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TO YOUNG WOMEN.
TO YOUNG WOMEN.
My dear Friends , This volume is dedicated to you, because I believe in the principles it enunciates, and hope that many of your sex may get them lodged in their minds; and the conclusions to which they lead carried out in their lives. While feeling a warm interest in your honour, I have endeavoured to avoid all indiscriminate eulogiums on the eminent women here portrayed. The object of biography is to teach by example; and although perfection is claimed for none of the models here presented, ye
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CHAPTER I. True Womanhood.
CHAPTER I. True Womanhood.
The great question of the day is education. Daughters, as well as sons, are born with faculties capable of improvement; and the claims of the former to as good an education as the latter are beyond dispute. Indeed, some are of opinion that if either of the sexes ought to have a superior education, that boon is the birthright of females. Certainly, women have as important duties to perform as men, and therefore their discipline ought at least to be as strict. In the more usual sense, education is
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CHAPTER II. Peculiarities of Female Character.
CHAPTER II. Peculiarities of Female Character.
“The peculiar attributes of woman are softness , tenderness , love ; in fact, she has more heart than man.” We have it upon the best authority, that woman was created “because it was not good for man to be alone,” and the maintenance of the sex, in at least equal numbers, is the emphatic proclamation of the same truth throughout all ages. In paradise man enjoyed the sunshine of God’s favour, earth presented nothing but pleasure, and heaven unfolded nothing but bliss. Celibacy was thus tried unde
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SECTION I.—SUSANNA WESLEY.
SECTION I.—SUSANNA WESLEY.
“She was an admirable woman, of highly improved mind, and of a strong and masculine understanding; an obedient wife; an exemplary mother; a fervent Christian.” Home is woman’s most appropriate sphere, and it is there that her influence is most powerfully felt. Perhaps the three most beautiful, musical, and suggestive words in the English language are love , home , and mother ; and in these three words is comprehended all the history of a perfect woman. It is woman indeed, that makes home, and up
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SECTION II.—ELIZA HESSEL.
SECTION II.—ELIZA HESSEL.
“To the common-place but important qualification for domestic duties, she added literary culture, and a character adorned with Christian virtues.” We live in an age of novelty,—new plans, new discoveries, new opinions, are common enough. Many of these relate to woman, whose importance in the scale of humanity, no rational being, above all no Christian, can doubt. We are anxious that women should be roused to a sense of their own importance and responsibility; assured that if they understood thes
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SECTION I.—ELIZABETH FRY.
SECTION I.—ELIZABETH FRY.
“She pleaded unweariedly, and with the happiest results, for the persecuted, the ignorant, and the wretched of every class, and has left behind her a monument of grateful remembrance in the hearts of thousands.” In the last census returns it was shown that females exceeded by half a million the number of males in these islands. In England there are fifteen thousand governesses. A few years ago eight hundred and ten women applied for a situation of £15 per annum; and two hundred and fifty for ano
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SECTION II. AMELIA WILHELMINA SIEVEKING.
SECTION II. AMELIA WILHELMINA SIEVEKING.
“An actual life, that speaks for itself with that force of conviction which pierces like a purifying fire to the conscience, and demands of everyone who hears its voice, an answer, not in words, but in deeds.” At the present time the question of woman’s rights is being widely, and in some quarters warmly, discussed. Our serial literature, both at home and abroad, is claiming for woman freedom from all political, social, and legal, disqualifications. That women have legal grievances of a serious
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SECTION I.—HANNAH MORE.
SECTION I.—HANNAH MORE.
“Great as her fame has been, I never considered it equal to her merit. Such a fine and complete combination of talent and goodness, and of zeal and discretion, I never witnessed. All her resources, influences, and opportunities, were simply and invariably made to subserve one purpose, in which she aimed to live, not to herself, but to Him who died for us and rose again.”— Every piece of composition takes up, and must take up, as its basis, some element or assumption of fact,—states, affirms, or
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SECTION II.—ANNE GRANT.
SECTION II.—ANNE GRANT.
“We have no hesitation in attesting our belief that Mrs. Grant’s writings have produced a strong and salutary effect upon her countrymen, who not only found recorded in them much of national history and antiquities, which would otherwise have been forgotten, but found them combined with the soundest and best lessons of virtue and morality.” A good deal of literary fame has been won by letter-writing. It were easy to name authors whose letters are generally considered as their best works, and who
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SECTION III.—ANNE LOUISA STAËL.
SECTION III.—ANNE LOUISA STAËL.
“What woman indeed, (and we may add) how many men, could have preserved all the grace and brilliancy of Parisian society in analyzing its nature—explained the most abstruse metaphysical theories of Germany precisely, yet perspicuously and agreeably—and combined the eloquence which inspires exalted sentiments of virtue, with the enviable talent of gently indicating the defects of men or of nations, by the skilfully softened touches of a polite and merciful pleasantry.” It has been maintained that
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SECTION IV.—CAROLINA, BARONESS NAIRNE.
SECTION IV.—CAROLINA, BARONESS NAIRNE.
“For winning simplicity, graceful expression, and exquisite pathos, her compositions are specially remarkable; but when her muse prompts to humour, the laugh is sprightly and overpowering.” It is much easier to give a negative than a positive answer to this question. All that we seem to have arrived at is, Poeta nascitur non fit ; and that no amount or kind of culture can bestow the divine afflatus. Hesiod, in his “Theogony,” exhibits the Muses in the performance of their highest functions, sing
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SECTION V.—FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS.
SECTION V.—FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS.
“As a female writer, influencing the female mind, she has undoubtedly stood, for some by-past years, the very first in the first rank; and this pre-eminence has been acknowledged, not only in her own land, but wherever the English tongue is spoken, whether on the banks of the eastern Ganges or the western Mississippi.” This species of poetry sets forth the inward occurrences of the writer’s or speaker’s own mind—concerns itself with the thoughts and emotions. It is called lyric, because it was o
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SECTION VI.—ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
SECTION VI.—ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
“It is characteristic of this century, that women play a more important part in literature than previously. Not only have women of genius commanded universal homage, but the distinctive characteristics of the female nature have been exhibited with more exquisite analysis and more powerful truth than heretofore.” The principal of poetical compositions is the epic, otherwise called the heroic. It gives an imaginative narrative of some signal action or series of actions and events, usually the achi
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SECTION VII.—CHARLOTTE NICHOLLS. [CURRER BELL.]
SECTION VII.—CHARLOTTE NICHOLLS. [CURRER BELL.]
“I turn from the critical unsympathetic, public,—inclined to judge harshly because they have only seen superficially and not thought deeply. I appeal to that larger and more solemn public, who know how to look with tender humility at faults and errors; how to admire generously extraordinary genius, and how to reverence with warm, full hearts, all noble virtue.” There are few things more worthy of notice than those strange mutations of opinion, and returning circuits of belief, to which the human
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SECTION I.—CAROLINE LUCRETIA HERSCHEL.
SECTION I.—CAROLINE LUCRETIA HERSCHEL.
“Prior to her demise, hope had long become certainty, and prophecy passed into truth; and assemblies of the learned, through means of just though unusual tributes to herself, had recognised the immortality of the name she bore!” In most other sciences, the mind is so often lost in details, that it is difficult to stand where you may gaze freely out upon the unknown. In astronomy, however, you are brought almost at once to stand face to face with the Infinite. A wonderful study are these old heav
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SECTION II.—JANE ANN TAYLOR [JANET TAYLOR].
SECTION II.—JANE ANN TAYLOR [JANET TAYLOR].
“We believe that she was as gentle and simple in herself, as she was deeply versed in the abstruse science which she professed. Perhaps some surviving relative or friend may be able to throw light on the life and labours of one who was as extraordinary from her acquirements of knowledge as from her social reticence.” It is remarkable that women have, in a great number of instances, been distinguished by merits the most opposite to their imaginary and conventional character. The first use of ship
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SECTION I.—SELINA, COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON.
SECTION I.—SELINA, COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON.
“She stands, indeed, so connected with almost all which was good in the last century, that the character of the age, so far as religion is concerned, was in some measure her own. It is not insinuated that she alone impressed that character on the Church, but that she entirely sympathised with it, and was not a whit behind the foremost in affection for souls and zeal for God, in spirituality of mind and fervour of devotion, in contrivance and energy for the extension of the gospel, in a large and
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SECTION II.—ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF GORDON.
SECTION II.—ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF GORDON.
“The Church of Christ has often been indebted to ladies in high station whose hearts the Lord touched, who devoted themselves with singular ardour to the extension of His kingdom; using the graciousness of their rank and breeding to strengthen His ministers, and win favour for His holy cause; and who in so doing had a peculiar heavy cross of self-denial and reproach to bear. Had we lived in days when the gracious dead were canonized, and supposed to be helpful in heaven as they had been on earth
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SECTION III.—MARY JANE GRAHAM.
SECTION III.—MARY JANE GRAHAM.
“Her pursuits were only valuable in proportion as they were consecrated. In everything ‘to her to live was Christ.’ Nothing else seemed worthy of the name of Christ.” In dealing with many who avow themselves unbelievers in Christianity, we not unfrequently meet with an objection by the help of which they attempt to construct an argument against our religion. The tendencies of the mind we are told, are entirely dependent on the development of the brain, and the external influences operating upon
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SECTION IV.—FIDELIA FISKE.
SECTION IV.—FIDELIA FISKE.
“In the structure and working of her whole nature, she seemed to me the nearest approach I ever saw, in man or woman, to my ideal of our blessed Saviour as He appeared on the earth.” The peculiarities of Christianity form a most important and powerful argument in favour at once of its truth and of its Divine origin. A comparison of Christianity with other religions not only proclaims it to be the only religion worthy of God and suitable for human nature; but proclaims at the same time, and with
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CHAPTER VIII. Formation of Female Character.
CHAPTER VIII. Formation of Female Character.
“The foundation of all great character must be laid in a change wrought upon the heart by Divine influence. We say a change of the heart, because the qualities which we bring with us into the world can never be so improved and polished as to lead us to act in the manner which the Divine law requires. Some of the evil propensities of our nature may be checked, the force of some passions may be weakened, and that of others guided into a new direction; but in the change of which we speak, and which
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CHAPTER IX. Natural Equality of the Sexes.
CHAPTER IX. Natural Equality of the Sexes.
“Without intending a silly compliment, I think I may say, if you look at the two sexes and ask which is the best product, and does the most credit to its own training, he would be a bold person who would say it was the male sex.” Whether woman’s powers are equal to those of man seems to us hardly to admit of discussion. The proper question is not one of equality but of adaptation. In the very nature of things, between the two sexes there is a difference as well as a similarity. It was not good f
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