The Friendships of Women

by William Rounseville Alger

The superiority ascribed to woman by fine minds in our era—a trait conspicuous, when we look from Tibullus to Frauenlob, from Pindar to Patmore—is often supposed to be her due, on account of some quality inherent in her mere femineity. It should be seen to be a consequence of the purer representation of goodness in her, by virtue of her personal renunciation of the struggle for precedence. Her mission is to set the example, and diffuse the spirit, of contented goodness— goodness contenting itself with the universal growth of goodness. In what way can she ever fulfil this mission, except by attracting man likewise to withdraw from the selfish battle for social distinction, and devote himself to the private attainment of personal perfection, and the public benefaction of his race? The chivalric transference of authority from man to woman is a striking instance of the propensity of human nature to oscillate from one extreme to the other.

Some of the champions of the "rights of women," in our day, apparently commit the error of inverting the real desideratum, which is, to make men renounce and love like the finest women—not to make women exact and fight like the coarsest men. They act as if they thought men were both better and better off than women, and were to be taken as models by them. But our hope lies in the saint, not in the amazon. Woman, as seen in the Mary who sat at the feet of Christ, brings a heavenly ministration to rescue man from every thing discordant: woman, as seen in the Penthesilea who fought Achilles, offers man but a perverted reflection of himself.

The common belief, that human life began in a paradisal state, is a sentimental and mischievous error. The cradles of civilization are full of murder. First, for a period of unknown duration, raged the strife for precedence in physical power and its grossest symbols. In civilized nations, this strife is now, for the most part, reduced to boys and pugilists, who are always eager to try each other's strength, and to crow above a thrown antagonist. Next came the strife for precedence in social power, and its finer symbols of rank, wealth, position, and fame. This strife may be traced in every record of the past and present; is far more extensive, seductive, and tenacious than the former; and has been left behind, as yet, only by the saintliest exemplars of our race. The third period, the ideal period which we now await, is one in which there shall be no strife among mankind for comparative superiority over each other; but, in place of it, a universal co-operating struggle for intrinsic personal worth, a constant advancement in gaining the real prizes of being. Then the wretched experiences of hate and jealousy, with their thousandfold sins and pains, will rapidly lessen. There will be no motives for envy and opposition, since the aims of men will be alike; and the gain of each, so far from being a loss to the rest, will be a gain to all. Let there be no strife for precedence, and all society must be the wiser, purer, and happier for every spiritual gain made by any member of it. Ambitious rivalry is wretchedness, and sure to end in sickening disappointment. Disinterested aspiration, equally to women and to men, is the benign mother of happiness.

We read in the Norse mythology, that the gods tied Loki, the impersonation of the evil principle, to three sharp rocks, and hung a snake over him in such a way, that its venom should drip on his face. But, in this dreadful case, there was one who did not forsake him. His wife Sigyn sat close by his head, and held a bowl to catch the torturing drops. As often as the bowl was full, she emptied it with the utmost haste; because, during that time, the drops struck on his face, and made him scream with agony. Her patience in holding the bowl, and her speed in emptying it, never failed. It is a forcible emblem of the ministration of woman to man. But, for man to impose a service of this nature on woman as her duty, is a cruel arrogance and wrong. The voluntary spirit of such a service teaches the one lesson which man himself needs to learn for his own salvation.

The laborious life of a statesman, a merchant, a banker, or a mechanic, is not rewarded by tender emotions, but by power, applause, or money. The heart of such a man, too often, gradually ossifies, becomes insensible to those fine and noble fruitions which imperatively demand leisure, and a steady lucid sensibility. The hard devotions of an external utility devour the riches of the imagination, and destroy the overflow of the affections. But the woman, who, shielded from the harsh frictions of the world, makes her soul a pure and still mirror of every form of celestial truth and good, may well be an inspiring prophetess for those who reverence and love her. Such a woman is, in some degree, a living representative of that star-girt face of the Virgin Mary which the medieval Church lifted into the night, and floated above the boiling nationalities of Europe. A Poppiea drawn by mules shod with gold, five hundred asses kept to supply her with baths of milk for the softening of her skin— is the enemy—and disgrace of both sexes. The true type and glory of the one sex, the admiration and salvation of the other, are displayed in such an example as that of the last hours of Madame Roland, who, riding in the death-cart to the guillotine, with an infirm and aged man who was broken down with terror and grief, devoted herself with heroic benevolence to comfort and sustain him. In order to spare him the double agony of seeing her execution previous to his own, with a sublime abnegation she refused the offered privilege of being the first victim, soothed and supported the trembling old man, saw him perish, then calmly bared her neck to the knife.

