Year: 1870


From Saturday Review.]


There are certain words, suggestiv


rather than Eescriptive, the value @


which lies in their very .yagueness an,


elasticity Of interpretation, by whicl


each mind can write its own commen


tary, each innaginati0n sketch out it


own illustration. And one of these j
| Womanliness; a word infinitely NOR
subtle in meaning, with more possibil


ities of definition, more light and shade


more faces, more phases, than the cor


responding word, manliness. This in


deed must necessarily be so, since tn,


character of woman is so much NOR,


varied in colour and more delicate il


its many shades than that of men w,


call it womanliness when lady of re


finement and culture overcomes tn,


natural shrinking of sense, and vOlun


tsrily enters into suffering in the hou
Of need when she can braveIy r.


through some Of the most shocking ex
periIGbgUaziIuu1ey for the sake O
the higher law Of charity and we cal
! it Nomanliness when she remove.


from herself every suspicion of gross


ness, or coarseness, or ugllness, ane


makes her life as dainty as picture


as lovely as poem. She is womanly


when she asserts her own dignity, wO


manly when her highest pride is the


sweetest humility, the tenderest self
suppression; womanly when she pro
tects the weaker, womanly when she


submits to the stronger; to bear in 81
lence and to act with vigour, to come
| to the fronton Soma occasions, to efiace
herself on Others, are alike the charac.
teristics Of trne womanliness; as is also
the power to be at once practical and
aesthetic, the careful wOrker-out of min
ute details, and the uphOlder of sub
lime idealism, the house mistress dis
pensing bread, and the priestess serv-
ing in the temple. In fact, it is very
prOteus of q word, and means many
things by turns; but it never means
anything but what is sweet, tender,
gracious, and beautiful. Yet, prOtean
as it is in form, its substance has hith-
erto been considered simple enough,
and its limits very exactly defined; and
we used to think we knew to shade
what was. womanlyTwhere, for in.
stance, the nobleness Of dignity ended
and the hardnes of self-assertiOn began;
while no one could mistake the heroic
sacrifice of self for the indifference to
pain and the grossness belonging to a
coarse nature, which last is as essen
TALLY unwomanly as the first Is one of
the finest manifestations of true wo-
manliness. But if this exactness of in
depreciation belonged to past times, the
utmost confusion prevails at present !;
and one of the points on which society
is now at issue in all directions is just
this very question-what is essentially
unwomanliness? Men. and tradition
say one thing, certain women say
another thing; and if what these wO-
men say is to become the rule, society
will have to be reconstructed altOgeth-
er, and a new order of human life must
begin. We have no objection to this,
provided the new order is better than
the old, and the modern phase of wo-
manhood more beautiful, more useful
to the community at large, more eleva-
ting to general morality than was the
ancient. But the whole matter hangs
on this provisO; and until it can be
shown for certain that the latter phase
is undeniably the better we will hold
by the FORMER. -fHs


P There are certain old-superstitions
must we call them?--in our ideas of
women, with which we should be 10th
to part. For instance, the infinite inn
portance of q mothers influence over
her children, and the joy that she her
self took in their companiOnship-the
pleasure that it was to her to hold a
baby in her arms, her delight and ma
ternal pride in the beauty, the innO-.
cence, the quaint ways, the odd re-
marks, the half-embarrassing ques-
tions, the first faint dawnings of reason
and individuality of the little creatures
TO which she had given life, and which
were part of her very beiDg-that plea
sure and maternal pride were among
the characteristics We used to ascrlbe
to womanliness as also the mothers
power of forgetting herself for her chill
dren, of merging herself in them as
they grew older, and finding her own
best happiness in theirs. But among
advanced women who despise the
tame teachings of what was once meant
by womanliness, maternity Is consider
ed bore rather than blessing; the
children are shunted to the side when
they come; and ignorant undisciplined
nurses are supposed to do well for wa
PES what mothers will not do for love.
Also, we held it as wOmanliness when
women resolutely refused to admit into
their presence, to discuss OF hear dis
cussed before them, impure subjects, or
even doubtful ones; when they keep
the standard of delicacy, of purity, of
mo.lesty, at high level, and made
men respect, even if they could not inn
itate, Now the rudding between them
and men whose delicacy has been rub
bed off long ago by the coarse contact
of coarse life is very close; and some OF
them 90 far beyond those OF us whose
lives have been of quieter and less
experimental kind. Nothing, indeed,
is SO startling to a man who has not
lived i'm personal and social familiarity
with certain subjects, and who has re-
tanned the old chivalrOus super5tltlons
about the modesty and innocent igno-
rance of women, as the easy, unem-
barrassed GOODNESS with which his fair
neighbour at dinner-table will dash
on into thorny paths, managing be-
tween the soup and the grapes to run
through the whole gamut of improper
subjects. 1t was also an old notion
that rest and quiet and peace were nat
ural characteristics of womanliness,
and that life had been not unfairly ap-
portioned between the sexes, each hav-
ing its own distinctive duties as well rs
virtues, its own burdens as well as its
own pleasures. Man was to 60 out and
do battle with many enemies; he was
to fight with many powers, to struggle
for place, for existence, for natural
rights, to give and take hard blows, to
lose perhaps this good impulse, or that
noble quality in the fray, the battle
field of life not being that wherein the
highest virtues take root and grow.
But he had always home, where was
one whose sweeter nature brought him
back to his better self, a place whence
the din of the battle was shut out,
where he had time for rest and spiritual
reparation, whence a wOman's love
and pentleness and tender thought and
mseIfish care helped and refreshed
him, and made him feel that the prize
was worth the struggle, that the home
was worth the fight to keep it. And
surely i.was not asking too much of
women that they should be beautiful
and tender to the men whose whole
life out of doors was one of work for
for them, of vigorous toll they might
be kept in safety and luxury. But to
the advanced woman it seems SO; con-
sequently the home as place of rest
for the MAJ is becoming daily more
rare. Soon, it seems to us, there will
be no such thing as the Old-fashioned
home left in England. Women are
swarming out at all doors, running
hither and thither among the men,