The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1872-12-06
NUMBER so.
The Queens of Society.

The great social fact in the history of
women of letters is directly contradic-
tory to the current and uneonsidered
opinion that a literary woman, by so
much, is less charmingly womanly, and
IN consequence of that fact, never ga
queen of society," Whereas the truth
IS that in all ages every woman who
has been a central figure in the social
life of her time has been, in some sense,
a woman of genius, woman of dis
tinetive mental endowments, if not, i'm
fact, ga 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 n subtle and COM
prehenslve soul irradiatingand exalting
the charm of wOmanhOod. If she could
exercise these, her highest gifts, only at
the expense of her reputation, it was
the shame of her age, and her misfor-
tune. From her day to this, even,
while they have effected to sneer at
superior women" all men lifted above
ilVes at all in their higher faculties,
nave sought as their chosen friends,
companions, entertainers and COUNSEL
ors, women their equals by right Of
their femininity, women of rich tenn
permanent, of strong affections. of
wit, learning and genius, as well as
| beauty. 1t is the mistake which Dro-
duces so many social failures in our own
day, that to reign in society it is deemed
all sufficient to be pretty and rich, to
have fine clothes and a fine house, then
to stand and simper, and wriggle fan,
Every year these failures are made con-
spicuOus in our own land by the large
number of people whom newly gotten
wealth or place enables to rush to make
social displays 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 frame 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 high places they
adOrn by years of extensive study,
travel, and intimate association with
the most cultivated and polished society
of the world. To become q controlling
power in social life one must possess n
social genius. This is purely personal,
and as distinctively genius in itself as
the power which circulates and rules in
any other sphere of thought or action.
No woman has ever left her impress on
her generation, or even on the neighbOr-
hood in which she dwelt, as social
power, who has not been in some degree
n superior woman. Many a woman
with a personal 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 rs a neighbOrhood ira
dition long after the social queen herself
has passed forever from her lowly king
dom. A woman may have social gifts
pre-eminently developed, and no other.
When above this rich social nature rise
the intellectual and spiritual faculties
pre-eminent, imparting to it nerve,
finesse, and that ineXpressibly subtle
psychical charm of blended soul and
sense-the intellectual, personal and
spiritual interfused and emanating from
one-then you have the social queen
supreme, the woman who by virture of
her individual power, has left her i'm
press on nations, Kingdoms, and the men
who have ruled the wOrld.-M. C. ADles,
IN IRdepeIldent.