MRS. HEMANS.
But the power of expression, though essential to a poet, is not necessary to a poetic mind. It may exist as strongly in one who has no words of fire to give its creations utterance as in one who pours forth in lavish self-abandonment the riches of his soul.
“Oh many are the Poets that are sown
By Nature; men endowed with highest gifts,
The vision and the faculty divine,
Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse.”
Wordsworth.
Neither is the Greek Nose a necessary index of a poetic faculty. That form may adorn the face, but no rapturous fervour exalt the mind; although it will frequently accompany a poetic temperament, because it indicates refinement and purity of taste. These are its invariable indications, and in these every woman so gifted will excel; for to excel in these is almost her peculiar province.
In the minor and domestic departments of life, where woman’s influence is so peculiarly blessed, the refinement of the Greek Nose will appear in those household arrangements which make home the happiest and most beloved spot on earth. It will exhibit itself in her needlework by an artistic arrangement of colours and a poetic choice of subjects; in a neat and elegant attire, in the decoration of her drawing-room, or in the paraphernalia of her boudoir. Nor need it be confined to those elegancies which seem to belong exclusively to the higher classes—a cup of flowers in a cottage window, the well-selected trimmings of a Sunday cap, or a pretty ornament on the mantel-shelf will equally be an evidence of a refined taste, and found to accompany the Greek Nose.
The Cogitative Nose does not so frequently appear among women as among men. Women rather feel than think. Their perceptions are instinctive, intuitive; men’s cogitative. They are shrewder and more instantaneous in estimating character, or in deciding an action, than men. Men must think, and fume, and fret, before they can decide; must, in common parlance, set the head (reason) against the heart (instinct); while women rely more on the latter, and are consequently, in judging of character, or in deciding on a course of moral conduct, more frequently right than men.