^4*i^^f^Smfi£4t^"^3^i^^ (Qnrnell IniucrattH ffiihtatg 3(tliata, Kewiotk BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY COLLECTED BY BENNO LOEWY 1854-1919 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY Cornell University Library HQ 1616.M62 1870 3 1924 021 879 832 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021879832 DOCHELiET'S BOOK& Uniform with tins voiOiuu. I.— LOVE (l'amoub.; n.— WOMAN (LA FEHME.) These remarkable books have produced an ImpreBBion uponlbe read- ing public almost witliout a parallel in late yeiirs. tiuch audacity and delicacy, sucli rigorous analysis and lender sentiment, were scarcely ever before =o artistically and eflectively com- bined. The style is fit for its important tlieme — digni- fied, eloquent, virtuous, and chaste. ^'Published uniform with this volume, price $1.50 — sent i^e by mall on receipt of pric« BT Carleton, Publisher, WOMAN (^(S! ®ewme«) From the French of M. J. MIC H ELET, X THE FACULTY OF LBTTEES, CHIEF IN THE HISTORICAL SECTION OF THE NATIONAL AECHIVKS, AUTHOR OP "A HISTOEV OP FRANCE," "HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BEPUBLIO," " MEMOIRS OF LUTHEB," " INTRODUCTION TO UNIVERSAL HlflTOEY," "l'INSECTE," ".L'OISEAU," "l'AMOUE," ETC., ETa, ETC. Translated from the last Pans Edition, by J. W. Palmer, M.D. ^Wtiot of " Hjii Neb anil t^e ©ID," " ilp anD SSniun tlie Scraioatitii," ttc. NEW YORK : Carleton, Publisher, Madison Square. LONDON : S. LOW, SON & CO. M DCCC LXX. Krtered, according to Act of GongreBS, In the jcar 1)960 bj EtTDD & CAELETON, la the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Sauthua DIstrtot of New Tork. Translator's Preface. m THE ATJTHOE'S OWS ■W0ED8. " This book omits two subjects, by the introduction of which in L' Amour so much censure has been incurred. I have concluded to leave their' discussion to the litera- ture of the day — which is inexhaustible on both those themes. I have demonstrated my problems by straight lines, and left to other writers the complicated illustration by curves. In their books they elaborately pursue the by- paths of love, but never once strike out on its grand and fertile highway — ^that impregnation which in more elevated passions endures even unto death. Our clever novelists are in the identical fog that in former times enveloped the casuists, who were, moreover, great analysers. Escobar and Busenbaum, who met with the same success as Balzac — fifty editions each, of their works — forgot only one thing in their subtile researches ; but that was the very founda- tion of their doctrine. So the writers of to-day lose sight of marriage, and lay down rules for libertinism. vi Preface. " This book differs no less from the serious romances of our great Utopians— Saint-Simon, J'ourier, and the rest," They invoke nature,_but a very low order of it, in sympa- thy with the degradation of the times; and at once they put their trust in passional attraction, in our very inclina- tion towards that debased nature. In this age of stupen- dous effort, of heroic creation, they have tried to suppress effort ; but with such a being as man, an energetic creator, an artist, effort is part of himself, and he is all the better for it. The popular moral instinct perceives this, and that is why those great thinkers have not succeeded in founding a school. Art, labor, and effort rule us all, and what we call nature in ourselves is, most frequently, of our own making, for we create ourselves day by day. I felt the truth of this while pursuing my anatomical studies last year, especially on the brain. The brain is manifestly the organ of wm-k, the incarnation of our daily life. Hence its intense expression, and, if I may so say, its eloquence, in superior individuals ; I do not hesitate to call it the most perfect flower, the most touching beauty in nature — affecting in the child, and often sublime in the' man. Let them call this Eealism ; I am quite indifferent. There are two sorts of realism: the one vulgar and vacant — the other, through the Real, attaining the Idea, which is its essence and its highest truth, consequently its inherent nobility. If pru- dery is "shocked" at my poetry of truth, the only pure poetry, it is of no consequence to me; when in V Amour I broke down the stupid barrier which separates literature from the enlightenment of science, I did not ask th.e advice Preface. vii of tHo'se shame-faces, who would be chaster than ITatare, and purer than God. "Woman needs a faith, and expects it from man, in or der to bring up her child ; for there can be no education without faith. The day has come when faith may be laid down in a formula. Eousseau could not. do it; his age was not ripe for it. Conscience is the test of truth ; but it must have two controlling influences — history, which is the con- science of the human race, and natural history, which is the instinctive conscience of nature. Now formerly neither of these two existed; they have been born within the last cen- tury (1760-1860). " When Conscience, History, and Natural History accord —Believe I" Contents. MSI Tranblatob'b Fbsfjlob, . . T Introbttcfion. L — Why People do not Many, 19 II.— The Female Operative, , 23 III.— The Woman of Letters, .... ... 31 rV. — ISo Life for Woman without Man, 42 SDUCATION. ' I. — Sun, Air, and Light, .... ... 68 II. — The first Exchange of Glunoes, and the Beginnings of Faith, . 61 /ill.— Play.— The child Teachmg its Mother, 61 IT.— The Frail and Sacred ChUd 61 Contents. v.— Love at Five Tears.— The Doll, . . . . TI. — Woman a Religion, YII. — Love at Ten Years. — Flowers, VIIL— The Litt.e Household— The Little Garden, . IX. — The Maternities of Fourteen. — The Metamorphosis, X. — History as a Basis of Faith, ^XI. — Pallas. — Reason, , , , . , XIL— Andrea del Sarto's " Charity,"' ^IIL — The Revelation of Heroism, PAGl 72 76 B5 93 98 103 113 117 123 fook Stcnnlr. womak in the family. L- — The "Woman who will Love most. — Of a Different Race, . IM II.- —The Woman who will Love most. — Of the Same Race, . . 138 UI- —The Man who will Love best, . 146 IV.- -The Proof, • 152 Y.- -How She gives her Heart away, 158 VI.- -Thou Shalt leave thy Father and tliy Mother, . 165 VII.- -The Young Wife.— Her Solitary Thoughts, . 173 niL- -She would be his Partner and his Client, . 180 IX.- —Arts and Reading. — The Common Faith . 186 X.- -The great Legend of Africa, — ^Woman the Goddess of G ood- ness, . 192 XL- —How Woman Excels Man, . 200 XIL- —The Humiliations of Love. — Confession, .... 203 XIII- —The Communion of Love, ... . . 21li XIV.- -The Offices of Nature, . 2aa Contenio. XI WOMAN IN SOOIETI. I. — 'Woman an Angel of Peace and Civilization, II. — Last Love. — Women's Friendships, . III. — Woman Protecting Woman. — Caroline Cbisbolm, IV. — Consolation for Imprisoned Women, T. — The Healing Art inWoman, .... TL— The Simples, .... Vn. — Children — Light— the FutuiB, .... NOTSS, .... .... 2:iO 234 241 241 254 262 26a B7« Introduction. WHY PEOPLE DO NOT MARRY. Wb all perceive the capital fact of our time. From a sin. gular combination of circumstances — social, religious, and economical — Man lives apart from Woman. And this is he- coming more and more common. They are not merely in dif- ferent and parallel paths ; they are as two travellers, starting , from the same point, one at full speed, the other at a sluggish pace, hut following divergent routes. Man, however weak he may be morally, is nevei-theless on a train of ideas, inventions, and discoveries, so rapid that sparks dart from the burning rail. Woman, hopelessly left behind, remains in the rutjrf ajast of which she lierself knows but little. She is distanced, to our sorrow, but either will not or cannot go faster. The worst of it is that they do not seem to desire to come together. They seem to have nothing to say to each other — a cold hearth, a silent table, a frozen couch. " One is not bound," they say, " to put himself out in his own family." But they do no better in society, where polite- 14 Why People do not Marry. ness . commands it. • Every one knows how a parlor divides itsell ai t.he evening into two parlors, one of men, and one ot women. It has not been much noticed, but it may be tested, that in a iriendly reunion of a dozen persons, if the hostess insists with a sort of gentle violence that the two circles mingle together and the men converse with the women, sileiioo succeeds; theie is no more conversation. We must staie the thing precisely as it is : they have no longer any ideas in common, any language in common, and even as to what mi^ht interest both parties they do not-know how to speak, they have too completely lost sight of each other. Soon, if we do iiot take care, in spite of casual meet- ings, there will no longei i>e two sexes but two peoples. It is not surprising thai, the book which combated these tendencies — a little book of the heart, without literary preten- sion, has been on all sides sharply criticised. " Z/'Amoitr," threw itself naively into the breach, invoked good-nature, and said " Love again." At these words sharp cries were uttered ; for the diseased core was touched. " No, we will not love, we will not be happy. There is something under all this. Under that reli- gious form which deifies woman, he attempts to strengthen, to emancipate her mind. He seeks for a servile idol, to bind on his altar." Thus, at the word Union, broke forth all the evils of the time — division, dissolution, the sad solitary tastes, the desire for savage life, which brood in the depths of men's minds. The women read and wept. Their directors (priests or philosophers, no matter which) dictated language to them. Scarcely did they dare feebly to defend their defender. But they did better, they read over again, they devoured, the for- bidden book, they kept it for their leisure hours, and hid it tmder their pillows. Why People do not Marry. 15 ft is well consoled bv that, this much-abused book, both fcir the insults of enemies and the censures of friends. Neither the men of the Middle Ages nor those of Free Love found their account in it. Z,' Amour sought to lead woman baclc^;o the fireside ; they preferred the pavement or the convent for her. "A book about marriage, for the family? Scandalous 1 Rather write thirty romances about adultery — something imaginative, something amusing. You will be much better received." " Why fortify the family?" says a religious journal. " Isn't it perfect already ? Formerly there was something they called adultery, but that is no longer to be seen." " Excuse us," replies a great political thunderer, in a brilliant and extremely effective feuilleton, "we beg your pardon, — it is still to be seen, and everywhere ; but there is so little passion in it that it disturbs no one's comfort ; it is a thing inherent in French marriages, and almost an institution. Every nation has it.s own morals, and we are not English." Comfort ! yes, that is the evil. Neither the husband not the lover is troubled by it — -nor the wife either ; she wishes to get rid of ennui, that is all. But in this lukewarm, blood- less life, in which we invest so little heart, expend so little art, in which not one of the three deigns to make an effort of any sort, everybody languishes, yawns, palls with nauseating comfortableness. We all understand that well, and no one is in a hurry to be married. If our laws of succession did not make women rich, there would be no more marrying, at least not in the large towns. In the country" I heard a married man, father of a lb Why People do not Marry. family, a man ' well posted,' indoctrinating a young neigh bor of hia : " If you are to stay here," he said, " you will iiave to marry ; but if you live in Paris, it is not worth the trouble, you can dispense with it easily." We all know the saying which marked the fall of the world's most intellectual people, the Athenians : "Ah, if, wo could have children without women." It was much worso under the Empire. All the legal penalties, those Julian laws which made a man marry d coup de bdton, were unsuccessful in bringing man and woman together, and it seemed that even the physical passion — that fine necessity which spurs the world along and centuples its energies — ^was extinguished here below. So that, never again to see i woman, men fled even into the Thebais. The motives which now-a-days not only cause marriage to be feared, but estrange women from society, are various and complicated. The first, indisputably, is the increasing misery of poor girls, putting them at the mercy of the world — the easy appropriation of those victims of hunger. Hence satiety and enervation, forgetfulness of any higher love, and mortal ennui at having to solicit tediously what may be had so easily every evening. Even he who has other needs, and a taste for fidelity, who would like to love with a single intensity, infinitely prefers a dependent, gentle, obedient person, who thinks of !io rights of her own, and who, if left to-morrow, will not move a step — only wishing to please. , The strong and brilliant personality of our girls, which too often asserts itself the very day after the wedding, frightens llie celibate. There is no joke in that — the French woman is a character. It affords a chance for immense happiness — but sometimes for unhappiness also. Our excellent civil laws (which are of the future, and to Why People do not Marry. ly tvavd whieli the world is gravitating) have none the less added to the" inherent difficulties of the national character. The French woman is an heir, and she knows it, — has a dowry, and she knows it. It is not as in some other countries, where a daughter, if she has any dowry, has it only in money (a fluid which- easily runs out in the business of the husband). Here ehe has real estate, and even if her own brother should desire to purchase it, the law opposes him,'and keeps her rich in fixtures, secured by the dotal code or by certain stipulations. Su'^h fortunes are almost always enduring. Land does not take wings, houses do not crumble ; they remain to afford her a voice in the matter, a personality scarcely ever possessed by the English or the German woman. The latter, so to speak, are absorbed in the husband ; they sink into him body and property (if they have any property) ; so that they are, I believe, more completely than our women uprooted from their native family, which would not receive them again. The wife is reckoned as dead by her own people, who rejoice in establishing a daughter so as never again to have expenses on her account. Whatever may happen, and wherever her husband may choose to take her, she will go and remain. On such conditions marriage is less formidable to the men. A curious thing in France, contradictory m appearance but not in reality, is that marriage is very weak, and the esprit de famiUe very strong. It happens (especially-in the provinces, among the rural bourgeoisie), that the wife who has been some time married, as soon as she has children divides her eoul in two parts, one for her children, the other for her rela- tives, for her reawakened first affections. What protection, in that case, for the husband ? None, the esprit de famille an- nuls the marriage. One can hardly imagine how weaiisome is such a wife, bury- ing herself in a retrograde past, letting herself down to the i8 Why People do not Marry. level of a superannuated but lively mother, all imbued with old things. The husband lives on quietly, but soon sickens of it— discouraged, weary, good for nothing. He loses the ideas juid hopes of progress he had acquired in his studies and in youthful society. He is soon killed off by the proprietor, by tlie duU stifling of that old family hearth. Thus under a dowry of a hundred thousand francs is buried a man who might perhaps have earned as much every year. So says the young man to himself in his time of aspiration and of confidence. But whether he have more or less, no mat^ ter; if he would take his chance, know what he is capable of, life will send the dowry to the devil. For the sake of the little thing that beats under his left breast, he wiU not, for five hun- dred francs, become husband to the queen. Bachelors have often told me this. They have also told me another thing; one evening when I had five or six at my house, men of mark, as I was bantering them about their pretended celibacy, one of them, a distinguished savant, tittered these very words to me, and quite seriously : " Never believe that, whatever diversions a man may find without it, he is not unfortunate in having no fireside — ^I mean a wife who is truly his own. We all know that, we feel it. There is no other repose for the heart ; and not to have a wife, sir, be sure is a sonlbre, cruel, bitter life." Bitter! on that word all the others also laid stress, and spoke as he did. " But," said he, " one consideration deters us. AH who work in France are poor. We live by our engagements, by our patronage. We live honestly, I earn six thousand francs ; but the wife I should choose would spend that much on her toilet. Their mothers educate them so. Suppose one of these beautiful creatures were bestowed on me, what would become of me the next day, as she left her rich abode to find mine so Why People do not Marry. ig poor. If I loved her (and I am quite capable of that), imagine the misery, the wickedness into which I-might be tempted, to become a littlfe richer, and so displease her a little less. " I shalj. always remember how being once in a small to^vrl of the South, to which it was the fashion to send sick people, I saw a startling apparition pass by a place where the mules were winding along in a «loud of dust. It was a very beau- tiful woman, clothed like a courtesan — a woman, not a girl — twenty-five years old, puffed out, distended in a fresh and charming sOk robe of blue, clouded with white (a master-piece of Lyons), which she dragged abominably through the dirt- iest spots. She seemed not to rest on the earth. Her blonde and pretty head tossed back her jaunty Amazonian hat, which gave her the air of a piquant young page, her whole appearance said, 'I jest at everything.' I felt that this idol, monstrously in love with herself, for all her pride, belonged, from first to last, to those who flattered her, that they mocked her, and that she did not even know what a scruple was. I called Solomon to mind. '■ JEt tergens os suum dixit: non sum operata malum.'' This vision remained with me. It was not a person, it was not a thing, but it was the fashion, and the manners of the time, I saw; it will always inspire me with a true terror of marriage." " As for me," said a younger bachelor, " the obstacle, the insuperable scruple, is not crinoline, but religion." We laughed : but he, becoming animated, protested ; " Yes, religion. Women are educated in dogmas which are not ours. Jlothers who are so desirous to have their daugh- ters married, give them an education exactly calculated tc produce divorce. " "What are the dogmas of France ? If France hersell does not know, Europe does very well j its hatred perfectlj reveals them. An enemy, a very retrograding foreigner 20 Why People do not Marry. once described them to me thus : ' What renders your Franca hateful to us,' he said, ' is that beneath its apparent muta- tions it never changes.' It is like a lighthouse in eclipse, with revolving lights. It shows or conceals the flame, but the focus is always the same. What focus ? The wit of Voltaire (long previous to Voltaire) ; in the second place ('89), the grand laws of the Revolution ; and in the third place, the canons of your scientific pope, the Academy of Sciences.' " I disputed it. He insisted ; and I now see that he was right. Yes, whatever new questions may arise, '89 is the faith even of those who postpone '89, and refer it to the future. It is the faith of all France, and that is why foreigners condemn us altogether, and without distinction of parties. " Well, the daughters of France are carefully educated to hate and contemn what all France loves and believes in. Thrice they have embraced, weakened, killed the Revolution ; first, in the sixteenth century, in the matter of liberty of con- science ; then, at the end of the eighteenth, in the question of political liberty. They have devoted themselves to the past, not knowing what indeed that is. They like to listen to those who say with Pascal : ' Nothing, is sure ; therefore, believe in the absurd.' Women arc rich in France ; they have much wit, and every means of instruction. But they will not learn anything, nor create a faith for themselves. Let them meet a man of serious faith, a man of heart, who believes and loves established truths, and they say with a smile : ' That man doesn't believe in anything.' " There was a momentary pause. This rather violent sally had nevertheless, I perceived, won the assent of all present. I said to them : " If what you have just advanced be admit- ted, I believe we must say it has been often just the same in other ages, and people have married, nevertheless. Women loved dress and luxury, and were conservative, but the men Why People do not Marry. 21 of those times were doubtless more daring ; they faced those perils, hoping that their influence, their energy, above all their love, the master and conqueror of conquerors, would effect happy changes in their favor. Intrepid Curtii, they threw themselves boldly into the gulf of uncertainties, and very happily for us. For, gentlemen, but for the audacity of our fathers, we had never been bom. " Now, will you permit a friend older than you to speak with frankness ? Then I shall venture to tell you that if you were truly alone, if you endured without consolation the life you find so bitter, you would make haste to change it, you would say : Love is strong and can do whatever it wUl. The greater will be the glory of converting these absurd and charming beauties to reason. With a great, resolute, and persevering purpose, well-chosen means, and skilfully calculated circum- stances, one may do much. But it is necessary to love, to love intensely, and love a single object. No coldness. The cultivated' and coveted woman infallibly belongs to the man. If the man of this age complains that he does not reach her soul, it is because he has not what subdues the soul, viz. con- centrated strength of desire. ." Now, to speak only of the obstacle ' first alleged, of the unrestrained pride of women, their madness for the toilet, etc. : it seems to me that this applies especially to the upper classes, to rich ladies, or to those who mingle with wealthy people. There are two or three hundred thousand of these. But do you know how many women there are in France? Eighteen millions, and eighteen himdred thousand marriageable. "It would be great injustice to accuse them all of the wrongs and follies of ' our best society.' If -they imitate it at a dis- tance, it is not always from choice. Ladies, by their axample, often by their contempt or their ridicule, cause great misfortunes in this way. _ They impose an impossible luxury 22 Why People do not Marry. on poor creatures who sometimes would not care for it, but who by their position, involving serious interests, are forced tc be brilliant ; and to be so, they plunge into great extravagance. " Women who have their own peculiar world and so many secrets in common, ought certainly to love each other a little, and sustain each other, instead of warring among themselves. They inflict mutual injury, in a thousand cases, indirectly. The wealthy dame whose luxury changes the costume of the poor girl, does the latter a great wrong — she prevents her marriage ; for no workman cares to marry a doU, so expen- sive to dress. If she remains a maiden, she is, perhaps, an office or a shop girl, bu.t even in that capacity the lady stiU harms her ; she prefers to deal with a clerk, in a black coat, a flatterer, and finds him more womanly than the woman. The shopkeepers have thus been led to substitute, at great ex- pense, the clerk for the girl, who cost much less. " What wUl become of her ? If she is pretty, twenty years of age, she will be ' protected,' and wiU pass from hand to hand. Soon fading, bfeforg thirty, she will become a seam- stress, and work for her ten sous a day. She has no means of living save by earning her bread every night in shame. Thus the woman of wealth, depreciating her own sex, goes on mak- ing celibacy more and more economical, and marriage unpro- fitable, until, by a terrible retribution, her own daughter ^vilI never be able to marry. "Do you wish me, gentlemen, to briefly portray the lot of woman in France? No one has yet done it with sim- plicity. This picture, if I do not deceive myself, will touch your hearts, and perhaps enlighten you, and will pi-event you from confounding very different classes in the same anar Iheiua.'' The Female Operative. 23 II. THE FEMALE OPERATIVE. When the English manufacturers, enormously enriched by new machinery, complained to Pitt, saying : " We cannot go on, we do not make money enough," he gave them a terrible answer, a stain on his memory : " Take the children." How much more guilty are those who took women, who opened to the wretchedness of the city girl, to the blindness of the peasant, the fatal resource of an exterminating labor, and the promiscuity of factories ! He who takes the woman, takes also the child ; for in every one that perishes, a family is destroyed, many children, and the hope of generations to come. Barbarism of our West! Woman is no longer esteemed for the love and happiness of man, still less for maternity and tlie power of reproduction — but as an operative. Operative ! an impious, sordid word, which no language ever had, whichno period could have ever understood before this iron age, and which alone would counterbalance all our pretended progress. Here comes the close band of economists, doctors of the net proceeds. " But, sir," they say, " the high economic and social necessities ! Industry would be obstructed, stopped. In the name of these same poor classes," etc., etc. The first necessity is to live, and palpably, we are perishing. The population no longer increases, and its quality is degene- rating. The peasant girl dies of labor, the female operative of hunger. What children can we expect from them ? Abor tions, more and more. , " But a people does not perish!" Many peoples, even of those which still figure on the map, no longer exist. The Scottish Highlanders have disappeared. Ireland no longer presents a race.. Wealthy, absorbing England, that prodi- 24 ine remaie operative. gious blood-sucker of the world, does not succeed in reneW' ing itself by the most enormous alimentation. The race is changing and growing weak there, has recourse to stirnji- lants, to alcohol, and is more and more enfeebled. Those who saw it in 1815 did not recognise it in 1830, and how much less to-day ! What can the State do for this ? Very little in England, wjiere the industrial life swallows up everything, the whole country being now but one factory. But an infinite good iq France, where we as yet have so few laborers, comparatively. How many things that were impossible, have nevertheless been done ! It was impossible to abolish lotteries ; they are abolished. We would have sworn it was impossible to demolish Paris in order to re-build it : but that was easily done by a brief clause in the code (Appropriation for Public Improvements). I see two peoples in our cities : The one dressed in woollen — ^that is man, — ^the other in wretched cotton, and that too, even in winter. By the former I mean the lowest operative, the least paid bungler — a servant of operatives. This man, however, eata meat in the morning (a Bologna sausage, or somethmg else). In the evening he enters a cookshop, and has a dish of meat, and even drinks some bad wine. The woman of the same condition takes a sou's worth of milk in the morning, some bread at noon, and some bread at night, and very rarely a bit of cheese. Do you deny that ? It is certain ; I will prove it presently. Her day's, income is ten sous, and cannot be eleven, for a reason which I will explain. Why is it so ? The man no longer wishes to marry, no longer wishes to protect the woman. He lives greedily alone. Can it be said that he leads an abstinent life ? No. He The Female Operative. 