people unhappy. Men have augmented their natural strength by the laws they have dictated; women have added to the power of winning them by the difficulty of attaining the prize. It would not be difficult to say on which side, to-day, is the servitude. Authority is the first object at which women aim. The love they bestow, conducts them to-that which they feel, removes them from-this desired goal. endeavour, then, to inspire love, to hinder themselves from feeling it-this is the grand policy of women in the abstract. To "This art of pleasing, this desire of pleasing all, this envy of pleasing more than another, this silence of the heart, this irregularity of the mind, this continual falsehood called coquetry (for is it not an acted falsehood to receive attentions from two men, so as to leave each under the impression that he is the favoured suitor ?) seems to be in women a primitive character, which, springing from their naturally subordinate, unjustly servile condition, extended and fortified by education, cannot be weakened but by an effort of reason, nor destroyed hut by a great warmth of feeling. It has been compared to the sacred fire, which was never extinguished.' * The same views are expressed by Pope, in his celebrated 'Epistle on the Characters of Women? "In man, we various ruling passions find; It is a woman's boast, it is the grand object of her moral training, that she can hide and smother her feelings of affection for the opposite sex. Her life is, and must ever be, in this respect, infinitely less frank, infinitely more conventional and artificial, than that of man. Women, compared with men, have but a limited experience of their own hearts, characters, and qualities. To men are permitted many abortive efforts to love, not only in their own rank of life, but in others; so that a man may have sounded the depths of his own heart before he has stumbled on one real, earnest, worthy attachment ; and to men of character this rarely happens more than once. Women, more correct, more hedged in and protected by the proprieties of life, exhibit not the same strong passions, leading to irregularities in conduct, as men, because in general they feel them not. A woman's only chance of happiness, shackled as she is by the monotonous conventionalities of society, is to lose all strong impulses, all tendencies towards freedom of the will. Hence we find women, like droves of sheep following some unknown leader, endeavouring to amuse the immortal soul with the puerilities of fashion, striving to silence the voice of nature by laborious trifling, until at length their minds assimilate to each other as closely as their handwriting, and all marks of idiosyncrasy and originality are throughly effaced. And women who are too independent, whose minds are cast in too manly a mould for this conduct, must be contented to run the gauntlet of opprobrium of their own sex in general, and that portion of ours who admire the dolls of civilization into which we have converted women. A woman waits for her lover to appear. She must simulate and disguise "the strong necessity of loving." What mercy could she expect from her own sex, were she to display any of the frankness of man in speaking on so delicate, so interesting a subject as love. She affects indifference, she speaks slightingly of this passion, the great bond of human society; she is, unconsciously and from habit, a miracle of deceit. For this woman has deep feelings, though she never shows them. She must have her preferences. Her imagination may have been cultured to the highest degree. If she possess character, she may even love a man who has made no advances to her; she may be pining for one whom she meets daily, yet, true to the modesty, "the bashful art" of her sex, the training she has received, she would rather die than give this man the slightest hint of the state of her heart until he has broken the ice by speaking about love. It would be absurd to blame women for this deceit. We must pity them for being the victims of society, the involuntary adepts at imposture which we behold them. It is extremely difficult for us men to judge them, for we are not called upon to stifle our emotions in this terrific manner. We can always learn the worst, we can propose (hackneyed term for telling a woman that we love her) and be refused. We can at least be freed from the tortures of suspense. We can honestly and openly avow our preference, and do our best to win the affections of the woman we love. But the woman has only the power to reject. If she desire to bring a man to her feet, she must proceed by the most indirect and wary approaches. She is in a measure compelled to be, more or less, a coquette; for she is surrounded by men whom she does not like to dismiss, because the man she would like to marry may never propose to her. Can we wonder that women are such incomparable actresses? To a woman, love and marriage are almost everything in this life. Her world, her earthly happiness, lies in the affections, beyond which her existence is cheerless and sterile. With men, if the current of love turns awry, a field-a noble, honourable, useful career-still presents itself. How touchingly has Byron painted this truth in the following passage from the farewell letter of Donna Julia to her lover! "Man's love is of man's life a thing apart; 'Tis woman's whole existence. Man may range And few there are whom these cannot estrange. So true is this, that, to many men, failure in love has proved an advantage. Like Mr. Berkly in 'Hyperion,' they have lived to be grateful for being refused. To have been "made happy" would have annihilated the career of ambition. But women have neither the same philosophy, nor the same choice of occupation, to divert their minds in celibacy; and there is truth in the vulgar adage "A man may marry when he chooses; a woman, when she can." A woman who, at twenty, turns away shocked and offended by a proposal of marriage from a handsome and superior man, would, at thirty, were she not restrained by the fetters of custom, make overtures of marriage to a man deficient in personal and mental attractions. "To judge of her by her beauty, her youth, her pride, and disdain, everybody would * This proverb, however, does not apply to men of delicacy and refinement. There is a moral obstacle which hinders them from marrying at any time, viz., that they cannot choose their wives as they would buy a horse or order a coat. expect her to be charmed by nothing less than a hero. Her choice is made. It is a little monster deficient in intellect." * In short, if, by any means, all the men in the world could be unanimous in ceasing to pay court to, and solicit the women (an event which I confess is not very likely to happen), another great change in established custom would take place. The women, instead of waiting to be asked, as they do now (though it must be confessed, in some instances, they wait very impatiently), instead of affecting dis lain and unwillingness to make men happy, would abandon their indirect methods of attracting the other sex, and become the suitors themselves in their turn. Deficiency of Women in Enthusiasm. I have heard it asserted that women suffer more from desertion, or disappointment of the affections, than men. Here, again, I cannot help thinking that those who think so, mistake the exception for the rule. "But women have not the resources of men to banish thought and memory." Granted. What does this prove? Have women in general the same earnestness or power of concentration as men? Their life is altogether more sluggish; in love they do not rise to the same height of sensibility. Why, then, should they not be equally independent of the resources of men for banishing painful memories ? Fortu Broken hearts are rare things in reality. nately for the continuation of the human race, the principle of vitality is so strong in us, that even the most feeling natures are able to forget in time. And the great majority of men and women forget too easily. A young man drowns the memory of blighted hopes in wine. He plunges into all the terrible dis * La Bruyère. |