increases. The facility of a shallow and momentary success become greater; but the difficulty and rareness of a substantial and enduring triumph grow in a higher ratio. The arena is crowded; the battle is vulgar; the sufferings of the contestants are extreme; the rewards sought are uncertain and disappointing. How quickly, in our day, notoriety ends; and what a poor cheat it is! The pa.s.sionate aspirant for fame, as described so finely by Michelet, stands beside the unknown sea of futurity, picks up a sh.e.l.l, lifts it to his ear, and listens to a slight noise, in which he fancies he hears the murmur of his own name! For solid dignity or pure contentment, no life can compare with the one devoted to intrinsic personal ends, the achievement of knowledge, harmony, and piety. Not the warrior, Ambition, not the giant, Legislation, but the little child, Love, is to lead in the golden age. She is the best woman who does most to hasten the inauguration of that divine Child.

Thoughtful observers agree, that the most ominous characteristic of the present age is, its complication of interests, its doubts, its weariness, its frittering multiplicity of indulgences, cares, and obligations. The best individual remedy for this evil is friendship.

Affectionate communion with a trusted and confiding friend, more than any other experience, appeases the misgivings of conscience, satisfies the vague searches of the mind, and gives peace to the eternal cravings of our gregarious nature.

If ever the cry of the horse-leech shall cease to be the painful language of the heart, it will be when, the longings of the heart no longer baffled by the vacancies or the irritating rivalries of a vapid and jealous society, all human beings developed enough to need, and n.o.ble enough to deserve, shall also be fortunate enough to possess, true friends with whom they may commune in unity of spirit and mirrored doubleness of life. Gratified affection is the true fruition of a spiritual existence. To hope and fear in the being of another first gives us the fulfilled consciousness of our own.

CAMBRIDGE: PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON.