When I hush and bless myself with silence.
“O, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas,
O, their Dante of the dread Inferno,
Wrote one song—and in my brain I sing it,
Drew one angel—borne, see, on my bosom!”
Have you read it a hundred times before? Are you not grateful to me for giving you an excuse to begin on the second hundred?
O women, since the heavens have been opened to reveal these points of light, and you can infer somewhat the radiance which may wrap you about with ineffable glory, will you be satisfied again with the beggarly elements of a sordid world? Seeing on what heights a woman may stand, will you lower to the level graded by generations of silly, selfish, sensual male minds? Is it really worth while? If it is not a good bargain to lose your own soul that you may gain the whole world, what must it be to lose your soul and gain only a few stereotyped phrases? If every other man that ever lived preached a crusade for “stocking-mending, love, and cookery,” and only these three whom I have mentioned bore a different banner, would it not still be better to shape your course by theirs? Is it not better to be worthy of the respect and reverence of thinkers, than to receive the serenade of sounding brass? Is it not better to heed the one true voice crying in the wilderness, than to join in the uproar of the idolatrous mob that shouts, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians!” When I lose faith in human destiny, and am almost ready to say, “Who shall show us any good?” I remember these utterances,—so lofty that one may say, not as the fulsome courtiers of old time cried, but reverently and duly, “It is the voice of God, and not of men,”—I recall these utterances, the first so heartsome and overflowing that there is no thought for niceties of phrase, but only one eager desire to pay an undemanded tribute, only a warm, imperative urgency of expression; the second inexpressibly mournful, but with such calm majesty of pain as an ancient sculptor might have wrought into passionless marble, or a Roman Senator folded beneath his mantle;—in the first, a man looking from his happy earthly home, forward and upward to a happier home in heaven; in the second, one gazing hopelessly from his waste places down into darkness and the grave;—the first believing, “Because I live ye shall live also”; the second sadly querying, “Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?”—the first become as a little child through faith; the second only as a pagan sage by reason;—the third heaping up with ever unwearied and ever more delighted hand the brightest gems of learning and fancy to adorn a beloved brow;—all turning at the summit of their renown, at the point of their grandest achievement, to do honor to a woman, the first two vindicating the intellect of wifeliness, the last the wifeliness of intellect; all breathing a magnanimity in whose presence no smallness can be so much as named;—and I say there is more strength and courage to be gained, more hope for the future and more faith in humanity to be gathered, from such a glimpse than from the contemplation of five—what? hundred? thousand? millions?—of ordinary marriages.
But to return to the question at issue,—Are these exceptional cases? It is man’s own work if they are. Just as the elevation of one negro from slavery to supremacy, from stupidity to intelligence, is an indisputable proof that the elevation of the whole race is possible, so the case of one such woman as those I have mentioned settles the question for the whole sex. All may not attain the same heights, but this shows that intellectuality is open to them without destroying spirituality. Education, it seems, can do just as much for woman as for men. As careful mental training makes a man large-minded, it makes a woman large-minded. If it does not make a man narrow-souled and shallow-hearted, it will not make a woman so. If it does not unfit a man for manly duties, it will not unfit a woman for womanly duties. If ignorance and petty interests and limited views make a man trivial, obstinate, prejudiced, why is it not the same things which make a woman so? It is not necessary to determine whether there is an essential difference between the masculine and feminine brain or nature. All the difference, both in quantity and quality, which any one demands, may be granted without affecting this question of mental culture. No matter whether it be strong or weak, large or small, educate what mind there is to its highest capacity. If there is no difference, it is so much gained. If there is a difference, each mind will select from the material furnished that which is suitable for its own sustenance. Violet and apple-tree grow side by side. If the soil is poor they are both meagre; if the soil is rich, they both flourish. From the same tract one gathers his golden and mellow fruit, the other her glowing purple richness. You may put a covering over the violet and stunt it into a pale, puny, sickly thing, or you may cultivate it to an imperial beauty. But it will be a violet still. The utmost cultivation will not turn it into an apple-tree. Every plant may have a different taste and a different need from every other plant, but they all want the earth. The tiny draughts of the slender anemone are not to be compared with the rivers of sap that bear to the royal oak its centuries; but oak and anemone each demands all the juice it can quaff, and earth and sea and sky are alike laid under tribute to fill the fairy drinking-cup of the one, as well as the huge wassail-bowl of the other.
So with mind. The philosopher, the poet, the theologian, the chemist, quarry in the same mine, and each brings up thence the treasure that his soul loves. The same cloud sweeps over the farmer to refresh his thirsty lands, over the philosopher to confirm his theories, over the painter to tempt his pencil. The principle of selection that obtains in the lower ranks of Nature will not fail us in her higher walks.
It is because law, logic, science, philosophy, have been so almost exclusively in the hands of men, that they have accomplished such puerile results. With all their beauty and power, they have left our common life so poor, and vapid, and vicious, because only half their lesson has been learned. But they bear a message from the Most High, and when woman shall be permitted to lend her listening ear and bring to the interpretation her finer sense, we shall have good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people.