Part 14 (1/2)

The death of this memorable woman, touchingly described by Falloux in a letter to Montalembert written at the time, was worthy of what had gone before it, of the preparations she had made for it, and of the glorious destiny to which she believed it the entrance. That ”we are to seek G.o.d, not deludedly wait for him to seek us,” was not more the maxim of her pen than of her practice. ”I speak to others; but with whom do I converse, if it be not, O my G.o.d with thee?” To one of the group of tearful and venerating friends standing around her, she said, ”Do not, my good friend, ask for me one day more, or one pang less.” Without any decay of her faculties or waning of her moral force, bearing her sufferings with invincible patience and sweetness, maintaining a dignity of thought and speech comparable with that of the last conversation of Socrates, but with the triumph of a perfect Christian faith, she dropped what was mortal, and pa.s.sed immortally into the bosom of G.o.d. It was in September, 1857, and she was seventy-five years young. The great, dazzling, guilty Paris has loosed no purer or richer spirit for the skies. Her dust hallows the cemetery of Montmartre, where, in the coming days, many a pilgrim will go to look on her monument.

While Margaret Fuller was yet a little girl, in her father's house, an elegant English lady came to pa.s.s a few weeks in Cambridge. Her beauty, with her repose and softness of manner, wrought like a strange spell on the idealizing spirit of the lonely and pa.s.sionate girl. She found the first angel of her life: heaven was opened; and the image of the fair stranger, who soon vanished beyond the sea, was an intoxicating vision in her brain, full of light and perfume, for many a year. In her later life, Margaret formed impa.s.sioned connections with a great many superior girls, who were drawn to her by an affinity for her overflowing powers of intellect, feeling, and aspiration. The last on the list of her friends.h.i.+ps was the n.o.ble Marchioness Arconati, in Italy. The entire intercourse of these two women forms a chapter of devoted warmth and frankness. Through all her life, Margaret felt the necessity for intense relations of affection with the worthiest persons she met. One of her biographers says, ”Her friends.h.i.+ps wore a look of such romantic exaggeration that she seemed to walk enveloped in a s.h.i.+ning fog of sentimentalism. Yet, in fact, Truth at all cost was her ruling maxim. Her earnestness to read the hidden history of others was the gauge of her own emotion.”

This prayer was found among the papers written in her earlier life: ”Father, I am weary. Re-a.s.sume me for a while, I pray thee. Oh, let me rest awhile in thee, thou only Love! In the depth of my prayer, I suffer much. Take me only awhile. No fellow-being will receive me. I cannot pause: they will not detain me by their love. Take me awhile, and again I will go forth on a renewed service. I sink from want of rest; and none will shelter me. Thou knowest it all. Bathe me in thy Love.” Emerson says of her, ”Her friends.h.i.+ps, as a girl with girls, as a woman with women, were not unmingled with pa.s.sion, and had pa.s.sages of romantic sacrifice and of ecstatic fusion, which I have heard with the ear, but could not trust my profane pen to report.” At the close of her life, amidst the ruins of Rome, she wrote, ”I have been the object of great love, from the n.o.ble and the humble: I have felt it towards both. Yet I am tired out, tired of thinking and hoping, tired of seeing men err and bleed. Coward and foot-sore, gladly would I creep into some green recess, where I might see a few not unfriendly faces, and where not more wretches should come than I could relieve. I am weary, and faith soars and sings no more. Nothing good of me is left, except, at the bottom of the heart, a melting tenderness.”

The d.u.c.h.ess of Orleans, that Helen of Mecklenburg who married the eldest son of Louis Philippe, was one of those women whose exalted charms of person, character, and manners glorify their s.e.x, fascinate all beholders, and win the enthusiastic devotion of their a.s.sociates.

