Woman in the Nineteenth Century Part 23

The last steamer brings us news of the disgrace of Victor Hugo, one of the most celebrated of the literary men of France, and but lately created one of her peers. The affair, however, is to be publicly "hushed up."

But we need not cite many instances to prove, what is known to the whole world, that these wrongs are, if not more frequent, at least more lightly treated by the French, in literature and discourse, than by any nation of Europe. This being the case, can an American, anxious that his country should receive, as her only safeguard from endless temptations, good moral instruction and mental food, be otherwise than grieved at the promiscuous introduction among us of their writings?

We know that there are in France good men, pure books, true wit. But there is an immensity that is bad, and more hurtful to our farmers, clerks and country milliners, than to those to whose tastes it was originally addressed,--as the small-pox is most fatal among the wild men of the woods,--and this, from the unprincipled cupidity of publishers, is broad-cast recklessly over all the land we had hoped would become a healthy asylum for those before crippled and tainted by hereditary abuses. This cannot be prevented; we can only make head against it, and show that there is really another way of thinking and living,--ay, and another voice for it in the world. We are naturally on the alert, and if we sometimes start too quickly, that is better than to play "_Le noir Faineant_"--(The Black Sluggard).

We are displeased at the unfeeling manner in which the _Courrier_ speaks of those whom he calls _our models_. He did not misunderstand us, and some things he says on this subject deserve and suggest a retort that would be bitter. But we forbear, because it would injure the innocent with the guilty. The _Courrier_ ranks the editor of the _Tribune_ among "the men who have undertaken an ineffectual struggle against the perversities of this lower world." By _ineffectual_ we presume he means that it has never succeeded in exiling evil from this lower world. We are proud to be ranked among the band of those who at least, in the ever-memorable words of Scripture, have "done what they could" for this purpose. To this band belong all good men of all countries, and France has contributed no small contingent of those whose purpose was n.o.ble, whose lives were healthy, and whose minds, even in their lightest moods, pure. We are better pleased to act as sutler or pursuivant of this band, whose strife the _Courrier_ thinks so _impuissante_, than to reap the rewards of efficiency on the other side. There is not too much of this salt, in proportion to the whole ma.s.s that needs to be salted, nor are "occasional accesses of virtuous misanthropy" the worst of maladies in a world that affords such abundant occasion for it.

In fine, we disclaim all prejudice against the French nation. We feel a.s.sured that all, or almost all, impartial minds will acquiese in what we say as to the tone of lax morality, in reference to marriage, so common in their literature. We do not like it, in joke or in earnest; neither are we of those to whom vice "loses most of its deformity by losing all its grossness." If there be a deep and ulcerated wound, we think the more "the richly-embroidered veil" is torn away the better.

Such a deep social wound exists in France; we wish its cure, as we wish the health of all nations and of all men; so far indeed would we "recoil towards a state of nature." We believe that nature wills marriage and parentage to be kept sacred. The fact of their not being so is to us not a pleasant subject of jest; and we should really pity the first lady of England for injury here, though she be a queen; while the ladies of the French court, or of Parisian society, if they willingly lend themselves to be the subject of this style of jest, or find it agreeable when made, must be to us the cause both of pity, and disgust. We are not unaware of the great and beautiful qualities native to the French--of their chivalry, their sweetness of temper, their rapid, brilliant and abundant genius. We would wish to see these qualities restored to their native l.u.s.tre, and not receive the base alloy which has long stained the virginity of the gold.

ON BOOKS OF TRAVEL.

[Footnote: It need not be said, probably, that Margaret Fuller did not think the fact that books of travel by women have generally been piquant and lively rather than discriminating and instructive, a result of their nature, and therefore unavoidable; on the contrary, she regarded woman as naturally more penetrating than man, and the fact that in journeying she would see more of home-life than he, would give her a great advantage,--but she did believe woman needed a wider culture, and then she would not fail to _excel_ in writing books of travels. The merits now in such works she considered striking and due to woman's natural quickness and availing herself of all her facilities, and any deficiencies simply proved the need of a broader education.--[EDIT.]]

Among those we have, the best, as to observation of particulars and lively expression, are by women. They are generally ill prepared as regards previous culture, and their scope is necessarily narrower than that of men, but their tact and quickness help them a great deal. You can see their minds grow by what they feed on, when they travel. There are many books of travel, by women, that are, at least, entertaining, and contain some penetrating and just observations. There has, however, been none since Lady Mary Wortley Montague, with as much talent, liveliness, and preparation to observe in various ways, as she had.

A good article appeared lately in one of the English periodicals, headed by a long list of travels by women. It was easy to observe that the personality of the writer was the most obvious thing in each and all of these books, and that, even in the best of them, you travelled with the writer as a charming or amusing companion, rather than as an accomplished or instructed guide.

REVIEW OF "MEMOIRS AND ESSAYS, BY MRS. JAMESON."

