The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1904-10-28

account of the marital tergiversatioas
OF their consorts-
Marc Antony. one Of the great Ro-
man Triunvirate, found his ideal wo-
man in "dusky Egypt" the willful.
wicked daughter of the Ptolemies. VINO
lured him to the finging way of his
ambition, the degradation Of his
manhood, his irretrievable ruin.
IL that charming maid of Ven
ice. Desdemona. could run Othei-
10 crazy with just a harmless
handkerchief, what would Cleopatra
have done with h jealous Moor. with
her thousand ~distracting wiles, her
Infinite variety Of w1ckedness?"
France" in the tragedy Of King
Lear" found an ideal in Cordelia, one
of the few women who doth not pro-
test too much" sweet. devoted. whose
voice was ever gentle, soft and low.
an excellent thing in woman"
But Wilfred Blunt shows himself
most obtuse in his estimate Of Sir Wal
ter Scott. OF all fiction writers Of
modern days, the Great Wizard of the
North was par excellence, the ideal
izer OF He went away Jack
to tine close OF the fourteenth century
to find in The Fair Maid of PERTH"
Catharine Glover, the ideal of woman's
purity and veneration for sacred things
lllfdl ckOIlU dHu oOCllCIiCCS d NCIJ
woman through 1t all, who found her
chiefest glory and crown of her life in
rewarding the long, faithful o Of
brave, sturdy Henry Low Of the Wynd.
In the Countess Isabelle de la CroiX,
in SCOTS Quentin Durward,' we see
the high spirited, passionate, sensuous
out pure woman, loving adventure,
stirred by excitement; as brave as d
lion, whose lofty soul was undismayed
by even the terrible Charles the Bold,
Duke of Burgundy; gentle as a dove,
to be wooed and won in glad self-sur-
render by the soft Eyes and graceful
beauty of the nameless but heroic
Scottish youth
In Flora McTvor Of "Waverly" n
sees symbolized. woman's pride o.
birth and race, and devotion to a
consecrated by the traditions, and
sanctiied by the blood of a noble lin
cage: a woman Of exceptional charms
of person., but Whose life was so full
Of ambition, so given to one set pur-
pose that not an hour was left for dai-
lance with the Establishments of love.
Scott found an ideal woman wearing
a crown, born in the purple" of nigh
degrees. Running through all his de-
lightful pages, the reader finds Il
sneaking liking for the house OF
oIldIl, anu Tic SdlldIll oIu Might
fairly loved one of the bloOd-the beau-
tiful Mary Queen of Scots, the young
widow of the feeble Francis II CT
France, who returned to her distracted
native kingdom, to be swept away to
her fall in a tempest of turbulence,
misrule, passion and guilt. Little Won
der that her ~biographer was led cap
tive by her charms, when, at thai
memorable meeting in Lockleven Cas-
tie, they compelled even the homage of
the dark and implacable Lindsey.
L come now to one great novelist
who never pictured the ideal woman
in all his voluminous writings. I have
loved him all my life, and have fire.
quently been lost in admiring wonder
of the ~cloSeneSs with which he gets
next to human nature and probes it,
and turns it inside out, and dissacts
it with a minuteness of detail hat is
startling. Poor as | am, / would give
much if I had never read a line OF
Charles Dickens, that 1 might enjoy
him fresh in my old age. But Dickens
lost his head when he came to the task
of making a heroine-except such as
Sairv Camp in Martin Chuzzlewit;"
or Mrs. Plarmish in Little Dorrit," or
Susan Nipper n Mrs. Pipchin in
"Dombey and Son."
No, there are no ideal Dickens wom-
EN- do not believe he ever imagined
one. His nearest approach to 1t is
Agnes Wiekfield,' in David Cop
pperfield, out she is tame and
spiritless, without ;Lucilla
| Ma1ette. in "A Tale of Two Cities is
dim and s~hadowy, lacking character:
Bella Wilfer. in Our Mutual Friend
is sweet and attractive but Imperfect
and inconsistent; Edith Granger, The
| second wife of Mr.. Dombey, is cold and
| artificial, little better than a c~aricature;
Lizzie HeXham, in Our Mutual
Friend is one of the best pen pic
lures of woman ever executed by Dick
| ms and I think there are indications
in the novel that he himself so regard
ed it. One of the best female charac-
tiers of Dickens Is a mere sketch, inter
polated in "Pickwick Papers"-that OF
Pretty. black-eyed Arabella Allen, VII:
wore the furred boots at Dingley Dell
and captured the poetic, susceptible
heart of Mr.. Augustus Snodgrass.
Dickens was, 1 venture to think, l,
NAVY respects a far greater novelist
than Thackery; but, for all that h
never could have accomplished Becky
Sharp. in Vanity Fair" perhaps tn,
finest shaded. most delicate, most skill,
full piece of character writing / n mod
ern fiction. Nor could Dickens hav'
conceived the character of the gentle
all womanly, much imposed upon Lad!
Castlewood, in Henry Esmond," MOI
that of her beautiful, winsome, willfu
capricious daughter, Beatrice.
A press dispatch from Washington
city, bearing date of October 9Th. ha!
h following:
General Barrick, commanding tn
Department of the Gulf, has recon-
mended to the War Department tina
Fort Marion, the old Spanish fortress
at st. Augustine, Florida, one of IN.
Oldest and picturesque ruins Il
tha United States, be preserved. tn;
fortress was begun by the Spaniards il
1866, and was completed in 1856, unde
the name of Castle of st. Mark TIL
General says that, while the old for
serves no useful purpose, it is attrac
tive as a relic"
Is not this the fort, the building %
which was ushered by such a dark anC
| gloomy tragedy? And is not it's rea