Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1868-04-15
ast tiseellau Y.
WOMAN IN SHAKESPEARE.

Shakespeare has insight of womanhood,
not as il is in its social transformations,
but as it is in its innate life Shakespeare
has reached the heart Of womanhood,
which, in all cras and regions. is so es-
sentially, so intuitively the same. If in
uotbing else, he would 10 this alone secure
an immortal sympathy; aud without the
cordial approval of the womanly mind
no genius can secure in literature living
perpctuity, Shakspeare's women are in
the highest degree poetical, yet in the
deepest sense true; and the poetry is but
a profounder revelation of the truth. The
fidelity Of Shakespeare to the innermost
feelings Of woman is one Of the wonders
of his genius to women themselves. Mrs.
Siddons msrveled at it. Feminine secre-
cies, which she thought no masculine i'm.
agination could divine, she found that
Shakespeare had discovered and this no,
alone in the maternal anguish of Con.
stance, or the queenly grief Of Katherine,
but even in the stony dungeons of Lady
Macbeth's bosom. Shakspesrcs women
are no 6ctions, no coinage Of a heated
brain, drunk with the fumes Of reverie
when the realities of society are lost in
the loneliness of woods, or the realities oil
day forgotten in the fantasies Of midnight
They are no such attenuatcd illusions af
are thus created-mxture of sunshine
and vapor, shapes of mist and moonlight
that play for moment on the feelings
CLEAN 1imly across the imagination, then
leave no trace on the memory or affcc:
tions. Shakspenre's women are drawR
from life drawn as nature makes them,
in substance. SOU, and form. Each has
the individualism of reality--the dis met.
ness of personal existence. They are not.
indeed, as they literally would be in the
world Of fact; but they are as they should
be poetically y in the world of genius Yet
all of them, from Mrs Quickly to Miriam
da, are types of genuine twomanhood.
Being such they are of all varieties.
They are romantic, and full of visions ;
domestic, aud full of duties heroic and
full of lofty thoughts; but also they arc
selfish. and CT mean desires sensual aud
of gross affections: proud and servile !;
naughty and submissive; true hearted
and false hearted cold as snow on Jura
burning as FIRE in Etna; sensible and
silly some all alive with genius, others
hardly able from dullness to- keep awake ;
some with wit as bright as the sun on the
foam Of the wave, others with brains as
thick as Irewksbury mustard the good
that arc the silent blessings OF existence,
the wicked that are its convulsing TRACE
dies. 1t would ho vain to deny that wo-
man, as well as man, shares in the crimes
that darken our race and cases occur in
which her good is SO lost in dopravity
that we shudder at the ruin of which our
nature is capable; but these cases are
most exceptional, and they stand out in
broad contrast to the general tenor Of fe.
male life In Shakespeare we have wo.
manhood fairly and broadly giyen--no,
satirized, not Aattered, but with the soul
Of poetry and the truth Of Nature. Aud
in Shakespeare, as in Natuie, womanbood
shines forth as the grace and the glory
Of humanity.--Hun'an Life IN ..Shaks'
pedre. qg3 8atsc ay9i NJ