She was the worthy grand-daughter of that n.o.ble d.u.c.h.ess Louise of Saxe-Weimar, wife of Carl August, the friend of Goethe and Schiller, of whom Napoleon said, ”Behold a woman whom all my cannon cannot frighten.” Through the checkered scenes of her brilliant and melancholy lot, her happy childhood; her dazzling nuptials; her enviable married life; the terrible shock of her sudden widowhood; the frightful scenes of the revolution, when, with her infant son by her side, she confronted the levelled muskets of the infuriated mob, and looked ma.s.sacre in the face, without the ruffle of a feature; the dismal days of exile, decline, and death, she bore herself with that sweet dignity, that spotless purity, that ineffable and sublime grace of wisdom and goodness which sometimes appear to lift the perfection of womanhood so nearly to the prerogatives of an angel. She had many friends of her own s.e.x, who cherished an idolatrous affection for her. One of these, the inseparable companion of her existence, has anonymously written a sketch of her life and character, a most charming and impressive tribute. This modest memoir instructively suggests far more than it betrays. The writer says of her adorable friend, ”Life was interesting by her side. She captivated the imagination of every one. I know no other woman with whom I could converse for twelve hours together, without for an instant feeling void or weariness. I feel as if I had always something to say to her; for her interest never flags.” It is singular that, of all the mult.i.tude who desire to enchain their friends, so few ever learn to practise the deep secret contained in this italicized clause, the innocent secret of a self-abnegating heart of love.

Sarah Austin, one of the wisest and n.o.blest women of England, formed a reverential and ardent friends.h.i.+p for this matchless lady, in her adversity. How profound, how sacred this attachment was, is proved by the notice which, on the day the d.u.c.h.ess died, Mrs. Austin wrote, and sent to the press, blotted with tears; and also by the fuller sketch she afterwards prefixed to her English translation of the life of the d.u.c.h.ess from its French original. ”Her character was always presenting itself in new and harmonious lights; her manners were indescribably refined and winning; her conversation never flagged, was never trifling, never pedantic, never harsh; it always kept you at an elevation which at once soothed and invigorated the mind. There was not in her nature the slightest tinge of the cynical skepticism or sarcastic contempt which chill the soul, and annihilate hope and courage. These are the weapons which vulgar minds oppose to misfortune, the bitter and poisonous plants which wrongs and calamities produce in poor and barren hearts; but her tender and magnanimous nature could bring forth nothing which was not good and generous. It was most affecting to watch the working of her transparent mind through its faithful index, her countenance, during conversation.

”The interest her great qualities inspired was raised, by pity for her cruel misfortunes, to a height which might almost be called a pa.s.sion. A veil of sadness overspread her sweet face; but behind this veil there was always such a beaming benignity, so lovely a concern for the welfare of mankind, such a high-hearted courage, that you left her cheered rather than depressed. It is to the extraordinary power she had of giving a high tone to the minds of others, joined to the unalterable sweetness of her daily intercourse, that I attribute the discouraged feeling common to those who mourn her loss. If her misfortunes were august, solemn, and terrible as a Greek tragedy, her heart was large, high, and strong enough to meet them. With all her gentleness, Christian and womanly patience, the most striking feature in her character was its moral grandeur.

”Greatness of mind and n.o.bleness Build in her loveliest, and create an awe About her, as a guard angelic placed.”

Such a woman is the highest exemplar and benefactor of her s.e.x. A religious quality is evoked in the soul that contemplates her. Every impure feeling is struck dead with awe before her. The angelic serenity of her face is as if the smiles which others wear outwardly, with her had retreated inward, and hovered in perpetual play about the heart. By spiritual contact with her, other persons become angelic also. She teaches, by example, what a divine exaltation is sometimes reached through adversity and pain. The head, discrowned of earthly glory, is crowned with celestial beauty. When sufferings stimulate virtues, the thorn-wreath blossoms on our brow: when sacrifices feed faith, the cross which we clasp puts on wings and lifts us heavenward.

I have reserved, to close this chapter, a singularly romantic example of a pair of female friends, set forth by old Thomas Heywoode, in his ”Nine Books of Various History concerning Women,” published at London in 1624. A certain sinless maiden, called Bona, ”who lived a retired life in a house of religious Nunnes, had a bedfellow, unto whom, above all others, she was tied, lying on her death-bed, and no help to be devised for her recovery.” This Bona, being herself in perfect health, besought the Almighty, that she might not survive her friend; but, as they had lived together in all sanct.i.ty and sisterly love, so their chaste bodies might not be separated in death. As she prayed, so it happened. Both died on the same day, and were buried in the same sepulchre, being fellows in one house, one bed, and one grave; and now, no question, joyful and joint inheritors of one kingdom.