2; deprives himself of nothing. Besotted on Sunday night, he will find without seeking some hungry shadow of a wo man, and will outrage the dead creature. One blushes at being a man. " 1 make too little money," says he ; four or five times more than the woman, in most trades. He earns forty or fifty sous, and she ten, as we shall see. The poverty of the male operative would be wealth, abun dance, luxury, to the female. The former complains much the more ; and, as soon as he is in want at all, he wants many more things. We may say of them what has been said of the Englishman and the Irishman : "The Irishman is hungry for potatoes, the Englishman is hungry for meats, sugar, 'tea, beer, liquors, etc." In the budget of the workman's necessities I have over- looked two things in which he indulges at any price, and of which the workwoman never thinks : tobacco and beer. In most cases these two articles absorb more money than a family. The pay of the men has, I know, sustained a rude shock, chiefly from the effect of the precious metal crisis, which changed the value of silver. Their wages will rise again, but slowly ; time is needed to restore the equilibrium. But, allow- ing for this, the difference stiU exists ; the woman is much the more affected. It is meats and wine that he must give up : with her, it is bread itself. She cannot economize ; one step lower, and she dies. "It is their own fault," says the economist. "Why are they so mad as to leave their fields, and come to die of hunger in towns ? If it is not the workwoman herself, it was her 2 26 The Female Operative. mother who came, and instead of a peasant became a domes- tic. She did not fail, though unmarried, to have a child, which child is the operative." My dear Sir, do you know what country life is in France- How terrible, excessive, severe the labor is ? Women do not till in England; they are very miserable, but yet they have i^eds to protect them from the wind and rain. Germany, with its forests and its prairies, with its very slow labor, and national gentleness, does not crush out woman as we do. The durus arator of the poet has his reality scarcely anywhere but here. Why ? He is a proprietor — ^proprietdr of little or nothing, and in debt. By a furious, blind labor, and unskilful agriculture, he struggles with the vulture; the land threatens to escape from him. Rather than that should happen, he will bury himself in it, if need be ; but, first, cer- tainly, his wife. Jt is for this that he marries, in order to have a workman ; in the Antilles, they buy a negro ; in France, we marry a wife. She is preferred who has a small appetite, a lithe and slen- der figure — ^from an idea that she will eat less (a historic fact). She has a great heart, this poor French woman, and does as much or more than is required. She drives the ass (in light soils), and the man holds the plough. In any case, she has the hardest part. He prunes the vine at his ease — she scrapes and digs. He has respites — she none. He has festive occa- sions and friends. He goes alone to the tavern — she goes for a moment to church, and there falls asleep. If he returns at night intoxicated, she is beaten, and often, which is worst, when she is enceinte. Then she endures for a year her double suffering, in heat and cold, chilled by the wind, drenched by the rain, daily. Most of them die of consumption, especially in the north (see the statistics). No constitution can withstand their mode Tire Female Operative. 27 of life, Then forgive the mother if she desires her daughter to suffer less, if she sends her to the factory, there at least she will have a roof over her head ; or makes her a domestic in town, where she will partake of the amenities of the bour- geoisie. The girl is only too eager for that ; every woman has in fancy little needs of elegance, finery, and aristocracy, She is at once punished for it. She no longer sees the sun. Her mistress is often very hard, especially if the girl be pretty. She is immolated to spoiled children, vicious monkeys, and cruel little cats, who make her their plaything ; or else she is blamed, scolded, teased, abused. Then she would be glad to die, home-sickness takes possession of her ; but she knows that her father would never receive her. She grows pale and wastes away. Only the master is good to her. He would console her if he dared. He clearly sees that in her desolate state, in which she has never a word of kindness, the little one is in the power of any one who will evince the least fi-iendship for her. The opportunity soon arrives, madame being in the country. The resistance is not great; he is her master, and he is strong. She is enceinte, and a great storm follows. The husband, ashamed, shrugs his shoulders. She is driven out of doors, and without bread, lives in the streets till she can go to thp hospital for her accoucheinent. (This is the almost invariable Story. See the confessions noted by physicians.) What will be her life, great God, what struggles, what difficulties, if she has so good a heart, so much courage, as-to wish to rear her child I Let us notice the condition of woman thus burdened, m circumstances comparatively favorable. A young Protestant widow, of very austere morals, laborious, economical, temperate, exemplary in every sense, agreeable also, in spite of all she has suffered, lives behind the Hotel- 28 , The Female Operative. Dieii, in an unhealthy street, lower than the wharf. She has a sickly child, who is always trying to go to school, always failing ill, and cannot get on. Her rent is raised, less than many others, from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and sixty francs. She said to two excellent ladies, " When I can go out by the day, they will give me twenty sous, even twenty- five ; but that happens scarcely more than two or three times a week. If you had not had the goodness to aid me with my rent, by giving me five francs a month, I must have done like the others, and, to support my child, have walked the streets in the evening." The poor woman who thus walks the streets trembling, alas ! to ofier herself up> is immeasurably above the coarse man, whom she must address. Our work-women who have so much wit, taste, and tact, are usually physically favored, graceful, and delicate. What is the difference between them and the ladies of the higher classes ? The foot ? No. The figure ? No. The hand alone constitutes the difference, be- cause the poor operative, forced to wash often, passing the winter in her little room with a simple foot-stove, has her hands, her only means of labor and of life, swollen grievously, bursting with chilblains. With almost only that exception the same woman, if a little dressed, is Madame la Comtesse, as much as any in the grand Faubourg. She has not the jargon of the world ; she is much more romantic, more lively. Let but a gleam of happiness fall on her, and she will eclipse them all. We do not suflJciently remark what an aristocracy women form ; there is no populace among them. As I was driving down the street, a young woman with a gentle, feminine countenance, worn, but delicate, pretty, and distinguished, followed the carriage addressing me in vain, for I did not understand English. Her beautiful supplicatmg blue eyes seemed profoundly sorrowful under her little straw hat. The Female Operative. 29 " Sir," said I to my neighbor, who understood French, "can you tell me what that charming person is saying to me, she who has the air of a duchess, and who for some reason persists in following the carriage." " Sir," said he, politely, "I am inclined to believe that she is an operative without work, who is begging in violation of the law." Two important events have changed the lot of" woman in Europe, in these latter years. She has only two great trades, S£mning ani,s.ewing. , The others (embroidery, flowers, etc.) scarcely deserve to be counted. Woman is a spinner, woman is a seamstress. It has been her business in all times : it is her universal history. Well, it is no longer so ; it has just been chanc^jed. The loom has suppressed the spinner. It is not only her earnings, but a whole world of habits that she ha:s lost. The peasant used to spin as she watched her childi'en and fire ; she spun in the watches' of the night ; she spun as she walked, driving her cow or her sheep. The seamstress was the operative of towns; she wrought at home, either continuously, the livelong day, or divided the labor with her household cares. For all important purposes, this no longer exists. First, convents and prisons presented a terrible competition to the isolated seamstress; now the sewmg-machine comes to annihilate her. The achievements of the two machines, cheapness and good work, will make their products prevail everywhere. There is nothing to be said against them, nothing to be done. Indeed, these great inventions will, in the end, be advantage- ous to the human race ; but their effects are cruel in the period of transition. How many women in Europe, and elsewhere, will be de- voured by these two terrible ogres, the brazen spinner and the iron sewer ? Millions — ^but it can never be calculated. ^o The Female Operative. The needle-women were so suddenly famished in Englandj that many societies are occupied in promoting their emigra- tion to Australia. The sum advanced is- seven hundred and twenty francs, but the emigrant can, after the fifst year, return half of it {Blosseville). In that country, where the males are infinitely the more numerous, she marries without difficulty, fortifying with new families that powerful colony, more stable than the Indian empire. What becomes of ours ? They do not make much noise. They do not, like the conspiring and sturdy laborers, masons, carpenters, make a formidable strike, and dictate terms. They die of hunger, and that is aU. The fearful mortality oi 1854 fell especially on them. Since that time, their condition has been sorely aggravated. Ladies' gaiters are sewed by machinery. Flower-makers are paid much less. To inform myself on this sad subject, I spoke of it to many persons, especially to my venerable friend and associate, Dr. Villermi and M. de Guerry, whose excellent works are so highly esteemed, and to a young statistician whose vigorous method I had much admired. Dr. Bertillon. He had the extreme kindness to make a serious task of it, combining with the data furnished by the laboring classes, others communi- cated by public officers. I wish he would complete and pub- lish it. I will give but one line of his statement : "In the great trade which occupies aU. women (except a very few), needlework, they can earn but ten sous a day." Why? "Because machinery, which is still dear enough, does the labor for ten sous. If the woman demanded eleven, the machine would be preferred." And how does she make up the loss? "She walks the street at night." That is why the number oi files publiqites, registered and numbered, does not increase in Paris, and, I believe, diminishes a little. The Woman of Letters. 31 Man does not content himself with inventing machines which suppress the two great trades of woman, he takes pos- session directly of the secondary industries by which she lived, and descends to all the avocations of weakness. Can the woman, at her will, rise to the trades that demand strength, and assume those of men ? By no means. The Nonchalant and lazy ladies, buried in divans, may say as much as they like : " Woman is not an invalid." That which is nothing, when one maybe nursed two or three days, becomes overwhelming to her who has no repose, and she becomes ill at once. In fact, woman cannot labor long, either standing or si^ ting. If she is always sitting, the blood rises, the breast is irritated, the stomach embarrassed, the head clogged. If she stands, like the laundress, or the compositor, she has other sanguineous accidents. She can labor long only by vary- ing her position, as she does in her household, going and coming. A household she oughtto_ha Ye, she ou gbt-to-b.a-mamed. III. THE WOMAN OF LETTERS. The well-educated girl, as she is called who can teach, be- comes governess in a family, or " professor" of certain arts — does she fare any better in her business ? I wish I could say yes. Those gentle oiEces do not the less cause her an infini- tude of risks, altogether a troubled life, an abortive and some- times tragical destiny. Everything is difficult for the solitary woman, everything a barrier or a precipice. Fifteen years ago I received a visit from a young and amiable girl, sent by her parents from a provincial place to Paris. She was directed to a friend of her family, who might aid her to 32 The Woman of Letters. gain a livelihood by procuring pupils for her. I expressed my astonishment at their imprudence. Then she told me all. They had sent her into this peril to avoid another ; she had at home a lover, entirely worthy, who wished to marry her. He was a most excellent man, a man of talent ; but, alas ! ha was poor. "My parents esteem, love him," said she, "but they fear we would die of hunger." I told her without hesitation : " It is better to die of bun. ger than to run the gauntlet of Paris pavements. I bid you, miss, return — not to-morrow, but to-day — to your parents. Every hour that you remain here you will lose a fortune. Alone, inexperienced, what will become of you ?" She followed my advice. Her parents consented, and she was married. Her life was a hard one, full of trials, but ex- emplary and honorable, sharing her time between the care of her children and the intelligent aid she aiforded her husband in his labors — ^I can still see her running in the winter to the libraries, where she took notes for him. With all these mise- ries, and the grief I felt at not being able to help their proud poverty, I never regretted the counsel I gave her. She en- joyed much in her heart, suffered only in her fortune ; there was never a happier household. She died, beloved, pure, and respected. The worst destiny for woman is to live alone. Alone ! the very word is sad to utter. And how can there be on earth a Lone Woman ? What! Are there no more men? Are we in the last days of the world ? Does the consummation of all things, the approach of the final judgment, render us so selfish that we shut ourselves up in fear of the future, and in the shame of solitary pleasures ? We recognise the Lone Woman at the first glan ce. Take her in her own neighborhood, or anywhere where she is known, The Woman of Letters. 3'i and she has the disengaged, free, elegantly lightsome air pe- culiar to the women of France. But in a place where she thinks herself less obEerved, and lets herself out, what sadness, what visible dejection ! I met some of these last winter, still young,, but in the decay of their bloom, fallen from the hat to the bonnet, grown a little thin and pale — with ennui and anxiety — with bad and innutritions food, perhaps. To make them again beautiful and charming, a very little would have sufficed : hope, and three months of happiness. What obstacles present themselves tothe solitary woman ! She can scarcely go out in the evening ; she would be taken for a " girl." There are a thousand places where only men are seen, and if anything should bring her there, they are surprised, and laugh sillily. For example, suppose she is belated on the skirts of Paris, and hungry, she dare not enter a restaurant. She would cause a sensation, make her- self a sight; every eye would be fixed upon her, and she would hear reckless and unpleasant conjectures. She has a whole league to return, and, having arrived late, kindles her fire, prepares her slight repast. She avoids making a noise, because a curious neighbor — some stupid student, or young clerk, perhaps — might apply his eye to the keyhole, or ab- ruptly enter to offer his services. The vexatious indiscrimi- nateness, or rather the slavishness of our vast and abominable barracks, which we call houses, make her tremble at a thou- sand things, and hesitate at every step. All is embarrassing for her, and free to a man. How cautiously, for example, does she shut herself in, when on Sunday her young and noisy neighbors have what they call a repas de gargons. Let us examine this house. She lives in the fourth story, and makes so little noise that the occupant of the third believed for some time that there was no one above him. He is scarcely less unfortunate than she — a man whom delicate health and a modest income have induced to be idle. Without being old, he has 2* 34 The Woman of Letters^ already tlie prudent habits of a man who is for ever occupied in taking care of himself. A piano which wakes him a little sooner than he would like, hns revealed the solitary woman ; then, once, he detected on the stairway a charming worann, rather pale, but of fragile elegance, and his curiosity is aroused. Nothing is easier than to gratify it; the portei's are not dumb, and her life is so transparent. Except when she is giving her lessons, she is always at home, and always studying ; she is preparing for examination, preferring to be a governess, in order to have the protection of a family. In fact, they speak so well of her, that he begins to reflect. " Ah ! if I were not poor !" says he. " It is very pleasant to have the society of a pretty woman who understands every- thing ; saves you from passing your evenings at the theatre or the cafe. But when, like me, a man has only ten thousand livres income, he cannot marry." He then calculates and adds up, but, as usual in such cases, makes the account double, combining the probable expenses of a married man, and those of the bachelor who keeps up the cafe and the theatre. It was thus that one of my friends, one of the most brilliant journalists of Paris, discovered that to support two, without a domestic, in a tiny house in the suburbs, an income of thirty thousand livres would bo Hecessary. This lamentable life of honorable solitude and desperate ennui, is that which is led by those wandering shades, called in England members of clubs. The system is beginning also in France. Very well catered to, very well warmed, in splen- did establishments, having at hand all the journals, and choice libraries, living together like well-educated and polished dead men, they progress in spleen, and prepare themselves for suicide. Everything is so well organized that speech is useless ; there is no need even of signs. On certain days oi the year, a tailor presents hitaself and takes measures, without speaking. There is not a woman in the house, nor would they go to the houses of women. But once a week a girl will The Woman of Letters. 3^ bring gloves, and such things, paid for in advance, and noise- lessly depart in five minutes I have sometimes, in an omnibus, met a young girl, mo destly attired, always wearing a hat, whose eyes were fixed on a book, and never once raised. Seated close to her, I have observed it without staring. Most frequently, the book wa? some grammar, or one ol those manuals of examination. Little books, thick and com- pact, in which all the sciences are concentrated in a dry, un- digested form, as if they were flint. Nevertheless, she put it all into her stomach, that young victim. Certainly, sl\e was eager to absorb as much as possible. She devoted her days and nights to it, even the moments of repose the omnibus afforded, between the lessons she gave and those she received at the two ends of Paris. That inexorable idea pursued her. She never thought of raising her eyes. Fear of that exami- nation weighed heavily on her. We hardly know how alarmed they are. I have seen some who, for several weeks beforehand, did not sleep, and scarcely breathed, but only wept. We must have compassion. Observe, that in the present state of our morals, I am a strong partisan of these examinations, which facilitate an honorable existence, somewhat more free. I do not ask that they be simplified, that the field of required studies be narrowed ; yet, I would like a different method : in history, for example, a small number of great cardinal facts, with their' circumstances and details, and no tables of contents. I sub- mit this reflection to my learned colleagues and friends, who are the judges in these examinations. I would like, moreover, to see their timidity humored ; that the examinations should be public only to ladies, and that no men but the relatives of the girls be admitted. It is hard that 36 The Woman of Letters. they should be compelled to submit to such a trial before a curious audience, with a sprinkling of jesting ycung men. To each, also, should be left the choice of the day for her oxamination. To many, the trial is terrible, and without Ikia precaution might endanger their lives. Eugen e Sue, in a feebly executed romance, but marked by ad. mirable observation (LaGouvernante), presents a true picture pf the life of a girl suddenly installed in the house of a stranger, whose children she is to educate. Equal, or superior, by her education, modest in her position and in her character, she is only too interesting. The father is much touched by her ; the son declares himself in love ; the servants are jealous of the attentions of which she is the object, and scandalize her. But how many things are to be added ? How incomplete has Sue left the sad Iliad of what she has to suffer, even the dangers she has to fear ? We might cite astonishing, incre- dible facts : here, the passion of the father, rising even to crime, attempting to frighten a virtuous girl, cutting her linen and her dresses, even burning her curtains! There, a corrupt mother, wishing to gain time, and to marry her son as late as possible, finds it convenient to amuse and detain him with the ruin of a poor young woman of no consequence, who has neither parents nor protector. She flatters, caresses the credulous girl, and, without appearing to do so, arranges opportunities and contrives accidents. On the other hand, I have sometimes seen the mistress of a house so violent and so jealous, making the life of the unhappy creature so bitter, that from the excess of her sufferings, she justly sought relief under the protection of the husband. To a young soul, proud and pure, and courageous against fate, the temptation is natural to escape from individual dependence by addressing herself to the community, to make the public her protector, and to believe that she can live bv The Woman of Letters. 37 the fruits of her own thought. "W ould that women might here make their revelations ; one only, I believe, has ven- tured to do so, — in a very powerful romance, the defect of which is, that it is so short that the situations do not attain their full effect. This book ( Utie fausse Position) appeared fifteen years ago, and disappeared at once. It is the exact ilinerary, the guide-book of a poor literary woman, the sche dule of the tolls, town-dues, turnpike rates, admission charges, etc., which are demanded of her for the privilege of going anywhere ; a record of the churlishness and vexation hej resistance causes all about her, so that she is surrounded with obstacles, I might almost say with murderous obstacles. Did you ever see the children in Provence conspire against an insect which they consider dangerous? They arrange straws or dry twigs around it, and then light them, so that to whatever side the poor creature turn-s, it encounters the flame, is cruelly burned, and falls back ; it repeats this several times, and persists in its efforts with an obstinate courage, but always in vain. It cannot pass that circle of fire. You see the same thing in the theatre. An energetic and beautiful woman, very strong of heart, says to herself: "In literature I must submit to the critics, who create public opinion. But on the stage, I am in person before my judge; the public, and I plead my own cause. I do not need that any one should say : ' She has talent !' But I say : ' See for yourself!' " What a terrible mistake ! The crowd decides much less by what it sees, than by what somebody affirms to be the judgment of the crowd. The audience may be touched by an actress, but the individual hesitates to say so. Each will wait, fearing the ridicule that attaches to extravagant enthu- Biasm. The authorized censors, those professional jesters, must give the signal for admiration. Then the public breaks out, and dares to admire, oversteppiijg indeed all that the emotion of the individual would have allowed. But merely to reach this dd^ of judgment for which gha 38 The Woman of Letters. has everything to fear, how disgraceful the preliminaries 1 What irilerested, suspicious, indelicate men, have the sove« reignty of her fate ! By wliat wire-pulling and what trials have debuts been made successful ? How has she conciliated those who intro duce and recommend her — ^first, the manager, to whom she is presented ; then the popular autlior, who is to create a role for her ; and finally, the critics. And I do not allude here to the groat organs of the press, which are supposed to have some respect for themselves, but to the most obscure and insignifi- cant. It is enough that some green employe, who passes his life in an office, making pens, has scribbled a few satirical lines, — that a contemptible journal prints them, and distri- butes them between the acts. Animated and encouraged by the first applause, the artiste reappears on the stage, full of hope, but she does not recognise the house. The charm is broken, the audience chilled ; they look at each other and smile. I was young when I witnessed a very impressive scene, at the remembrance of which I am still indignant. I am glad to think that now-a-days things are changed. At the house of one of these terrible critics, with whom I was acquainted, I saw a slight girl enter, very simply clad, with a sweet and winning countenance, but already wearied and a httle faded. She said, to the point, that she had come to ask a favor, to beg him at least to tell her why he did not let a day pass without attacking, crushing her. He replied boldly, — not that she performed poorly, but that she was dis- com-teous, — that to his first somewhat favorable article, she should have responded by a token of gratitude, a substantial souvenir. " Alas ! Sir, I am so poor ! I earn almost nothing, and I must support my mother."—" "What of that ! take a lover." — " But I am not pretty ; and, besides, I am so wretched. Only lively women are loved." — " No, you cannot make me believe that. You are pretty, Miss, but jour temper is bad. You are pAud, but that will avail you no The Woman of Letters. 