Year: 1877

The Woman-Heart.


Hearts cannot help being hearts, or
women's hearts from being women's
hearts. Not that all hearts are women's
hearts, OF that all women's hearts are
alike. The heart that most of all others
cannot help being what it is, is the
woman heart. 1t cannot help reaching
itself out with longing for love and sym
pathy, cannot help loving something or
somebody, cannot help its own tender
ness, and cannot help quivering when
hurt over and over by the same hand,
and that the hand of one for which it has
bled and suffered, ached and denied it.
self over and over, without stinting or
grudging. 1t may forgive a great deal;
it may laugh off a great many wrongs,
but it must sometimes rebel by virtue of
its own goodness. The love which is so
strong in the elements of love is also
strong in the elements OF passion, and its
strength, unsatisfied by the proper exer-
else, cannot always be hurled back upon
itself, and it must either break the heart
by the burden of it's weight, or break
forth in its wrath and wounded sensitive
ness and speak its mind sometimes.
Give the woman-heart its due; draw it
ont of itself and give it some return for
the wealth that is in it, and see what a
fond, brave heart you will find it. Give
it husks for food and starve it till its
strength can no longer keep itself within
itself, and is it to blame If it bursts out
and sweeps its fury over you, more merci-
less in it's rush than torrent or hurri-
cane? The very fact of its bursting
forth is the more proof of its fullness
1t is hard for the tender, quivering sense
to writhe and ache within itself forever;
and when tortured into bursting through
the very agony of long endurance, and
every nerve has wept itself into the last
stage of exhaustion, under ones eyes,
could not that one afford to spare it q
repetition of the same long irritation,
and the same quivering agony of the
same nerves? Could not one afford to
remember that it is the same woman and
the same heart, and save it long sue
cession of CALLING sorrows to culminate
in the same way? Could not one spare
it the weakness and the anguish, the
suffering and the premature age which
comes from overwrought feelings which
it cannot help possessing9 Could not all
its weight of fondness, all its patience
and long suffering be rewarded with
some small pittance of Its kind, instead
of forcing its good all backward and its
bad all forward, when the worst of its
badness is only goodness if met in the
oin,Ple spirit of justice? Would it not
be well to remember that hoarts are
hearts, and need to be treated as hearts?
Also: would it not be well to bear in
mind that the woman-heart, so sensi-
lively organized, has wants and needs,
and that the woman-life has cravings be-
yond shelter, a crust of bread and life
long drudgery? Give it the greatest
possible latitude, and the woman-life
must be cramped in many things. A
woman cannot be an independent mortal;
try her best, she cannot She has pride
of feeling and independence which she
likes respected, but they must all break
down in sorrow if people who are nearest
to her heart will that they shall. Is it
fair to force her to this misery? She has
little, bird.like, cooling home. ways, and
can be very happy with love and little
besides, if let alone.


She must be made something of. She
cannot bear slight upon slight her whole
life without some show of resentment.
The deeper her feeling, the more difficult
will it be for her to bear. She may bear
the longer, but the pain to her is what
the shallow can know nothing of. When
her feelings have been tortured into an an
guish so terrible that every nerve writhes
with visible, ineffaceable agony, should
not the footprints remind one to save her
from the same thereafter? From child
hood to youth, from youth to woman
hood and onward have seen the most
womanly of girl and woman hearts tor
tured and tormented thus; willfully,
coldly, cruelty, and each time more
cruelty, and in as frequent success
sion as possible; and the more fire.
quent, the better to the torturers. Can
not people learn that the woman-heart is
thing to be sometimes humored, ap-
preciated, and sometimes to have its way 2
Cannot people learn ever to see how
deeply woman can feelS Must they al
ways drive the most atectionate of hearts
to bitterness and madnessf Are not the
deep sacrifices of woman enough OF rec
ompense for little attention, little
consultation of her wishes, little deter.
ence sometimes to her views? Was she
born to be an underling, and stay at
home and wash dishes always, or does
she not, through the nature of her Won
anhood, accept the home position from
views of the exaltedness of her sacri.
flee and the ennoblement of her duties
1t is because she IS a woman that a
woman wishes to remain q woman, enjoy
ka baIk Of nd ha
1t is not inferiority of intellect. IL il
were, she might accept slight and wrong
calmly from knowing not her rights.


The true man never forgets or fails tC
see these rights. Neither does he wait
to hear them asserted or force her pride
to aching because she shrinks from
pleading them. He thinks for her. He
does not always advertise favor to heI
as a mountain. He makes her think the
acceptance of il will be favor to him
self. He does not make her Deg fol
favors and never grant them, but thinks
for her and does them without the ask


ing. II inadvertence leads him once
amiss, he will not go on all his life max


ing the same blunder. He has sense anC


tact, and il he cannot see that he hal
done wrong he will not be ashamed Il


ask wherein he has erred or wounded


and make the. proper amends so far "a


he can. There are some griefs that leav'


their indelible traces, and il is the repe


tition of these that eats away the sweet


ness and beauty Of life. According Il


the theory that hearts cannot help beint


hearts, suppose that non-hearts canno


help being non-hearts, and this may b


the reason that so many with hearts ar


called to suffer so acutely. Persons VIII
can feel themselves are likely to kneV


that others can feel. True manhood
likely to feel for true womanhood.-
Madgs Maple, in chronological JourRO
, | for IlilN