Washington, D.C., April 5th, 1863.
Woman's heart, my boy, in its days of youthful immaturity and vegetable development, may be felicitously likened unto a delicate cabbage, with an invisible worm feeding upon its sensitive petals. To the eye of the ordinary and unfeeling observer, the cabbage is in perfect health, and its intense greenness is thoughtlessly accepted as a sure indication of an unravaged system. Man, proud man, with all his boasted human wisdom, would smile incredulously, if told that the tender vegetable—the magnified and nervous white rose, as it were—had beneath all its seeming verdancy, an insatiable and remorseless worm gnawing at its hidden core. Man, I say, would thus wallow in his miserable ignorance, and persist in his disgusting blindness. But mark that dainty little figure coming up the garden-walk, my boy. It does not walk erect, like boastful Man, does not spit tobacco-juice like haughty Man; and as it approaches nearer, we perceive that it is a hot-house Pig. Ay, my lord: I say to you, in all your glory of human understanding and trifling degree of snobbishness, it is a Pig. Yes, madam: I remark to you, in your jewels, and laces, and absurd new bonnet,—it is only a Pig. Onlya Pig! O-O-ONLY a Pig! And why should we say "only" a Pig; as though a Pig were so veryinferior to proud Man? We all accord to the awful and unfathomable German Mind a preternatural gift of philosophy, so far above the contemptibly-limited thing we call human understanding that no man can ever understand a word of it; and how does that German Mind express itself when it desires to describe the Vast, the Extensive, and the Somewhat Large? Why, it simply observes "Das is von 'Pig' thing." And is not this unaffected remark sufficient, my boy, to raise the wrongfully despised Pig to the dignity of an adjective, at least? But look once more at the hot-house Pig in question, as he stoops thoughtfully to the cabbage which derisive Man has esteemed perfectly sound. He pushes it once with his nose; he raises his eyes, blinking in the glorious sunshine; his tail vibrates a moment; a solemn wink,—a grunt of deep reflection,—and he turns to another cabbage!
Yes! this despised little roasting-pig, this unconsidered Flower, as it were, has surpassed all the vaunted wisdom of stuck-up Man, and discovered the worm at the core of the sensitive cabbage!
Woman's heart, my boy, in its days of youthful immaturity and vegetable development, is a metaphorical Cabbage with a figurative worm at its palpitating core. That worm is a passionate yearning for TRUE SYMPATHY. Heartless but wealthy Man comes along, and says: "This Cabbage is in perfect health, and I will Husband it." He doesHusband it my boy, and what is the consequence? Not knowing anything about the existence of the worm, he cannot, of course, furnish that TRUE SYMPATHY which is necessary to end its horrible gnawings; and so the worm keeps feeding until the Cabbage Heart becomes a mere shell, when the least zephyr will break it. How different the result had that Heart been—or, that is to say, how changed would the case have been had she—or, in other words, what an opposite spectacle might we—or, rather she—if he—if she—
Really, my boy, I am all in a cold perspiration; for I find that I must have made some dreadful mistake in my argument. Hem! There really mustbe some strange mistake in it, my boy; for I cannot follow it out without making it scandalously appear, that a man, to really understand a Woman's Heart, must be something of a Pig. This conclusion would be very insulting to the women of America, and there certainly must be some mistake about it.
What led me into this philosophical vein of analytical thought was a touching poem of the home affections, which was sent to me for perusal on Monday by one of the intellectual Young Women of America. It is one of those revelations of Woman's inner-self which move us to tearful compassion for a sex doomed to be the victim of man's selfishness and its own too-great sensibilities. The terrible picture of woe is called
"WOMAN'S HEART.[5]
"BY SAIRA NEVERMAIR.
"We went to the world-loved Ball last night,—
Claude and I, in our robes of gold;