39. thing. You must do like the others, ard take a lover." He stuck to that. I have never been able to understand how a man coukl have the courage to hiss a woman. The individual man is per- haps good enough, but they are cruel as a public. Tliis is what sometimes occurs in a provincial town : to force the manager to expend more than he is able, and import the best talent, they every night kill off some unfortunate actress, who, whatever her talent may be, loses her wits before such impla- cable animosity, such a shameful punishment. She wavers, stammers, and knows not what she is saying ; then she weeps and stands mute, with imploriijg eyes. But still they laugh, and they hiss. So she becomes indignant, and revolts agauist such barbarism. But then the tempest grows so horrible and ferocious, that she prostrates herself before them, and prays for pardon. Accursed be the man who breaks down a woman, who takes from her her pride, her courage, and her soul ! In Unefausse Position t\as moment is indicated so tragically and truly, that we feel it is nature itself, and taken from the life. Camille, the literary woman, ingeniously surrounded by the circle of fire, having no escape, wished but to die. She is prevented only by an unforeseen chance, an inevitable, imperious chance, still to do something good. Softened by charity, she loses the strength that pride had lent to her despair. A savior comes to her, and she yields. She is humbled, disarmed by the great dilemma that so bothers the mystics : " If vice is a sin, pride is a greater sin." Suddenly she, who had carried her head so high, becomes good, docile, and obedient. She makes the woman's confession: '■'■ In,eed a master — command, direct me — I will do whatever you will." Ah ! as soon as she is a woman again, as soon as she is gen- tle, and no longer proud, all is kindlj^ all is smooth. The 40 The Woman of Letters, saints are pleased that she is humbled, and the worldly have good hopes of her. The doors of literature and the theatre are opened to her, all strive and combine for her. The more dead her heart is, the better is she established in life. Every- thing looks well again ; those who made war upon the artist, upon the laborious and independent woman, now side with he submissive woman— and henceforth she has a support. The author of this romance tortures, but saves the hei'oine m the end. In her heart is the burning fire of true love. She yields and subdues her spirit before she is degraded. Few have that happiness ; most have sutfered too much, fallen too low, to feel so vividly ; they submit to their fate, and are slaves — fat and flourishing slaves. Slaves to whom? you ask. Slaves to -that uncertain and unknown being, as frivolous as he is in-esponsible, without consideration or pity. His name ? It is Nemo — the name under which Ulysses escaped from the Cyclop. Here, it is the Cyclop himself, the devouring Minotaur. It is nobody^ every- body. I said she was a slave — more miserably a slave than the planter's negro, or the registered prostitute in the gutter. How so ? Because these wretched suiferers have at least no anxieties, they fear no loss of work, they are fed by their masters. The poor camellia, on the contrary, is sure of nothing. She may be turned adrift any day, and left to die of hunger. She seems gay and careless ; it is her trade to smjle ; so she smiles, and says : " Starved to-morrow, perhaps, nnd for a home a milestone ! " Even in her secret thought, she tries to be gay — afraid ol being ill, and growing thin. It is atrocious to be unable to' be sad ; but she well knows that notwithstanding the some- what ironical regard her friends express for her, they vrould never forgive her a day of languor, or the least alteration The Woman of Letters. 41 A certain Ime of suffering, a slight sickly paleness, -wbich ■would embellish the fine lady and make her lover mad for her, is the ruin of the dame au camellia. She is bound to be brilliantly fresh, or glowing rather. There is no let-up foi her. A very excellent physician, vs^hom one of these had called in, as he was passing through her street, a week afterwards, with no other motive than pity, went in to ask how she was. "You see I am always alone," said she. "He scarcely comes once a week. If I happen to be suffering on that day, he says : ' Good night, I am going to the ball' (that is, to find a woman), dryly leaving me to understand that I am good for nothing, that I do not earn my bread." The manner in which the relation is annulled is the worst of it. M. Bouilhet, in his fine drama of Helene Peyron, has put on the stage what may be seen daily. Her gentleman does not like to fling the bargain in her face exactly ; but it is so ari;anged that the abandoned girl, without a resource for the morrow perhaps, too credulously accepts the suit of a perfidious friend, who of course tells, and so the lover is free to accuse her of betraying him. In an immortal poem, of inexpressible tenderness, Virgil has described the bitterness, the fathomless sea of sorrows, into which the lover of Lycoris was plunged. Those servile courtesans, whom an avaricious master hired and sold, have drawn heart-rending verses from the unfortunate muse ol Propertius, Tibullus, and their successors. They were instructed, graceful, and true ladies, more like our dame au camellia than the Manon Lescauts of the old regime — so naively corrupt, a simple source of pleasure, who felt nothing and knew nothing. There is very great danger here ; the surest way is to keep far away from it. One day, one of my friends, a distin- 42 No Lile for Woman without Man. gulahed thinker, charitable enough, hut with the manners of the time, told me that by such light relations, of no conse quence, by avoiding any serious engagement, he had been able to reserve himself for study, and solitary intellectual exercise. I said to him : " What ! you think that of no con- sequence? . . .1. Is it not rather a great perU? By what philosophic effort of forgetfulness and abstraction can you see an unfortunate girl thus crushed by naisery, by treachery perhaps, without having your heart torn by her horrible lot ? And if this poor creature, a plaything of fate, should happen to win your heart, you would be lost !" — " I !" said he, smiling (but with so sad a smile), "that cannot be. My parents pro- vided against that ; they fastened the door that leads to the great folly. Before I knew I had a heart, they rid me of it. They killed all love in me." This funereal remark made me shudder. I thought of the saying of the sophistical emperor, on the last day of the Roman empire : " Love is a convulsion." Next day every- thing crumbled, not by the invasion of barbarians, but by that of celibacy and premature death. IV. NO LIFE FOR WOMAN WITHOUT MAN. An ever laborious life enriches us, as we advance, with new ideas, before unknown to us. Very lately, only last winter (1858-59), I found in my heart the meaning of little children. I have always loved them, but I did not understand them. I will hereafter relate the charming revelation I had from a German lady ; to her, certainly, belongs the best of what is contained in my first chapters on education, to which you will come presently. In entering upon this branch of study, I believe it necessary No Life for Woman without Man. 43 first to understand the child's anatomy. My frjend, -Dr. Beraud, Hospital Surgeon, and ex-demonstrator at Clamart (still a young man, but well known Iby the fine treatise on physiology, in which he is the aiithor-colleague of our illus- trious Rolin), wished to dissect several children before my eyes, in his cabinet at Clamart. He wisely reminded mc that the study of the child is usefully illustrated by that of the adult. Thus, under his auspices, I was launched into anatomy, with which I was previously familiar only through plates. An admirable study, because, independently of its many practical advantages, it is fundamentally highly moral ; it tempers the character — we are men only by the firm eye wo keep on life and death. And, what is not less true, although less known, is that it humanizes the heart, not by feminine sensibility, but by informing us of the many natural oifices we owe to humanity. An eminent anatomist said to me : " It is very painful to me to see a water-carrier under her weight of buckets which overburden her and cut her shoulders. If people only knew how delicate these muscles are in women, how weak the nerves of motion, how tender the nerves of sensation !" My own impression was analogous to that, when, after observing the organization which renders the child a being fatally alive, on whom nature imposes the need of constant change, I thought of the inferno of immobility his school life inflicts on him. So much the better did I like the good German method (children's workshops and gardens), in which the teacher provides just what nature calls for, that is, motion • — developing that creative activity which is the true genius of man. As long as you have not seen and touched these realities, you hesitate about all this, you debate, and lose time in listen- ing to praters. Dissect, and, in a moment, you will understand and feel it all. It is death which most of aU teaches you to respect life, to economize, and not overwork the human race. 44 No Life for Woman without Man. If I -could doubt the moral iaflnence of anatomy, it would be enough for me to remember that the best men I have ' known were great physicians. At the very time when 1 was studying at Clamart, I saw there a celebrated English Burgeon, who, at the advanced age of eighty-four years, crosses the sea every year to visit this scientific capital, and inform himself of the happy novelties which its inventive genius con- stantly discovers for the solace of humanity. I was especially interested in the anatomy of the brain. I studied a great number of them, of both sexes, of every age, and was sur- prised to see how naively the lower side of the brain answers, in its physiognomy, to the exjiression of the countenance. I speak of the lower and not the upper part, which is covered with veins, a circumstance to which Gall evidently attached too much importance. It is far from the bony box, but at the large bases of. the brain, full of arteries, rising into more or less rich volutes, according to the development of intel- ligence, that the character reveals itself even as in the face. The latter, a coarse surface, exposed to the air, and a thousand shocks, deformed by grimaces, would speak, if there were no eyes, much less clearly than this interior face, so well-guarded, so delicate, so marvellously shaded. In common women who were known to have had coarse occu- pations, the brain was very simple in form, as though in a rudi- mentary state. These would have exposed me to the grave error of concluding that women in general, in this essential centre of the organization, are inferior to men. Happily other feminine brains disabused me — especially that of a woman who, presdfating a singular case in a pathological respect, obliged M. Beraud to inform himself of her malady and her antecedents. Here, then, I had what was wanting in tho other cases — the history of a life and a destiny. This remarkably rare singularity was a stone of eonsidera. ble size found in the womb. This organ, now so ordinarily aifectedjbut in no other case perhaps to such a degree, revealed a very extraordinary state. That in the sanctuary of generat No Life for Woman without Man. 45 ing life and, fruitfulness — should be found this cruel destroyer, this desperate atrophy, an Arabia Deserta I may say, a flint — that the unfortunate one should have been, as it were, changed into stone — immersed me in an ocean of sombre thoughts. Nevertheless the other organs were not changed as much as one might have supposed. The head was very expressive. L the brain was not as large, strong, puissant, as those of some men I had studied, it was as varied, as rich in convolutions — little wavy volutes, marked by an infinite detail, lately occupied, I felt, by a crowd of ideas and delicate shades, a world of wo- man's dreams. All had a story to tell, and as I had had under my eyes a moment before brains of little expression — dumb, I was going to say- — ^this at the first glance made me understand its language. As I approached it I seemed still to hear through my eyes the echo of its sighs. The hands, soft and rather delicate, were however not ele- gantly elongated like those of the idle lady. They were moderately short, made for use. She had doubtless held little objects, which do not deform the hand but curb its growth. She must have been a working girl — in linen materials, per- haps, or fljOwers. That was the natural conjecture. She may have been twenty-eight years of age. Her eyes of a blueish grey, surmounted by rather heavy black eyebrows, and the peculiar quality of her complexion, revealed a woman of the West, neither Norman nor Breton, but of an interme- diate region, and yet not of the South. The countenance was severe, if not proud. The highly arched but not elliptical eyebrows indicated a worthy and un degraded person, who had preserved her purity, and strug gled on even to the death. The body, already opened at the hospital, showed that an Inflammation of the breast had carried her off. She had died on the 21st of March, within twelve days of Shrove-Tuesday. We were tempted to believe she was one of the numerous victims of the balls of that season — a cruel season, which sud denly crowds the hospitals, and presently the cemeteries. It 4-6 No Life for Woman without Man. miglit justly be called the feast of the Minotaur. Foi how many women does it not devour alive ? When we think of the mortal ennui, the profound- mono- tony, the disinherited, dry, and empty life the operative leads, especially the seamstress, with her eternal dry bread, alone in her cold attic, we are but little astonished if she yields to the young fool at her side, or to some older and more calculating fiend. But what always gives me a painful twinge is, that he who seduces her has so little heart, that he affords so little protection to the poor giddy girl, nor cares to know (he so warmly robed with cloaks) whether she returns clothed, whether she has fire and other necessaries, even anything to eat to-morrow. Alas ! to cast forth into the frozen night the unfqftunate, whose last caresses you have jvist enjoyed. Savages ! you pretend there is only levity in all this. Not so. It is deliberate ; you are cruel and avaricious ; you fear to know too much about it; you prefer to be ignorant of the consequences, whether life or death. To return; in spite of the season, I doubted, from the countenance of this woman, that she was an etudiante, a habitude of those balls. That world is easily known. She would never have succeeded in it. Her severely cut nose, her firm chin, her delicate and precise lips, her certain air of reserve, would have made her too much respected there. The final inquest proved that I had judged rightly. She was a provincial girl, of a trading bourgeois family, who, in a city peopled for the most part by bachelors and clerks, had been unable, in spite of her natural goodness, to defend her- self against infinite assaults, a pursuit every hour. Under promise of marriage she had loved, and had a child. De- tscived, with no other resource than her fingers and needle, she had left her native city, in which, of all France, women are the least embarrassed, for they there earn whatever they are equal to. She preferred to come and hide herself in Paris, and die of hunger. She brought hei child w'ta her a grave obstacle ; she could be neither chambermaid hot shop- No Life for Woman without Man. 47 gii-1, and sewing yielded her nothing. She tried to iron, but in sickly condition, aggravated by grief, charcpal fumes pro- duced cruel headaches, and she could not stand aU day with- out the greatest pain. Her sister-workers knew nothing of that, and thought her lazy ; the Parisian women are full of ridicule, and they did not spare the poor provincial ; nevertheless, out of their good hearts they lent her money in her trouble. Her sad robes of faded calico, which I have seen, showed that in her extreme misery she did not have recourse to Mhat remained of her beauty. Such a garment makes one old, it left no chance of guessing how young and perfect her person still was. Sorrow and misery make one gaunt, but they dc not wither, like excesses and enjoyments, and she, very plainly, had had little to do with the joys of Ufe. The mistress who employed her to iron had charitably allowed her to sleep in a great loft, which served as a work- shop — a place strongly impregnated by vapors of charcoal, and which, moreover, had to be cleared in the morning for work. However she might suffer, she could not remain in bed, not for one day. The other women arrived early, and ridiculed her as an idler, arid a good-for-nothing. On the first of March she was worse ; had some fever, and a slight cough. That would have been nothing if she had only had a home, but not having one, she was obliged to leave her little girl to the kindness of the mistress to go to the hospital. She was received into one of our large old hospitals, where at that time there were many cases of typhoid fever. The skilful physician at once perceived that her fever would assume that character. She was asked if her general health was good. She said, modestly, "Yes;" concealing her short internal pangs, and dreading a painful examination. In those great halls wherein so much of suffering is gathered, where agony and death surround each patient, the gloom often itncreases the malady. Relatives are admitted on certain days, 48 No Life for Woman without Man. but how many have no relatives; how many die alone 1 She was visited once by her kind mistress ; but the good wo man was frightened by the typhoid fever, and did not return. The necessary ventilation is stili, as formerly, procured by means of huge windows, and great currents of air. The need of a better plan is now seriously agitated. These currents chiU the patients, who are but slightly protected by their curtains; and so her slight cough became, first, a violent bronchitis, and then an inflammation of the lungs. Exhausted by weak nourishment long continued, she had not the strength to react. She was well taken care of, but she died in three weeks. Her little daughter (a charming child, already fuU of intel- . ligence) was sent to the Enfants trovves. Her body, unclaimed, was removed to Clamart, and, I ven- ture to say, very usefully, since it has instructed science on a point from which fruitful inferences may be drawn. This simple recital will also have been useful if it strongly com- mands the attention of benevolent minds. Woman dies if she has no hearth and no protection. If this person had only had a shelter, a bed for one week, her illness would have passed away, in aU probability, and she would stiU be alive. She should have enjoyed for a time the hospitality of a woman. How easy it would often be for an intelligent lady,, at certain critical times, to save a creature whom misfortune has thus engulfed. Suppose such a lady, traversing a public garden, near the hospital, had seen her seated on a bank, with her little parcel, resting for a moment, before entering, after her long journey. The lady, seeing her so pale, and struck with her excellent countenance, which has an almost distin- guished expression, in spite of the extreme poverty of her dress, takes a seat by her side, and draws her into conversation. " What is the matter with you, young lady ?" " I have a No Life for Woman without Man. 49 fever, madam — I am quite ill." "Let me see. I Understand fevers. Oh, it is a trifle yet. At present, the prevailing epidemic abounds in the hospitals. You would be very likely to catch it. A little quinine would probably set you on your feet again in a couple of days. I shall have plenty of ironing to do. For these two days, at least, come to my house when you are well again, you shall have my work." That would have saved her life. Two days would not have done it ; but in a week she would have been restored. The lady appreciating the good charac- ter," so plain in her countenance, would doubtless have kept her longer. Partly servant, partly young lady, better clad, beautified again by a few months of happier life, she would have touched many hearts with her pensive grace. The mis- fortune of having been deceived, and of possessing that pretty child, redeemed by her prudent conduct, her economical and industrious habits, would scarcely have checked the love of those around her. I have several times had occasion to ob- serve the tender and generous magnanimity of worthy work- men in this kind of adoption. I have known one such admi- rable household. The woman loved, I dare say adored, her husband ; and the chUd, by a mysterious instinct, attached itself to him even more than to a father : he always left it weeping, and, if he was late, it wept for his return. We too easily imagine that a person is irremediably ruined. In our good old France they did not use to think so. For example, every woman who emigrated to Canada, was re- garded as purified of every fault and misfortune by the bap- tism of the sea. This was no vain notion ; for they clearly proved the justice of it, and became admirable wives and excellent mothers. But the best of all emigrations for those, who, while yet scarcely more than children, have been cast by chance upon a frivolous life, is to rise courageously by labor and privations. So one of our first thinkers insisted, in a severe letter he wrote to one of our poor Amazons, brilliant and wretched, who asked 3 50 No Life for Woman without Man. him how she might escape from the gulf before her. The letter, very harsh in expression, hut in spirit very kind and wise, told her that she could expiate her guilt by misery, refine herself by labor and accepted suffering, and become worthy and pure again. He was quite right ; the soul of a woman, much more mobile, more fluid-like, than that of a man, is never profoundly corrupted. When once she has seriously resolved to return to virtue, when she once has fairly begun to Uve by struggles, sacrifices, and reflection, she is already regenerate. She is like the stream, which was turbid yesterday, but fresh waters have come in, and it is clear to- day. If the woman, thus changed, forgetting the bad dream of her involuntary sins, in which her heart was never involved, succeeds in finding that heart again, if once she loves — all is well. The best man in the world may find happiness in her, and be honored by her still. I intended to add nothmg to this mournful story. My friends were affected, and rose. But with a word I. recalled them to what had preceded it : My dear sirs, the reason for which you will marry, the strongest motive for your hearts, is, as I told you, that : Woman cannot live without man. No more than the child without woman. All foundlings die; and does man live without woman? You yourselves have just said: Your life is sombre and bitter. In the midst of amusements and vain feminine shadows, you possess neither wife, nor happiness, nor repose. You have not the sure foundation, the harmonious equilibrium, so favorable to productiveness. Nature has bound up life within a triple and absolute tie : man, woman, and child. Separately, they are sure to perish, and are only saved together. All the disputes about the two sexes, and their opposing No Life for Woman without Man. 51 peculiarities, go for nothing ; we should put an end to them ; we must not imitate Italy, Poland, Ireland, and Spain, where the weakening of family ties, and solitary egotisms, have con- tributed so much to destroy the State. In the only book of the age that contains a great poetic conception (the poem of the Last Man), the author supposes the earth exhausted and the world about to come to an end. But there is one sublime obstacle : The world cannot come to an end while one man still loves. Have pity on this weary earth, which, without love, Would no longer have a reason for living. Love somebody ; for the salvation of the^lobe. If I have rightly understood you, you would gladly love, but apprehensions restrain you. Frankly, you are afraid of women. If woman were only a thing, as once she was, you would marry. But in that case, my dear friends, there would be no marriage ; for marriage is a union of two persons; and is therefore just beginning to be possible, because woman to-day is a person and a soul. But seriously, are you men? Shall the power you now exercise over nature by your irresistible inventions — shall that fail you? Shall the single being, who sums up all nature, and is all happiness, be beyond your reach? By your science you attain the sparkling beauties of the milky way; is it because the sparkling beauties of earth, more independent of you, send you back (as the Venetian girl sent Rousseau) to mathematics ? Your grave objection, about the opposition of faiths, and the difficulty of bringing women to your own, does not seem very strong to the man who looks at the difficulty coolly and practicably. Fusion wiU be completely effected only by two marriages, two successive generations. 