NEEDS AND DUTIES OF WOMAN IN THIS AGE.

IF one-tenth of the efforts which women now make to fill their time with amus.e.m.e.nts, or to gratify outward ambition, were devoted to personal improvement, and to the cultivation of high-toned friends.h.i.+ps with each other, it would do more than any thing else to enrich and embellish their lives, and to crown them with contentment.

Their characters would thus be elevated, their hearts warmed, their minds stored, their manners refined, and kindness and courtesy infused into their intercourse.

Nothing else will ever add to society the freshness, variety, and stimulant charm, the n.o.ble truths and aspirations, the ingenuous, co-operating affections, whose absence at present makes it often so deceitful and repulsive, so barren and wearisome. The relish of existence is destroyed, the glory of the universe darkened, to mult.i.tudes of tender and highsouled persons, by the loathsome insincerity and treachery, the frivolous fickleness, the petty suspicions and envies, and the incompetent judgments, which they are constantly meeting. These superficial and miserable vices of common society disenchant the soul, and dry up the springs of love and hope.

They are fatal to that magnanimous wisdom and that trustful sympathy which compose at once the brightest ornaments of our nature, and the costliest treasures of experience. Ah, if, in place of them, we could everywhere meet the honest hand, the open heart, the serious mind, the frank voice, the upward eye, the emulous and helpful soul largely endowed with knowledge and reverence! Then one would never be troubled with that frightfully depressing feeling--the feeling that there is nothing worth living for. Verily, the most dismal of all deaths is to die from lack of a sufficient motive for living. And is it not to be feared that many in our age die this death?

The true remedy for the fierce, shallow war of society, or its faded and jaded hollowness, is to be found in generous friends.h.i.+ps, begotten by a common pursuit of the holiest ends of existence. In the nurture of these relations, by every law of fitness and want, it belongs to women to take the lead. The realm of the affections, with its imperious exactions and its imperial largesses, is theirs.

Certainly no right or privilege should be withheld from women; but they ought to be careful not to mistake dangers or defects or vices for rights and privileges. It is simple blindness to fail to see that the distinctively feminine sphere of action is domestic life, and the inner life--not the brawling mart and caucus. The freedom and education of woman should be so enlarged that she can include, in intelligence and sympathy, all the interests of mankind. But, in action, we would rather coax men to withdraw from the gladiatorial strifes and shows of the world, than goad women to enter them.

And yet this statement needs qualification. There is much to be said on the other side. Woman is still generally regarded, on account of the transmitted opinions and usages of the past, as a mere appendage to man. The truth of the greatest importance to be considered is, that the element of humanity, not the element of s.e.x, is the supreme fact by which the question should be determined. Seen from the point of view of absolute morality, man is no more a child of G.o.d and an heir of the eternal universe, than woman. She has a personal destiny of her own to fulfil, irrespective of him, just as much as he has one, irrespective of her ”The most important duty of woman,” it has been said, ”is to perfect man.” Why so? No one would say that the most important duty of man is to perfect woman. And yet, why is it not just as much his duty to be her servant, as it is her duty to be his servant? It is a remnant of barbaric prejudice, preserved from the ages of brute force, which makes the difference in the estimate.

The first duty of every human being is self-perfection. The ideal of marriage is the mutual perfection of both parties. In its truest idea, marriage is an inst.i.tution for the perfecting of the race, by the perfecting of individual men and women through their co-operating intelligence and affection. To limit its end to the perfecting of the man alone, is the highest stretch of masculine arrogance. Is it not a just inference, that, if woman is as completely a human unit as man, she has an equal right with him to the use of every means of self- development in the fulfilment of her destiny? The foremost claim to be made in behalf of women, therefore, is liberty, as untrammelled a choice of occupation and mode of life, as free a range of individuality and spiritual fruition, as is granted to men. But would this really be an advance, or a retrogression? Many maintain that it would be subversive of the genuine progress of civilization, to abandon the prejudices and throw down the bars which have hitherto restrained women from a full share in the chosen avocations and ambitions of men. All improvement is marked, they say, by an increase of differences, greater separation and complexity of offices.

