The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1893-11-01
WOMAN'S WORK
IN LITERATURE.
The Necessity, for Purity in e
Corrupt Age.

q
Extracts from lecture delivered
in the Art Institute, Columbus Hall,
at the Worlds Fair, Chicago, Sept.
I, 1893, by Miss Eleanor G. DOnnelly,
Of Philadelphia. From the Chicago
Herald:
While we agree with Brownson
that woman was made for man and
''in herself is only an inchoate man"
from a literary standpoint we must
be willing to admit with Tennyson
that
Woman is not undeveloped man.
Not like to like, but like in difference:
Must be willing to accept from the
same standpoint the dead laureate's
that
In the long years liker must they grow;
The man be more Of woman, she of man;
He gain in sweetness and In moral he1ght:
She, mental breath nor fa1I In cn1lOWArO
care.
"Till at length her work shall set
itself to mans like perfect music un-
to noble words" II she be the
queen of beauty in the tournament
of the worlds thought, she must al
so be the queen of truth and purity.
Like the woman of the gospel, she
must hide her leaven in her three
measures of meal; she must hide the
truth of Christ, the purity Of Christ,
in poesy, fiction and journalism, I'M
til the whole is leavened.
AS cardinal Newman said of Philip
Neri's work in Rome, she must make
use, in corrupt and faithless gen.
Grafton, of the great counter fas-
cinations of purity and truth: she
must direct the current which she
cannot stop; sweeten and sanctify
what God has made good but man
has corrupted and profaned.
No mere elegancy Of diction, bril-
liancy of style or perfection OF tech
nique shall serve her ends. Her
mission is a higher and holier one
than the polishing of clever verses
or the perfecting of "a filigree tale in
a paper cover"
Artificial flowers, fashioned by a
Partisan hand, may be exquisite in
form and color but they lack natures
fragrance and honey dew. All the
pressure in the world cannot distil
from them one drop of the altar of
roses, such as is yielded by the small
est bud in the rose gardens of Ghaze-
boor.
An elaborate setting is employed to
enhance an inferior gem; and the
meretricious glitter of stage jewels
often does duty for the pure radiance
of diamonds of the first water.
"We are not" says Ruskin, "to set
the meaner thing, in it's narrow &C
complishment, above the nobler thing
in it's mighty progress; not to esteem
min uteness above shattered ma
jesty"
Thought must be great enough,
wise enough, strong enough to sieze
and shape it's vehicle, making style
ever secondary to sentiment.
"Landscape gardening" is Emer-
sons synonym for over-devotion to
technique, and close and sitting is
the confined atmosphere of Boyle
O'Reilly'S carver of cherry-stOnes in
the "Art Master:
For such rude hands as dealt with wrongs
and passions.
And th3robbing hearts. he had plying
Serene his way through surging years and
fashions,
While heaven gave him his cherry-stOnes
II, perforce, the queen must step
down from her royal dais to cham
pion the crude hands" of social re-
formers, or to deal in her own realm
with "wrongs and passions and
throbbing hearts," she must not soil
her white sandals or bedraggle the
trailing splendor Of her fair robes in
the mire of the slumS. 1t is proven.
bal that the worst corruption is OF
the best. WOman's influence in let
tiers can never be an uncertain OF
negative one. II she does not elevate
and strengthen she degrades and
enervateS.
APOLOGIES FOR WOMEN WRITER'S.
The day was, when the startling
realism of the Bronze sisters Ito put
it mildly met with the sternest cen.
sure and fierceSt OstraciSm of right
thinking people. DR.. BrOwnson goes
the length Of declaring that "there
are passengers in "Jane Eyre" which
show that women can enter into, and
describe with minute accuracy, the
grossest passions of mans nature
which men could not describe tC
their own sex without a blush" And
yet, in her biography Of it's author
Mrs. Gaskill would have us believe
that when Charlotte Bronte violated
convention (again, to put it mildly
she did so unwittingly; and that the
daring utterances of the Yorkshire
curate's daughters we're simply the
innocent expression Of morbid tenn
peraments acted on by exceptional
environments Apologists have also
been found for the agnostic sophisms
and psychological subleties of Mrs
Humphrey Ward, on the grounds
that they are not set forth il
Robert ElsmeIe" and "Davi(
Grieve" with malice prepense anC
aforethought, for the destruction o.
believing souls, but that they art