Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1888-02-17

hcI ODstINdlluu as n SCHOOL
teacher. A deceased sisters children were
thrown upon her hands. and she took care et
them She was kind mother TO them while
she moshered the whole school. Worn out
HtA nursing in the sick and dying room of
one OF the household, she herself came TO die
she closed the school book and at the same
time the volume If her Christian fidelity: and
when she went through the gates they cried:
These are they who came out of great tribu-
lat.on, and had their robes washed and made
white in the blood Of the Lamb.n
Queens are all such, and whether the world
Acknowledges them or not, Heaven acknowl-
edges them. When ScaTron, the wit and
eeclesiastic, as poor as no was brilliant, was
about to marry Mime. de Mantenon, he was
asked by the notary. what he proposed to
settle upon mademoiselle. The reply was;
Immortality The names of the wives of
kings die with them; the name of the wife of
Bcarron will live always In higher and
better sense, upon all women who do their
duty Col will settle immortality Not the
Immortality of earthly fame, which is NOR
tai, but the Immortality celestial. And they
khsn reign forever and ever Oh, the opportu-
10y which every woman has of being queen!
The longer | live the more | admire good
womanhood. And | have come to form my
opinion OF the character of man by his APP
probation or misrepresentation OF woman
II man hs9 d depressed idea of womanly
Character he Is a bad man, and there is no
exception to this rule. The writings OF Goethe
can never have any such attractions for me as
Shakespeare, because nearly all the womanly
characters of the great German have some
kind of turpitude. There is his Mariana
with her clandestire scheming, and his
Mignoh Of evil parentage, yet worse than
her ancestors, and his Theresa the brazen,
and his Aurelia of many intrigues, and his
Phll1na the termagant, and his Melina the
furnished, and his Baroness, and his Count
ess, and there is seldom. a womanly charac,
ter IN ell his Voluminous writings
that would be worthy of residence in
ured, and dramatized, and emblazoned
till all the literary world is compelled to sse
No. mol Give me William Shakespeare's idea
of woman; and see it in Desdemona, and
Cordelia, and Rosalind, and 1mogen, and
Helena, and Herm;one, and Viola, and Isa-
bella, and Sylvia, and Pefdita, all Of them
with enough faults to prove them human.
hnt enough kindly characteristics to give us
the authors idea of womanhood, his Lady
Macbeth only dark background to bring
out the supreme loneliness of his other female
characters.
Oh, woman Of America rise to your op-
bortunity. Be no slave to pride, or worldli-
ness, or sin. Why ever crawl in the dust
when you can mount a throne? Be queens
unto GOQ forever hall wasn't!
Again: want You to consider Vashti tha
yelled, Had she appeared before Ahashuerus
and his court on thaN day, with her face I'M
covered, she would have shocked all the deli
cacies of Oriental society, and the very men
who in their intoxication demanded that shs
come, in their sober moments would have
aespised her. AS some flowers seem to thrive
best in the dark lane and in the shadow, and
where the sun does not seem to reach them,
20 God appoints to most womanlY natures
4 retiring and unobtrusive spirit. God
o1ce in while does call an Isabella
to throne or Miriam to strike the tim
brel at the front of host, or a Marie An
toinette to quell French mob, or Deborah
TO stand at the front of an armed battalion,
crying out: Cup! up! This is the day in
which the Lord will deliver Sisera into thy
hands" And when women are called to such
outdoor work, and to such heroic positions,
God prepares them for it; and they have iron
IN their soul, and lightnings in their eye and
whirlwinds in their breath, and the borrowed
strength of the Lord Omnipotent in their
right arm. They walk through furnaces as
though they were hedges of wild flowers, and
cross seas as though they were shimmering
sapphire, and all the harpies OF
hell sink down to their dungeons at
The stamp of their womanly indigna-
ton. But these are exceptions Generally
Dorcas would rather make garment for the
poor boy; Rebecca would rather fill the
trough for the camels; Hannah would rather
make a coat for Samuel; the Hebrew maid
would rather give prescription for Naa-
mans leprosy; the woman of Sarepta would
rather gather few ST icks to cook a meal for
famshed Elijah Phoebe would rather carry
a letter for the inspired Apostle: Mother Lois
would rather educate Timothy in the Script
ures When see woman going about her
daily duty-with cheerful dignity presiding
at the table; with kind and gentle, but
firm, discipline presiding in the nurs-
out any blast of trumpets, following
in the footsteps of him who went
about doing good say: This is Vashti
with a veil on" But when | see a woman
of unblushing boldness, loud voiced with q
tongue of infinite Glitter clatter, with AFRO
CANT look, passing through the streets with a
masculine swing, gayly arrayed in q very
hurricane of millinery, l cry out: "Vashti
has lost her veilm When see woman
struggling for political preferment, and re-
jecting the duties of home as insignificant,
and thinking the offices of wife, mother and
daughter of no Importance, and trying to
force her way up on into conspicuity, l say:
"Ah, what pity Vashti has lost her veil!''
When l see woman of comedy features,
and of adroitneSs of intellect, and en-
dowed with all that the schools can
do for one, and of the bigh social
position, yet moving in society with super
0liousnesS and hauteur, as though she would
have people know their place, and an unde.
fined combination of giggle, and strut, and
rodomontade, endowed with alopathic guam
titles of talk, but only homeopathic infntesi
mails Of sense, the terror of dry goods clerk
and railroad conductors, discoverers of sig.
niticant meanings in plain conversation
prodigies of badinage and innuendo-I say
"NaSlti has lost her veil y
But do not misinterpret what l say into q
depreciation of the work of these glorious
and divinely called women who will not be
understood till after they are dead, womeI
like Susan B. Anthony, who are giving their
life for the Improvement of the condition OF
their sex. Those of you that think that
women have under the laws of this country
an equal chance with men are ignorant Of
the laws. A gentleman writes me from
Maryland, saying: Take the laws of thi:
state. A man and wife start out in life full
of hope in every respect; by their joint efforts
and, as is frequently the case, through the
economic ideas of the wife, succeed in &C
cumulating fortune, but they have NJ
children; they reach old age together, anC
then the husband dies. What does the Law
of this State do theni 1t says to the widow
'Hands off your late husbands property; de
not touch it; the State will find others tt
whom it will give that; but you, the widow
| must not touch it, only SO much as will keel
| life within your aged body, that you may
live to see those others enjoy what rightfully
should be your own" And the State SEEK
the relatives of the deceased husband, whether
| they be near or far, whether they were eve
heard of before or not, and transfers to them
singly or collectively, the estats of the de
ceased husband and living widow.
| Now, that is specimen of unjust laws il
all the states concerning womanhood. In
stead of flying off to the dis cussion as t.
whether or not the giving of the right o
voting to woman will correct these laws lie
me say to men. he gallant enough, and fai
enough, and honest enough, and righteou
enough, and God loving enough to correc
these wrongs against women by your owl
masculine vote. Do not wait for woman
suffrage to come, If it ever does come. but 81
far as you can touch ballot boxes, and Legis
latures and Congresses begin the reforma