52 No Life for Woman without Man. The true woman for a wife is she whose portrait I aave painted in my Book oi Love — she who, simple and loving, hav- ing as yet received no definite impress, shall least repel the modern thought, shall not beforehand be an enemy to science and to truth. I prefer that she should be poor, and isolated, with few family connexions — ^her position and education are secondary matters. Every French woman is born a queeu or is on the point of becoming so. As a wife, the simple woman, who can be somewhat Instructed, and as a daughter, the confiding woman, who can at once be taught by her father : these will break that vicious circle in which we revolve, in which woman prevents us from creating women. With so excellent a wife, sharing, in heart at least, the faith of her husband, the latter, following the very easy path of nature, will maintain over the child an incredible ascendency of authority and tenderness. The daughter does so trust in her father ! He may make of her what he will. The strength of this second love, so lofty and so pure, will create in her the woman, the adorable ideal of grace and wisdom, by which alone family and society are to be restored in the future. Part I . — E ducation. I. SUN, AIR, AND LIGHT. As eminent observer affirms that numerous microscopio beings, which in the shade remain vegetables, assume a higher character in the sun, and become veritable animals. The fact is certain, indisputable, and accepted by everybody, that, deprived of light, every animal merely vegetates ; that a plant can scarcely blossom, and that its flower is pale, lan- guishing, abortive, and short-lived. The human flower, more than all others, craves for the sun ; the sun is its first and supreme initiator into life. Compare the child a day old, that has known only darkness, with the child a year old : the difierence is enormous between the son of shadow and the son of light. The brain of the latter, as compared with that of the former, presents the palpable miracle of a complete transfiguration. We are not surprised to perceive that in. it the apparatus of vision occupies more space than the organs of all the other senses combined. Light inundates the head, traverses it through and through, even to the deep, recondite nerves, whence proceed the spinal marrow, and the whole nervous system, the complete mecha- niam of sensation and motion. Even above the optical con- 34 Sun, Air, and Light. duits in which the light circulates, the central mass of the brain {the radiant crown) seems also to be penetrated by it, and doubtless receives its rays. So the first duty of love is to bestow on the child, and the young mother also,' who was only yesterday a child, shattered by the aocouchement, wearied with nursing, plenty of light and salubrious air. Grant her the blessing of " a good ex posure," that the sun may cheer her with his first rays, loving and regarding her long, revolving around her at mid-day, even at two o'clock, still warming and illuminating her, and leaving her only with regret. Leave to those who live the artificial life of the beau monde the splendors of apartments turned toward the Evening. Kings, the great and the idle,^have sought for sunsets in their Versailles, to glorify their f§tes. But whoever san.ctifies life by labor, whoever loves and has his fetes in his beloved ■wife and child, lives most of all in the Morning. To himself he secures the freshness pf the early hours, when all life is energetic and productive. To them he gives the joy, the first flower of gaiety, which enchants all nature in the happiness of its awakening. What is comparable to the innocent and delightful grace of these morning scenes ! The good laborer watching for the sun sees it peep through the curtains to admire the young mother, and the child in th^ cradle. She is surprised, and stretches her arms; "What! so late!" And smiling, says : "Ah! how indolent I am!" — " But, my dear, it is only five o'clock. The chUd has kept you awake a great deal. Sleep, I beg you, an hour longer." She does not need to be urged, and they go to sleep again. Let us close the curtains doubly, and shut fast the window- blind. But the Day, in its triumphant and rapid march, will not be excluded. A charmiug combat is waging between light and darkness ; and it would indeed be bad if the night got the better of it. What a picture would be lost ! As she, inclining toward the chUd, encircles its head in the curvo Sun, Air, and Light. ^5 of her loving arm. A gentle ray insinuates itself. So be it, leave them with that sacred aureole of the blessing of God! T have spoken in one of my books of a strong and stur ly rce (a chestnut, I believe), which I saw thriving out of the arth, on air alone. We suspend in vases certain elegant plants, that likewise vegetate with no element but the atmo- sphere. Our poor peasants resemble these only too nearly. What compensates them for their imperfect sustenance ? What enables them, so poorly nurtured, to endure such pro- tracted and severe labors ? The perfection of the air in which they live, and the power it affords them of deriving from their food all the nutrition it contains. Thou, whose happiness it is to rear and nurture those two trees of Paradise, the young wife who lives in thee, and her child which is thine own — consider well, that if thou wouldst have her live, and bloom, and give good milk to that dear little one, thou must first provide her with the aliment of all aliments, vital air. What a misfortune, how sad a contradic- tion, to expose thy pure, chaste, charming wife to a dangerous atmosphere enough to poison her body and soul ! "No, not with impunity wUl a delicate, impressionable, and penetrable woman receive the horrible melange, of a hundred vitiated, vicious effluvia, that rises from the street to her — the breath of unclean spirits, the pell-mell of smokes, vUe emanations, and unhealthy dreams which hover over our sombre cities. You must make a sacrifice, my friend, and at any price take them where they can live. If possible, go out of town — you will see less of your friends, but they will come a little further to see you, if they are true friends. You will go to the thea tre but little. Its pleasures (agitating and enervating) are less to be desired by him who has, on his own loving hearth, his own rejuvenating joys, his own " Divine Comedy." You will lose less time at night, gossiping in saloons; and for your recompense, you will have in the morning all your strength, 56 Sun, Air, and Light. not wasted in vain words, but fresh and tranquil, to put into labor, solid works, those durable results which shall not fly away. I want a garden, not a park : a little garden. Man does not easily flourish away from its vegetal harmonies. AH the legends of the East place the commencement of Life in a gar- den. A pure and capable people, the Persians, believed that the world began in a garden of light. If you cannot leave town, dwell in the upper stories of a house ; more desirable than the first floor, the fifth or sixth may have a garden on the roof; at all events, light abounds there. I would choose for your young pregnant wife a vast and splendid prospect, to beguile her waiting reveries, during your long hours of absence. I would prefer that the eyes of the child, when it is first carried out on the balcony, should fall on monuments, on the majestic effects of the Sun, in its course, lending to them at different hours aspects so diverse. Where a view of mountains, tall shrubbery, beautiful forests, is wanting, we receive from grand edifices (in which is the na- tional life, the history of the coantry in stone) early emotions whose traces are for ever inefiFaceable. Little children know not how to express their feelings, but their souls vibrate to the effects of architecture so' transfigured. Such a ray, such a flash of light, falling at such an hour on a temple, will remain for ever present with them. For myself, I may affirm that nothing in my early child- hood made a deeper impression on me than the Pantheon as I once beheld it against the Sun. It was in the moTning. The interior, revealed through the windows, shone like a mysteri- ous glory. Between the light columns of the exquisite Ionic temple, so grandly springing from its austere and sombre walls, the azure air circulated, roseate with an inexpressible gleaming. I was enraptured, fascinated, impressed, far more than I have since been even by very great events. They have passed away, but that vision remains luminous for me Btill. The First Exchange of Glances. 57 II. THE FIRST EXCHANGE OF GLANCES, AND THE BEGINNINGS OF FAITH. The dh'ine rapture of the first maternal glance, the ecstasy of the young mother, her innocent surprise at having given birth to a god, her religious emotion in her marvellous dream, which is so real nevertheless, — all this may be seen every day, but it has seemed impossible to paint it. Correggio has been able to grasp it, inspired by nature, free from the tradition, by which, in his day, art was restrained and chilled. There are spectators around the cradle, and still the scene is solitary, for it is divided between her and him^ who are the same person. She gazes on him, moved ; from her to him, from him to her, flashes an electric light, which dazzles and confounds them together. Mother and ohUd are one in that living ray, which restores their primitive and natural unity. If she no longer has the happiness of containing her child palpitating within her bosom, she is compensated by the fairy- like enchantment of having him before her, under her eager eyes. Reclining over him, she trembles. Young and inno- cent, she reveals, by the naivest signs, her joy at assimilating to herself by love, this divine fruit of her own being. Lately he was nourished by her, now she is nourished by him, absorbs him, eafe and drinks him. A delightful interchange of life : the child giving and receiving it, absorbing the mother in her turn, like milk, and heat, and light. A great, a truly great ' revelation ; no idle creation of art and sensibility ; a mere gratification for the heart and the eyes. No ; it is an act of faith, a mystery, out not absurd ; the serious and solid foundation of religion and education, on which is to be raised the whole structure of human life ; and the mystery is this : — 3* 58 The First Exchange of Glances. If the child were not God, if the relation of the mother to it were not a worship, it would not live. It is so fragile a Deing, that it could never be reared but for the marvellous idolatry of the mother, which deifies it, and makes it full of bliss to her to sacrifice herself for its sake. In her eyes it is good, beautiful, perfect ; and it is^ needless to add, she beholds in it her ideal, the absolute of beauty and goodness the acme of perfection. What painful dismay would beset her if some gloomy thinker, some awkward sophist, should dare teU her that " the child is born bad, that man is depraved before his birth," and other such fine ^philosophical and legendary inventions. But women are mild and patient ; they only turn a deaf ear. If they had believed that, if for a moment they had seriously accepted such ideas, all would soon have been ended. Uncer- tain and discouraged, they would not have put their whole life into a cradle, and the neglected child must have died. There would have been no humanity ; history would have come to an end at its very commencement. As soon as the child sees the liglA, and sees itself in the maternal eye, it reflects, instinctively returns the look of love ; and from that moment the most profound and sweetest mystery of life has been accomplished between those two. Will time add to it ? Can the beatitude of so perfect a marriage be increased? On one condition only, perhaps; namely, that both have understood it, so that the child will disengage itself from the divine immobility ; will act, and seek to correspond with its mother ; will go to her with all ita little heart, and impulsively give itself up to her. This second season of mutual love and faith forms the sub- ject of a rare creation, which France possesses in the Louvre. The painter, Solari (of Milan), survives only in this one paint. ing — aU the rest have perished. He had lived many year* The First Exchange, of Glances. ^(j among us, and possessed the double sense, the soul of the two sister nations. How, had it not been so, could he have ao quired that exquisite expression of nervous life, and its deli- cate sensitiveness ? In this there is no magical effect, no mysterious contest between light and darkness. In full noon, -without artificial accessories, under a tree, in a pleasant, everyday landscape, are a mother and her child ; nothing more. Here and there the crudity of its tone (the effect of restorations) offends the eye, but why is the heart so troubled ? The young mother, refined and pretty, and singularly deli- cate, is desirous of fulfilling a duty far beyond her strength. Ifot that her breast is wanting in milk ; it is beautiful with plenitude, with visible tenderness, and a sweet desire to nurture. But so frail is this charming person that we ask ourselves how can she supply that beautiful fountain, but at the cost of her own life. Who is she ? An Italian flower, swaying with slight exhaus- tion ; or a nervous Frenchwoman ? I would quite as readily believe the latter. The race, mbreover, is much less ap- parent here than the epoch, which is that of cruel wars and miseries, when are felt and expressed the touching charm that grief imparts to grace, those smiles of suffering women, who make excuses for their suffering, and would like not to weep. The handsome, vigorous, and largely developed baby over which she bends, reposes on a cushion; she could scarcely carry him — a striking disproportion, which, however, has no mys- tical significance, only that the child comes of a great race, of a father who doubtless even yet belonged to the heroic times, while the young mother, suffering, weak, refined, is of the period of Correggio's " Italy : " a last drop of the diyine eljxir, Under the pressure of grief. Observe also that in those days, the mother, although 6o The First Exchange of Glances. poorly nourished, nurses her child a long time; the mora intelligent he grows, the sweeter he finds this indulgence, and the less desire he has to renounce it. She has not the strength for the great rupture ; she exhausts herself, is aware of it, but will go on all the same, as long as she has a drop. She exhausts herself even unto death, rather than grieve heJ child. This picture of Solari says three things : Weak as she is, not giving of her abundance, but rather what is necessary to'her own sustenance, she nevei'theless smiles, and says passionately : "Drink, my child ! drink, it is my life." But either the charming child, with an innocent avidity, has slightly wounded that beautiful bosom, or the powerful suction reaches within the breast and rends its inner fibres, for she has sufiered, and suffers yet. No matter, she still says : " Enjoy, drink, it is my pain." And the milk which rises, swelling and expanding the breast, flows forth ; the pain, departing, gives place to a sweet languor which is not without its charm, like that of the wounded man who is pleased to see his own life ebbing away. But here there is real happiness : if she feels herself growing weaker, she grows strong in him. She experiences a strang« and profound shock to the very sources of her being, but says, nevertheless, " Pripk, it is my delight." Such is his invincible power oyer her that, whatever maj happen, she cannot separate herself from him, and the result to him is that, understanding her, loving her, he is, both in his physical life an4 in his young heart, bound up in her, wholly absorbed in her. His love is calm in the innocence of his age — not, like that of his mother, sharpened by all the arrows of delight and Play. — The Child Teaching its'Mother. 61 grief, but strong in its great unity. If he could speak, he would say: "Thou alone art my infinite, my absolute and 'complete world ; there is nothing in me, which is not from thee, which does not wish to return to thee. I know not wliether I live or not, but I am sure I love ! " India symbolizes the circle of perfect and divine life by the attitude of a god holding his foot in his hand, concentrating himself, and forming himself into a sphere. Little children often do this ; and thus does this little one, invited to his mother's bosom. She aids him to come to her, but he desires it as much as she, and does what he can toward it. By a graceful and charming movement, and a natural instinct, the first dawn of the deliberate impulse of tenderness, he makes a powerful effort, and contracts his whole body into an are as complete as possible, in order to offer himself at once, and entire. III. PLAY. THE CHILD TEACHING ITS MOTHER. There is nothing more beautiful, nothing more touching, than the embarrassment of a young mother, a novice in mater- nity, puzzled how to handle her child, to amuse it, teach it to play, and enter into communication with it. She hardly knows how to take up her jewel, the adored mysterious being, the living enigma, that lies there, and seems to wait to be moved, and have its desires and its wants divined. She ad- mires it, moves round it, trembles at the thought of touching it roughly, and makes her mother hold it. Her pretty awk- wardness makes the old nurse smile ; she observes it in silence, but says to herself that the young, mistress is none the less a miss for having had a child. Virgins are rtialadroii. grace 62 Play.~The Child Teaching its Mother. and skill rarely belong to her who is Dot a complete woman, , already made pliant by love. "Well, madam, since iadeed you are now a madam — is it so many years since you were a little girl ? At fifteen, if I recol lect, under the/pretext of trying the fashions, you were still playing with dolls. When- you were alone, you were even wont (confess it now) to kiss and rock them. Now you see the hving doll, which asks only to be played with. Play on then, my little lady ; nobody will look at you. " But I do not dare. With this one I am afraid. It is so dehcate ; if I touch it, it cries ; if I leave it, it cries— I tremble lest I break it !" There are mothers so idolatrous, so lost in the ecstasy of this contemplation, that they would pass the whole day on their knees before the child. In nursing it, gazing at it, sing- ing to it some little nursery song, they feel themselves united to it, and desire nothing better. But this is not enough ; union consists much more in, active will, in concurrent action. If your child did not act with jon, would you ever know if it loved you? It is play which will create between you a union more intimate even than nursing, and have aU the effects of a mental nursing. Form its young soul, its thought, its will, by play. In it slumbers an individual ; call him forth. And your happi- ness will be that this soul and this individual, this desire and this will, shall at first have no other object but yourself. The first impulse of the liberty you have gained for him will be to return to you. Ah ! how wise he is in this ! How gladly do we all, after pursuing the false pleasures of the world, return to the maternal paradise. Proceeding from the bosom- of woman, our ocily heaven here below is there. " I should certainly be very happy to become my child's friend and companion; but what shall I do?" Play. — The Child Teaching its Mother. O3 Little or nothing, my dear, but follow his oxaniple. Let us observe him. Lay him gently on the sunny grass, on this flowery carpet. You have only to look at him ; his first move- ments will guide you ; he is going to teach you. His movements, his cries, his at first powerless attempts to act, the little playfulness which follows, are not at all arbitrary. It is not your nui'seling only that you see here ; it is the child Humanity, as it was in the beginning. "This first aoMvity," says Froebel, "informs us of, and repi'oduces for our contemplation, the propensities, ideas, and needs, which first belonged to the human race. Some uncongenial element may be mingled with it, perhaps, in our modern races, altered by a factitious society ; but, on the whole, it is none the less a very grave revelation of the remote past of hu- manity, and of its instincts for the future. Play is a magic mirror, in which you have only to look, to learn what man was, what he shall be, and what must be done to lead him to his destiny." Let us at once derive from this the first principle of edu- cation, which contains all the rest : The mother teaches the child only what she shall first have been taught by the child. This means, that from him she derives the first germs of whatever she develops in him — that in thie child she first detects a glimmer, which, in the end, with her assistance, shall become light. "Then these germs are good," she says; "these gleams are sacred. Thanks ! Oh, I thought so. I was cruelly told that the child is not born good. I never could believe a word of that — I felt God in him so clearly! Beautiful, charm- ing counsel ! May it sink into my heart ! — To keep my eyes fixed upon him — to make him my rule in everything — to wish nothing but what he wishes !" Softly, dear little one, softly. Let us first see if he is sure that he does wish, knows what he wishes. Let us see, rather, if, overwhelmed by a chaos of confused things which flow in upon him all at once, he does not await your 64 Play.— The Child Teaching its Mother. aid to choose for him, to enlighten him as to objects of interest. Here is a stroke of genius by the good Fro6bel ; and here truly, by force of simj)Kcity, he has discovered what the wise had vainly sought, the mystery of education. Such the man, and such the doctrine. This German pea- saiit is in a fair way to become an accomplished expert, for he possesses a singular gift of ehildlikeness, and the unique faculty of recalling the impressions of his earliest childhood. " I was," says he, " enveloped in an obscure and impenetrable mist. To see nothing, to understand nothing, is at first a sort of liberty ; but when our senses transmit to us so many images, so many sounds, the reality oppresses us. A world of vhinga without meaning, without order or succession, come to us all at once, and without allowance for our feebleness ; we are asto- nished and disturbed, possessed and unduly excited. Fiom so many ephemeral impressions weariness alone remains to us. It is a relief, a happiness, if a kind providence selects from the crowd of objects, and brings frequently before us, such or such that are easy and agreeable, which may occupy us only to refresh us and deliver us from that Babel." Thus this first education, far from imposing restraint on the child, is an aid, a deliverance, from the chaos of diverse impressions with which it is overwhelmed. By bringing things to it in order, one by one, that it may consider them at its ease, that it may observe and handle any little object that pleases it, the mother creates for it the true liberty that its age demands. To form in this way a good and reliable method, you must perfectly imderstand the tendencies of the child: an easy thing for her who, bending over it night and day, regards it anxiously, studying only what it is, what it wants, and thf good she can do it. / Play. — The Child Teaching its Mother. 65 First, it -wishes to be loved, it wishes you to occupy your- self mth it, and prove your love for it. — Ah ! how easy that is ! Secondly, it wishes to live, to live much, to be always progressing, to extend the circle of its little actions, to move, to vary its life, to pass hither and thither, to be free. — Be not alarmed ; I mean free around you, the beloved ; as near as possible to you, always able to touch your robe, — free, above all, to embrace you. Thirdly, already launched upon voyages of discovery, it is in no small degree preoccupied with a world of new things. It prefers to understand, through you — and it always goes to you — not by an instinct of weakness and ignorance merely, but by I know not what sense which tells it that everything sweet, lovely, and good comes through you, that you are the milk of life and the honey of nature. And fourthly; so young, scarcely speaking, scarcely walking, it is already like us ; its heart and its eyes judge like ours, and it finds you very beautiful. Everything is beautiful to it, in proportion as it resembles you. Of everything which nearly or remotely recalls the pleasant forms of its mother, it says flatly : " It is pretty." When they are inert things, it feels less distinctly their connexion with your living beauty. But even as to these things, you powerfully influence its judg- ment. The symmetry of double organs and forms, of your hands and eyes, supplies its idea of harmony. Besides, its glorious and truly divine characteristic is that it so abounds in life, that it dispenses it liberally to all objects. The simplest are the best for it. Organized, living beings may amuse it, but their independent action will pei-plex it ; it would maltreat them, but without malice, — merely to understand them, and from simple curiosity. Give it rather things of elementary forms (for it is still an element) and of regular outline, which it can group together in its pastime. Nature, ia her first attempt at association, 66 Play.— The Child Teaching its Mother. creates crystals. Imitate nature — give the child forms likt crystals. You may be sure it will use them, as it does so many other things, placing them side by side, or one on top of another. Such is its instinct ; if you do not give it some- thing, it tries sand, which wUl not be fixed, and always disappoints it. Above all, never set a model before it, to fetter its action. Do not make it an imitator. Be sure, that in its mind, or at least in its memory, it will find pretty types for its tiny architecture. Some morning you will be astonished to recognise your house. " Marvellous ! " you will cry. " He has done that himself. — My son is a creator !" And that is the proper name for man. Moreover, in cre- ating anything, he goes on creating himself. He is his own Prometheus. And that is why, young mother, from the very first, out of the pure instinct of your heart, without daring to express it, you felt that he was God. But see ! she is at once alarmed ; " If that be so," she says, " he is abeady independent, and presently he will escape from me !" No, no fear of that : for a very long time he will remain quite dependent on love ; he belongs to you, and that is his happiness. If he creates, it is always for you. " Look, mamma, look !" (ifothing would be beautiful to him without the favor of your notice, the benediction of your eyes.) " See what I have made for you. — ^If it is not pretty, I wiU do it another way." — So he piles stone on stone, block on block — " See here, my little chair, on which mamma may sit. Two posts and one beam make one roof, — this is the house in which mamma shall live with her little boy." You are, then, his complete circle ; he proceeds from you, and returns to you. The essay, the first effort of his inven- tion, is to honor you in his work, to entertain you in his house. The Frail and Sacred Child. 