"Shut her out," says the trader, "while I mark my goods! This spool of cotton is short fifty yards: mark it two hundred. This yard of muslin was made at Manchester: sew on the Paris tack. This shawl was woven in France: label it Cashmere. Color that cheese with annatto, weigh down that butter with salt, dilute that rose-water from the spring, grate up turnip to mix with that horseradish; but turn that woman out!"
"Turn her out!" cries the priest, last of all. "Polemics and theology have no charms for her. She will ask me why I do not do justly and love mercy. Turn her out!"
"Turn her out!" and, in the shudder which creeps over him while he speaks, man sees not only how tender and strong is his love for the sister that hung on the same maternal bosom; but he sees also what the gospel without and the gospel within demand of the son no less than the daughter of God.
Farewell to war, to statecraft, to legal tricks, to shifts of trade; farewell to bribery, to desecration, to idle controversy,—when woman enters in to man's labor!
You feel the doom falling, and strive to put it off. Not because God has made woman of a diviner nature; not because he has made her more precious, to be kept from the rough handling of the world,—does it shrink from her pure gaze. No; but because God himself, in balancing the world's forces, has blended her moral nature with her mental, purposely to check her brother's aggressiveness, and moderate his lust of gain. So has he given to man a cooler temper, a grander deliberateness, a strength equal to every strain, which shall repair the fault of her warm impulses, her "nimble" action, her unfitness, casual or universal, for long-sustained effort. But what can either of you do alone? Impulse, tenderness, and moral promptings, grow into tawdry sentimentalism, when shut out from their fit arena, when untrained to emulate a brother's active life. Coolness, forethought, and strength grow into cunning, rapacity, and tyranny, when uninfluenced by that gentler element of your nature which God has placed by your side. Helps-meet for each other you were ordained: why hinder and obstruct each other's pathway?
From this moment, put aside ignoble jealousy, inert sympathy, and stupid indifference to your own moral position. Only by heartily accepting the sweet juices and flavors of her life can you secure fragrant blossoms and precious fruit to your own. The words are just as true when I turn to counsel her. If ever this earth grows liker heaven, it will be when the broad and generous sympathies prophesied by this new movement take practical shape, and there are—
"Everywhere
Two heads in council, two beside the hearth,
Two in the tangled business of the world,
Two in the liberal offices of life,
Two plummets dropped for one, to sound the abyss
Of science, and the secrets of the mind:
Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more:
And everywhere the broad and bounteous Earth
Shall bear a double growth of its best souls."
I have often spoken, not only in this lecture, but in almost every one I have ever given, of the great need of conscientious, painstaking woman's work. During the last year, Baron Tœrmer has been borne by torch-light to his last home, and the mediæval artist has been mourned as a personal friend by many a crowned head. The torches of the priests who bore him to his grave very likely startled to the window our two young countrywomen, who are pursuing sculpture in the Eternal City. Little did they guess, that, in the city of Florence, there was living at that moment a woman as able, as renowned, though, for certain reasons, not so well known to them, as the great artist just departed. I will close this lecture with a brief sketch of Félicie de Fauveau, for whose woman's work no apology will ever need to be made.
Entering Florence by the Porta Romana, you find, in the Via della Fornace, a dark-green door, which opens in to a paved court, once the entrance to a convent. Beyond stretches a cool, quiet garden; and all manner of birdcages and dovecotes remind you of Rosa Bonheur's fondness for pets. Through that quiet garden, hedged with laurel and cypress, you might have walked, but a little time ago, with a shrewd, sagacious, life-loving French woman, an aristocrat and a Legitimist, whose eyes had looked upon the guillotine, and who was proud of having suffered for her faith and country. She would lead you to her small parlor, furnished with ancient hangings, carved chairs, and gold-grounded Pre-Raphaelite pictures of great value. Here she would introduce you to her daughter, Félicie de Fauveau.
A forehead low and broad; soft, brown eyes; an aquiline nose; a well-cut, well-closed mouth; a flexible, fine figure; a velvet skirt and jacket of the color of the "dead leaf;" a velvet cap of the same, drawn over blonde hair, cut square across the forehead, as in the picture of Faust,—this is what you see when you look at the artist; this is what Ary Scheffer painted and valued so, that no gold would buy the portrait while he lived. Fire, air, and water are in that organization: the movements of the arms are angular; but the hands are soft, white, fine, and royal.