This canticle, however, beautiful as it is, lacks, as has well been remarked, one strophe. "If it was not upon Francis' lips, it was surely in his heart:"
"Be praised, Lord, for Sister Clara;
Thou hast made her silent, active, and sagacious,
And, by her, thy light shines in our hearts."[237]
It was through the inspiration and influence of Theodora that the famous Church of St. Sophia, that matchless poem in marble and gold, that imperishable monument to the glory of the true God, came into existence. It was through her that Justinian conceived the idea of those Pandects and Institutes which constitute the greatest glory of his reign, and which are the basis of the Code Napoleon and of all modern jurisprudence.
It was to Vittoria Colonna that Michaelangelo dedicated many of the most exquisite productions of his peerless genius. "He saw," as has been said, "with her eyes and acted by her inspiration."
Almost every one of Chopin's compositions was inspired by women, and a large proportion of them are dedicated to them. The same may be said of Mozart, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Beethoven, Weber, Schumann and other illustrious composers. All these sons of genius believed with Castiglione that "all inspiration must come from woman;" that she had been expressly created and sent into the world to inspire them with intelligence and creative power.
M. Clavière declares that "There is hardly a philosopher or a poet of the sixteenth century whose pages are not illuminated or gladdened by the smile of some high-born lady."[238]
What the brilliant Frenchman says of the influence of woman on the poets and philosophers of a single century could with equal truth be said of the poets and philosophers of every century from Anacreon and Plato to the present day. And, still more, it can be predicated of woman's inspiration and influence in every department of intellectual effort, in art and architecture, in music and literature, in science in all its departments, whether deductive or inductive.
It has been well said, "Were history to be rewritten, with due regard to women's share in it, many small causes, heretofore disregarded, would be found fully to explain great and unlooked-for results.... For it is not in outward facts, nor great names, nor noisy deeds, nor genealogies of crowned heads, nor in tragic loves, nor ambitious or striking heroism, nor crime, that we find proofs of the constant and secret working whereby woman most effectually asserts herself. Certainly she has played her part in the outward and visible history of the world, but in that history which is told and written, which is buried in archives and revivified in books, woman's part is always small when set beside that of her companion, man. She contributes but little, and at this she may surely rejoice, to the tales of battles and treaties of successions and alliances, of violence, fraud, suspicions and hatreds. But if the inward history of human affairs could be described as fully as the outward facts; if the story of the family could be told together with the story of the nation; if human thoughts could with certainty be divined from human deeds, then the chief figure in this history of sentiment and morals would certainly be that of Woman the Inspirer."[239]
This same statement would hold equally good if applied to the part taken by women in the history of science. Their achievements have, in most cases, been so overshadowed by those of men that their work has been usually regarded as a negligible quantity. But when one considers the mainsprings of actions, and examines the silent undercurrents which escape the notice of the superficial observer, one finds, as in social and political history, that the most important scientific investigations are often conducted, and the most momentous discoveries are made, in consequence of the promptings of some devoted woman friend, or in virtue of the still, small voice of a cherished wife, or sister, who prefers to remain in the background in order that all the glory of achievement may redound to the man.
There have been, it may safely be asserted, few really eminent men in science, as there have been few really eminent men in art or letters, or in the great reform and religious movements of the world, who have not been assisted by some woman light-bearer, as were Hortensius by Martia, Tully by Terentia and Pliny by Calpurnia. There have been few that have not, during hours of doubt and discouragement, been sustained and stimulated as was Francis by Clara, and Jerome by Paula and Eustochium. And there have been still fewer who have not had, like Petrarch and Dante, their Laura or their Beatrice of whom each could say: