The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1854-08-24
For the National Era.
FOR the National Era.
WOMAN-HER IEFLUENCE AND TRUE POSI-
TICE
TENNYSON'S PRINCESS"

| TENNYS0N'S PRINCESS"
have 10 intention of attempting critical
review OF this most excellent poem Not only
would be incapable of doing So but it would
also be unnecessary; for presume that most
persons have road the brilliant analytical essays
of Poe and Whipplc, upon the poems of Tenny-
son.
DO not sit down sternly to display with cold
| precision the faults and beauties of " The Prin-
cess" | recline, with the book in my hand,
Onder the dewy bOughs Of waving treeg far
| away from the sound Of voice or footstep, see
ing only the sea of leaves above me, with the
tiemulous light floating in, and rising and
| falling with the vernal undulation.
| No critic |. My heart leads my head in tho
study. | read with no intent to discover true
or false logic, suitable or inappropriate figures.
| linger over it lovingly, now kindling into
enthusiasm, now dreaming mysteriously, and
then weeping until sadness swels into luxury.
In the poem Of " The Princess" Tennyson
takes up the subject which has 80 long agita-
ted the world--the distinctive indiVduaiitios
Of lnan and woman. He goes deeper into the
subject and treats it with more liberality, with
more true feeling, than eny other writer with
whom am acquainted. He gives us the re-
suit of deep thought upon woman and her
sphere; he sees that the whole matter lies
deeper than most men are willing to acknowl-
edge. They prate to us of domestic bliss and
the affections the only domain of woman, until
We are led to believe thnt they place the divine
acme Of happiness in having an indifferent
husband, and fourteen small children. The
men who rave most against e woman's dream
ing Of other happiness than that Of the affec-
tions are those who are too shallow-hearted to
be capable of loving at all. IF tho affection
with which they are forever telling US to salts
fly ourselves could only be sought from them,
it would be commanding rs 10 make bricks,
without evon place in which to seek the
straw.
| am not advocating the necessity Of wonl-
ans heading armies, or administering Justice
from the seat of the judge her delicate physi-
cal nature, and too sensitive sOul, exempt her
from those stern positions. What woman most
needs is breadth of thought. | can well under
stand how, from the nature of things, the great
body OF women are excluded from active places,
but confess myself utterly too obtuse to dis
cover why she should not have the same expan-
sion of soul as man. She is necessarily shut
out from the higher excitement and vigorous
action of mans life. If she can never thrill
with emotion at the contemplation of noble
deeds; if she can never soar with the wings of
the poet and philosopher into the realms Of
thought; if she can never look abroad over the
widespread world, up to the unmeasured blue
fields of heaven, away over the myriads of
flowers that yearn towards the sun, across the
eternal unrest of the vague sea, and feel the
earnest and deep-tOned chords of her nature
vibrating on to an expansion of soul that swells
to the contemplation Of the infinite-her exist
ence becomes q series of little acts a dead level
of vapid monotoDy.
do not mean to say that any woman could
find entire satisfaction in q life disconnected
from @ strong exercise Of tho affections for |
believe that every true woman would sacrifice
to her love the most brilliant position on the
face Of the earth. But men seem to forget the
uncertainties, the disappointments OF the world,
when they shut US up absolutely to the affec-
tions-they forget that love may be bGghted,
that those we love may die or prove faithless
In such q case, the woman who he's no mental
balance finds herself reduced to despair; she
cannot meet her thoughts she flies from them
into frivoiity, into dissipation, or perhaps even
into death while the woman who has men,
tai resources can seek refuge from writhing
heart in calm and elevated mind, and
GAS q hunted deer, that cannot fee -.
May turn upon her thoughts, and stand at bN -
Women need no higher development of the af-
fections; they are now too strong-they are
the means by which men kill Us with ourselves
Every day we read in some paper such notices
as this: Z" Found IN the Seine, or the North
river, the body of young girl, supposed to
have committed suicide" Now, these accounts
are so common, that they generally pass by IN
noticed; for nay part, | read them always with
profound emotion; they contain within them
depth of pathos which never fails to touch
my heart. read the same old story-a bright
day, which too much love and confidence have
filed with tender visions; then comes a dark
night of ruin, desertioD, the scorn of the world,
and a rushing forth into the realm of tho un-
known, wrung out from great anguish.
Then am convinced that unbounded affec-
tons, untutored passions, are not supreme
themselves the elements of slow sgonies; nor
do see that quixotic rage for protecting US, OF
which men are always Wanting. Its the style
ofprotection which men award to woman, when
they are willing to defend her from lions and
wolves, there being no possibility of her coming