She dreams of golden gains, of victory, conquest, and triumph. The car of fortune bears her, amid gilded honors, with a subjugated world in her train.
Or, do gloom and despondency come over her, imagination, not content with the cloud of to-day, summons from the deep, dark piles, that are charged with storm and tempest. Let her once begin, with high credit, to borrow trouble, and the future shall be well nigh drained of its myriad sorrows. She becomes fancy-bankrupt. An incident of recent occurrence, illustrates the transition from one to the opposite of these conditions. A young lady was seen wandering by the banks of the Hudson, wailing, and wringing her hands for grief. She related to a spectator the occasion of this grief. A sister-in-law, to whose dwelling the death of her mother had compelled her to resort, had treated her so cruelly, that she had fled from her face, and had now no home or friend on earth. Touched with her troubles, a circle of generous spirits contributed a large sum to her relief. Such was the sudden ecstasy of her joy that she became actually frantic.
Another trial of this sex springs from the want of interesting Objects of pursuits. The boy is no sooner arrived at his youth, than a world of occupations opens before him. He turns from his father’s roof and gives himself to preparation for some manly calling. A thousand scenes are daily in his path. Adventure, enterprise, the collision of men, and of interests, all rush in to fill his youthful spirit. In such courses trouble stands in his way but for an hour. The agitation and turmoil of life soon sweep from his bosom even the memory of yesterday’s sorrows.
Far different is the lot of the gentle girl. Her school-day tasks completed, what great object comes in their stead? She has a bounding pulse, high hopes, and ardent purposes. But whither shall they now be directed? Will she not fancy the little sphere of home quite too contracted for her feelings and exertions? In this position of the young woman, there is much of suffering, that springs from unexhausted feeling, and is wrought into acute pain. Let her beware of a morbid self-contemplation. Let her see that she do not expend on her own thoughts, desires, and feelings, that energy, which should be given to God, and her associates in humanity. What a foe must she now guard against. How high and glorious should be that great object, that is to receive the full strength of her interest.
Woman is tried by her comparative Defencelessness in Public. She may hold opinions dear to her heart, and sound in themselves. These views may be unjustly assailed. Yet such is the sentiment of the community she inhabits, that it would degrade her, to appear as a public champion of her opinions, wrestling in the vulgar arena with man. Her character may be rudely aspersed; but who does not feel that to defend it by lifting up her voice in tumultuous assemblies, or even to enter the lists with her pen, were derogatory to her sex.
The law of the land may bear, in some instances, unjustly upon her. She may be deprived of natural rights. No one can deny that she did thus suffer, and was grievously oppressed, by the laws against Witchcraft, in the early history of New England. Nor is it impossible that taxation may wrong her; that divorces may separate her, without right, from her partner; that fines, imprisonment, and even capital punishment, may be visited iniquitously upon her. Still what evils, what a vast preponderance of harm, would accrue, on the whole, from her mingling in the affairs of legislation, and standing as an advocate at the bar. If man, through a spirit of despotism, of meanness, or from whatever motive, shall trench on her God-given and inalienable rights, she must commit herself to that Being, who ever judgeth righteously.
Another trial of this sex is one which I descant upon, in this place, with diffidence. Yet so severe are the sufferings, that spring, directly and remotely, from the exercise of her Affections, that I could not acquit myself of true fidelity, were I silent on this topic.
By an appointment of Providence, woman is so constituted as to find her bane, or her blessing, pre-eminently in the interests of her heart. Her natural ardor, and strength of feeling, prompt her to place her affections on some object, with concentration and intensity. Nor is she exempt from that credulity, which usually accompanies an ardent temperament. Hence, the depths of her heart become often a fountain of disappointments, troubles, and sorrows. Her affections may be bestowed where they shall meet no requital. Perhaps this result was wholly unanticipated; or, it may be, there was less self-control than might have been desired. Let the cause be of whatever description, the consequences are most trying to the female character. Man may throw off a grief thus occasioned by seeking new objects of interest. But woman must wear the iron round her very soul, and sometimes, only sits down, to weep, and sink in despondency. For such sorrow there is but one anodyne. No earthly solace can sustain a spirit thus stricken.
In the destiny of her affections woman is, to a great degree, passive. She has little option left her. A negative, or affirmative reply, is all that shall decide the fortunes of her happiness through life. To how many desires, crosses, and reverses of feeling, to what painful indecision, or regretted decisions, is she thus exposed. Friends may induce the receipt of attentions, where her heart cannot follow the assent of her lips. Perhaps her prospects have but assumed some certainty, when the promised hand is capriciously withdrawn. I have read the record of one, who, in the agony of a grief thus awakened, pursued the object of her regard into scenes of trouble, released him from prison, by her generous gifts, and attended him, when driven, by his guilty courses, to actual insanity. She, who thus conducts, is no summer friend. The blight of such sympathy is no ordinary calamity. Who is surprised, that untold sorrows, from this cause, should corrode the very springs of life? Disappointed affection has a melancholy tale to relate, wherever are gathered the sad subjects of mental derangement. And blessed are those noble Institutions, which, by the power of Christianity, soothe the minds, and restore the reason, of those thus unhappily afflicted.
The trials of Domestic Life impose no light burden upon woman. Those daily cares incident to the family, are a touch-stone of her patience, a test of her disposition, and an ordeal to her temper. She has petty disquietudes, and slight annoyances, singly unimportant, yet in amount not trivial. How often is her spirit borne down, and her frame attenuated by the accumulation of these minor troubles. Like the patient in the restlessness of fever, she needs some composing potion to allay, and give peace to, her soul.