So deep-seated is this old pagan prejudice, that a ringing shout of laughter from a young woman is very suspicious to the deacons of her church.
Leaving the religious fanaticisms, we come upon another form of this prejudice.
The fragile, pale young woman with a lisp, is thought, by many silly people, to be more of a lady, than another with ruddy cheeks, and vigorous health.
It is, perhaps, difficult to define it exactly, but there exists, somehow, in the fashionable world, the notion that a pale and sensitive woman is feminine and refined, while one in blooming health is masculine and coarse.
But every acute observer knows that the feminine soul, like the masculine, utters its richest harmonies only through a perfect instrument.
While the languid, low voice, and deliberate manner of the invalid lady may suggest refinement to the casual observer, the discriminating physician who probes the soul, as well as the body, finds a marvellous correspondence between them.
Not only is it true that, in extreme cases of physical exhaustion, the mind gives way with the body, but those keen, exquisite sensibilities of the soul become weak and blunt. No physician of large experience will fail to recal instances of extreme hemorrhagic exhaustion, in which all sense of modesty disappears.
Assuming that the highest possible health of the body is represented by 100, and the lowest possible by the figure 1, and assuming, what no physiologist or metaphysician will question, that the head and heart keep step with the body, we shall not hesitate long in determining the state of the mind and soul of the fashionable, languid, nervous lady whom we meet in America at every turn, and who ranges from 10 to 50 on our scale.
It is but natural that she should be occupied with trimmings, and feel no interest in the great social and moral movements of the day.
Caeteris paribus, a young woman whose physical health is represented by 80 on our scale, has twice as much feminine delicacy and character as another whose health is represented by 40. If this is not a logical deduction from the laws of physiology and metaphysics, I know of nothing that is. While, as already suggested, every discriminating physician is constantly called upon to listen to the harmony between the body and the soul.