67 Infantine and happiest life of all, and all engrossed in love 1 Who can remember it without regret ? THE FRAIL AND SACRED CHILD. When we consider how few children live, we are filled with a desire to render them happy, at whatever cost. One fourth die in their first year — that is, before they have lived, before they have received the divine baptism ot light which transfigures the brain in the first twelve months. One third die before the second year — almost befoi-e they h£\,ve known the sweet caresses of woman, or recognised in a mother the best of earthly blessings. One half (in many countries) do not reach puberty — the first dawn of love. Overwhelmed by precocious labors, by dry studies, and severe discipline, they never attain that second birth of happiness and enchantment. The best foundling hospitals may be said to be the ceme- teries; in the hospital at Moscow, out of the 37,000 children received in twenty years, only 1000 were saved ; and in that of Dublin, 200 out of 12,000 — ^that is, one-sixtieth. What shall I say of the Paris institution ? I have seen and admired it, but its results are not very accurately known. In it are brought together two very different classes of children : ] . orphans, who are received there after being reared — and these stand some chance of living; 2. foundlings, properly so called, children brought thither at birth ; these are sent away to be nursed, and their life is prolonged for some months. Let us speak only of the happy ones, of those who are sur- rounded by tenderness and foreseeing care. Look at them : ■ all are pretty at four years of age, and ugly at eight ; as soon as we begin to refine them, they change, become t ulgar, and 68 The Frail and Sacred Child. deformed. "We blame nature for this ; we call it the ungrate ful age ; but that which is ungrateful, sterile, and witheiiug, is only the stupidity with which we force the child from a life full of action hito one of barbarous routine — and turn its little hfvd, full of sensibility and imagination, to things so abstract as J. "-osophy or mathematics. To do this without injury to the child, many years of well-managed transitions are neces. sary — very short and very easy little tasks, diversified with action, but not automatic. Our asylums are stiU far from fulfilling these conditions. This problem of education, which is not only a question of future development, but most frequently of life and death, has often disturbed my mind. The world is divided between two opposite educational systems, and I have seen both fail. Education by simple teaching, traditional and authoritative, as it prevails in schools and colleges (or small seminaries — ^for they all follow the same method), has lost prestige throughout Europe, aind to its well-established insufficiency, the recent attempts at amelioration have added confusion. On the other hand, the free schools, which aimed rather at forming the character of the child than instructing him, which, inspired by Rousseau and Pestalozzi, were remarkable for their originality, flourished only for a season in Switzerland and Germany, and were abandoned. These schools appealed to the hearts of mothers ; for, what- ever came of them, the child, in the meantime, was happy. But the fathers found that, with their very slow methods, they taught too little, and gave too few lessons ; so, in spite of their mothers' tears, the children were sent off to colleges (4ay or ecclesiastical). In these institutions, many wither and die : a few, very few, learn, but only by superhuman efforts. A course of instruction 80 various, in which each study is carried on separately, with The Frail and Sacred Child. fjy no demonstration of its relation to the others, exhausts and ^rijjples the mind. Grirls, of whom I shall presently speak more particularly, are no better educated now than in the time when Fenelon wrote his pleasant hook, or when the author oi JEmile sketchecl his Sophie. Nothing is done to prepare them for life ; thej are sometimes taught accomplishments that dazzle, sometimes (among the less wealthy classes) pursue a few serious studies which put them on the road to learning ; but no culture pecu- liar to woman, to the wife and mother, no special education for their sex. I had read so much on these subjects, so many mediocre and useless things, that I was tired of books ; on the other hand, my connexion with schools, my own experience in teaching, left many things obscure to me ; so I resolved, this year, to go to the very source to study the physical orga- nization of man, face to face with facts — ^to strengthen my mitid by actual observation. The body tells us a great deal about the soul ; it is much to see and touch the sacred instru- ment on which the young soul tries to play, an instrument which may reveal its character and indicate to us the measure of its forces. It was spring. The anatomical course was over in Clamart, and solitude reigned where all is so gay and populous in winter. The trees were full of birds, the parterre that embellishes those funereal galleries was all in blossom. But there was nothing comparable to the hieroglyphic flower I came to study. The term is by no means a fantastic oonipa- .rison — it expresses my feeling. I experienced no disgust, but on the contrary, a sentiment of admiration, tenderness, and pity. The brain of a child, one year old, seen for the first time, from its base (the lower side as it appears on being reversed), has all the effect of a large and splendid camellia, 70 The Frail and Saered Child. Willi its ivory nerves, its delicate rosy veins, and its pale azure tint. I say ivory, for want of a better word. It is an immaculate white, and yet of an exquisite and tender soft, ness, of which nothing else can give an idea, and which, to my mind, leaves every other earthly thing far behind. I am not deceived about this; my first emotions, doubt less strong, nevertheless did not cause the illusion. Dr. Beraud, and a very skilful artist who paints anatomical plates daily, accustomed as ' they are to see these things, were of the same opinion. It is really the flower of flowers, one of the most delicate, innocent, charming objects in the world, — the most touching beauty that nature has ever produced. The vast establishment in which I studied enabled me to pursue a cautious method, to repeat and verify my observations, to make comparisons between children of difierent ages and sexes, and, moreover, to compare children and adults, even to extreme old age. In a few days, I had brains of all ages under my eyes, so that I could trace from year to year the progress of time. The youngest were those of a girl who had lived only a few days, and some boys, a year old at most. She had never seen the light ; but they had had time to be impregnated by it. Hers was a floating brain, in its rudimeritary state : theu-s, on the contrary, were already as strong, fixed, and almost as well developed, as those of older children, or even of grown persons. This great revolution of the first year passed, the develop- ment of the raind (visible also in the face) modifies, more than the age, the physiognomy of the brain. In a little girl of four or five years, of intelUgent countenance, it was traversed by convolutions and folds, more neatly arranged, more finely traced, than in those of many common women of twenty-five or even thirty-five years. The mysterious figures which the cerebellum presents in its thickest part, and which are called the tree of life, were much better outliued in this young child, prettier, and more clearly defined. This was not, however, an exceptional case ; in many ohU- The Frail and Sacred Child. 71 dieti of the same age I found nearly the same development ; and I came to the conclusion, that at the age of four, not only the brain, but the spinal marrow and the whole nervous s}W tem, have their greatest development. So, long before the muscles attain their strength, while the child is still so feeble, the brain is quite mature as to its nerves of sensation and motion ; it is already, in its most charming harmony, a human being. But, though thus developed, at this age it is still exceed- ingly dependent, and "wholly at our mercy. The brain of that child of four years, pure and blank as an ivory tablet, full of sensibility, seemed to wait for something to be written upon it — to say : " Write here whatever you please — I -will believe, I will obey, I am here to obey ; I am so dependent upon you, and belong to you so entirely." An utter incapacity to avoid any suffering, or to provide what is necessary for itself, characterizes the child at this time. This one, especially, advanced as she was, capable of loving and tin d«rstan ding, seemed to implore assistance. Tou might have almost read her prayer — ^for, though dead, she still prayed. I was greatly moved, but at the same time enlightened. The nerves of this poor little girl afforded me a very precise revelation anddnsight into the absolute contradictions which constitute the child's state of being.' On the one hand, it is a mobile creature — more than all others moving by necessity. The nerves of motion are developed and active before the counterpoising forces which maintain the equilibrium. Thus its incessant restlessness annoys and often vexes us : we do not reflect that at this age the child is life itself. On the other hand, the nerves of sensation are mature ; con- sequently the child's capacity to suffer, and even to love, is greater than is commonly believed. We have proof of this 'va.th.^Bnfants-'n-ouv&s ; a great many of the children brought there at four or five years of age are inconsolable, and die. A more astonishing fact, in connexion with this tender age,ig 72 Love at Five Years. — The Doll. — ^that amorous sensibility is expressed in the nerves mora strongly than in the adult. I was alarmed at this; love, slum- bering as yet in the sexual organs, seemed already fully awa- kened in those parts of the spinal marrow which act on those organs. No doubt that at the first caU they afford premom- lions of it ; we need not then be astonished at their innocent coquetries, their sudden timidities, their furtive movements of bashfulness without cause. Here is a pitiful phenomenon, which should make ws trem- ble. This infinitely mobile being, remember, is at the same time infinitely sensitive. Be kind, patient, I pray you ! We destroy them by harshness, often too by tenderness Passionate and fitful mothers force and enervate the child by t'j-Ur violent transports. I would desire for such as these the painful but salutary impression that the sight of so ten- der an organism would bestow. It needs to be surrounded by a mild and gentle and serious love, by a world of pure harmonies. The little creature herself, already amorous in organization, is in almost as much danger from furious ca^ resses as from undue severity. Spare her, and let her live I LOVE AT FIVE YEARS. THE DOLL. It is strange that the excellent Madame Necker de Sans- sure should have thought that, till ten years of age, a girl and a boy are almost the same thing, and that what is said about the one will apply to the other. Whoever observes them, well knows that this almost is an incalculable, an infinite difierence. Little girls, in the full levity of their age, are already much the more staid. They are also more tender ; you will rarely see them hurt a little dog, or choke or pluck a bird ; thej have charming impulses of goodness and pity. Love at i*ive Years.^ — The Doll. 7^ Once, indisposed,.! was lying on a sofa, half covered v,i.ih a cloak. A lovely little girl, whom her mother had brought on a visit to us, ran to me and tried to cover me better, to tuck me in in my bed. How can we help loving the delight- ful little creatures ; nevertheless we, must be csiutious not to show it too much, not to fondle them too much. The little boy is wholly different ; he wUl not long play in peace with a girl ; if they begin at first to make a house, the boy will soon want it to be a carriage ; he must have a wooden horse, to whip and manage. Then she will play by herself. He vainly " makes believe " to be her brother, or indeed her little husband ; even if he be the younger, she despairs of him, and resigns herself to solitude, — and this is what happens : It is chiefly in the winter, by the fireside, that you will observe it, when people are shut up in the house, and do not run about, and there is little doing out of doors. Some day, when she has been scolded a little, you will see her in a corner softly wrapping some object, a bit of stick perhaps, with linen, and a piece of one of her mother's new gowns ; she will tie it with a thread in the middle, and with another higher up, to Inark the waist and the head — and then will she embrace it tenderly, and rock it to and fro : " Thou, thou lovest me,'' she says in a low voice ; " thou wilt never scold me." This is play, but "serious play, much more serious than we think. What is this new person, this child of your child ? let us examine aR the characters the mysterious creature enacts. You think that it is simply an imitation of maternity, that to imagine herself grown up, as tall as her mother, she wishes to have also a little daughter of her own, which she may rule and govern, embrace or scold. So it is — ^but some- thing more also : to this instinct of imitation must be addec" another, which the precocious organism imparts to all, even to^ those who may never have had a mother for a model. Let us name it aright: It is JFirst Love. Its ideal is not a brother (he is too rude, too noisy), but a young sister, 4 74 Love at Five Years. — The DoU. gentle, lovely, like herself, who may caress and console her. In another aspect, not less true, it is the first attempt at independence, a timid essay of individuality. Under this pretty manifestation, there is, without her knowing it, a feeble desire to withdraw herself, something of .feminine opposition and contradiction. She is beginning her role as woman : always subject to authority, she rnurmurs a little at her mother, as she wiU hereafter at her husband. She must have an ever so tiny confidant, with whom she may sigh. For what? Nothing to-day perhaps, but some- thing or other which will come in the future. Ah ! you are right, ray little daughter. How, alas ! will your small pleasures be. mingled with sorrows ! We who adore you, how much we make you weep ! We must not jest at this — it is a serious passion. The mother should join in it, and receive with kindness the child of her daughter. Far from «kspising the doll, she should insist that the capricious girl be always a good mother to it, and keep it properly dressed, that it be neither spoiled nor beaten, but treated reasonably, as she is herself. You big children, who may read this — ^father, brother, cou sins — I pray you, do not laugh at th^ chUd. Examine your- selves — do you not resemble her? How often, in affairs which you deem the gravest, a memory returns to you, and you smite — ^half avowing to yourselves that you have been playing with a doll. • Observe, that the more the little girl's doll is her own, the more that it is of her simple, elementary, but also personal, manufacture, the more has she set her heart upon it, aid the more danger there is of distressing her. In the country, in the north of France, a poor and hard- • Working region, I once saw a very discreet Uttle girl, wise Love at Five Years. — The Doll. 73 beyond her years. She had only brothers, who were all oKlei fhan she ; born long after her parents had ceased to expect more children, they seemed to take it amiss that she had come into the world. Her mother, laborious and severe, kept her always near her at work, while the others played ; the elder boys, moreover, with that selfish levity which marks their sex in childhood, rarely took part in the sports of their young sister. She tried to make herself a little garden ; but they laughed at her attempts, and trampled on it. Naturally it occurred to her to make, out of some cotton rags, a little friend, to whom she might relate the tricks of her brothers or the scoldings of her mother. Her tenderness was lively and extreme. The doll was sensible, replied intelligently, and in the sweetest voice ; by her tender effusions, her touching recitals, it was equally affected, and, embracing each other, they wept. One Sunday it was discovered, and created much laughter ; the boys, tearing it from her arms, took great delight in throwing it up to the topmost branches of a tree, so high that it finally remained there. Her tears and cries availed her nothing. She was faithful however, and in her grief refused ever to make another. All the winter long, she thought of it, and wept and wept to think that it was out in the snow and storm. When, in the spring, the tree was cut down, she begged the gardener to look for it. I need scarcely say, that long before that, her poor sister had been carried away by the northern blasts. Two years after, as her mother was buying some clothes for the boys, the shopwoman, who had also toys for sale, noticed the little one looking at them. Her good heart prompted her to give something to the child for whom nothing was purchased ; so she placed in her arms a little Ger- man doll. So great was her surprise and delight, that she trembled and tottered, and could hardly carry it. — This doll, pliant and obedient, lent itself to her every wish. It was fond of dress, and its mistress thought only of making it beautiful and brilliant ; but that wcs the ruin of it — the boya ,/6 Woman a Religion. danced her to death : her arms were torn out, and she fell so ill that she was put" to bed and nursed. The little girl sank uuder these new blows of grief. Fortunately a young lady, touched with pity at seeing her so very sad, found among her trumpery a splendid doll, which liad been her own. Although defaced by time, it was much more real than the modern one ; its form was perfect — even when naked, it seemed alive. Her friends often caressed it ; and already it had preferences in its friendships, and showed gleams, and. first signs, of a precocious passionate character. During a short illness by which the little girl was confined, some one, perhaps from jealousy, cruelly broke the doll; its mistress, on her recovery, found it decapitated. This third tragedy was too much ; she fell into such melancholy that she was never seen to smile or play afterwards. Always de- ceived in her fancies, she grew weary of life, which she had scarcely tasted, and nothing could save her. So she died, sincerely mourned for by all who had seen the sweet, gentle, innocent creature, who had scarcely known happiness, and who yet was so affectionate, with a heart so fuU of love. VI. WOMAN A RELIGION. In education, the father is far too much concerned for the future, that is, for the Uncertain. The mother is devoted chiefly to the present, and wishes her child to be happy, and to live. I take my stand with the mother. To live ! which is really a most difficult thing. Men do not think of that ; though they may have under their very eyes the spectacle of the trials, the watchings, the anxious cares, by which from day to day the life of a frail being is pro- longed, they coolly reason on what it will do ten years hence. Woman a Religion. 77 Let them, then, at least understand the indisputable, offiuia. statistics of the frightful mortality of children. To the new- born babe, death is for a long time the probable fate — with- out a mother, almost certain. The cradle is for the most part a brief moment of light between night and night again. Women, who write and print, have made eloquent books on the misfortunes of their sex ; but if children could write, what things they would have to tell ! They would say : " Take care of us, spare us for the few days or months gene- rally allotted us by unsparing nature. We are so dependent on you ! You so hold us by superior strength, reason, and experience ! For the little of skill and good management that you expend in our cause, we wUl be very obedient, we will do what you will. But do not shorten the only hour we have beneath the warm light of the sun and on our mothers' knee. — To-morrow we shall be under the sod ; and of all earthly goods, we shall take away with us only their tears." Impatient minds will conclude from this that I desire for children that unlimited liberty which would be our servitude, that I trust only in the child's instinctive tendencies, that I would have him obeyed. On the contrary, I set out, as you remember, with the pro- found and original idea which Froebel first broached : " The child, left to the chaos of first impressions, would be very unhappy. He is relieved if the mother substitute for that wearisome confusion a small number of coherent objects, if she understand these, and present them to him in order. For order is a necessity of the mind, and consequently hap- piness for the child." Orderless habits, unbridled agitations, are no more neces- sary to the happiness of the growing child, than a chaos of confused sensations to the nursehng. I have very often noiiced the little unfortunates who were left entirely to their 78 Woman a Religion. own fancy, and have been astonished to see how soon they are wearied by their emiDty boisterousness and boldness. For want of personal restraint they encounter every moment the restraint of things, the mute but fixed obstacle of realities ; they fret against this to no purpose. On the contrary, the child, directed by a friendly providence and in natural ways^ but rarely subjected to the tyrannies of the impossible, lives in true liberty. The habitual exercise of freedom in the patKs of order, has this admirable result — ^that sooner or later it will inspire nature with the noble purpose of subduing itself, of con- quering liberty through a higher liberty, of seeking effort and sacriiiee. Effort itself belongs to nature, and is its best element; I mean free and deliberate effort. I have made this explanation in advance, for the benefit of those who criticise before they read. I am still very far from imposing effort upon the little creature I have in hand. She is intelligent, loving; but she is, nevertheless, only an element. God preserve me, poor little one, from telling you all this ! Your duty to-day is to live, to grow, to eat well, to sleep better, to run in the wheat, and among the flowers. But one can't always be running, and you will be very happy if your mother or elder sister will play with you, and make you skilful in those labors which are games. Duty is the inner soul, the life of education. The child feels it very early ; almost at birth, we have inscribed on our hearts the idea of justice. I might appeal to that, but I will not yet. Life should be completely and firmly established, before its barrier is set up, and its action limited. Those who make a great commotion about morals and obhgationa with the child that is not yet, sure of living at all, who labor to confine and circumscribe its needed buoyancy of action, are Woman a Religion. 79 only too stupid. Ah ! wretched bunglers, lay aside youl shears ; at least wait till the material is there, before you dock, and out, and trim it. The foundation of education, its soul and constant life, is what appears early in the conscience — the good, the just. The great art is, by love, gentleness, order, and harmony, to teach the infant soul, as it attains its true, healthy, and complete life to perceive more and more clearly the justice that already exists within it, inscribed in the depths of love. Let the child have examples only, no precepts — at least not in the begin- ning ; he will of himself easily pass from one to the other. Without seeking, he will discover this : " I ought to love my mother dearly, because she loves me so much." That is duty, and yet nothing is more natural. I am not now writing a book on education, and should not stop to discuss general views, but proceed to my special sub- ject, the education of the daughter. Let us have done then with what is common between the girl and boy, and dwell on the difference. It is profound, and this it is : The education of the boy, in the modern sense, aims to organize a force, an effective and productive force, to create , a creator ; which is the modern man. The education of the girl is to produce harmony, to har- . monize a religion. > ^ Woman is a religion. Her destiny is such, that the higher she stands as religious poetry, the more effective will she be in common and practical life. The utility of man, being in creative, productive power, may exist apart from the ideal; an art which yields noble pro- ducts may sometimes have the effect of vulgarizing the artist, who may himself retain very httle of the beauty he infuses into his works. There is never anything like this in woman. The woman of prosaic heart, she who is not a living powe" 8o Woman a Religion.- a harmony to exalt a husband, to educate a child, to con Btantly sanctify and ennoble a family, has failed in her mis fiiou, and will exert no influence even in what is vulgar. A mother, seated by the cradle of her daughter, should Bay to herself: "I have here the war or the peace of the world, what will trouble the hearts of men or give them the tranquillity and high harmony of God. " She it is who, if I die, will at twelve years of age, on my tomb, raise her father on her little wings, and carry him back to heaven. (See the Life of Manin.) " She it is who, at sixteen, may with a word of proud enthu- siasm, exalt a man far above himself, and make him cry, 'I will be great !' "She it is who, at twenty, and at thirty, 'and all her life long, win renew her husband, every night, as he returns deadened by his labor, and make his wilderness of interests and cares blossom like the rose. " She again, who, in the wretched days, when the heavens are dark, and everything is disenchanted, will bring God back to him, making him find and feel Hini on her bosom." i ■ To educate a daughter is to educate society itself. Society proceeds from the family, of which the wife is the living bond. To educate a daughter is a sublime and disinterested task ; for you create her, O mother, only that she may leave you, and make your heart bleed. She is destined for another. She will live for others, not for you, not for herself; it is this relative character which places her higher than man, and makes rher a religion. She is the flame of love, and the flame of the hearth ; she is the cradle of the future, and she is the school, another cradle — ^Ln a word : She is the altar. \ God be thanked, all the debated systems for the education of the boy end here, all disputes cease here. The great conflict of methods and theories expires in the peaceful nurture of this Woman a Religion. 81 blessed flower; discords are disarmed, and embrace each othei in Beauty. She is not condemned to strong and violent action ; she will know, but not enter into, the frightful world of details, •jver increasing, beyond all the powers of man. Will she ever rise to the summits of high speculation ? Very likely, but not by following in our footsteps. We will prepare ways for her to reach the idea, without subjecting her charming soul to the preliminary tortures in which the spirit of life is lost. What shall she be ? Beauty. After what model, O mother, shall she form herself? Every morning and every night, offer up this prayer ; " My God, make me very beautiful ! that my daughter, to be so, need only look on me !" The end of woman on this earth, her evident vocation, ia love. One must be very unfortunately constituted, very hos- tile to nature, very blind and crooked-souled, to pronounce, against God himself, that this delicate organism and this ten- derness of heart are destined only to isolation. " Let us edu cate her," they say, " to be self-sufficing ; that is the safest plan. Love is the exception, and indifference the rule. Let her know how to live within herself — to labor, pray, die, and work out her salvation, in a corner." To this I reply, that love will never be wanting to her. I maintain that, as a woman, she earns her salvation only by constituting the happiness of man. She ought to love and bear children ; it is her sacred duty. But let this remark be under- stood — ^if she is not a wife and mother, she may be an instruc- tress ; in which case she will be no less a mother, and will bear the fruit of the mind. Yes, if it has been her misfortune to be born in an accursed epoch, when the most lovely are no longer beloved, so much the more will she open her arms and her heart to the univers.ol 4* 82 Woman a Religion. love. For one child that she might have borne, ske will have a thousand ; and clasping them to her hosom she will say : " 1 have lost nothing." Let the men understand one thing, a nohle and exquisite mystery that nature has concealed in the bosom of woman; and that is the divine doubt wherein, in her organization, love dwells. In men, it is always desire ; but in her, even without her knowledge, in her blindest impulses, the instinct of ma^- tcrnity overpowers all the rest. And when egotistical pride convinces the lover that he has conquered, we may see, most frequently, that she has yielded only to her own dream — the hope and love of a child, which almost from her birth she had conceived in her heart. High poetry of purity ! In every season of love, when the senses assert themselves, the instinct of maternity eludes them, and bears love into sublirner regions. To educate woman, is to promote her transformation — it is, at every step of her life, by giving her love according to the necessities of her heart, to aid her thus to exalt love, and elevate it to a form at once so pure and so intense. To express in a word this sublime and delightful poesy: from the cradle woman is a mother, and longs for maternity. To her everything in nature, animate or inanimate, is trans- formed into little children. We shall perceive more and more clearly how felicitous this is ; woman alone can educate man, especially in the decisive years when it is necessary with prudent tenderness to discipline his young liberty by bringing it into order. To brutally break and crush the human plant, as hitherto has been done, there is no need of women. But they will be recognised as the only possible educators, in proportion as we shall desire to cultivate in each child his peculiar and natural genius, which is of infinite diversity. None but a woman is sufficiently deli- cate, tender, and patient, to perceive so many shade^ and take advantage of them. Woman a Religion. 