Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1857-01-13
EVENING STAR.
Mr.. Curtis on the Female Novelists
From the Hartford Press, Jan Il

Mr.. Curtis lectured last evening before the
Young Mems Institute upon The Female
Novelsts so the bills said. He commenced
by quoting an imaginary remark by a forgot
ten hero of forgotten English novel, who
held everything masculine in women to be a
derogation from the womanly character, and
who said to Madame de Stsel, We would
forgive you being SO much wiser than our
selves, but being so we cannot forgive your
petticoats.
Men are all like this hero. Mr. Tremaine !;
we never forgive the petticOats, placing lite
rary women on a par with quack doctors. We
remember Mistress Hannah More, and shud-
der Blue is a lovely color, but on a woman s
foot it startles US We never think Of Cinde-
rella's fairy foot in azure silk, but always Of
Mrs. Jellyby hoOf in clumsy indigo woollen;
and Mrs Hannah More is probably the woman
of all others whom it is most repugnsnt to
men to think Of wedding, she being not only
n blue stocking, but an entire pair of blue
pantalOons.
Then followed sketch of life, works and
character of this excellent woman, the lectu-
rer treating her memory TO a handsome aul
respectful eulogy. The Chinese thought it a
missionary's best joke when he said that wo-
men, too, have souls which may be saved
Old English literature is singularly Chinese in
this respect. Shakspeare's delineation Of wo-
man Mr. c. justly and highly extolled, but
after Shakespeare, for many years, men only
spattered women with bOmbastic compliments,
and made laws treating them like serfS.
The manner in which women have been
served in literature is but a rue reflection of
their fate in real life. Every woman Of strong
character, high intelligence, broad nature,
and truer, fuller heart than common, feels
gnawingly the need of a career. Few find it,
but many fail ard wear out disappointed
lives Florence Nightingale found hers, but
all women with her wants are not so fortunate
This protest against the cramping Of woman
in life-this cry of religious democracy which
demanded that a woman should be honored as
a woman-this agony and indignation which
for years had been gathering but had been
pent up in the heart of wOman-all found
vent in that wonderful novel, the most search
ing and prodigiOus ever written by woman,
the Jane Eyre" Of Charlotte Br0nte, alias
Currer Bell. The story Of her sad, quiet life
and death, Mr. Curtis finely told, and her
writings he loftiy praised She had had
many imitatOrs, and the Miss kavsnaghs, the
Miss YOnges, the Miss Sewells, he sharply and
properly ridiculed. " Nathalie he took as a
specimen brick, and pitched into it satisfacto-
rily The moral of these books was tainted
by what the teacher Of LOwOod school told
little Jane Eyre:
" have a little boy younger than you who
knows six psalms by heart, and when you ask
him which he would rather have, ginger
bread nut to eat or verse Of psalm to learn,
he says: 90, the verse of psalm.
'''Angels sing psalms Says be, i wish to
be little angel here below He then gets
two nuts in recOmpeDse for his infant piety "
This is not the moral of life and against its
falsehood Thackersy and Charlotte Bronte
are earnest, indignant protestants. The lee
ture closed with glowing apOStrophe TO the
authOress Of Jane Eyre.