Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1871-10-25
tUatohman Sc journal.
WEDNESDAY,, OCTOBER Is, ls7l
Feminine Literature.

men arc OF much account IN u ahu prOduco q
large share Of it, There was time when the
chief characters in fiction were men, aud
when to find a female portrait we'll drawn
especially &c she was the heroine WI. a rare
exception Most Of Walter SCOTS heroine.
are pale and colorIoss things serving simply
as foil, or contrast to the the men, in whom
he chiefly delights. Now all the more i'm
portant characters seem to be women The
writers ofmodcrn fiction have discovered that
feminine character is an unworkcd mine
This is all the more natural, since most of
our noyelsts now seem to belong to the better
sex. But their masculine rivals follow in
the same track. Wilkic Collins. Trollope,
and Rcade, make the interest Of their Gctions
center in the heroine. And this tendency j.
not evident alone in prose fiction. 1t appears
In modern poetry as we'll Whiticr's most
beautiful phaniasios are about women.
The poetry Of Teuuyson may be described as
" dream Of fair women For one man, he
paints hara dozen women, and we remember
the women better than the men. We rcmem-
Der the Princess and all her train Anna
Lee is far more attractive and beautiful than
Enoch Arden. We cannot forget Dora LiIi-
au, the Gardeners daughter, Maud, Godiya,
aud many more. How many men have
sprung from the teoming brain Of the Laurie
ate to whom we care to q We second thought
1t must be conceded that this feminine ten.
deney in our literature is not good altogether.
And the evil that belongs to it Is hardly that
which we should expect. Woman embodies
our highest ideas Of purity aud refinement
The old fathers advocated the superiority of
women over men, because Adam was formed
out of the dust Of the earth, while Eve was
made out Of living material. Woman repre-.
sents the private life Of the race Her as
cendancy in literature ought to mean the
ascendancy Of domestic ideas tue assertion
Of the individual not as hero, but as fam
lily man, not as heroine, but as an angel
in the house. 1t ought to mean the puriica-
- ton Of literature from whatever is gross and
sensuous, and the exaltation Of the private
relations, the culture Of the gentle courtesies
of life.
! When men are the central characters in
fiction or poetry the movement Of the story
is naturally strong, full Of conflict and pas
sion, and stirring with the fierce exotemeuts
Of manly ambition and warfare. But when
b the incidents of the novel cluster around the
d heroine, we should imagine that it would deal
chiefly with the mild and bengpant virtues Of
home; with the beauties of endurance and
f patience with the quiet graces of the domes-
p tic world. War is the browning glory Of the
hero. Purity aud love are the attractions of
the heroine
. But that which we fancy should be, not
always is. When the influence of women is
being poured into literature, we should expect
. to feel within it an evident access of refine.
% ment and grace and elegance We iud, how
ever, the very opposite. The first object Of the
t. writer in fiction is to get personages in whom
3 we can be interested. The chief character
n. in the novel must therefore be set in motion
at But the true life Of woman is not one Of ac
ton. 1t cannot truly be described as such
Hence when women are put forward to Leaf
IT, the action Of plot, they must be urged int
false position. They must be Hedged In.
J., TO get vigorous action in women, they mu.
re be described as rushing into crime, as doin
"a strange, unnatural Deeds which shock all GU
IDEAS Of a pure aud noble womauhood The
p come toward in the worst light, and the nov
- clist finds that to make an effect and meet tn
demand for exciting and stirring action, whor
81. a woman is the nucleus Of the plot, he mus
to give up his heroine to bigamy, as Wilkie Co
as ins does in " Man aud Wife, or as Read
does in Put yourself in his Place, or I
lr' murder or to some such terrible temptatio
~, as throws its dark shadow over the heroine
his last novel, or to all sorts Of adyentur,
las which can only signify her uunaturalness {
ed her fall
''' There are ancient legends that seem to il
dictate such result. There are scattered a
ms over the world, in the most widely separate
yet regions legends as to the existence of Ami
IONS but always in the neighborhood
we these Ama2ons are to be found the Authr,
ng pophagi," and men whose heads grow beneat
u" their shoulders. And after the fashion
u Bacon in his translation Of the legends
nj. mythology, we may give our Interpretation
NJ this legend. The truth which is wrapt in
nd seems to be this that where the women al
up as men, there the men will be monsters th
where the women do violence to their own n
~, ture in rivalry Of men, there the men wi
xiv have no hearts at ALL but heads where the
he hearts should be, 1t is certainly curious thu
ID one Of the earliest results Of an increase
feminine influence in our general literatu
eu aud in our political literature, should be
,n display Of what in women has always be,
II. considered most unfeminne. 1t is certain
be. noteworthy that women should be the FIRST
to abandon the ancient Businesses Of their sec
rty and honor and virtue aud advocate, Ill
or, Mrs Stanton or Mrs Woodruff, the license
ost women in masculine lust Of power and plea
Ter uro. And it is certainly singular that Il
rty chief masculine advocates of female RICH
ess should warmly espouse those doctrines Ill
Tilton in the Golden Age, which permit
vi freedom Of action and life that oyerthrows q
tbs our inherited ideas of lofty, ideal woma
ifs hood.
ON We do not know but the +" new departure
49, will lead on to glory, but we are inclined
No. wait a little, before we fully admit it,
All the life of woman is to be hereafter as Il
m life Of man, if the characters of our iteratu
ds' are the aram cOvierS of the characters of o.
rec rec future real life, we may well be excused f