83 The world lives by woman. She contributes two elements tvhich create all civilization ; her grace, her delicacy ; but this last is chiefly a reflection other purity. What would become of the world of men, if these two things were wanting ? Those who seem most indiflferent to them forget that, without this grace, these forms at least of purity, .ove would be extinguished on earth — ^love, the all-powerful spur of our human activities. Delicious torment, fruitful trouble ! without you, who would care to live ? It is necessary, absolutely necessary, for woman to be grace- ful. She is not bound to be beautiful, but grace is essential to her. She owes it to nature, which has made her to be ad- mired ; she owes it to humanity. Grace charms the arts of men, and imparts a divine smile to all society. And what must the child do to be graceful? She must always feel that she is loved.' Let her be guided equably : no violent alternations of rigor and tenderness ; nothing rude, precipitate, but a very gradual progress — no interruptions, and no very great eifort. She need not be embellished with elabo- rate ornaments ; but by a sweet absorption, create a new beauty which, little by little, will bloom out from within. Grace is a reflection of love on a groundwork of purity, Purity is the woman herself: Such should be the constant thought of the mother, as soon as a daughter is born to her. The purity of the child is at first that of the mother ; the child should always find truth, light, and absolute transpa- rency, as of a perfect mirror, in her, which no breath ever tarnishes. In the morning and evening, both should make abundant warm ablutions — or better, a little cold. In all things they hold together. The more the little girl sees her mother atten- tive to neatness, the more will she wish to be like her in per son, and soon in heart also. 8^ Woman a Religion. Purity of air and temper ; purity and uniformitj of influ ences. Let there be no nurse to spoil below stairs what is done above, by flattering the child, and making her think her mamma cross. Purity above all in her regimen and her food. And what is to be understood by that ? I mean that the little one should have a child's diet, that she should continue her milk regimen, sweet, mild, and not exciting ; that, if she eat at your table, she should be taught not to touch your dishes, which are poisons to her. A revolution has been at work here : we have abandoned the frugal French regimen, and adopted, more and more, the heavy, bloody cuisine of our neighbors, much more appropriate to their cli- mate than to ours, and the worst of it is that we inflict this diet on our children. A strange spectacle truly, to see a mother give to the daughter she was nursing but yesterday, a coarse supply of half-raw meats, and dangerous stimulants, wine, and (exaltation itself) coffee ! She is astonished to find the child violent, whimsical, passionate, when she has only herself to blame for it. What she does not yet know, but which is nevertheless of grave importance, is, that in our precocious French race (I have seen nurslings in love in the cradle), the excitement of the senses is directly provoked by such a regimen. Far from strengthening, it agitates, weakens, enervates. The mother finds it pleasant and pretty to have so lively a child, with repartees already, and so sensitive that it weeps at the least word. It is all owing to her being over-excited herself; she wishes her child to be so, and without knowing it, is a cor- rupter of her own daughter. All this is worth nothing to her, madam, and scarcely more lo you. You have not the courage, you say, to eat anything, unless she has her share. Well, abstain then, or at least be moderate in the use of such a diet — good for a jaded man, perhaps, but fatal to an idle woman — ^vulgarizing her., per- turbing her, making her violent, somnolent, or stupid. TiOve at Ten Years. — Flowers. 8j In both woman and child it is a kindness, a loving kindness. lo be chiefly trugivorous, to avoid the fetid viands, and live rather on the innocent aliments which cost no creature its life — the fragrant fruits which delight the smell quite aa much as the taste. A very natural reason why the dear creatures never inspire repugnance, but seem etherial in com- parison with men — is chiefly to be found in their preference for vegetables and fruits, a purity of diet which contributes not a little to that of the soul, and truly assimilates it to the innocence of flowers. VII. LOVE AT TEN YEARS. FLOWERS. WiiEisr the good Froebel placed' in the pretty but rather awkward hand of my dear little one the elementary forms with which nature begins, he invited her also to the love of vegetable life. To build a house is beautiful; but how much more beautiful to make a plant, to create a new life, a' flower which will expand, and reward you for your pains ! A splendid red kidney-bean, the t Imiration of childhood, has been planted, not without some solemnity. But, to wait is a thing impossible at five years ; how can she wait, inactive, for what nature does by herself? Next day, of course, the kidney-bean is visited. Taken up and put back carefully, it is not at all improved. The tender anxiety of its young nurse leaves it no repose ; she removes at least the surface of the soil. With an indefatigable watering-pot, she importunes the idleness of the nonchalant vegetable ; the earth drinks won- derfvdly, and seems to be always thirsty. So, in spite of the care and the watering, the bean dies. Gardening is a labor of virtue and patience ; it is excellent discipline for the character of a child. But at what aga 86 Love at Ten Years. — Flowers. may it be really begun ? The little Germans of Froebel were to commence at four years; ours a little later, doubtless. I be- lieve that our little girls (much better than the boys) may, by their kindness and tenderness for the baby plant, undertake to wait for it, to spare it, and train it. As soon as one attempt has ucceeded, as soon as they have seen, admired, touched, kissed the Uttle being, everything is accomplished. They are so eagei to repeat the miracle that they become patient. The child's true life is in the fields ; but even in town sho should, as much as possible, be familiarized with vegetable life. And for this, neither a grand garden nor a park is necessary. She who has little, loves it the more — though it be only a wall-flower on her balcony, and that an extension of the roof; and she will profit more by her single plant than the spoiled child of the rich, let loose in great parterres which she has only learned to destroy. The care and assiduous contemplation of this flower, the relations which shall be pointed out to her, between her plant and such or such an influence of the atmo- sphere or season — with these alone her entire education may be carried on. Observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, will aU come of it. Who does not know the admirable les- sons Bernardin de Saint Pierre derived from the strawberry- plant that grew by chance in a pot on bis window ? In it he saw the infinite, and made it the beginning of his vegetable harmonies, simple, popular, childlike, but not the less scientific. (See Alex, von Humboldt.) A flower is a whole world, pure, innocent, peace-making ; the little human flower harmonizes with it so much the better for not being like it in its essential point. Woman, especially the female chUd, is all nervous life ; and so the plant, which has no nerves, is a sweet companion to it, calming and re- freshing it, in a relative innocence. It is true that this plant, when in blossom, excited beyond its strength, seems to be animalized. And in certain microscopic species, it assumes in the organ of love a surprising identity with the higher order of being ; but the child knows nothing T.ove at Ten Years. — Flowers. 87 of this beautiful delirium of j)lants, except from their intoxica- ting odor, and her constant motion prevents her fi-om imbibing that too long. The little girl, who at an early age is so complete a being, much more delicate than the boy, more suscejDtible to nice impressions, has one sense the more — that of perfumes, of aromas. She could be penetrated by them and sometiino enjoy a sensual expansion ; but this flower is not for her an object of idle love, of indolent enjoyment; it is a necessity for labor and activity, an object of anxiety, success, and joy, an occupation for her heart and mind. In fine, and in a word ; maternity cures love ; the flower is not her lover, because it is her daughter. It is a bad and dangerous intoxication for the sedentary little lady, deprived of fresh air and exercise, to inhale in a parlor the concentrated emanations from an amorous bou- quet of flowers. And it is not only her head that grows dizzy ; one of our novelists has undertaken to show the doubtful virtue of a young woman who yields to such influ ences. They would no less powerfully trouble the little girl, by hastening the sensual crisis, and forcing the blossom that should rather be delayed. Shall I confess (but what a paradox ! how shocking to the ladies !) There are three things that I rather dislike : those babels of paintings, called museums, where the pictures kill off each other ; — those babels of warbling, called aviaries, where the nightingale, associated with vulgar singers, is in a fair way to fall into a patois ; — and those babels of flowers, called bouquets, made up of all perfumes and colors, which sonflict with and annihilate each other. Whoever has a vivid and delicate sense of life does not with impunity submit to such confusions, such a chaos of things, however brilliant they may be. Every odor has its own fra- grance, its own mystery, and speaks its c vvn language. All 88 Love at Ten Years. — Flowers. together, they either shock the brain or trouble the senses— from which the nerves suffer, as by certain vibrations of th« harmonica. It is voluptuous and cloying ; we smile, but our bnrirts turn from it. The discrete odors perish barbarously, m Ijy asphyxia. "Alas!" says the sweet marjoram, stifled by the powerful rose, " you will then never know the divinely bitter fragrance which is mingled with the perfume of love ?" A certain woman, I knew well, never plucked a flower without regret, and in spite of herself — asking pardon of it. Each has its own peculiar pretty way, if it is peculiar. It has its special harmony, a charm it derives from its mother earth, and which shall never be taken from it. In a bouquet ^^•hat would become of its ways, its graceful curves, the sweet and jaunty air with which it carried its head ? The simplel flowers, which are the flowers of love, with their lithe and modest graces, grow pale or disappear amid the grand corollas of those luxurious virgins, that our gardeners develop by their skill. Let us then restore to our child the vegetable world, in all its naive and sacred truth. While it is yet young, let it feel, love, and comprehend, the plant in its proper and complete life. Let it know the flower, not as a luxury and a coquetry, but as one stage of the plant's existence, as the plant itself in blossom. It is a great injustice to court it with the fleeting pleasures of a vain adornment,, such as an artificial flower, and forget the m.arvellous reality, the progressive miracle hidden in a tiny sanctuary, the subhme elaboration of a future and an immortality, by which life every year escapes, and laughs at death. Taking a winter walk, in February, the little one, looking t the red buds on the trees, sighs and says : " How soon will t be spring ?" Suddenly she cries out, for she has it at her very feet — a little silver bell with a green border, the snow« drop, announces the reawakening of the year. Soon the sun resumes his strength. To his first changeful mi capricious rays, in March, a whole little world awakes— Love at Ten Years. — Flowers. C9 the jeunettes, violets, primroses, and daisies, — the flower- children which, from their little golden disks, are called the children of the sun. They have not strong perfumes — except, I believe, the violet only. The earth is too moist as yet ; the hyacinth, jacinth, and lily of the valley, seem almost wet in the humid shade of the woods. How delightful, how surprising ! This innocent vegetation seems created expressly for our little girl, and every day she makes conquests from it, collecting, arranging, and binding to gether the bundles of little flowers that she must throw away to-morrow. One by one she salutes each new-comer, and gives it a sister's kiss. We wiU not disturb her in her festival of spring. But when, after a month or two, she is satisfied, I vs'ill ' teU her : " While you have been playing at nature, my child, the proud and splendid transformation of the Earth has been accomplished. She has now put on her green robe, with the immense flounces that we call hills and mountains. Think you it is only to give you daisies, that she has poured from her bosom an ocean of herbs and flowers ? tfo, my pet : the good nurse, the universal mamma, has first served up a banquet to our humbler brothers and sisters, who are our support. The good cow, and the gentle sheep, the sober goat that lives on so little and helps the poorest to live, — for them were these meadows spread. With the virginal milk of the earth they will load their udders, to give you cream and butter. — Take, and be thankful." To these fresh and sweet supplies arei to be added the deli- cacy of the first potherbs, and the earliest fruits. With the increasing heat appear in due season the currant and the mild strawberry, which our little gourmand detects by their exquisite fragrance. The tartness of the former, the melting usciousness of the latter, and the delicate sweetness of the cherry, are the refreshments sent to us in the burning days, when the rising heats of summer enervate us, or when beneath an overpowering sim the labors of harvesting begin. This intoxication first appears in the rich but too penetrat- go Love at Ten Years. — Flowers. mg perfume of the rose, which gets in the head. The coquet. tish queen of flowers triumphantly leads in the legions of hei more serious sisters — the medicinal flowers and pharmaceutic plants, useful and saving poisons. But in the sovereign labors of the great Maternity, come next those which are to nourish entire populations — the venerable tribes of the leguminosoB ; and the grasses also, the poor of the vegetable kingdom, who, as Linnseus says, are its irresistible valor and heroic force ; though they be maltreated and trampled down, yet will they multiply the more " Their two nutritious leaves (cotyledons) are as a mother's breasts. Five or six poor grasses, with the abundant fulness of these breasts, support the human race." (E. Noel.) My daughter, do not imitate the thoughtless, giddy child who, where a sea of gold rolls in the wind, of corn-poppies and blue-bonnets in their sterile splendor, goes in to pluck them. Let not your little foot stray from the strict and narrow line of the path. Respect our nutritive father, the reve- rend Corn, whose feeble stalk scarcely supports his head heavy with bread for to-morrow. Every ear you destroy is so much taken from the life of the poor and worthy laborer, who the whole year round has suffered, that it might thrive. Even the lot of the corn itself deserves your tenderest respect. All the winter long, shut up in the earth, it patiently waited under the snow ; then, in the cold spring rains, its little green shoot struggled upward, wounded, now by a nip from the frost, now by a bite from the sheep ; and it has thriven only by enduring the smarting rays of the sun. To-morrow, cut down by the sickle, beaten and again beaten by flails, broken and crushed by mill-stones, the hapless martyr, reduced to an impalpable powder, will be cooked into bread, and eaten, or brewed into beer, and drunk. Whichever way, its death is life to man. All nations, in joyous hymns, have sung its mai'tyrdom, and the martyrdom of the vine, its sister. Even in the corp Love at Ten Years. — Flowers. 91 reside'!, in the most concentrated nutritive form our climates afford, something of the sweetening, intoxicating property its sister brought us. The property of sugar-making, a singular process of the human organization, exists in these vegetables, which may, therefore, be said to be humanized. Such is the last effort of the year; when man wearies, grows feeble, and languishingly perspu-es, mother nature affords him a more vital nourishment. To the vernal age of fields and milk succeeds the substantial and strong age of wheat ; and that is scarcely reaped and thrashed, when the humble little vine — ^trailing and creeping, because so much more delicate and tender — prepares its heaven-bestowed beverage. What labors here, my daughter I And what power over man does not this modest plant exert, this ugly, little, tortuous shrub, that you despised in the spring ! If you went through all Champagne, Burgundy, and the South, you would find perhaps a quarter of the popula- tion of France, millions of men, engaged, from the month of March, in setting the props, raising, binding, and pruning the vine, and heaping the earth around it ; all the year on foot, leading the delicate creature to perfection. To kill it, a mere mist is enough. Ever the harsh alternative — ^life or death. Every plant must die to give life to others^ Have you not observed, near the close of autumn, when the season is growing pale, how gently the leaves fall, without even waiting for the wind ? Each, with a few turns, drops, wholly resigned, no noise, and no resistance. The plant, whether it clearly knows it or not, at least feels, that its office is tc nourish its sister, that to this end it must die. And so dying gracefully, it falls to earth, and, by nurturing with its debris the air that wafts it or the earth into which it penetrates, prepares the life of its friends, who are coming to renew it, to reproduce and restore it. 92 Love at Ten Years. — Flowers. It disappears consoled, and (who knows ?) perhaps to rest — its duty done, and the law of God fulfilled. Thus, dear, if you have understood me, you have seen that beneath this brilliant circle of annual evolutions, in which each for a moment takes her place in the sun, there is another circle, sombre and mute, constituted in the depths of being by sweet sisterly interchanges, each unenviously retiring to transfer her life to the oihers. A world of peace, innocence, and resignation ! But the supe- rior beings, subject to the same faw, rarely yield themselves to it so completely. — " Nevertheless," says nature, " what is to be done ? it is liot my faulC. I have only so mnch sub- stance, and no more, to share among you all ; I cannot increase it at will. It is but just that each in turn should have a little.'' Therefore, she says to the animals, " You, the favorites of hfe, so privileged by a superior organization, are not by that exempt from nourishing your sisters the plants, which, grate- ful and graceful, daily nourish you in advance. It is yours to pay tribute, but only of that which is worthless to your- selves—your sloughs at certain seasons — your remains in death. . . . That may be as late as possible ; I have shown you how to retard it. But it must certainly come one day ; for I could do no better." This is but reasonable; is it not,my daughter? And the Father of nature, God, who made and endowed you, who has given you skilful hands (or fitted to become so), who has given you a head, as yet light, but gradually recipient of thoughts, grants you the distinguished honor of sharing in his labors. You shall germinate vegetable nurselings, and little daughter-flowers ; you shall build up life, by partici- piiting in the grand operations of God ; and afterwards, a woman, and perhaps a mother, when your time shall come, you shall cheerfully transfer your life to others, and with a grateful grace vivify your good jiurse, nature, and nourish hel in your turn. The Little Household. — The Little Garden. 93 vin. THE LITTLE HOUSEHOLD. THE LITTLE GARDEN. If a choice of playthings be offered to a little girl, she wil certainly select miniature utensils of cooking and housekeep ing. That is her natural instinct, a presentiment of the duties the woman will have to fulfil; for she must nourish the man. An elevated and sacred duty — especially in our climate, where the sun, less powerful than at the equator, does not complete the maturity of many vegetables, does not ripen them sufficiently to make them digestible by man. So woman completes the work of the sun ; she knows how the food, cooked and softened, will be assimilated by him, will pass into his circulation, to restore his blood and his strength. It is like another nursing ; if she could gratify her heart, she would feed her husband and her children on the milk of her breasts. Unable to do that, she borrows aliment from nature, but brings it to them greatly changed, mingled with herself, and made delicious with her tenderness. From pure wheat, solid and strong, she prepares the sacred cake, by which the family partake of her love. Milk takes a hundred forms from her ; she puts into it her delicate sweetness and her fragrance, and it becomes a light and etherial cream, a most luxurious dish. The ephemeral fruits that Autumn lavishes, as though to get rid of them, she fixes as by enchant- ment. Next year her astonished children will see, brought forth from the treasury of her foresight, the fugitive delights which they supposed had perished before the first snows. There they are, made after her own image — faithful and unal terable, pure and limpid as her life, transparent as her heart the sweet and beautiful faculty! The child-bearing, The slow, partial, but continuous creation, day by day ! — She makes and remakes them, body and soul, temper and energy. She increases or diminishes their activity, stretches oj 94 The Little Household.— The Little Garden^ slackens their nerves. The changes are insensible, hut the results certain. What can she not do? The giddy child, playful and rehellious, hecomes pliable, disciplinable, and soft. The man, down-horne by labor and excess of effort, is gradually rejuvenated by her. In the morning, out of a heart full of love, he says: " I live again, wholly in thee.'' Besides, when this, her great power, is wisely exercLsed, he has no occasion to restore, to cire. She is the perfect physician, creating, day hy day, health and harmonious equi- librium, and barring the door against disease. Thinking of that, what woman's, what mother's heart, could haggle and find fault with nature. Love is an idealist, and in all that is essential to the life of its beloved it sees only spirit. The noble and high results, which these humble cares procure, elevate and ennoble them, and make them sweet and dear. A young lady of distinction, delicate and sickly, would never allow any one else to feed her nightingale. That winged artist is like man — to refresh its burning throat, it would like the marrow of lions ; it must have meats and blood. This lady's servant found the task repugnant; but she, not at all ; she saw in it only the song, the soul of love, to which she imparted strength. It received from her hand the banquet of inspiration (love, hemp, and poppy seeds), life, intoxication, and forgetfulness. Fourier has well remarked that children have a taste for cooking, and like to take part in it. Is it mimicry or gluttony ? But I do not mean to encourage mimicry, as he advises. Nor, ^ince it is to become so grave a matter, would I have the child make sport of it, and waste her time in foolish little preparations for her doll's repast. I would prefer that, after a dine, when her attempts at gardening shall have made her fckilful, her mother initiate her in some -duty in which the The Little Household. — The Little Garden. 95 life of her father is interested, by which he who supports thf.m may be nourished by them, by which the child may foi the first time serve him, and be made happy by his " Thank you, my daughter," at the table. Every art developes new qualities in us. Housekeeping and cooking demand, in a high degree, the most exquisite neatness, and a certain dexterity. An even temper and a gentle character contribute much more to them than we sup- pose. No one who is rough and fickle can manage such things well. A just sense of precision is essential ; and also, in the highest degree, an appropriate decision of character — to control one's self, and know where to stop. Observe the more important endowments which the culture of the garden demands. At first it was only an amusement ; but as soon as it is understood and studied, in its relation to the life and health of loved ones, as soon as the garden has become auxiliary to the cuisine, it assumes an important aspect, and is much better cultivated. To notice, and take account of, a thousand variable circumstances ; to respect the weather, and control her childish impatience ; to subject her will to great laws; to be active, but to know that her own 'activity is not everything ; to recognise the concurrent agen- cies of nature ; and, finally, to fail often and not be dis- couraged — such is gardening to her — a labor made up of all labors ; human life complete. The kitchen and the garden are but two departments of the same laboratory, worling to the same end. The first com- pletes by fire the maturing process which the other began in the sun. They interchange kind ofiices ; the garden supplies fhe kitchen, and the kitchen supplies the garden. The slops that are thrown out almost with disgust, are accepted (if I may believe an eminent horticulturist) as choice aliment, by pure and noble flowers. Therefore, despise nothing. The meanest refuse, even the dregs of coiFee, are eagerly absorbed by vegetables, as a flame, a spirit of life ; three whole years may pais, and still they will feel its warmth. 96 The Little Household. — The Little Garden. Let me instruct your child in these necessary laws of life, It would he a foolish reserve to leaye her ignorant of the transformation of substances, and their natural circulation. Our disdainful young ladies, who know plants only to pluck th(;m, are not aware that the vegeteble consumes as much aa the animal. How do they live, themselves ? They never think of that; they have a good appetite, and they absorb, but without gratitude, without a thought for the duty of restitu- tion. Nevertheless, they must make restitution, by death especially; and they must make it continually by the pro- cesses of perspiration, sloughs, and diminutions of themselves • — the losses and the little daily deaths which nature imposes on us, to the profit of the lower orders of life. This fatal circulus is certainly not without its grgindeur. It has one very grave aspect, by which the cliild's heart will be touched with a salutary emotion : namely, that our weakness daily condemns us to seek strength where it is accumulated, in our brethren the animals, and to live on their life. A double lesson this, by no means useless to the young girl, In that first impulse of pride, proper to her youth, her beauty, and intensity of life, which sometimes make her think, " I am ; the rest is nothing. The flower and the charm of the world is myself, and all else is but refuse." Flower, beauty, youth ? Agreed. But do not forget the cost of them. Be modest ; remember the humble and severe conditions on which nature parts with life: to die a little daily, before dying utterly; and every day, at this happy, loaded table, to be born again — alas ! by the deaths of inno- cent creatures. At least let these animals be happy as long as tliey live. ■Teach the child of their right to exist, and the regret and pity we owe them, even when the needs of our organization compel us to destroy them. Carefully teach her the uses they ill have, or had — ^even those that to-day may harm us. The child is very poetical, but not much of a poet. Nevertheless our little one will feel, by the instinct of her charming heart. The Little Household. — The Little Garden. 