New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1856-03-03
rR. CURTIS ON FEMALE YOrELrsTs.

1 By Mr.. GEoRoE WILLIAM Curtis. The audience was
/ 400 large for the hall
4 Mr. CURTIS began by saying that in Robert Plumer
1 Wards novel Of Tremane, which used TO be very
much read by what were called superior Young ladies
sud Young women Of mind il stated that the hero
held everything masculine even though it were her
"seuse 10 be derogstiOn from the female character
ave would forgive you, he had been known to say
10 Madame dc Stael, being much wser than our
81 se,yes. but with such wisdom we cannot forgive
your petticosts." In that respect We were all Mr..
Tremaines; we never forgave the petcOats. 1t might
be very unfair and ungentlemanly and unmany, but
men in general regarded literary women very
much as the faculty regarded quack doctors.
They remembered Mrs. Hannah More and
,huddcred Blue was the loveliest of eoors IN tne
SGphsle eye and the most becoming upon I'd. ioia'o
figure but blue upon the female foot made MI ire
maine pause He never thought OF Ginau'oIa ioo,
airy in azure silk but only Of Mrs. Jellsby In heavy
indigo wooden. Mns. Hannah More was proDaDy the
particular woman ia history whom II would DE- repug-
rapt to most men to think OF marrying She wa, IN
fact not 10 much bue-stOckirg as an entire par OF
bue pantalOODs, Yet few women had done more
good She was prose translation Of Florence Night
ipgale. She was nursing mother OF norsis anu
Manners too, and even tilted at the french heVouuon
in little work called "Nilsge Politics, which served
st least to show her good will, very much as II she
md charged the French army with Ining-needie.
With the $50 900 which she made from ber writings
che established schools, and though we might JOKE
sbout kings hers was prodgOus lie IN It's devO-
zion lie peristency and its results And despite Mr.
Trenaine and his immense family connection, we
might be sure that Sir Waiter Raleigh, who ald hls
cloak in the mud before Elizabeth, and Charles
Lambs friend who helped the old apple-wOman over
the kennel, and Sir Philip Sidney, whose whole life
was a compliment to women, would freely forgive the
pet6coats OF Mrs. Hannah More. Mr.. Curtis explained
this panic at pettcOats in PRINT by the ola doctrine OIL
Al IInp tlf m
China said that the intelligent natives whom he saw
were hugely delighted with remark OF his and de-
clared that was the best joke that had ever been
heard in China The remark that women, too had
souls. And looking back through our English litera-
ture we found il singuarly Chinese in this respect.
Except in Shakespeare and few Of the dramatlsts
and an occasional prose-wrter, no simple and hs-
name feeling was expressed for women. There was
always plenty of aduatioD splendid epthets, fulsOme
fattery Of Daphnes and ChlOes sitting upon clouds
someyhere. We must go all the way back from
sJeanie Deans to Shakespeare, to hnd really noble
woman in literature. IL was one OF the greatest cnar-
acterscs of that supreme genius that in an age when
courtly courtesy and perhaps gratitude compelled hun
40 compliment Queen Elizabeth he created Miranda
and COrdelia and Opheha. Shakespeare had done Tor
women what all other authors together mad not done;
his women were possible women; az we read We re-
called the Cordeas and Mrandas and Ophelias that we
knew and we loved and reverenced them more Tor
that spendOr Of pOrtraiture. Shelley Old Gil Wlch ne
said in Julian and MaddalO:
She was OF Shakespsare's women
After Shakespeare, men complimented women in
sonOrous bombast and made laws by which they were
treated seris. Men and women agreed IN theu
novels in describing all the women either as fools or
Nell Gwynnes. In fact, where in the whole range OF
English fiction did we find really noble portrait of
really noble woman We qusreled with Ibackerays
women, NJ if every other novelist had supplied the
most admirable specimens But Fielding Amelia,
his chief heroine, was only little SIMPLE constant,
tender and teary woman-the grandmother Of Thack-
eray's Amelia Richardson's Pamela was Cockney
Diana, but she was not fine woman. NO man could
seriously respect woman who, like her, hna!y mar
Tied who had insuted her in every grosscst way.
Amiable and well behaved women there WERE Ufcoursc,
IN abundance. Miss Burneys Eyelina was formally
eood-accOrding to the Queen Charlotte standard And
in going through the books OF MIS- Bray Miss Ferrler
Mis- Jane Austen and Miss Edgeworth, the reader felt
Ike a girl sitting with her governess. The society was
spfocangly well bred The books were not represent
alive books. And nothing showed the difference be-
fween Scott and Shakespeare 10 profoundly a. their
comparative Opulence in the creation OF women.
Scott's women were often uncertain and unlike; few
were positively excellent and immortal But each inn
aginaton Of woman rose in the armament of Shake
speares mind pure aud separate and perfect as each
papet in the sky. There was a sad fact in this lack
of real women in literature. omen could be painted
and could paint themselves as pretty puppets only
when they were generally considered to be go and had
accepted that general estimate. The utmost moral OF
the female novel before our own day a kind of
confirmation of the Chinese theory. the English fe-
male writers of the last century had a superficial
soemnity hut real earnestness, as they had been
tossed upon the great waves OF passionate experience
And why should men, Cinnamon that we We're,
complain of this iDeriOlity OF everything feminine IN
literature Who had told women to mind their tea
cups and take their faith from u.s. The Sultans were
our fathers We either complimented them or insult
ed them by condescendingy talking out OF the Primer
Why could not Oliver Goldsmith, simplest and sweet
est Of men have painted US the Jessamy Bride whom
he knew and loved instead of Sophia and Olivia
Primrose Yet Sophia and Olivia and the whole
Primrose family had better chance for coetentment,
as society arranged, than any other kind OF wo-
man. We had lived to little purpose II we had not
learned that every woman of strong character,
great intelligence fine and fastidiOus taste,
nature demanding unusual scope, and heart
capable of all that made the love of woman the theme
of poetry and the substance of history felt the want OF
a career. We all knew such. lie had known them
in quiet country places conered by circumstances that
glaIed upon them like hungry hyenss until they ate
their own hearts out and died. lie had known them
in the brilliant hustle of cities, ranticaly gay, hercey
bright; but it live coal in q vase that consumed
while it lighted They tried to find this career IN
hundred ways. Most women married. and did the
best they could in that way. We suddenly heard
that Venus had married Vulcan and We were
all aghast. That splendid girl! That gross man
"Every woman, then, has her price, we SAID
bitterly. Perhaps so; but the young Mars
whom Venus loved, with whom Heaven was
easily possible who marched triumphant through her
life with waving banners and pealing trumpets, had
marched away-away TO some Iris with rainbow eyes,
away with that young heart and the bloom of that
young hfe. The story was oioer IMAM araune ana
Bacchus and newer than the last novel He did not
wonder that Venus married Vulcan, but he wept at
the wedding. Other women took TO literature, and
called upon the world TO stand and deliver its sym
patty az reduced gentlemen in the old time took to
the road and demanded your money. Many pinod IN
utter apathy, caring for nothing asking for nothing,
hoping for nothing-quietly despairing Every man
found some of these classes within his own expert
ence. II Was impossible not to this great
sadness, this tragedy of the female heart; but
it did not get into literature until lately. Did
they suppose it was only benevoence that
,fo