The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1872-07-26
The Queens Of Society,

The great social fact in the history of wo-
men of letters is directly contradictory to the
current and unconsidered opinion that
woman literary, by SO much, is less charming
ly womanly, and, in sequence of that fact,
never "a queen of society,"" Whereas the
truth is that in all ages every woman who has
been central figure in the social life of her
time has been, in some sense woman of
genius, woman of distinctive mental en-
dowments, if not, in fact, ''literary woman"
1t was more than the beauty of Aspasia
which drew Socrates to her house and made
her the companion of Pericles. 1t was her
wit and the attraction of her subtle and COM
prehensive soul, irradiating and exalting the
charm of womanhood. II she could exer-
else these, her highest gifts only at the ex-
pense of her reputation, it was the shame of
her age and her misfortune. From her day
to this, even while they have affected to
sneer at superior women," all men lifted
above lives of mere grossness, who have lived
at all in theft higher faculties, have sought as
their chosen friends, companions, enter
tainers, and counselors, women their equals
by right of their femininity, women of rich
temperament, of strong affections, of wit,
learning, and genius, as well as beauty. 1t is
the mistake which produces so many social
failures in our own day that to reign in So
ciety it is deemed all-sufficent to be pretty
ana rich, to have fine clothes and fine
house, then to stand and simper, and wriggle
a fan. Every year these failures are made
conspicuous in our own land by the large
number of people whom newly-gotten wealth
or place enables to rush to make social dis
plays in metropolis or capital. They strut
their brief season with new furniture, new
clothes, new equipage, then pass back into
the obscurity from whence they came; while
it is a fact worthy of note that the very few
ladies in Washington whose social fame can
survive their own generation are women not
only of beauty, but also women of
infinite finesse and tact women
who have been fitted for the high
places they adorn by years of extensive study,
and intimate association with the most culti-
waited and polished society of the world. To
become power in social life one must pos
sess social genius. This is purely personal,
and as distinctively genius in itself as the
power which creates and rules in any other
sphere of thought or action. No woman has
ever left her impress on her generation,
or even on the neighborhood in which
she dwelt, as a social power, who has
not been in some degree superior
woman. Many woman with per-
sonal ambition to shine, or a dlnuslve
kindness of nature combined with tact, taste,
adaptation and certain charm or warmth of
manner, though she had neither beauty of
feature nor wealth, has made herself a social
success, leaving an impression on her friends
and neighbors, which they have transmitted
to their children, and which survives as
neighborhood tradition long after the social
queen herself has passed forever from her
lowly kingdom. A woman may have social
gifts pre-emnently developed, and no other.
When above this rich social nature rise the
intellectual and spiritual faculties pre-eminent,
imparting to it nerve, tinesse, and that mex
pressibly subtitle psychical charm of blended
spiritual interfused and emanating from one
then you have the social queen supreme,
the woman, who, by virtue of her individual
power, has left her impress on nations, king
doms, and the men who have ruled the world.
M. C. Ames in Independent.