97 mucli that would hardly impress her mind. The heroic maternity of the bird, constructing its nest with so much pains, submitting, for its children's sake, to so many sore trials, will certainly strike her. And Ln the ant and bee she will see, not without respect, and a sort of religion, a very different artistic genius from that which maternity inspires. The colossal labors of the ant, raising or lowering its eggs, by the well-calculated scale of its thirty or forty stories, according to the air and sun, and all the variations of tempe- rature, will fill her with admiration. In these infinitely little things, she will catch the first gleam, the first delightful ray, of the great mystery, which is postponed for her, — the great, the universal Love. Knowing that there is but one happiness here below, that of creating, always creatiiig, I have endeavored at all tunes to make her happy, by inducing her to create. When she was four years old, I put materials into her pretty hands, regular forms (analogous to those first attempts at asso- ciation that nature makes in crystals), and with these wooden crystals, joined in her own way, she erected little houses and other baby structures. Afterward, she was shown how nature, bringing opposites together in sympathy, makes veritable crystals, brilliant, colored, and' so beautiful! She has made some herself. From that lime, with her own hand, she has sowed seeds and made plants, and by her care in tending and watering them, has brought them to live and blossom. For silk- worms, she innocently collects the little grains, the seedlings of the butterfly ; these she tends, and keeps always about her, nurturing them with her warmth, and protecting them night and day in her unformed bosom. Some morning she has the happiness to see a new world, disposed to her by her own young love. 5 q8 The Maternities of Fourteen. Thus she goes on, weating and happy. Continue to have children, my daughter. Associate yourself, dear little one, with the great Maternity. It costs your tender heart nothing. You create in profound peace. To-morrow, it will cost you more, and your heart will Weed. — Mine also ; ah ! believe ihatwell. Butfor to-day, let us enjoy. Nothing is more plea- sant to me than to observe, in such complete repose, in such touching innocence, your little fecundities. They reassure me for your lot ; whatever may happen, you will have had your part in this world, partidpating iu the divine work, and creating. IX. THE MATERNITIES OF FOURTEEN. THE METAMORPHOSIS. I HAVE feared but one thing for this child: and that is, secresy ; I know some who are pensive at four years of age. But happily she has been preserved from that : first, by her active life ; and then, because from her birth she has had a confidante in her mother, so that she could think aloud. Woman, all her life long, must overflow and discharge her- self. While yet she was very little, her mother took her in her lap every night, and, heart to heart, made her speak. Ah ! what a happiness to confess, to excuse, or even accuse one's self. " So talk my child, talk on ! If it is good I wiU embrace you. And, if it is not good, why, to-morrow we will both try to do better." So she tells everything ; what does she risk ? Much ; " for mamma will sufier, if I have been bad." — " ISTo, my dear — teU me all the same ; and even if it makes me cry, your heart shall flow with mine." Her filial confession is the whole mystery nf childhood. By The Maternities of Fourteen. 99 this confession she has every evening suggested her own edu- cation. On so soft a pillow her sleep is deep ; but, what then ? She wakes at last. Thirteen years and a half have pasS'ed, and she is drooping. What is the matter, darling ? Until now, you have lacked nothing for your amusement. When your own doll did not satisfy you, I gave you living ones ; you have played at doll with all nature ; you have loved flowers much, and been loved by them; your free birds follow you, even to forgetting their nests ; and the other day the bulfinch (this is no invention) left its mate for you. " I guess — you need a friend ; neither bird nor flower, but- terfly nor dog — but a friend like yourself. When she. was four or five years 'old, her mother always took her to play in the Jardins d'' Enfants. But now, in the country, she has no more little girls. To be sure, there is her brother, younger than herself, whom once she loved so much, and who clung to her. But now she would have him lee a girl, or he would like her better if she were a boy. To get him away from the excessive cares of his mother and sister, and under more masculine influences, he was placed in the house of a friend, until he went to the public schools. The boys he brought home with him have rendered the house un- inhabitable. My little girl has conceived a great antipathy to the blustering race. Their cries, blows, and soufiles frighten her. Like her gentle and discreet mother, she loves order, peace, silence — or pretty games in a low tone. Meantime, I see her walkipg by herself in a garden-path, and I call her to me. Always obedient, she comes — but rather slowly, her heart swollen, and her eyes moist. What is the matter? In vain does her mother kiss and caress her : she is dumb, and cannot reply, for she knows not what it is. We, who understand her case, must find a remedy for it — the one which at all times has succeeded with her ; we will give her a new love. Her mother who pities her very much, tries from tbat day loo The Maternities of Fourteen. to draw her out of her troubled state, by -placing in her arms not a thing but a person. She will forthwith take her to the village school, and show ner the little children. At first the young dreamer, the great girl, finds the poor creatures somewhat insipid ; but she ia shown that they have not everything they need : this^ne is very scantily clad ; that one needs a new dress ; this one has come to school without her breakfast, because her mother has no bread; that one has no mother, and her father, too, is dead; at four years of age she is alone, and is provided for just as it may happen. Our darling's young heart awakes at this. With- out a word, she takes the child, and begins to arrange her dress. She is not unskilful ; one would think she had handled children all her life. She washes her, kisses her, and brings her bread, butter, fruit, and everything she has. Werther fell in love with Charlotte at seeing her give a slice of bread to the chil dren. So should I. The little orphan interests her in the others. One is pretty, another so knowing ; one has been sick, another beaten, and , must be c(insoled. They all please hei-, all amuse her. What a pleasure to play with such deUghtful dolls, that speak, and laugh, and eat, have wills of their own, and are almost people! What a pleasure to make them play ! And, with this idea, she goes to playing herself — the great innocent baby ! Even at home she thinks of them ; and the riiore she thinks, the livelier she becomes. At once gay and serious — as is always the case when one has suddenly a great interest in life — she no longer walks in solitude ; but seeks her mother, talks with her, requires her co-operation, begs for this favor, bargains for that. Every - day she spends all her spare time with the children ; and lives wholly within her own Uttle world, so full of variety for those who see it near at hand and mingle with it. Therein she has her friendships, her semi-adoptions, her preferences — her tendernesses enhanced by charity, sometimes little cares, then joys, extreme dehghts, and perchance even tears. But The Maternities of Fourteen. lOl she knows why she weeps; and the worst thing for young girls IS to weep without knowing why ! She was just fourteen in May — those were her first roses After a rain, the season, thenceforth serene and beautiful, bloomed out in aU its glory. She, too, had experienced a short interval of storms — with fever and some suffering ; it had left her, for the first time a little weak, a Kttle pale, while an almost imperceptible shade of delicate blue, or faiiit lilac, en- circled her eyes. She was not very tall ; but her figure had changed, had gracefully developed ; lying down a child, in a few days she had arisen a young woman. Lighter, and yet less active, she no longer merited the names her mother had given her : "My bird ! my butterfly !" Her first impulse on revisiting her garden, changed and grown beautiful like herself, was to gather some flowers for her father and mother, who had of late petted her even more than usual. She rejoined them smiling, with her pretty offer- ing ; and found them much moved, saying nothing to' each other, but mute with the same thought. For the first time, perhaps, for a long while, they placed her between them. When she was a little thing, just learning to walk alone, she needed to see them thus within reach of her, on her right and left. But now, almost as tall as her mother, she felt, very tenderly, that it was they who needed to have her between them. They gathered her into their hearts with a love so profound, that her mother could scarce restrain her tears. " Dear mamma ! what is the matter ?" — and she threw her- self on Aiat dear bosom. Her mother loaded her with caresses, but did not answer, fearing to give vent to her own emo tions. At last, a little composed, although tears still dimmed her eyes. Mamma said, smiling : " I was telling your father what I dreamed last night. Tou were alone in the garden, 102 The Maternities of Fourteen. and torn by the cruel thorns of a rose-hush ; I wished to bind up your wounds, but could not ; so you were ruined for life. I was dead, yet I saw it all." " Oh ! mamma, then never die !" And she fell, blushing, into her mother's arms. These three persons, at that moment, were wholly united in heart. But I should not say three ! — ^they were one. Through love, they existed in their daughter, she in them. There was no need to speak a single word ; they understood each other so well. They no longer saw each other distinctly, for it was already dusk ; and they went out, dim and shadowy — the father supporting her on his arm, the mother embracing the little one, and supported by her. No longer could be heard the songs of birds, but only their faint twitterings, their last confidential chat, as they crowded into the nest. These murmurs are very charming and very various; some noisy and eager, overjoyed at meeting again; others very melancholy, troubled by the shadows of night, seemed to say to each other, " Who is sure of waking to-mor- row ?" The trustful nightingale returning to its nest, almost on the ground, crossed the court at their very feet ; and the mother, tenderly moved, bade it good-night : " God keep thee, poor little thing !" Nothing is easier than the revelation of sex to a child thus prepared. For her who is kept in ignorance of its general laws, who learns the whole mystery at once, it is a serious and a dangerous thing. What are we to think of the imprudence of those parents who leave this revelation to chance ? For what is chance ? It is often some companion, neither innocent nor of pure imagination ; oftener than would be believed, it is a flippant sensual speech from a boy, some near relative Itlany mothers will indignantly deny this-; their children ar. all perfect ; — they are so infatuated with their sons as to dis^ believe truth itself. History as a Basis of Faith. 103 However that may be, if this mystery be not revealed by the mother, it may be overwhelming and blasting, annihilating the judgment. At such a time, before she recovers herself, the poor little one is, as it were, at any one's mercy. As for her who has early and naturally learned of the generation of plants and of insects, who knows that in every species life renews itself from the egg, and that all nature is engaged in the perpetual labor of ovulation, she is not at all astonished to find herself subject to the same common law. The painful changes which every month accompany the phe- nomenon seem also very natural, when she has seen the same laborious processes in the inferior creatures. All this appears to her noble, grand, and pure, as it harmo- nizes with the general law of creation — grander still when she sees in it the' continual restoration of what death destroys. "Death pursues us, and hurries us on, my dear child," saya her mother ; " our only defence is in marriage. Your father and I shall die ; and to compensate for our loss, it will be necessary foi you, probably, even before that time, to leave us and be married. Like me, you will with great pain give birth to children, who perhaps will not live, or, if they do live, will leave you. This is what I foresee, and it makes me weep. — But I am wrong ; our lot is in common with that of all creatures, and it is God's will." HISTORY AS A BASIS OF TAITH. RoTJSSEAu, first among the moderns to establish systems ot education, seems to me not to have seen clearly that a system is not everything. He is concerned only as to the way in which the pupil may be formed ; or, rather, how the pupil, assisted in his own proclivities, may form himself, and become capable 104 History as a Basis of Faith. of learning everything. I am not criticizing his work ; I sitn ply remark that "he says not a single word about the second problem of education : What shall he th^ principal object of study? What shall this pupil be taught ? Suppose Rousseau has succeeded in forming an energetic, active mind, inde- pendent of ordinary routines — to what shall it apply itaelf? Is there not some science in which it may find its develop- ment, its natural gymnastics ? It is not enough to create the subject ; we must determine the object on which it may be exercised with the most advantage. I will call this object, the substance of education. In my opinion, this should be altogether different, as it is to be applied to the boy or the girl. If we desire better results in education than we have achieved heretofore, we must gravely consider the incalculable differences which not only separate but even oppose the two sexes — which constitute them harmonious opponents. Their vocations and natural tendencies differ ; so should their education differ — differ in method — harmoni2n;ng for the girl, strengthening for the boy, — differ in its object, as to the j)rincipal study on which the miild should be exercised. \ For man, who is called to labor, to battle with the world, the great study is History, the_st^ry_of Jhis combat — history aided by languages7in each of which is the genius^f a people ■ — ^history prompted by Right, writing under and for it, con- stantly inspired, revised, and corrected by eternal Justice. For woman, the gentle mediator between nature. and man, between father and child, the study, thoroughly practical, rej u- venating, and embellishing, is Nature. The man passes from drama to drama, not one of which re- ' sembles another, from experience to experience, from battle to battle. History goes forth, ever far-reaching, and continually crying to him : " Forward !" The woman, on the contrary, follows the noble and serene epic that Nature chants in her harmonious cycles, repeating herself with a touching grace of constancy and fidelity. Those History as a Basis of Faith. 103' refrains in her lofty song bestow peace, and, if I maj say so, a relative ohangelegsness. _This is why the study of Nature never wearies, nev&r jades; and woman can . trustingly give herself up to it, for Nature is a woman. History, which we very foolishly put L* the feminine gender, is a rude, savage male, a sun-burnt,' cpJfeljr traveller. , God forbid that I should lead the tender feet of this child thi'ough so rough a pilgrimage she would soon droop, her breath would fail her, and, fainting she would sink on the highway. ( History ! my daughter, history ! I must indeed give you some of it ; and I will give it to you, fresh and strong, sim- ple, honest, bitter as it is ; fear not that, in tenderness, I will sweeten it with poisonous honey. But I am not required to make you swallow the whole, poor child, to pour down your throat in torrents that terrible tonic in which poison pre dominates, to make you empty even to the dregs the cup of Mithridates. What I owe you of history is, first, your own story ; what I should tell you is of ^your own cradle, and of that which sup- ports the very prop of your moral life. I should tell you firsi how you were born — the pain, the infinite cares of your mo ther, and all her watchings ; how many times she has suffered, wept, almost died for you. Let that history, my child, hb your cherished legend, your pious souvenii-, your first religion here below. Then I should tell you briefly what is and what was your second mother — that noble mother, your Country. God has granted you the distinction to be born in this land of France, with which the whole world, my child, is either enraged or enamored ; no one is indifierent to her — all speak either good or evil of her — right or wrong, who knows ? As for us, we say of her only thus — that, " Men suffer gaily nowhere but in France. Hers are the only people who know how to die." 5* io6 History as a Basis of Faith. Of the long lives- of your fathers you will know the greal events if j-ou learn that at the sacred perio^when your country was laid upon the altar, Paris proclaimed to France the wish, the resolve of all, " To lose themselves in me great whole." From this united effort France becam^as one person ; she fell her heart heating, and questione(J^-;' and she discerned in that first throb, the holy brotherEood of earth, the wisli to fi'ee the world. This is your pedigree, oh maiden ! exalt it, and may you love only heroes ! From France you shall go forth into the world, "We will prepai'e together, just as in a garden, plots of ground suitable to plant nations in. Pleasant and animating is the study of soils, of climates, of the forrns of the globe, which in so many ways have determined the actions of men, and often made their history in advance. Here the earth has commanded, man obeyed ; and sometimes, such or such a vegetable, such or such a regimen, has made such or such a civilization. Some- times the internal force of man has uprisen to react, to strug- gle against this ; in these combats the good friend of your child-, hood. Nature, and the natural sciences unite, and harmonize with the moral sciences, in which life will initiate you. Is the teaching of history the same for boys and girls ? Yes, doubtless, as a basis of faith. To both it imparts its rich moral fruit, strength to tlie heart, and nourishment to life-*— to wit, the grand consent of the human soul on the question of justice, the historic agreement of the creeds of the human race as to duty and God. But let it be better understood that, man being destined for business, to a combat with the world, history is peculiarly • ■Adapted to prepare him for it. To him it is the treasure-house of experience, an arsenal of the weapons of all kinds that he shall wield'to-morrow. For the girl, history is principally a moral and religious basis. History as a Basis of Faith. 107 Woman, who seems so changeable, and who douhUosfS i? physically renewed_,ii)X>nth by month, must yet fulfil on earth, much more inexorably than man, two fixed conditions Every woman is an. altar, a pure and holy thing, where man, bewildered by life, may at aU times go for faith, and find again his own .cfliiscienoe, preserved purer than in himself. Every woman is a school, and it is really from her that generations receive their creeds. Long before the father dreams of edu- cating, the mother has inculcated her own teachings, which will never be effaced. - The daughter must have a religious belief. Snares will soon be set for her, and the most dangerous jjro- ceed from the uprooting of established faith. She will not be twenty, perhaps but two years married, a mere child, when they will begin to explore the ground. Pleasant people will come to chat, to laugh at everything, to ridicule everything good that her father had been able to teach her, the simple faith of her mother, the thoughtfulness of her husbajid — to make her think it fine to laugh at everything with them, and deem nothing sure here below. She must have a faith, so that this base and selfish trifling may create in her only disgust, so that she may oppose it with the seriousness, the gentle firmness, of a soul which has for itself a fixed foundation of belief, planted in reason, in sim- plicity of heart, in the concurring, -unanimous heart-voice of the nation^. From the very first, the father and mother should agree that under the successive forms in which, according to her age, history shall be presented to her, she shall always- pel;- ceive its moral harmony and its holy unity. Her mother, under the lacteal form^^^^^tEarTs7~thrbugh the pleasant medium of a language simplified for her — will have told her, at first, of some of the great" and prominent events, which she has described in her own way. Her father, in the intermedial age (ten or twelve years perhaps), will have given her care fully selected readings from original writers — some story of \ lo8 History as a Basis of Faith. Heredotus, the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, the Life of Alexander the Great, some of the beautiful Bible stories ; to whichjnay be added the Odyssey, and those modern Odyssej's, our own fine travels; all these to be read very slowly, and always in the same spirit, so as to show her, under such external differences of manners, habits, religions, how little man himself has changed. For the most part the discords are but seeming discords, or sometimes demanded by pecu- liarities of race or climate. Common sense will explain all that. As to the family, for instance, we see clearly that it cannot be the same under the physical fatalities of that hot-bed of India, where the wife is a child, married at eight or ten. But as soon as we come into a free and natural world, the ideals of family are absolutely identical. It is the same in Zoroaster, in Homer, the same in Socrates (see the admirable passage fi'om the Economics of Xenophofl), the same, finally, in Rome, and among us. We learn from Aristophanes that the Greek women, not at all dependent, ruled at home, and often exer- " cised a powerful itfluence in the state. We see this in Thu- cydides, where the men had voted for the massacre of Lesbos; but returning home at night, and confronting their wives, they retracted und reversed their decree. Laws deceive us greatly. It is supposed, for example, that wherever the son-in-law pays the father, he purchases his wife, and she is his slave. But that is a mistake. This form of marriage exists indeed in Africa, and yet it is among those very tribes that the wife, free and a queSn, rules — and not the man (Livingston). The pEiyment does not constitute the purchase of the wife, but an indemnity to her father for the prospective children which shall not profit his family, but the oiie into which the wife is about to enter. It is curious to note how sceptics seize upon this, to create discords and exceptions to the rule, and to prove that there ig 110 rule. The enemies of moral sense and buman reason have no choice but to seek in the most suspicious sources for factg not easily understood. History as a Basis of Faith. lOQ " But," says the father, " whence shall I derive penetra- lion enough to fibd my own way, and to guide my child through so many obscurities ?" Strong and genuine criticism is born of the heart, rather than the intellect ; -it springs from loyalty, from the impartial sympathy we owe to our brothers of the past and of 'the present. With this you will have no difficulty in tracing through history the great unchang- ing current of human morality. Will you believe one who has made the great voyage more than once ? His experience is precisely that of th'e voyager as he sails out of the Caribbean Sea ; at the first glance, ha sees only the wide expanse of water ; in the second, on the green field he discerns a broad band of blue ; that is the immense torrent of warm floods which, crossing the Atlantic, reaches Ireland, still warm, and is not entirely cooled even at Brest. He sees it perfectly, and moreover, can feel its warnith on the passage. Just so will the ^reat current of jnoral tra- dition appear, if you scan the ocean of history with careful eyes. But long before we reach this eleva^ted simplification, in which history becomes identical with morality itself, I should desire my young maiden to be pleasantly nourished with pure and wholesome reading, borrowed especially from anti- quity, from the primitive East. How happens it that we put into the hands of children the history of grown up nations only, while we leave them ignorant of the infancy and youth of the world ? If some one would collect a few of the truly sjiii-itual hymns of the Vedas, some of the prayers and lawh of Persia, so pure and so heroic, and add a few of those touch- ing pastorals from the Bible, such as the stories of Jacob, Ruth, and Tobias, he would present the young girl with an incompara . ble bouquet, whose perfume, early and slowly inhaled, would impregnate her innocent soul, and remain with her forever. No intricate subjects in the remote past for her ; banisb no History as a Basis of Faith. from her presence the Dantes and the Shakespeares, the sophists and magicians of the old age of the world. Put away, still more inexorably, jihistorical romances, that per- nicious literature which ope can never unlearn, and which makes us insensible to genuine history forever after, j She shoutd have the world's nursery song, the Iliad and Odyssey; the best book of all tor a young mind — itsel-f young too, but so "wise ! Furthermore, in order to know which books are suited to her, you must classify them according to the quality of light that illumines and colors them. The literature of every age seems to correspond to some hour of the day; Herodotus and Homer evei-ywhere reflect the morning, and it prevails in all the memorials of Greece ; the Aurora seems always to smile upon its monuments, everywhere is diflFused a transpa- rency, a strange serenity, a classic joyfulness, which wins and delights the heart. The Indian dramas and poems, modern in comparison with the Vedas, possess a thousand beauties to charm the imagina- tion of the child and entrance her young girl's heart. But I am in no haste for those ; they are all teeming with the ener- vating heats of mid-day — a world of ravishing illusions dreamed in the^ shades of enchanted forests. To her happy lover, I will leave the voluptuous pleasure of reading Sakountala to her in some bower of flowers. It is at evening or at night that the greater part of the Bible seems to have been written ; all those terrible questions which torture human reason are therein laid down harshly and with savage crudeness. The alienation of man from God, of the son from the father, the fearful problem of the Origin of Evil,, and all those perplexities of the latest-born people, ot Asia, — I would forbear from too early agitating a yomig heart with these. Of what possiblfe use, forsooth, could it be, to read to her the lamentations of David in the dark- ness, beating his breast, torn with anguish for the murder of Uriah ? History as a Basis of Faith. 