Therefore, to efface or lessen the social distinctions between the s.e.xes would be to reverse the order of development. Auguste Comte, who felt a strong interest in this subject, and had a deep insight into some of its data, says, ”All history a.s.sures us, that, with the growth of society, the peculiar features of each s.e.x have become not less but more distinct. Woman may persuade, advise, judge; but she should not command. By rivalry in the selfish pursuits of life, mutual affection between the s.e.xes would be corrupted at its source.

There is a visible tendency towards the removal of women, wherever it is possible, from all industrial occupations. Christianity has taken from them the priestly functions they held under Polytheism. With the decline of the principle of caste, they are more rigidly excluded from royalty and every kind of political authority. Thus their life, instead of becoming independent of the Family, is becoming more concentrated in it. That Man should provide for Woman is a law of the human race--a law connected with the essentially domestic character of female life.” There is a larger admixture of error in the foregoing representation, than is usual with this deep and original thinker on social ethics. It is true that differences increase with the progress of society; it is also true that similarity increases. There is both a minuter subdivision of functions, and a wider freedom of choice in the selection of their functions by individuals. In the rudest state, the relative condition and mode of life of whole cla.s.ses are rigidly fixed by their birth or by arbitrary violence. As science and art are developed, and wealth acc.u.mulated, the varieties of industry and of social rank are largely multiplied; liberty of choice is extended, and facility of change is increased. Once there was a royal caste, a priestly caste, a warrior caste, a servile caste; determined by blood, and unalterable. These invidious castes are now, for the most part, broken down, and their several functions comparatively open to all who, observing the conditions, choose to fulfil them. The most prevalent and obstinate of caste distinctions is that of s.e.x; the monopoly by man of public action, power, and honor; the exclusion of one-half of our race from what men regard as the highest social prerogatives, an exclusion which was no deliberate act, but a natural result of historic causes. Dr. Hedge says, with the clear vigor characteristic of his admirable mind, ”As to the charge of exclusion, I think it would be quite as correct to say that women have combined to exclude men from the kitchen, the laundry, the nursery, as that men have combined to exclude women from the army or the navy, or the bar or the pulpit, or the broker's board. I suppose the a.s.signment of either s.e.x to the cla.s.s of occupations which society, as now const.i.tuted, respectively devolves upon them came about in the beginning as naturally as the difference in costume which has always divided male and female. A sense of fitness, of natural affinity, determined each in its several way. There was no compulsion of the weaker by the stronger, and no formal allotment. Each following its own instincts arrived where it is. A tacit agreement settled this point as it has so many others of the social economy. Nor would any discontent with the present arrangement have arisen; had the family life kept pace with the growth of society.” This exclusive usurpation of the public life by man--or rather, as we should say, this natural development and division--so organized by immemorial usage as to have become a second nature in both parties, is at last beginning to reveal its injustice, and to give way. In savage life, woman is little more than a bearer of burdens, a slave, and a drudge; as coa.r.s.e as man, and lower in rank and treatment. The man fishes, hunts, fights, plays, rests; putting every repulsive task exclusively on the woman. It is the brute right of the stronger, which very slowly yields to the refining influence of reflective sympathy.

With each successive advance of society, it is not true that the distinction of s.e.x becomes more definite and more important; but it is true that the distinctive feeling of men towards women becomes less a feeling of scorn and authority--more a feeling of deference and homage. Woman is as distinct from man in the grossest barbarism as in the finest civility: only, in that, she is the degraded servant of his senses; in this, the honored companion of his soul. If, with the progress of society, the sphere of feminine life becomes more domestic, inward, individual, so also does that of man. His ideal life constantly encroaches more on his active life; his physical energies become less predominant, and his moral sympathies stronger.

Woman begins by being totally distinct from man in personality and estate, totally subjected to him in service. She goes on, with the improvement of civilization, to be ever freer from his authority, nearer his equal in status, more closely blended with him in personality and moral pursuits. They are not master and servant; but equals, responsible to one another for mutual perfection, each responsible to G.o.d for personal perfection. While, therefore, to efface the intrinsic characteristics of the s.e.xes would undoubtedly be a retrograde step, it is an impossible step, which no one proposes to take. It is proposed merely to efface those fact.i.tious characteristics, whose removal will clear away barriers and secure the more rapid improvement of all, by blending their culture, their liberty, and their wors.h.i.+p--showing us men and women as equal units of humanity in its personal ends, but dependent co-adjutors in its social means.

