The New York herald., 1870-03-06
SYOmnn,s Real Rights.

| lool. Neither is there greater enemy 10 hu-
manity than your over-maudlin humanitarian.
We feel an abiding conviction that, with, we are
| willing to believe, the most amiable intentions,
few men have done more mischief than our
white-coated friend and philosopher, Horace
Greeley q Co. by encouraging Fourierism,
free-lovism, womans rightisms, and all those
other isms Of which the Mcfarland and the
many cases that every hour come up of the
wild justice of revenge for domestic wrong
are the natural spawn. Scratch any of these
cases and you are sure to find some Tribune
man underneath. Indeed, Horace himself
seems gradually coming to this conviction. At
the last feast Of tomfoolery and flow of tea over
which he presided at Delmonico's he invited
Miss Anthony and any number of those lovely
advocates OF woman's rights with spectacles
and huge headachy Massachusetts foreheads
who were around him to take an axe and pass
forenoon in his forest at Westchester.
''There, he said-et tn 6rute-with somewhat
Singing irony, ''you can exercise woman's
rights to your utmost will and find no one
to interfere with you." They have some
brilliant examples. The English Premier at
last accounts was found by wandering inter-
viewer hewing down tree at Hawarden, and
Miss Anthony, roaming like Lady Randolph
would form lovely cabinet companion to the
recent picture of ''Horace and his axe" In
such healthy exercise they might, too, while
asserting their rights, exchange for some
what roster tint the present rather buckwheat
cake character of their compilations. They
prefer, however, at present to wheel
round and round like lot of rocks, cawing
necessarily with shrill cry for their rights.
They will, however, soon exhaust themselves.
Leave the little lambs to frisk about while
and they will soon get their nails in each
others feeces. The Sorosis has already been
washed by shower and bent down its beau
tiful head.
The fact is, that even in the very highest
walks of womanhood the age of Cleopatras,
Elizabeths, Mary Stuarts and Medicis are
gone by In our age the world honors Queen
Victoria for her home beauties as the good
wife and mother, and all her genius for the
graces of the toilet could not win for
Eugene the affections of France until she was
found at the bedside of suffering in the hos
pital and with her basket bringing comfort to
the dwellings of the poor. The conspicuous
women Of the past even did not so much
challenge the admiration of the world for
great womanly qualities as they startled
it by their absence Of womanly qualities
and by the unnatural assumption of
masculine craft. Modern civilization, in
crowding woman out of the unnatural posi-
ton into which feudal customs had occasion
ally thrown her. admonshes her that to enlist
the sympath;es of the world she must be con-
tent to adorn the sphere for which she was de-
signed-the moral sphere, the moral agent in
the family circle, and as such the most power
ful and graceful moral agency in the world.
Nature moulded her and marked her to be the
gentle admonisher, the sweet friend of charity
and love, the indefatigable teacher Of her
children and the healer Of the sufferings of
the poor widow, the helpless orphan, the i'm
potent old, and of all those stricken down by
the stern DEGREES of nature or of fate, as far
as it is in her power without neglecting those
| who, by the music of the blood and by the
links of sympathy and friendship, are entitled
| to precedence Of affection.
! For ourselves we know of no sphere in
| which woman can better exercise her rights
or which better exhibit her noblest qualities Of
head and heart than the foundation and direc-
ton of such charities and hospitals as are the
pride and ornament Of our city. Such works
are not, be it remembered, mere missions to
distribute. They need the industry and
ability to originate, to organize, to develop
and to direct. They call for all those quail
ties which are most lovely and best in
woman-the richness of soul to inspire, the
elasticity Of intellect to conceive, the fulness
of heart to mellow. the gentle firmness to
control, the genius of tact to direct and the
| intense devotion to endure. IT is when
clothed in such beauties that the small white
hand of woman waves dominion over man.
The struggle against it is in vain. He is but
Jacob wrestling with the angel Modesty and
goodness ever travel hand in hand, and
the many noble women in our city en-
gagged in these works of charity instinctively
shrink from notoriety and desire to do their
heroic task as simple matter of duty and of
love. The name Of Florence Nightingale will
flourish when those of Nicholas and Napoleon
are half forgotten and the bravest doings of
the Crimea have faded into misty dream.
But for one Florence Nightingale, whose name
rises up before the world, how many hundred
are there in our own, and, as we believe, in
other cities, who, if their unassuming gentle
ness Of nature did not cover them as with
shield, would deserve some of the praise and
admiration which Florence Nightingale so
worthily wears? We never see such a woman