'Torture interrogates and Pain replies.'
Behold, too, their victims,—Urbain, Grandier, De Thou, Cinq-Mars, and the long, heart-rending list of worth, genius, and innocence immolated. With such pictures in the hands of the youth of France, it is impossible they should retrograde. How different from the works of Louis XV.'s days, when the Marivaux, Crebillons, and Le Clos wrote for the especial corruption of that society from whose profligacy they borrowed their characters, incidents, and morals! Men would not now dare to name, in the presence of virtuous women, works which were once in the hands of every female of rank in France,—works which, like the novels of Richardson, had the seduction of innocence for their story, and witty libertinism and triumphant villany for their principal features.
"With such a literature, it was almost a miracle that one virtuous woman or one honest man was left in the country to create that revolution which was to purify its pestiferous atmosphere. Admirable for its genius, this work is still more so for its honesty."
In the praise given to this new literature is implied the censure passed upon the old. Of direct educational literature, we may say, that all writers, from Rousseau to Gregory, Fordyce, and the very latest in our own country, have exercised an enervating influence over public opinion, and helped to form the popular estimate of female ability. Rousseau's influence is still powerful. Let me quote from his "Emilius:" "Researches into abstract and speculative truths, the principles and axioms of science,—in short, every thing which tends to generalize ideas,—is out of the province of woman. All her ideas should be directed to the study of men. As to works of genius, they are beyond her capacity. She has not precision enough to succeed in accurate science; and physical knowledge belongs to those who are most active and most inquisitive."
Alas for Mary Somerville, Janet Taylor, and Maria Mitchell, as well as for the popular idea that women are a curious sex! He goes on: "Woman should have the skill to incline us to do every thing which her sex will not enable her to do of herself. She should learn to penetrate the real sentiments of men, and should have the art to communicate those which are most agreeable to them, without seeming to intend it."
This sounds somewhat barefaced; but it is the model of all the advice which society is still giving. It is refreshing to catch the first gleam of something better from the author of "Sandford and Merton." "If women," says Mr. Day, "are in general feeble both in body and mind, it arises less from nature than from education. We encourage a vicious indolence and inactivity, which we falsely call delicacy. Instead of hardening their minds by the severer principles of reason and philosophy, we breed them to useless arts which terminate in vanity or sensuality. They are taught nothing but idle postures and foolish accomplishments." Dr. Gregory recommends dissimulation. Dr. Fordyce advises women to increase their power by reserve and coldness! When we hear of the educational restraints still exercised, of the innocent amusements forbidden, the compositions which may be written, but not read, lest the young girl might some time become the lecturer,—we cannot but feel that the step is not so very long from that time and country to this, and wonder at the folly which still refuses to trust the laws of God to a natural development. It is mortifying, too, to listen to the silly rhapsodies of Madame de Staël. "Though Rousseau has endeavored," she says, "to prevent women from interfering in public affairs, and acting a brilliant part in political life, yet, in speaking of them, how much has he done it to their satisfaction! If he wished to deprive them of some rights foreign to their sex, how has he for ever asserted for them all those to which it has a claim! What signifies it," she continues, "that his reason disputes with them for empire, while his heart is still devotedly theirs?"
What signifies it? It signifies a great deal. It signifies all the difference between life in a solitary seraglio, and life with God's world for an inheritance; all the difference between being the worn-out toy of one sensualist, and the inspiration of an unborn age; all the difference between the butterfly and the seraph, between the imprisoned nun and Longfellow's sweet St. Philomel. When we read these words, we thank Margaret Fuller for the very criticism which once moved a girlish ire. "De Staël's name," she wrote, "was not clear of offence; she could not forget the woman in the thought. Sentimental tears often dimmed her eagle glance." What a grateful contrast to all such sentimentalism do we find in Margaret's own sketch of the early life of Miranda!
"This child was early led to feel herself a child of the spirit. She took her place easily in the world of mind. A dignified sense of self-dependence was given as all her portion, and she found it a sure anchor. Her relations with others were fixed with equal security. With both men and women they were noble; affectionate without passion, intellectual without coldness. The world was free to her, and she lived freely in it. Outward adversity came, and inward conflict; but that self-respect had early been awakened, which must always lead at last to an outward security and an inward peace." Here is the great difficulty in the education of woman, to lead her to a point from which she shall naturally develop self-respect, and learn self-help. Old prejudices extinguish her as an individual, oblige her to renounce the inspiration in herself, and yield to all the weaknesses and wickednesses of man. Look at Chaucer's beau-ideal of a wife in the tale of Griselda, dwindled now into the patient Grissel of modern story. In her a woman is represented as perfect, because she ardently and constantly loved a monster who gained her by guile, and brutally abused her. Put the matter into plain English, and see if you would respect such a woman now. No: and therefore is it somewhat sad, that, in Tennyson's new Idyll, he must recreate this ideal in the Enid of Geraint; and that, out of four pictures of womanly love, only one seems human and natural, and that, the guilty love of Guinevère. The recently awakened interest in the position of woman is flooding the country with books relating to her and her sphere. They have, their very titles have, an immense educational influence. Let me direct your attention to one published in Boston by a leading house last winter, and entitled "Remarkable Women of Different Ages and Nations." Let us read the names of the thirteen women with whose lives it seeks to entertain the public:—
Beatrice Cenci, the parricide.
Charlotte Corday, the assassin.
Joanna Southcote, the English prophetess.
Jemima Wilkinson, the American prophetess.
Madame Ursinus, the poisoner.
Madame Göttfried, the poisoner.
Mademoiselle Clairon, the actress.
Harriet Mellon, the actress.
Madame Lenormand, the fortune-teller.
Angelica Kauffman, the artist.
Mary Baker, the impostor.
Pope Joan, the pontiff.
Joan of Arc, the warrior.
Look at the list! Assassins, parricides, and poisoners, fortune-tellers, and actresses! Let us hope they will always remain remarkable! In this list we have the name of one woman who never lived, and of four at least who in this country would owe all their celebrity to the police court; and this while history pants to be delivered of noble lives not known at all, like the women of the House of Montefeltro, or little known, like the pure and heroic wife of Condé, Clemence de Maillé. And by what black art, let us ask, are such names as Beatrice, and Charlotte Corday, sweet Joan of Arc, and dear Angelica Kauffman, a noble woman, whose happiness was wrecked upon a fiendish jest, juggled into this list? As well might you put Brutus who killed great Cæsar, and Lucretia of spotless fame, and Andrea del Sarto who loved a faithless wife, into the same category. Such association, however false, helps to educate the popular mind.