Let the crowning grace of womanhood be, that she is characterless. The beautiful and beloved of all ages may be thus defined. With all the queenly attributes of Isabella, of Spain, we feel she was all of woman. So was the lonely and unfortunate Mary Stuart, and she still holdeth a place in our hearts.
Joan, of Arc, Catharine de Medici, Mary and Elizabeth, of England, were all characters. We will not analize them, nor the emotions they excite, but simply cite them as illustrations.
The meek sister of Lazarus—she who sat at the feet—the gentle Mary, who was most honored with the friendship of the Savior, whom he could not reproach, even though incited thereto by her sister, was beautiful in her womanhood—so was the mother of Jesus. A character is affixed to Martha, and to Mary the Magdalene. History is full of examples in support of our theory. Josephine was characterless, except in her sorrows; and too often do we find the lovely and beloved distinguished thus, and we weep with them, feeling we are beguiled, not challenged to sympathy. Mrs. Hemans, who hath given such eloquent utterance to a woman’s soul, must have embodied all the attributes of womanhood, and all in harmony.
Shakspeare everywhere discriminates between his characters and his true women, those that are to be a part of the drama of life as the actors, the women swayed by discordant passions, and those that appeal to our love. Never does he confound them. Those that are designed for our love are not characters. Whatever maybe their dignity, their intellect, their fortunes, they are still women. The grace of womanhood invests all they say, and all they do. Such are Portia, Cordelia, Desdemona, Ophelia, Rosalind, &c. His characters may excite our admiration, our mirth, or abhorrence, but they find no lodgement in our hearts. Such are Cressida, Cleopatra, Lady Macbeth, Kate, &c.
Of Milton, Eve is characterless, till she hath fallen, and Spenser’s Amoret sits in the very “lap of womanhood.”
Need we call Byron’s Medora weak, because she is supremely tender and feminine? Weakness creates eccentricities, and she had none. Gulnare hath character, and we recoil from her, as did the Corsair.
But enough—it is the “story without an end,” to be read from the time that Eve first became a type of womanhood, down to the time when her sex shall realize all that of which she was prophetic.
TO A BELLE WHO IS NOT A BLUE BELLE.
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