The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1877-05-13
THE DEMOCRATS DREAM OF FAIR
WOMEN.

WOMEN.
THE WOMEN OF POETRY AND HISTORY AND
THE WOMEN or THE SOUTH.
The presentation of petition signed by n
large number of ladies to tho Legislature,
praying to be placed upon an equality with
men before the law, has directed public atten-
ton here to q problem which has been fruitful
Of discussion IN almost every age and co,ln-
try. The position. of man in every state of
society has been fixed and unguestoned but
that of women has generally been a subject of
controversy. Indeed, since that little episode
in the Garden Of Eden with which, no doubt
our readers are all acquainted, down to the
present time when The etreHs minded SIS
terhood are threatening to push us from our
stools, there seems to have been no clearly
defined and universally accepted law by
which this singularly beautiful fascinating
and troublesome creation could be governed
There arc women who would sometimes
lead us to suppose that their sex had been
waited to this world on blasts of fire from the
neither regions: and there are those who in
spire us with tho fancy that they descended
upon tho earth yelled In a shower of roses
and on the softest airs of heaven. We are
filled with horror at the ferocty of the Indian
Princess who, having ordered one Of her
dancing girls to be bricked up In vault, had
her own bed placed over 1t that she might en-
joy the agonzed and dying groans of her vic
tim. But when we read of the devotion of
Paulina, the wife of Seneca, who opened her
own veins that she might accompany her lord
to the grave. and when we view with loving
oun and fco 1,,,ifI b,n
goodness and lovableness OF those of the sex
who are in our own midst, we are melted to
tenderness and feel that heaven, even with it's
sapphire pavements and It's diamond palaces
glimmering in light empurped with celestial
roses, would not be heaven to us could we not
transport thther, when we go, our mothers,
our sisters, our wives, and especially our
sweethearts.
LUMINOUS FACT.
But as many shapes and phases as this
woman's question has assumed one luminous
fact glow in every period of the worlds
history and shines before us in our daily ex-
perience, and that is that as woman ap-
proaehes or falls below the highest standard
of excellence the tone Of society is exalted
or lowered
TRIBUTES TO WOMAN.
With more compassion, enthusiasm and the
spirit of seif-sacrice woman Possesses more
of disinterestcd heroism than man, and
richly observes an eloquent writer, g has
she deserved that high eulogy which has
been hers for eighteen hundred years last ut
the Cross and first at the Sepulchrc; >" and
again says the sane writer, " In the silence
and solitude of many n home the old story OF
Gethsemenes garden of an angel strengthen
ing one who is sinking under his load of self
allotted duty is repeated
Lamartine, tho poet-orator of France has
beautifully said, when all is desperate in
nations cause, we need not despair while
there is u spark of resistance in a woman's
heart, whether she is called Judith Celia
Joan of Are; Victoria Coonna in Italy. or
Charlotte Corday in France" And finally, re-
ferring to the dying hour of Joan of Are, one
of the most gifted of men exclaimed " Yet
sister woman, though | cannot consent to find
u Mozart or q Michael Angelo in your sex,
cheerfully, and with love that burns in DEPTHS
OF admiration, / acknowledge that you can do
one thing as well as the best of men-a
greater thing than Milton Is known to have
done, or Michael Angelo-you can die grandIy
and Jas goddesscs would die, were goddesscs
mortal"
SOUTHERN WOMEN.
The justice Of lofty tributes to women has
been illustrated in the history of our own coln-
try; and we are convinced that to the hcrosnl
and devotion of the women of tho South we
owe much of what remains of that high and
naughty spirit which has been the distinc-
ton of the Southern race; and we trust
that Southern women will never, for
getting that in their modesty and domestic
virtues lie their strength, fix their ambition
| upon usurping the duties and sphere of men
and aspire to flaunt their skirts around the
polls and baWl at the top of their voices for
some party chief When the women of the
South shall become indoctrinated with the
repulsive theories of woman's rights, they
will cease to be to Southern society what they
have hitherto been. Such are not the ideas
Southern men would have Southern women
adopt, and we trust Southern women will
always bear in mind that their hands are
no more fit to handle the ballot than the angel
fingers that stray among the golden harp
strings Of Paradise are to WELD the hammers
Of Vulcan.
WOMEN OF POETRY
In no other country has woman been
what she is to us. In some nations
she was the slave of man, in others
the slave and wife combined. To us
she Is WOman-wOman as God fashioned
her, and sent her upon earth to act in the
sphere her attributes naturally describe.
Among us she is the exquisite combination of
the woman of the poetic age, and the woman of
the historic age Of Greece. She is the gentle,
modest, loving mother, wife and sister; such
was the woman of historic Greece. But
she is also capable of the loftiest heroism
| that characterized the women of poetic
Greece The poets have immortalized the de-
yotion of Alcestis, who gave her life to pro-
| long that of her husband Admetus; of
1 TH.I- A.