Yes, indeed, I have 'observed that way' in you, and not once, and not twice, and not twenty times, but oftener than any,—and almost every time ... do you know, ... with an uncomfortable feeling from the reflection that that is the way for making all sorts of mistakes dependent on and issuing in exaggeration. It is the very way!—the highway.
For what you say in the letter here otherwise, I do not deny the truth—as partial truth:—I was speaking generally quite. Admit that I am not apt to be extravagant in my esprit de sexe: the Martineau doctrines of intellectual equality &c., I gave them up, you remember, like a woman—most disgracefully, as Mrs. Jameson would tell me. But we are not on that ground now—we are on ground worth holding a brief for!—and when women fail here ... it is not so much our fault. Which was all I meant to say from the beginning.
It reminds me of the exquisite analysis in your 'Luria,' this third act, of the worth of a woman's sympathy,—indeed of the exquisite double-analysis of unlearned and learned sympathies. Nothing could be better, I think, than this:—
To the motive, the endeavour,—the heart's self—
Your quick sense looks; you crown and call aright
The soul of the purpose ere 'tis shaped as act,
Takes flesh i' the world, and clothes itself a king;
To the motive, the endeavour,—the heart's self—
Your quick sense looks; you crown and call aright
The soul of the purpose ere 'tis shaped as act,
Takes flesh i' the world, and clothes itself a king;
To the motive, the endeavour,—the heart's self—
Your quick sense looks; you crown and call aright
The soul of the purpose ere 'tis shaped as act,
Takes flesh i' the world, and clothes itself a king;
To the motive, the endeavour,—the heart's self—
Your quick sense looks; you crown and call aright
The soul of the purpose ere 'tis shaped as act,
Takes flesh i' the world, and clothes itself a king;
To the motive, the endeavour,—the heart's self—
Your quick sense looks; you crown and call aright
The soul of the purpose ere 'tis shaped as act,
Takes flesh i' the world, and clothes itself a king;
To the motive, the endeavour,—the heart's self—
Your quick sense looks; you crown and call aright
The soul of the purpose ere 'tis shaped as act,
Takes flesh i' the world, and clothes itself a king;
except the characterizing of the 'learned praise,' which comes afterwards in its fine subtle truth. What would these critics do to you, to what degree undo you, who would deprive you of the exercise of the discriminative faculty of the metaphysicians? As if a poet could be great without it! They might as well recommend a watchmaker to deal only in faces, in dials, and not to meddle with the wheels inside! You shall tell Mr. Forster so.