Mrs. Jameson appears to be growing more and more desperately modest, if we may judge from the motto:

"What if the little rain should say, 'So small a drop as I Can ne'er refresh the thirsty plain,-- I'll tarry in the sky'"

and other superst.i.tious doubts and disclaimers proffered in the course of the volume. We thought the time had gone by when it was necessary to plead "request of friends" for printing, and that it was understood now-a-days that, from the facility of getting thoughts into print, literature has become not merely an archive for the preservation of great thoughts, but a means of general communication between all cla.s.ses of minds, and all grades of culture.

If writers write much that is good, and write it well, they are read much and long; if the reverse, people simply pa.s.s them by, and go in search of what is more interesting. There needs be no great fuss about publishing or not publishing. Those who forbear may rather be considered the vain ones, who wish to be distinguished among the crowd. Especially this extreme modesty looks superfluous in a person who knows her thoughts have been received with interest for ten or twelve years back. We do not like this from Mrs. Jameson, because we think she would be amazed if others spoke of her as this little humble flower, doubtful whether it ought to raise its head to the light. She should leave such affectations to her aunts; they were the fashion in their day.

It is very true, however, that she should _not_ have published the very first paragraph in her book, which presents an inaccuracy and shallowness of thought quite amazing in a person of her fine perceptions, talent and culture. We allude to the contrast she attempts to establish between Raphael and t.i.tian, in placing mind in contradistinction to beauty, as if beauty were merely physical. Of course she means no such thing; but the pa.s.sage means this or nothing, and, as an opening to a paper on art, is indeed reprehensible and fallacious.

The rest of this paper, called the House of t.i.tian, is full of pleasant chat, though some of the judgments--that pa.s.sed on Ca.n.a.letti's pictures, for instance--are opposed to those of persons of the purest taste; and in other respects, such as in speaking of the railroad to Venice, Mrs. Jameson is much less wise than those over whom she a.s.sumes superiority. The railroad will destroy Venice; the two things cannot coexist; and those who do not look upon that wondrous dream in this age, will, probably, find only vestiges of its existence.

The picture of Adelaide Kemble is very pretty, though there is an attempt of a sort too common with Mrs. Jameson to make more of the subject than it deserves. Adelaide Kemble was not the true artist, or she could not so soon or so lightly have stept into another sphere.

It is enough to paint her as a lovely woman, and a woman-genius. The true artist cannot forswear his vocation; Heaven does not permit it; the attempt makes him too unhappy, nor will he form ties with those who can consent to such sacrilege. Adelaide Kemble loved art, but was not truly an artist.

The "Xanthian Marbles," and "Washington Allston," are very pleasing papers. The most interesting part, however, are the sentences copied from Mr. Allston. These have his chaste, superior tone. We copy some of them.

"What _light_ is in the natural world, such is _fame_ in the intellectual,--both requiring an _atmosphere_ in order to become perceptible. Hence the fame of Michel Angelo is to some minds a nonent.i.ty; even as the Sun itself would be invisible _in vacuo_"

(A very pregnant statement, containing the true reason why "no man is a hero to his valet de chambre.")

"Fame does not depend on the will of any man; but reputation may be given and taken away; for fame is the sympathy of kindred intellects, and sympathy is not a subject of _willing_; while reputation, having its source in the popular voice, is a sentence which may be altered or suppressed at pleasure. Reputation, being essentially contemporaneous, is always at the mercy of the envious and ignorant.

But Fame, whose very birth is posthumous, and which is only known to exist by the echoes of its footsteps through congenial minds, can neither be increased nor diminished by any degree of wilfulness."

"An original mind is rarely understood until it has been _reflected_ from some half-dozen congenial with it; so averse are men to admitting the true in an unusual form; while any novelty, however fantastic, however false, is greedily swallowed. Nor is this to be wondered at, for all truth demands a response, and few people care to _think_, yet they must have something to supply the place of thought. Every mind would appear original if every man had the power of projecting his own into the minds of others."

"All effort at originality must end either in the quaint or monstrous; for no man knows himself as on original; he can only believe it on the report of others to whom he is made known, as he is by the projecting power before spoken of."

"There is an essential meanness in wishing to get the better of any one. The only compet.i.tion worthy of a wise man is with himself."

"Reverence is an enn.o.bling sentiment; it is felt to be degrading only by the vulgar mind, which would escape the sense of its own littleness by elevating itself into the antagonist of what is above it."

"He that has no pleasure in looking up is not fit to look down; of such minds are the mannerists in art, and in the world--the tyrants of all sorts."

"Make no man your idol; for the best man must have faults, and his faults will naturally become yours, in addition to your own. This is as true in art as in morals."

"The Devil's heartiest laugh is at a detracting witticism. Hence the phrase 'devilish good' has sometimes a literal meaning."