In one of De Tocqueville's letters to the illustrious Madame Swetchine occurs a passage marked by rare insight and weight. The noble writer urges that the clergy, without teaching special political doctrines, ought to instill into their hearers certain grand sentiments and loyalties, such as the feeling that every man belongs more to collective humanity than he does to himself. He then adds this impressive testimony: "During my somewhat long experience of public life, nothing has struck me more than the influence of women in developing public spirit—an influence the greater because indirect. I do not hesitate to say, that they give to every nation a moral temperament, which is shown in its politics. A hundred times I have seen weak men becoming of real political value, because they had by their side women who supported them, not by advice as to particulars, but by fortifying their feelings, and directing their ambition. More frequently, I must confess, I have seen the domestic influence gradually transforming a man, naturally noble and generous, into a cowardly, commonplace, selfish office-seeker, thinking of public affairs merely as a means of making himself comfortable; and this, simply by daily contact with a well-conducted woman, a faithful wife, an excellent mother, from whose mind the grand notion of public duty was entirely absent."

The hardening exposures, the gnawing jealousies, of overmuch fashionable society, with its shallow and bitter emulations, do far more to contract and sour the spirit of woman, to falsify and deprave her heart, to belittle and spoil her mind, to degrade and veneer her character, than any professional career can well be supposed to do. It cannot be doubted, that many a woman, who displays herself, as good as naked, in brilliant drawing-room assemblies, spends half her existence in the frivolity of crowded dinners, suppers, and balls, is more corrupted and bronzed than she could be by studying medicine, theology, jurisprudence, or political economy, and taking a zealous part in the affairs of her country. Let not the greater and nearer evil be neglected in a prejudiced imagination of a lesser and remoter one. Where do you find an exterior of politeness covering an interior of indifference or guile? a flaming demonstrativeness in front of a soul of ice? a beautiful show of nobleness and happiness, with a haggard reality of weariness and woe underneath? In the glare and fuss of society. And where do you find, purely shielded behind manners all frost, a heart all celestial fire? under conditions of unpretending simplicity, an experience ever fresh and serene, full of joy and dignity, and endlessly progressive? In those who lead lives of quiet sincerity and humility, consecrated to choice studies and chosen friends. What sweet charm or commanding grandeur or satisfying worth can be looked for in persons, the highest palpitations of whose hearts are raised by the touches of pride, money, and vanity? More patience, sincerity, studious seclusion, meditative consecration, and steady sympathy are the foremost want of our age.

The two arts of letter-writing and conversation, invaluable both as instruments of pleasure and of culture, seem to be dying out before the encroachment of innumerable trifles, absorbing amusements, tyrannical egotisms, and that pernicious flood of ephemeral literature, whose varieties are daily spawned upon all tables. The long, careful letters, full of thought, full of true personal interest and earnest general sentiment, so common two or three generations ago, are all but unknown now. There is no time left for them.

Conversation, too, has become the ghost of what it was. Where are the famous talkers now? Where are the circles in which conversation is carried on as the loftiest and richest of the social arts? The sustained comparison of views, interchange and discussion of opinions, accumulation of knowledge, argument, wit, sympathy, on themes of intense interest and solemn import, once so common in cultivated society, where all listened while each successively spoke, have given way before the telegraph, the newspaper, the pamphlet, the book, the platform, the swift diffusion of all information and the incessant hurry of everybody. Letter-writing is an indirect exchange of thoughts. Conversation is a personal exchange of life. The obvious decline of the former is a great loss; the notorious decline of the latter is a greater loss.

There is no way in which those women who are able to give the tone and set the fashion in society, can do so much good as by endeavoring to reinstate conversation, and to teach in every company the nobleness of leisure and attention, that each one who speaks shall be inspired to the fullest training of his best powers by the listening expectation of the rest. No one can talk well amidst a rude jabber of voices, or a perpetual succession of interruptions. Subtile thought, sacred sentiment, eloquent emotion, and artistic speech, are coy: they must have the encouragement of respectful audience. Conversation becomes the crowning art and luxury of life, the most completely satisfying of all employments, when groups of friends regularly meet, under the rules of gracious breeding, with leisure, with confidence in each other, with no jealous ambitions, no intolerant partisanship, but with catholic purposes of improvement. Instead of such meetings of choice friends, we now have mobs of people, drawn together by every sort of factitious motive—crowds who crush each other's dresses, desperately bow and smirk at each other; exchange intolerable commonplaces, with unmeaning conventionality; affect to listen to music, which no one can hear or would care for if he could hear; mix all their buzzing voices in one oceanic roar; or, when there is room, break up into whispering knots; then charge together upon the supper-table, as if it were a fortress to be taken by storm, and are unspeakably relieved when the assembly is over. As company is held in fashionable society now, the talk is not tenaciously kept to important themes, for ends of conviction, culture, light, or joy, but is a hodge-podge of trifles, an incoherent succession of unconsidered remarks. Each one speaks with his neighbor, regardless of all the rest of the guests, as if it were an evil to be silent, or an absurdity to expect that anybody could say any thing worth being listened to by all. Some one has said, with much piquancy, "Lectures are soliloquies reared on the ruins of conversation." Madame Mole suggestively remarks, "At the Hotel Rambouillet conversation was the all-sufficient amusement: we hear of neither cards nor music; for, wizen the habit of changing all thoughts and sentiments into words has become natural and easy, it offers so great a variety in itself that society needs no other. That form of talk alone can be called conversation in which what we really think and feel is called out, and flows the quicker from the pleasure of seeing it excite thoughts and feelings in others."