The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1894-08-10


world because of her unlikeness to
the men who make it as she wills,
and in this higher power she rests
content.
We cannot argue that these Shakes
perean types are too far away. The
conditions surrounding human life
shift and change continually, but the
s.eternal feminine" even in its most
perverse expression must remain the
same. The poets of the earlier day
are not affected by the crying needs OF
womanhood in civic directions: because
the true relations of men and women
were so simply accepted and defined.
But in our own century they feel the
force of our terrible completely and
they must in very Loyalty to themsel-
yes. respond to it. No one has dealt
directly with the subject of woman's
political rights because it is most
inartistic, unpoetic thing. But the
germinal idea of woman's power and
place, is now as always, a most in
spring and productive theme, and de-
spite the vast accumulations of false
and foolish ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS a.
bound they have no other ultimatum
than Shakespeare has pronounced,
and Dante and Homer and the wise
Hebrew King.
1t is on this foundation as on the
solid rock, that Alfred Tennyson in
The Princess and Mrs. Browning in
aurora Leigh have considered the
modern phases of wOmanly develop
ment, and the universal acceptance
among thinking people of their con-
illusions is ample proof of their deep
validity. Mrs, Browning who by in
stinct was an agitator and reformer in
the clear poetic sense, most nobly
manifests in the person of her heroine,
the woman's right to do any work
which heaven lays upon her. Mark
the words, (which heaven lays upon
her. but the eyes of Aurora Leigh are
holden from the full meaning, not
only of her art, but of her own in
herent nature until triumphant love
interprets ever ything anew.
And Tennyson's Princess is led in
the same way into the wider view
casting all Der Amazonian plans away
before the sympathy and faith and
holy need of her, deep rooted in the
Princes soul. The parasitic forms
will clear away, he says-the poet is a
prophet too-from the growth of wom-
ankind, and
Leave her space to burgeon out of ALL
Within her,-let her make herself her
To give or keep. to live and learn to be
All that lot harms distinctive woman
hood,
And mark the words again, "All that
not harms distinctive womanhood."
This consensus of the poet has been
verified by the great novelists, who
are poets, too, at heart. Victor Hugo,
Walter Scott, George Eliot, Nathaniel
Hawthorne, and even ID. Howells
the acknowledged master of our own
era, with his strange socialistic traits,
have found no other standpoint. And
it is neither visionary, nor in any
wise impracticable since it is based
upon historic and essential truth.
There is no other way to determine
the rightful power and place of wom-
ankind than to make right estimate
of the relations existing between the
sexes, since they were created first for
each other and then for the home and
the social fabric. No one has express
ed the primary principle SO beauti-
fully as our own Longfellow.
As unto the bow the cord is
So unto the man Is woman,
Though she bends him she obeys him,
| Though she draws him yet she follows
Useless each without the other.
This is the heart of the home and
the commonwealth, aud its beauty
and fitness are ably endorsed by Mr..
Ruskin, whose studies in social ethics
are always based upon Gods Utmost
law. "The man" he says, "in his
rough work in the open field must en-
counter all peril and trial; TO him
therefore must be the failure, the Of
fence, the inevitable error, often he
must be wounded or subdued; often
misled; and always hardened. But
he guards the woman from all this;
within his house as ruled by her, un-
less she herself has sought it''-notice
that-"need enter no danger or tempt
alton, no cause of error or offence.
This is the true nature of home, it is
the place of peace, and herein lies the
woman's true place and power. But
to fulfill this holy function she must
be, so far as one can use such terms of
human creature, incapable of error.
So far as she rules all must be right or
nothing is. She must be enduringly,
incorruptibly good, instinctively, in
fallibly wise, not for self development
but for self remuneration; wise, not
that she must set herself above her
husband, but that she may never fall
| from his side"
Enlarging upon the personal atti-
tude towards the home he shows how
the relation to the commonwealth is
the simple expansion of family duties.
"Now the mans work for his own
home is to secure its maintenance,
progress and defence; the woman's to
secure its order, comfort and lowell