"Woman's Mission and Woman's Position" is an excellent paper, in which plain truths ere spoken with an honorable straight-forwardness, and a great deal of good feeling. We despise the woman who, knowing such facts, is afraid to speak of them; yet we honor one, too, who does the plain right thing, for she exposes herself to the a.s.saults of vulgarity, in a way painful to a person who has not strength to find shelter and repose in her motives. We recommend this paper to the consideration of all those, the unthinking, wilfully unseeing million, who are in the habit of talking of "Woman's sphere," as if it really were, at present, for the majority, one of protection, and the gentle offices of home. The rhetorical gentlemen and silken dames, who, quite forgetting their washerwomen, their seamstresses, and the poor hirelings for the sensual pleasures of Man, that jostle them daily in the streets, talk as if women need be fitted for no other chance than that of growing like cherished flowers in the garden of domestic love, are requested to look at this paper, in which the state of women, both in the manufacturing and agricultural districts of England, is exposed with eloquence, and just inferences drawn.

"This, then, is what I mean when I speak of the anomalous condition of women in these days. I would point out, as a primary source of incalculable mischief, the contradiction between her a.s.sumed and her real position; between what is called her proper sphere by the laws of G.o.d and Nature, and what has become her real sphere by the laws of necessity, and through the complex relations of artificial existence.

In the strong language of Carlyle, I would say that 'Here is a lie standing up in the midst of society.' I would say 'Down with it, even to the ground;' for while this perplexing and barbarous anomaly exists, fretting like an ulcer at the very heart of society, all new specifics and palliatives are in vain. The question must be settled one way or another; either let the man in all the relations of life be held the natural guardian of the woman, constrained to fulfil that trust, responsible in society for her well-being and her maintenance; or, if she be liable to be thrust from the sanctuary of home, to provide for herself through the exercise of such faculties as G.o.d has given her, let her at least have fair play; let it not be avowed, in the same breath that protection is necessary to her, and that it is refused her; and while we send her forth into the desert, and bind the burthen on her back, and put the staff in her hand, let not her steps be beset, her limbs fettered, and her eyes blindfolded." Amen.

The sixth and last of these papers, on the relative social position of "mothers and governesses," exhibits in true and full colors a state of things in England, beside which the custom in some parts of China of drowning female infants looks mild, generous, and refined;--an accursed state of things, beneath whose influence nothing can, and nothing ought to thrive. Though this paper, of which we have not patience to speak further at this moment, is valuable from putting the facts into due relief, it is very inferior to the other, and shows the want of thoroughness and depth in Mrs. Jameson's intellect. She has taste, feeling and knowledge, but she cannot think out a subject thoroughly, and is unconsciously tainted and hampered by conventionalities. Her advice to the governesses reads like a piece of irony, but we believe it was not meant as such. Advise them to be burnt at the stake at once, rather than submit to this slow process of petrifaction. She is as bad as the Reports of the "Society for the relief of distressed and dilapidated Governesses." We have no more patience. We must go to England ourselves, and see these victims under the water torture. Till then, a Dieu!

WOMAN'S INFLUENCE OVER THE INSANE.

In reference to what is said of entrusting an infant to the insane, we must relate a little tale which touched the heart in childhood from the eloquent lips of the mother.

The minister of the village had a son of such uncommon powers that the slender means on which the large family lived were strained to the utmost to send him to college. The boy prized the means of study as only those under such circ.u.mstances know how to prize them; indeed, far beyond their real worth; since, by excessive study, prolonged often at the expense of sleep, he made himself insane.

All may conceive the feelings of the family when their star returned to them again, shorn of its beams; their pride, their hard-earned hope, sunk to a thing so hopeless, so helpless, that there could be none so poor to do him reverence. But they loved him, and did what the ignorance of the time permitted. There was little provision then for the treatment of such cases, and what there was was of a kind that they shrunk from resorting to, if it could be avoided. They kept him at home, giving him, during the first months, the freedom of the house; but on his making an attempt to kill his father, and confessing afterwards that his old veneration had, as is so often the case in these affections, reacted morbidly to its opposite, so that he never saw a once-loved parent turn his back without thinking how he could rush upon him and do him an injury, they felt obliged to use harsher measures, and chained him to a post in one room of the house.

There, so restrained, without exercise or proper medicine, the fever of insanity came upon him in its wildest form. He raved, shrieked, struck about him, and tore off all the raiment that was put upon him.

One of his sisters, named Lucy, whom he had most loved when well, had now power to soothe him. He would listen to her voice, and give way to a milder mood when she talked or sang. But this favorite sister married, went to her new home, and the maniac became wilder, more violent than ever.

After two or three years, she returned, bringing with her on infant.

She went into the room where the naked, blaspheming, raging object was confined. He knew her instantly, and felt joy at seeing her.

"But, Lucy," said he, suddenly, "is that your baby you have in your arms? Give it to me, I want to hold it!"

A pang of dread and suspicion shot through the young mother's heart,--she turned pale and faint. Her brother was not at that moment so mad that he could not understand her fears.

"Lucy," said he, "do you suppose I would hurt _your_ child?"