Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! Helps for Girls, in School and Out

by Annie H. Ryder

I would not imply that womanliness does not exist in those women whom superior talents have raised above the average man. A great lecturer, after holding her audience long by her eloquent appeals for reforms, stepped down into the crowd slowly departing, and earnestly inquired after this sick friend, that poor one, and the prosperity of another. The marvel of her womanliness was even more striking than the power of her oratory.

As I said at first, girls, girlishness, while inferior to womanliness, is no hindrance to it. It is most proper for girls to discuss tucks and ruffles, gloves and boots, bangs and twists. They think about these things properly enough, too, or they would not make such good use of them. They are in no danger of becoming less worthy women, provided they do not exclude thoughts on higher things. But girlishness, construed to mean just a love of dress and finery, does not make womanliness. If it did, every well-clothed girl on the street would be virtuous. I confess, however, that it would require a good deal of persuasion to make me believe that untidy skirts, buttons clinging by a thread, or utter inattention to style, to neatness and wholeness, were traits in a womanly woman.

We are told that true manliness and true womanliness are one and the same. At some points, these qualities meet and mingle. In the strongest parts of character, men and women are the same. In trying moments, in hours of great interest, in times of rare experience, men and women do the same work in the same way, and then the high quality which ennobles their characters is human kindness. It is well that great artists have painted the face of Christ so that it is as womanly as it is manly. It is a beautiful way some persons have of thinking of God as father and mother too.

But with all these resemblances of manliness to womanliness, there is a difference which all may recognize if they will. Allow a boy to stretch out his legs, climb spouts, jump gutters,—he is still perfectly manly; but a girl cannot do these things in a community without censure, unless necessity requires. I know that the custom which demands different decorum for a girl is arbitrary, and not of divine origin. To go unveiled is not allowed in some countries. But conformity is surely enjoined upon us; and that, so far as it is reasonably observed, is a really womanly trait. I cannot help thinking that girls are made of finer material than boys, but of stuff that will wear just as well as the stockier goods in boys. Inasmuch as a girl has more confided to her keeping than a boy has, she ought to be so much the more watchful. A girl ought to guard purity, modesty, patience, hope, trust, because she has had these things given her in large measure.

What can there be more beautiful than womanliness! The next time you see the Sistine Madonna, look behind all the mother in the lovely face for the woman in it. Then see if you do not remark the same in Raphael's St. Cecilia, and in the Venus de Milo, Wherever masters have succeeded in painting the Virgin, notice, aside from the holy look,—if any thing can be aside from that,—the womanly look. What is it which makes us love some women's faces the moment we see them? Sometimes it is because the loveliness of their character beautifies most ordinary features. Sometimes it is because we expect them to do some very womanly deed,—to heal us of diseases, to right wrongs, to defend causes, to uplift the fallen. Girls are not all weak and uncertain, because they are girls. No; they are strong and brave, and reliable in danger. The boiler of a steam-yacht exploded; several girls were on board; the crew were busy saving themselves; the girls, with an electric shock of mother-care, jumped to save one another. They neither fainted nor screamed, with one exception, which was a somewhat feeble serving-girl, who was stoutly shaken and told to faint if she dared.

Perhaps you think that refinement and good education produce greater womanliness than ignorance and low surroundings. So they do; but the worst of circumstances, as we have already shown, cannot crush it. There is much to be feared from over-refinement, or, rather, superficial cultivation, which breeds selfishness, vitiates strength, encourages false pride, enervates the whole life of a girl. Look at the girl half clad, sleeping in the lazy sun that falls across her narrow doorway, droning out life; now and then, in an hour of wakefulness, muttering some coarse word. And then regard the over-cultured, the wrongly-bred girl; the peevish, dictatorial, selfish, haughty miss of a certain other door-way,—a parlor-way. The womanliness in both would not amount to so much as is in one bright gleam from the eye of an Evangeline.

We cannot tell so much what womanliness is in girls as what it does. It lies mostly in the little acts they perform,—those things which are so often done that we neglect to speak of their worth, and yet should feel most sad without them. The humblest deeds, the oft-repeated ones, form the beauty of characters and faces. They put beautiful lights into girls' eyes, softness into their cheeks, and winsomeness into the whole face. Then, too, deference to the feelings and notions of others has much to do with the sweetness of womanhood. It cannot be wrong to read a letter on the street, to shout to one's friend on the opposite side of the way, to whistle to a horse-car driver; but, so long as these offend preconceived notions of good manners, deference to the opinions of others should forbid such habits.

Now let us see, just once more, what we mean by a womanly girl. Exact attention to points of etiquette, gracefulness, accomplishments, proper subservience to the will of others, do not of themselves make womanliness; many more than these characteristics, and greater, are needful. First of all, a girl must feel she is a woman, with a heart to cultivate in its affections, restrain in its desires, curb in its selfishness; with a mind to enrich by such means as shall promote its best peculiarities, and supply its needs; with a soul to enlarge into more generous impulses, and into the performance of more worthy deeds. Such a girl looks practically, but at the same time cheerfully, on life. She is willing to make the best and most of her lot, and, though out of patience with it sometimes, is not always battling against circumstances.

Discontent, to be sure, is as unmanly as it is unwomanly; but I fear it is an ill more widely spread among girls than among boys. It is an evil seed, and brings forth nothing but choking weeds and noxious plants. No position, nothing that a girl can do, harms her, provided she be womanly; therefore, choice of position cannot help, unless she is sure she has power to do better in another place. Some servants are more womanly than the women who employ them. We are all servants to one another: each holds the mastery. Surely we must be novices before we can be superiors. In one sense, servitude is an ornament; for politeness is but a visible sign, of glad service. Surely, politeness is a real property of womanliness.

A truly womanly girl is genuine in what she says and does. Avoiding the bombast, the occasional coarseness of rougher natures, the self- esteem, and the dictatorial manner, she yet says no, when she means no. If that causes hurt, she is not slow to express her sympathy and show her sorrow. She does not do things for effect, nor to arouse unjust indignation.