However, let these features pass for the moment until we have brought under review some other more obvious traits of character.
Miss C—, or if you will allow me to throw aside the Miss and the Surname, and say Lydia and Angeline, who will complain? Lydia, then, is possessed of a good share of self-reliance—self-reliance arising from a rational self-esteem. Whether Angeline possesses the power of a proper self-appreciation or not, she is certainly wanting in self-reliance. She may manifest much confidence on occasions, but it is all acquired confidence; while with Lydia, it is all natural.
From this difference spring other differences. Lydia goes forward in public exercises as though the public were her normal sphere. On the other hand Angeline frequently appears embarrassed, though her unusual powers of will never suffer her to make a failure. Lydia is ambitious; though she pursues the object of her ambition in a quiet, complacent way, and appropriates it when secured all as a matter of course. It is possible with Angeline to be ambitious, but not at once—and never so naturally. Her ambition is born of many-yeared wishes—wishes grounded mainly in the moral nature, cherished by friendly encouragements, ripening at last into a settled purpose. Thus springs up her ambition, unconfessed—its triumph doubted even in the hour of fruition.
When I speak of the ambition of these two, I hope to be understood as meaning ambition with its true feminine modifications. And this is the contrast:—The ambition of the one is a necessity of her nature, the ripening of every hour’s aspiration; while the ambition of the other is but the fortunate afterthought of an unsophisticated wish.
Both the subjects of this sketch excel in prose and poetic composition. Each may rightfully lay claim to the name of poetess. But Lydia is much the better known in this respect. Perhaps the constitution of her mind inclines her more strongly to employ the ornaments of verse, in expressing her thoughts; and perhaps the mind of Angeline has been too much engrossed in scientific studies to allow of extensive English reading, or of patient efforts at elaboration. Hence her productions reveal the poet only; while those of her friend show both the poet and the artist. In truth, Lydia is by nature far more artificial than Angeline—perhaps I should have said artistic. Every line of her composition reveals an effort at ornament. The productions of Angeline impress you with the idea that the author must have had no foreknowledge of what kind of style would come of her efforts. Not so with Lydia. Her style is manifestly Calvinistic; in all its features it bears the most palpable marks of election and predestination. Its every trait has been subjected to the ordeal of choice, either direct or indirect. You know it to be a something developed by constant retouches and successive admixtures. Not that it is an imitation of admired authors; yet it is plainly the result of an imitative nature—a something, not borrowed, but caught from a world of beauties, just as sometimes a well-defined thought is the sequence of a thousand flitting conceptions. Her style is the offspring, the issue of the love she has cherished for the beautiful in other minds yet bearing the image of her own.
Not so with Angeline, for there is no imitativeness in her nature. Her style can arise from no such commerce of mind, but the Spirit of the Beautiful overshadowing her, it springs up in its singleness, and its genealogy cannot be traced.
But this contrast of style is not the only contrast resulting from this difference in imitation and in love of ornament. It runs through all the phases of their character. Especially is it seen in manner, dress and speech; but in speech more particularly. When Lydia is in a passage of unimpassioned eloquence, her speech reminds you that the tongue is Woman’s plaything; while Angeline plies the same organ with as utilitarian an air as a housewife’s churn-dasher. But pardon this exaggeration: something may be pardoned to the spirit of liberty; and the writer is aware that he is using great liberties.
To return: Lydia has a fine sense of the ludicrous. Her name is charmingly appropriate, signifying in the original playful or sportive. Her laughter wells up from within, and gurgles out from the corners of her mouth. Angeline is but moderately mirthful, and her laughter seems to come from somewhere else, and shines on the outside of her face like pale moonlight. In Lydia’s mirthfulness there is a strong tincture of the sarcastic and the droll. Angeline at the most is only humorous. When a funny thing happens, Lydia laughs at it—Angeline laughs about it. Lydia might be giggling all day alone, just at her own thoughts. Angeline I do not believe ever laughs except some one is by to talk the fun. And in sleep, while Lydia was dreaming of jokes and quips, Angeline might be fighting the old Nightmare.
After all, do not understand me as saying that the Professor C—– is always giggling like a school-girl; or that the Senior Stickney is apt to be melancholy and down in the mouth. I have tried to describe their feelings relatively.
Lydia has a strong, active imagination, marked by a vivid playfulness of fancy. Her thoughts flow on, earnest, yet sparkling and flashing like a raven-black eye. Angeline has an imagination that glows rather than sparkles. It never scintillates, but gradually its brightness comes on with increasing radiance. If the thoughts of Lydia flit like fire flies, the thoughts of Angeline unfold like the blowing rose. If the fancy of one glides like a sylph or tiptoes like a school-girl, the imagination of the other bears on with more stateliness, though with less grace. Lydia’s imagination takes its flight up among the stars, it turns, dives, wheels, peers, scrutinizes, wonders and grows serious and then fearful. But the imagination of the other takes its stand like a maiden by the side of a clear pool, and gazes down into the depths of Beauty.