After all, will it not be best if these means never should be found? Is it not best that the intellectual should not preponderate in woman over the affectionate? Is it not best that her artistic faculties should remain in abeyance to her domestic nature? It has been acutely remarked that no man believes or ever will believe in woman as a teacher, until he has grown indifferent to her as a woman.' It is the natural inequality of the sexes which brings about the union between them, which produces that mutual veneration and that mutual love which are the corner-stones of the fabric of society. And we discern this rule at work even in the strong-minded women, who turn away from the strong-minded of the other sex, seeking in their mate qualities the opposite of those they themselves possess. Madame de Stael loved Rocca-but Rocca was a woman, except for his beard, and de Stael was a man, minus the beard. If the qualities of men and women were similar, we should have, instead of our present society, a perpetual war of the Amazons and the Giants. The true relation of the sexes is founded upon this very disparity which seems so much to irk the femme incomprise. Both sexes derive from it personal traits they would not otherwise possess, personal virtues they might otherwise sigh for in vain. It has been well said, that 'neither man nor woman disclose themselves truly, that is, poetically, save to each other, because neither has a perfect faith in themselves, but only in the other.' And this true relation presupposes the inferiority of woman to man, so far forth as breadth of nature is concerned, and so far forth as perfection of development is concerned. She is inferior to him in strength of passion, she is inferior to him in strength of intellect, and she is inferior to him in strength of body. But this inferiority does not lower her in the scale of being, by any means, but rather exalts her. For these qualities are of the earth, earthy; while in the qualities which take one nearest Heaven, in depth of moral purpose, in purity of thought, in embrace of affection, in sublimity of soul, woman is, and always must be, eminently man's superior. Whenever we conceive an angel, we conceive him under the guise, and with the form, the features, and the saintlike exaltation of a woman. And however we may look upon woman as mentally our inferior, we always concede to her at least an equal insight with us into divine things. In all the pride of our intellect and all the restlessness of our ambition, we are not able to exclude the consciousness within us, that a woman, quietly searching in the cup of a modest flower, or the blue eyes of a child, finds in those simple finities more than the Infinite which we madly seek in space, like blind Orion clutching at the stars. This is why it is not given to woman to go forth into the world sounding a trumpet, for the wooing tones of her voice at home reach farther and penetrate deeper; and the blare of the trumpet would drown the cradle-song forever. For, after all, woman fills an equal place in nature with man, and is equally important, equally indispensable, in the economy of the globe. There is a class of ideas which we derive from woman, and a class of feelings which originate with woman, to which the world is fully as much indebted as it is to all the intellectual endeavor, all the passion, and all the physical conquests of man. Woman's finer sensibilities, her keener appreciation of beauty, her instinctive unerring taste, her exquisite sense of order and of fitness," have left their enduring marks all around us, in our common speech, in our daily life, in the ornaments of our homes, in our hourly round of duty. Comfort is a word which would signify a new and unknown sense, but for woman. Buffon, to indicate man's rapid progress in ameliorating characteristics, used the formula: 'Les races se féminisent.' Comte, in his scheme for the social dynamics of the future, ascribes to woman the bringing about of 'la prépondérance de la sociabilité sur la personalité,' in other words, the substitution of charity for selfishness; and he asserts, unqualifiedly, that woman's mission is the moral regeneration of man. The moral firmness of woman is a lesson perpetually teaching itself to all of us-she is like the Justina of Calderon : 22 Willet due genau erfahren was sich ziemt, 6 It was said of Madame Roland: "3 Elle avait du caractère plutot que du génie '-yet that character has had a mightier influence upon the sympathies of men than all the tempestuous genius of Mirabeau, or all the grand marches of Napoleon. For woman teaches by example, after all, not by precept, nor by act of hand. And it is due to the impulsive, impetuous nature of woman that her example penetrates so deeply. The women are all before,' said Mephistopheles to Faust, on the route to the Blocksberg; for, in going to the house of the wicked one, woman is a thousand steps in advance.' Equally far is she in advance of man on the path to the House of the Blessed One. And herein is the error in Bunyan's great allegory, for, had he been true to nature, he would have