The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1871-02-25


all her well developed frame and formida
BILE looks, but the little woman, who break
the whole code of laws and defies all the
dcfenders,-the pert, smart, pretty LITTLE
woman, who laughs in your face, and goe:
straight ahead, if you try to turn her t.
the right hand or to the left, receiving YOU
circumstances with the most sublime indif
ference, as if you were talking foreign
language she could not understand. She
carries everything before her, wherever
she is. You may see her stepping ovel
barriers slipping under ropes, penetrating
to the green benches with a red ticket
taking the best places on the platform over
the heads of their rightful owners, settling
herself among the reserved seats without
an inch of pasteboard to float her. You
cannot turn her out by main force.
British chivalry objects to the public lay
ing on of hands in the case of a woman,
even when most recalcitrant and disobe-
dient; more particularly if a small and fra
gile- looking woman. So that, if it is only
u usurpation of places specially masculine,
she is allowed to retain what she has got
amid the grave looks Of the elders-not
really displeased, though, at the tlutter of
her ribbons among them-and the filters
and nudges of the young fellows. If the
battle is between her and another woman,
they are left to fight it out as they best can,
with the odds laid heavily on the little one.
All this time there is nothing of the tumult
Of contest about her. Fiery and combative
as she generally is when breaking the law
in public places she is the very soul of
serene daring. She shows no heat no pas
sion, no turbulence; she leaves these as
extra weapons of defence to women who
are assailable. For herself she requires no
such aids. She knows her capabilities,
and the line of attack that best suits her,
and she knows, too, that, the fewer points
of contest she exposes, the more likely she
is to slip into victory; the more she assumes,
and the less she argues, the slighter the
hold she gives her opponents. She is
either perfectly good-humored or blanIly
Innocent; she either smiles you into indul-
gence, or wearies you into compliance by
the sheer hopelcssness of making any i'm
preston on her. She may, indeed, if of
the very vociferous and shrill-tongued kind,
| burst out into such noisy demonstration
that you arc glad to escape from her, no
matter what spoils you leave on her hands;
just as mastif will stink away from a
! bantam hen all heck1ed feathers and screech-
ing cacllle and tremendous assumption of
doing something terrible if he does not
look out. Any way the little woman is
unconquerable; and a tiny fragment of
humanity at public show, setting all rules
and regulations at defiance, is only carry
ing out in the matter of benches the man
ner of life to which nature has dedicated
her from the beginning.
Asa rule the little woman is brave
When the lymyhatic giantess falls into
faint, or goes off into Mysteries, she storms
or bustles about or holds on like Il game
terrier, according to the work on hand
She will fly at any man who annoys her,
and bears herself as equal to the biggest
and strongest fellow of her acquaintance.
In general she does it all by sheer pluck,
and is not notorious for subtlely or craft
Had Deliah been little woman, she would
never have taken the trouble to shear Sam
sons locks. She would have defied him
with all his strength untouched on his
head, and she would have overcome him
too, Judith and Jael were both probably
large women. The work they went about
demanded a certain strength of muscle and
toughness of Sinew; but who can say that
JeZcbel was not Il small, freckled, auburn
haired Lady Audley of her time, full of the
consecrated fire, the electric force, the pas
sionate rccklesSness of her type: Regain
and Goneril might have been beautiful
demons of the same pattern; we have the
example OF The Warehouses de Brinvilliers
as to what amount of spiritual devilry can
exist with the face and manner of an
angel direct from heaven; and perhaps
Cordelia was a tall dark haired girl, with a
pair of brown eyes, and Il long nose slop-
ing downwards.
Look at modern Jewesses, with their
flashing Oriental orbs, their night black
tresses, and the dusky shadows of their
olive-colored compilations; as catalogued
properties according to the ideal, they
would be placed in the list of the natural
criminals and lawbreakers, while in reality
they are about as meek and docile a set of
women as are to be found within the four
seas. Pit fiery little Welsh woman or a
| petulant Parisienne against the most regal
tay conclusions in courage, in energy, or in
audacity; the Israelitish Juno will go down
before either of the small Philistines, and
| the fallacy of weight and color in the gen
Grafton of power will be shown without the
possibility of denial. Even in those old
DAYS of long ago, when human characters
tics were embodied and deified, we do not
| find that the white armed large -limbed
Here though queen by right of marriage
lorded it over her sister goddesseS by any
superior energy or force of nature. On
the contrary. she was rather a heavy going
person, and, unless moved to anger by her
husbands numerous infidelities, took her
Olympian life placidly enough, and once or
twice got cheated in a way that did no
great credit to her sagacity. little
Frenchwoman would have sailed round her
easily; and as it was, shrewish though she
was in her speech when provoked, her hus-
band not only deceived but chastised her,
and reduced her to penitence and obedience
as no little woman would have suffered
herself to be reduced.
There is one celebrated race of women
who were probably the powerfully built,
large -limbed creatures they are assumed to
have been, and as brave and energetic as
they were strong and blythe Morse
women of the SagaS, who, for good or evil,
seem to have been very influential Gle
ment in the old Northern life. Prophet
esses, physicians, dreamers of dreams, and
the accredited interpreters as well, endowed
with magic powers, admitted to share in