The common destiny of a woman, as a representative of humanity, is the same as that of a man; namely, the perfect development of her being in the knowledge of truth, and in the practice of virtue and piety. Her peculiar destiny is wifehood and maternity. But if she declines this peculiar destiny of her s.e.x, or it is denied her, still her common human destiny remains unforfeited; and she has as clear a right to the unrestricted use of every means of fulfilling it as she could have if she were a man.

The good wife and mother fulfils a beautiful and a sublime office--the fittest and the happiest office she can fulfil. If her domestic cares occupy and satisfy her faculties, it is a fortunate adjustment; and it is right that her husband should relieve her of the duty of providing for her subsistence. But what shall be said of those millions of women who are not wives and mothers; who have no adequate domestic life--no genial private occupation or support?

Mult.i.tudes of women have too much self respect to be desirous of being supported in idleness by men; too much genius and ambition to be content with spending their lives in trifles; and too much devotedness not to burn to be doing their share in the relief of humanity, the work and progress of the world. If these were all happy wives and mothers, that might be best. But denied that function, and being what they are, why should not all the provinces of public labor and usefullness, which they are capable of occupying, be freely open to them? What else is it save prejudice that applauds a woman dancing a ballet or performing an opera, but shrinks with disgust from one delivering an oration, preaching a sermon, or casting a vote? Why is it less womanly to prescribe as a physician than to tend as a nurse?

If a woman have a calling to medicine, divinity, law, literature, art, instruction, trade, or honorable handicraft, it is hard to see any reason why she should not have a fair chance of pursuing it.

Of course, such must ever be the exceptional callings of women; but in proportion as those not otherwise more satisfactorily employed enter into them, we must believe that the burden on men, instead of being aggravated by the new compet.i.tion, will be shared, and thus lightened, and the best interests of society receive impulse. Is it not, then, a sound claim which demands for women a full initiation into all the n.o.ble realms and interests of humanity? Slavery and ignorance engender worse vices and more hopeless degradation than can result from the exposures of freedom and knowledge. Besides, freedom and knowledge are the guides to every form of n.o.bleness. They alone can fit women truly to exert their most sacred prerogatives. Those who have enjoyed the best means of knowing the truth say, that the Harems of the East are the hot-beds of every wicked quality whose seeds slumber in the heart of woman. Surrounded by rivals; incessantly watched by those cunning and merciless monsters, the eunuchs; knowing nothing of science, art, literature, or industry-- they must be devoured by animal pa.s.sion, by love of intrigue and deception, by jealousy, envy, and hatred. The true remedy for the melancholy stagnation or the frightful effervescence of their existence is not indeed to call them forth into a contest with men for the notice of society and the prizes of the world; but to give them their liberty, remanding them to their own consciences and the social sanctions of the great laws of right and wrong, to educate them to the highest point in every department of knowledge and sentiment, and to throw open to them the boundless field of private and public moral influence, with a fair chance for the achievement of happiness.

Therefore, while as perfect an education, and as absolute a liberty, are claimed for women as for men, they are to be adjured to remember that their conscious aims should be wisdom, goodness, spiritual force, delicacy, and harmony, with the consequent moral influence and contentment; and not the trophies of power, or the publicities of fame. And precisely the same duty holds with regard to men.

The effort to attain the highest graces of character, instead of plunging recklessly into the selfish ways of the world, is as truly obligatory for man as for woman.

Brazen impudence, unprincipled greed, ignorance, cruelty, are vices in him too; modesty, patience, obedience, cleanliness, and aspiration, are virtues in him too. If those vices were to receive a new development, these virtues a new check, by setting before women the higher industries and prizes of society, it would be an immense evil. But is it not probable that such a course will do more to elevate than to degrade, by a larger diffusion of the moral stimulants and restraints of life more closely a.s.similating the s.e.xes in their diversity, interchanging their respective traits for mutual advantage, and speeding them forward in the common race? The two most p.r.o.nounced feminine characteristics are tenderness and purity; masculine, courage and knowledge. Humanity will not be perfected, either in individual character or social destiny, by the greater separate enhancement of these in the s.e.xes, but only by their balanced diffusion in both, making the women wise and courageous, the men tender and pure.