depicted Christiana as not only the first to make the journey, but also as returning after Christian to encourage him on the way, and to share his burthen with him! After all, and in spite of all the twaddle of the half-breeched spasmodists, who are fretting to be unsexed, woman is thoroughly aware of the work set apart for her to do in the world; and she goes to her task with a perfect confidence, and that perfect love which casteth out fear. She knows that it is her function, by natural and divine right,' to bring happiness into the world; and this is the only work to which she cordially applies herself, and with which she is perfectly well pleased. In this sphere of her activity she moves on like the poet's star, neither hasting nor resting, refreshing herself, indeed, instead of being fatigued; ever following upon man's toiling footsteps to glorify with her smiles and her comforts, her love and her blessing, the regions that he has painfully conquered-planting flowers about every cabin newly hewn out in the wilderness. The Bohemian phantasmists may try to lift her from this sphere; the femmes incomprises may gnash their teeth at their own incompetence to move aright therein, but the true woman passes on, serene, and smiling, and content, knowing exactly 23 By Chateaubriand. her work, and performing it grandly. Within this sphere she is at home, iron-rooted, inexpugnable. In this sphere, she is happy, bestowing happiness, and culling the flowers of love: and, whatever storms may come, so long as she still abides here, they cannot wrest the smile from her face nor the blessedness from her heart. She is often martyred here, but even her martyrdoms have their ample compensations, for then, her whole life becomes the school of eternity.' 24 We may well say, then, with Thomas de Quincey: Thou, therefore, daughter of God and man, all-potent woman! reverence thy own ideal; and in the wildest of the homage which is paid to thee, as also in the most real aspects of thy wide dominion, read no trophy of idle vanity, but a silent indication of the possible grandeur enshrined in thy nature; which realize to the extent of thy power, 'And show us how divine a thing A woman may become!' ART. IV.-1. Hortensius; or the Advocate. B. William Forsyth, Esq., M. A., Barrister-at-Law. London: John Murray, Albemarle street. 1849. 2. The Relation of the Legal Profession to Society. A Lecture delivered before the Maryland Institute, March 9th, 1868, . by Geo. Wm. Brown. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1868. It is interesting to study the peculiar sentiments with which the members of the Bar are regarded by the rest of mankind. The dullest understanding can perceive and admit the necessity of laws, of judges to expound and of inferior officers to execute them. But when the necessity of practising lawyers is sug gested, such admission, even from understandings that have 24 M. de Custine. been highly cultivated by study, and observation, and reflection, comes sometimes with reluctance and for the most part with allowance. Even men of letters, even poets, whom we have been taught to regard as our best teachers, are found to fling their pleasant satires at the lawyers. That seemed to be a most unhappy stress of difficulties upon one of Lord Byron's heroes when 'No choice was left his feelings or his pride, Save death or Doctors' Commons-so he died.' We have read of the Gammons and Heaps, the Buzfuzzes and Tulkinghorns, and we smile at the absurdities and shudder at the iniquities of such a class of fools and rascals. Yet lawyers live and prosper. With the increase of wealth and the advancement of civilization, they multiply in numbers, they rise to the highest places, and they lead in all the legislation which controls the world. In public they are the framers of laws, international, constitutional, and municipal: in private they are the counsellors of the people, in the ascertainment of all their rights of person and property, and then they make their last wills and testaments, and settle and distribute their estates after they are dead. We may have our suspicions, and apprehensions, and dislikes of lawyers as a class; but every one of us who has anything which he desires to keep for himself or for those who are to come after him, knows one among them who receives his most intimate confidence, and in whom he feels that his surest reliance, whether he himself be to live or to die, may be placed. Him he consults, both in the matters of his business and the matters of his conscience; and none but lawyers know how much wicked litigation has been avoided, how much meanness has been repressed, how much justice has been wrung for the weak and the innocent out of the hands of the powerful and the guilty-all in the secret counsellings of lawyers' offices. Let us inquire somewhat into these contrary opinions. Why this suspicion in the general, and this confidence in the particular? Why these universal warnings against the class, and this life-long resort to the individual in all the most important and secret affairs of life? We cannot undertake to answer |