1 1 1 Strong wine for men, and milk for babes. I am ol A and almost worn out ; the sacred book is for such as I. But in it man falls, and rises but to fall again — how many, many thnes! how can I explain all that to my dear innocent? May she long be ignorant of the strife of the homo duplex ! It is not that the Bible presents the enervating sensuality to be found in the mystics of the Middle Ages, but for her it i» too violent —ever disturbed, and without rest. Another consideration which would make me hesitate to allow her the Bible too soon, is that hatred of Nature which the Jews evince throughout. They evidently fear from it, the seductions of Egypt or Babylon. But whatever the cause, it' invests tbeir writings with a negative, critical character, a gloomy austerity, which, moreover, is not always pure : a state of feeling exactly opposed to that which I wish for our child, who should be the incarnation of innocence, joy, and serenity ; full of sytapathy with Nature, and especially with the animals, to which the Jews cruelly gave a base name. Rather may my little one be possessed by the tender sentiment of the glorious East, which blesses all life ! Daughter, let us read together — in that bible of light, the Zend-Avesta — the ancient and sacred lamentation of the Cow, appealing to man and reminding him of her gifts. Let us read those powerful lines, ever true and living, in which man acknowledges what he owes to the companions of his toil, th« strong bull, the watchful dog, the good mother Earth. The Soil is not insensible, and what she says to the husbandman will endure for ever. (Zend. ii. 284.) -Be pure that you may he strony, he strong that you may he. fi-uitful, is the whole meaning of that system of law — one of the most humane, most harmonious, that God has given to man. Every morning before light, while the tiger still prowls, twc 1 12 History as a Basis of Faith. comrades go forth, — a man and his dog. We are speaking of the primitive dog, that colossal mastiflf without which th« land would then have been uninhabitable, a creature at once friendly and formidable, which alone could overcome monsters. One that was exhibited before Alexander strangled a lion in Iiis presence. Man had then no weapon but the short, heavy swoVd, such as is depicted on monuments, with which, face to face, breast to breast, he stabbed the lion. Every day, protected by his faithful dog, he breaks the land ; he sows it with good seed, waters it, and tills it with the plough ; he refreshes it with fountains, and his own heart is refreshed with the beneficent work of Law : so he returns from it sanotified. The companion' of this noble life of toil and danger, woman, his efficient wife, the mistress of his house, receives him at the threshold, and restores him with food from her own hand : he eats what she gives him, and ailows her to nourish him like a child, for she knows everything, — the virtues of all, plants, those which give health, and those which cheer the heart. Here woman is a magician, a queen ; she subdues even the conqueror of lions. That world of ancient Persia was a virginal world, fresh as the dew before dawn. I can almost feel the circulation through it, of those forty thousand subterranean canals of which Herodotus speaks — Chidden veins, which re-animated the earth, and snatched living water from the thirst of the burn- ing gun, to refresh the longing lips of innumerable roots, and gladden the heavy hearts of trees! Pallas.^ — Reason, 113 XL PALLAS. REASON. Mt dear child, you have as yet hardly been in the galleries of sculpture ; your mother thinks them too cold, and we have always preferred to ascend to the upper story of the Louvre,, to the warm, breathing world of pictures. And yet, espe- cially in the summer, it is a place of sublime repose, of silence, where one may meditate and study better than in the museum above. To-day, while her duties detain your mother at home, let us, together, make a pilgrimage to that solemn country of the dead. Nations and Schools are not classified here as in the picture- gallery. The pure and lofty antiques are too often found side by side with the works of the Decadence. There is no con- fusion, however. So proud, so sublime, so simple are the true children of Greece, that even in the midst of Romans- emperors and senators — it is they who are glorious, who triumph, — the Greeks, who seem masters of the world. The low passions which characterize the busts of the Empire (the Agrippas, the Vitelliuses, etc.) had no part in their noble pre- decessors. A sublime serenity is the attribute of these sons of the ideal ; on their brows is the same reflection with which Aurora gilds the dome of the Acropolis of Athens, while their deep eyes denote not soft revery, but subtile intuition, and masculine reason. You have read Plutarch's Lives, and you seek here for the. great dead, the objects of your preference; but those interest- ing and romantic biographies of the Decadence afford an idea quite opposed to that of the genius of antiquity. They pro- claim the Hero to enthrone and deify him ; on the other hand, the glory of the Greek world consisted in being a heroic peo- ple, where there were, nevprtbeless, no heroes — where no oru man was a hero, and yet all were. By physical and mental' 114 Pallas. — Reason. discipline every citizen reached the perfection of his beauty, and attained the heroic climax, so as closely to resemble tho gods. By an incessant activity, by contests, by discussions in the forum and the schools, by the theatre, by festivals with games and combats, the Greek evolved everything strong and beautiful in his nature, and moulded himself unwearyingly to the likeness of Apollo and Hercules, borrowing the strength of the one, the graceful elegance and lofty melody of the other, or the -meditative faculty of the Minerva of Athens. "Were all the Greeks born beautiful ? It would be absurd to suppose so ; but they knew how to make themselves beau- tiful. " Socrates was born a very satyr. But within and without he so transformed himself by this sculpture of rear son, of virtue and devotion, he so improved his face, that at last a god looked through it, by whom the Phaedon ia illumined." Let us enter this large hall, at the farther end of which Btands the colossal statue of Melpomene, and, without going BO far, let us stop a moment before this figure of Pallas. It is a sculpture of Roman times, but copied from a Greek Pal- las, perhaps from that of Phidias. The face wears precisely -the same expression as the well-known faces of Pericles and The- mistocles ; that expression — ^to name it aright — is thought, wisdom, or rather reflection. To reflect is' to turn one's thought back upon itself, to take it for its own object, to look at it as in a mirror. Thus it will apparently be doubled, so that the thought gazing fixedly upon itself will expand and develop itself, by the analysis of language, or by the inner speech of dumb reason. The lofty genius of Greece did not consist in the ability of a Ulysses or a Themistocles, who made her mistress of Asia, but in this invention of the process of reasoning, which made the Greeks the great teachers for all time to come. Pallas. — Reason. i 15 Poetic and prophetic intuition, the Oriental process, so sub- lime in the Jewish writings, followed a no less thorny path, full of mists and mirage. It was arbitrary, besides, depend- ing on the wholly involuntary chance of inspiration. For this obscure process, Greece substituted a vigorous method of seeking and finding, of coming with certainty into the open day, by ways known to all, where one may pass and repass, and make a thorough exploration. Man thus becomes his own architect, and the builder of his own destiny — no particular man but any man whosoever — not the elect, nor the prophet, nor the special favorite of God. With this art of reasoning, Athens gave to aU the world an instrument of equality. Until then there had been no connecting link. There were blind bursts of emotion, and attempts at reflection, but that speedily came to nought ; all was unconnected and fortuitous — nothing regular. Until then all progress was by fits and starts ; no true his- tory of the improvement of the human race has been possible. Asia possesses little of the historical eleinent ; her scanty annals afford but isolated facts, from which one can draw no conclusion. Indeed, what conclusion can we draw from events ordered by fate, and uncontrolled by wisdom ? But from the day that reasoning became an art, a science, from the day that the virgin Pallas gave birth to the faculty of deduction and comparison, in its clear form, there has existed a regular, uninterrupted descent for human works. The stream flowed on, and has never stopped — ^from Solon to Papinian, from Socrates to Descartes, from Archimedes to Newton. In you, as in us all, my child, this great power ; it ia only necessary to cultivate it. I do not ask you to apply yourself to the most abstract subjects, to translate Newton, ti6 Pallas. — Reason. for instance, like a celebrated woman of the last century ; I do not ask you to teach the higher giathematics to a circle ol attentive men and respectful pupils, as I saw a lady do at Granville, in 1859; hut I should be very happy if, in the misfortunes which may cloud your life, you could find distrac- tion in those pure and exalted regions. The love of the beautiful is so indigenous to the heart of womauj that to feel herself growing more beautiful will console her for anything Purity, nobleness, the elevation of a life turned wholly toward the true, is a recompense for the loss of all earthly happi- ness. It may be that even that would no longer be remem- bered. We have had an example of this in an admirable child, the young Emilia, daughter of Manin. She had early suffered the heaviest sorrows, — the loss of her mother, the ruin of her father, and the fearful tragedy of Venice, the results of which fell upon her ; exile and poverty, and the gloomy life of northern towns, completed her_ desolation. But the most terrible result was, that this suffering image of the martyr- dom of Italy, who endured all its horrors, was subject to the agonizing paroxysms of a cruel nervous malady. Ah ! through all this that young daughter of grief kept her mind serene and elevated, loving abstract purity — algebra and geo- metry! She so sustained her father by this sublime serenity, that he consulted her in everything, and even after he had lost her acted as she would have advised. " I think," said he to me, speaking of a certain patriotic scheme, " that my daughter would have approved it." Is there any difference between God and Reason? It would be impious to believe it. And of all the forms of Eter- nal Love (beauty, fascination, power), no doubt Reason is the first, the most exalted. It is through Reason that Diviua love possesses harmony and the order which blesses — ^benefi Andrea del Sarto's 'Charity." 117 cent, 'benevolent order; and though she appears cold, she is, nevertheless, loving. We shall not always live to love and protect you; pei-hap like other women, you will be alone in the world. Well, let your father's heart appoint you a protectress, a -grave and faithful guardian who will never fail you — rl vow and dedicate my darling to the Virgin of Athens — ^to Reason 1 XII. The attentive reader, I doubt not, has been able to seize upon the double thread of the methods I have pursued in the three last chapters, methods equally rigid, although one seemed to respect and" caress Nature, and the other to contradict her. From the day when my little girl, on the delicate ground between two seasons of life, was in her turn attacked by that delicious malady which is only love, I have successively em- ployed two medicines, not to eradicate, but to change it. I would not cheat love, for -which I have that tender respect that we owe to all the good things of God, but extend it, satisfy it better than it could satisfy itself, ennoble it, and elevate it to worthier objects. The reader has seen that at the moment of the change — towards fourteen, or rather a little before, when I saw it approaching-^I made use of what might be termed homoeo- pathic remedies, balancing and opposing like with like. I 1:1 8 Andrea del- Sarto's "Charity." gave as a counterpoise to the sexual emotion, the matei'nal -passion, and the care of little children. But in the years which have followed, with allopathic art I have filled her mind with new studies, with pure and quiet reading. In the pleasing variety of travels and histories I have taught her to find for herself the solid moral basis on which her life is to rest — the oneness of man's faith, in duty and in God. ^Jlftjias seen^^aiiii- nature, -she sees him-iuJbigf ory ; she perceives in eternal love the link between those two worlds which she has studied apart — with what deep and tender feel ing ! But have I not created danger here, and wiU not this young loving heart grow bewildered, and under the guise of purity, in a higher sphere, pursue a whirlwind of disorders no less dangerous? As to this, everything depends upon the mother. At the first shock of nature, the tender, troubled child, was wholly in her mother's arms ; and found therein not only warm caresses but dreams too. A woman is so moved when her child be- comes a woman, that she herself becomes a child ; she fears for her adored treasure, now totteiing and fi'ail ; she prays and weeps, and easily falls back upon the weakness of a mys- ticism by which both may be enervated. And then what will become of me ? _ Of what use that I have given this flower healthful and strengthening waters, if a weak mother is to keep it sickly with milk and with tears, and what is worse, dosed with quackeries ? Of all corrupting romances the worst are the mystical books wherein soul talks with soul in the dangerous hours of an artificial twilight. She believes she is growing in grace, and she goes on languishing, softening, preparing herself for all human weaknesses. The rough, harsh, and violent agitation of the Jewish writings,, is sickly and feverish in those of the middle ages ; how much more so in their modern imitations, 80 disastrously equivocal ! My young daughter, who from jrear to year, by an entirely opposite path, has ascended to Andrea del Sarto's "Chanty." ug the idea of God (of God strong, living, and creating), has lesa to fear than others ; but it is just at this moment that I intend to arm her ; to protect her young head with something to put dreams to flight — the luminous steellielmet of the true virgin, Pallas. The mental dialogue I would begin in her is not at all that of dangerous revery, but the rigid- questionings of thought, fully awakened, with thought itself. There, higher than reasoning she perceives Reason. Above the spheres of life which'she has traversed, she sees the crystal sphere, where the Jdea in full light has penetrated through and through. And so beautiful and pure is this, that she loves and adores Purity for its own sake. This is the love which in her has transfigured love, and this is how I have defended her heart. But will this always avail ? I must not so flatter myself. Poor child ! it is not her fault ; it is nature's, who every day enriches her with strength, embellishes her with a luxury of life, and makes a magic charm of her. A maiden of pure and lofty heart, of upright and enlightened vdH, she seems by that very purity to ofier a worthier prize to the imperious^ power. Her eyes and her thoughts are on heaven, her heart intent on serious subjects, her virtuous mind which can con- trol itself shuns no abstraction. But it often happens that in the very midst of these noble studies some one disturbs her (who, indeed ?) ; her cheek suddenly flushes, her beautifu) eyes wander and grow dim — a wave of life has ascended and flooded her young bosom. She is a woman — so what can one do? she radiates all around her a seductive electricity. Under the forests of the equator, love, in myriads of creatures, burst forth from flame itself, through the magic of the winged fires that transfigure the night. ^ Naive revelations these, but not more so than the timid innocent charm of a maiden, thinking to conceal all. A divine light emanates from her involuntarily, a voluptuous halo ; and at the very moment when she blushes at her own beauty, does she diffuse around her the intoxicating perfume of love. 120 Andrea del Sarto's "Charity." " O my dear child, I cannot, I will not, leave you thus 1 You would be consumed even as a taper. With that dangei'- ous fever which would destroy you, we must blend another to dissipate it. A devouring power possesses you, but I will give it food ; anything is better, my darling, than to see you pine alone. Receive from me the cordial, one flame to quench another ; take (it is your father who administers) bitterness and sorrow. "Sheltered by our love, shut in with your own thoughts and your studies, you know but little of the world's labors, of the immensity of its wretchedness. Save a glance at a crying child, so quickly comforted, you have never yet suspected the numberless griefs here below. You were weak and deUcate ; and your mother and I did not dare to excite you with so many heart-rending emotions ; but to-day we should be culpa- ble not to tell you all." So I take her with me, and lead her boldly through that sea of tears which flows by our very side without attracting our notice. I tear away the curtain, regardless of the physical disgust, the false delicacy : Look, look, my child ! behold the reality ! In the presence of such things a woman must be endowed with marvellous powers of egotistic abstraction, to pursue her dreams and her personal idyl — her idle sail over the stream of Love, whose banks are gay with flowers. She blushes for her ignorance, is troubled, and weeps. And then, recovering herself, blushes for weeping instead of acting. The flame of God burns brightly within her, and henceforth she gives us no peace. All the powers of love, the warmth of her young blood, enlisted in charity, rouse her to activity, to enthusiasm; she is impatient, unhappy that she can do so little. How shall we calm her now? it is her mother's task to direct her, watch her, restrain her ; for with this blind enthusiasm, she may precipitate herself into un- known dangers. The intoxication of charity and its heroic fire, that ravish- ing passion of maidens ovei"flowing with love, has never been Andrea del Sarto's "Charity." iji described ; but it has been painted once. An Italian exile, touched with gratitude for the charity of France, besto\v(;d upon us this inestimable gift, the most feryid picture, I think, n tlie Museum of the Louvre. Alas ! why is it theri; among so many common works of art, that inspiration of exalted sanctity I And how altered too ! Barbarians ! hea thens ! thanks to you, this divine wonder has almost perished on the canvas. But in my glowing memory it is always blazing ; and to my last moment, more than any other saintly image, shall it have my devotio|i. The following, without alteration, is the hasty informal note I wrote on the 2l8t of May last, when I saw it for the last time : " A work of infinite boldness, without conventionality or deference to rule. In it we see that terrible period, of the^ catastrophe of Italy. One must have died many times to be able to describe or paint like this. "The fah', fuU breast is that of a virgin, not a ^vife — wives too are more timid. The one before us has not beeu subdued ; she has nothing dodging about her, she wavers neither to the right hand nor the left — has no fear, no doubt. She only looks on those poor starving wretches, and that is enough ; she feeds them. (Here we must explain, that at this period a man cross- ing the Alps encountered an immense troop of thousands of >,hildren who had lost their parents ; they were browsing en ill fours, guided by an old woman.) " Before ( his horrible spectacle of misery and filth, another ffould have wept, but would have fled. She, young, heroic, knowing neither fear nor disgust, opens wide her arms, and takes them to her bosom. " One is at her feet, all haggard, his ribs distinctly visible ;- he is tired, exhausted, and can go no further ; with weariness and sleepiness he has fallen on a stone. As she has but two arms 6 121 Andrea del Sarto's. " Charity." she holds but two of the children ; one she has placed at her bosjm, her luxurious bosom, turgid with milk. He is in per- fect happiness, and his greedy, gluttonous mouth (for he has been famished so long!) presses the beautiful fountain, red with life and love, with pure and generous blood. " With how proud a heart, with what noble bounty, she pours out her milk ! A naive circumstance betrays the charm- ing precipitation with which she took up the starving child. She is not a nurse ; so she has placed him to her breast just as he came, holding him on her left arm, which she has passed under him with tender strength, without ever thinking of the right way. But how could one laugh> at that ? No more than he could smile at the bold negligence with which the young saint, wholly absorbed in her passionate employment, has put on her cap awry. The other child, which she holds on her right arm to her covered bosom, is larger, stronger, more decent — I was about to say more corrupt. He has a girdle - about his waist, and is not dressed like a boy, but already has the cringing, fSwning air of a young beggar ; his sharp trem- bling lips seem to utter a iarsh, piercing prayer through his clenched teeth. He holds in his hands, I think, some bad, Bom- grapes ; but is in haste to forget in the pleasure of the rich sweet milk of the woman, that bitter food. He will not be kept waiting long ; his comrade has imbibed so much that he is swollen like a leech. " Near by, on the ground, is a chafing-dish with afire of red- hot coals and embers — ^but so cold in comparison with the fire that, glows in her heart! Her form too glows, and she has the grand calmness of strength, a firm heroic attitud e^ a throne in the grace of God." The Revelation of Heroism. 123 XIII. THE REVELATION OF HEROISM. Feoebel, in his Education of ChUdreD, suggests a very happy expedient. He requires that they be reared independently of their teacher, hy a lovely and accomplished young lady, such as a man would desire for his wife. How grateful we should be to the children 1 He advises that this young girl shall visit the schools often, to assist the teacher and assume her qualities. The teacher must be careful, loving, intelligent, with that un- wearying patience that love alone can give. The young women who assist her should be like her, or gradually become so, by means of that which renders a woman capable of everything — the love of children, the maternal instinct. Must they be per- fect? In this way, at least, they will become so. Plappy children, to be in such pleasant hands ! And how much more so, indeed, the lover to whose lot shall fall the divinest of the gifts of heaven. Madame Necker is of the same opinion. She thinks we can form the girl into an admirable wife by thus first making a mother of her. How much these poor little things who hcr,^ nothing, can bestow on the yqung lady ! First, a knowledge of life, with all its realities and miseries ; for they will show her the world as it is. They will strengthen her character, and relieve her of her false delicacy. She will not be the haughty prude, the fasti- dious fine lady, that we meet every day. Shp will become skilful and bold, will feel the sacredness of humanitv, and the dignity of charity ; she will have none of the silly sci uples of those who have nothing better; calmly, and with dignity, will she per- form the most menial offices — feeding, bathing, dressing, and undressing, if need be, her innocents. 1 24 The Revelation of Heroism. A thoughtful girl, who has thus, at the same time, both the ideal of study and the reality of life, will be strengthened by both, and derive from them a correct judgment. When she is older, she will not know a gentleman by his yellow gloves, or his horses and carriages, but by his aetions,^by his heart and his goodness. She wiU love only seriously, paying little attention to externals, but penetrating to the depths of her lover's character, for what he does, and of what be is capable. Suppose that by chance a young man enters and discovers her with her mother, engaged in her holy duties. The chil- dren, a little frightened at the advent of so fine a gentleman, cling close and cluster around her, behind her chair, on her knees, even under the folds of her dress, where, feeling safe, they peep out and show their pretty heads. She, though surprised and smiling, blushes a little ; do you fancy she will take refuge behind her mother ? No, she is herself a mother to them, busied in comforting them, more concerned for them than for her visitor. It is he who is embarrassed ; he feels like kneel- ing before them to kiss their hands. He does not address the daughter, but approaches the mother : " Ah ! madam, what a pleasant sight, what a charming scene ! I cannot tell you how my heart thanks you for it." Then to the young lady : " He would be happy, njademoiselle, who could aid you ! But, mon Dieu ! what could I do ?" She, quite at her ease, in no wise disconcerted, replies: " That is ear" sir. Most of these children are orphans ; find some good people without children, who would be willing to adopt this little one. He is five years old. I cannot comfort him ; he wants a mother, a recU mother ; I have tried my best, but I am too young, too far from the age of his own mother whom he has lost." There are many men of the world, who feel these things for a moment, who admire as artists the grace of expression The Revelation of Heroism. 125 or attitude the young girl may have displayed ; but there are not many who take them into their hearts and preserve theii permanent and lasting impression. Life is variable and I'cstless ; it drifts them far away. At most, they only say in the even ing : " I saw a charming thing this morning, mademoiselle — a veritable tableau, after Andrea del Sarto — the pi'ettiest sight !" She very well knows what such admirers are worth, and the slight value to be placed on their fickle emotions, The more she retires into the sanctum sanctissimum of the family, the happier she is in it, the less she cares to. leave it. Every time she catches a glimpse of the world, she feels more cheerfully the pleasantness of her own little nest. Little, very little ! yet human life is complete within it, in that graceful equilibrium of a mother ennobling by her heart the humblest cares, and of an earnest father, whose hidden tenderness is often betrayed in spite of himself. At such passionate demonstrations the young girl quivers, and is even more deeply touched by his care to transmit to her every day whatever he has in himself of good and g-eat. As a woman, she is happy in thus discovering the inner life of a man. She did not know her father, at least never so well as now ; she saw him every day, and listened .to his teachings, and his emphatic words ; but she did not know the secret and best part of his nature. Every man becomes what circum- stances, the force of precedents, and education, the necessities of business, may chance to make him. Much must be sacri- ficed to position, to the needs of Family; and thus the inner man, often very dififerent and far nobler, lies stifled under all. Amid the monotony of every-day life, wherein it sleeps, a vague sadness betrays the mute complaint cf the other, the better self. What a pleasant awaking is it, then, and how charming, when a young soul,' knowing nothing of our miseries, appeals to these hidden powers, to this captive poetry, and asks their assistance ; when all absorbed in her family, and afraid of the world, she turns alone to her father 126 The Revelation of Heroism. and seems to say to him: "I listen to thee, I have faith only in thee !" Doubtless this suhlime moment is the noblest, the sweetest expeiience of paternity. A child in docUity, she is a woman in firdor, and in the eager tenderness with which she receives instruction. How aptly she comprehends everything good and noble! He himself hardly recognises her: "What!" says he, " is this my little one who but lately scarcely reached my knee, and who used to say, 'carry me!'" His heart is truly moved. Let him but speak at this moment, let him but speak, and, oh ! he will be eloquent ! I am quite sure of that, I have not the slightest doubt of that. Let MS take advantage of these beautiful hours, these pre- cious tete-a-tetes. I see the two walking now under the majestic elms that inclose their little garden. They step with a quick firm tread, faster than one -would expect in this hot month of July ; but they keep time with the beating of their hearts and the rapidity of their thoughts. She, knowing her father's taste, has placed in her black hair some blades of gi'ain and blue blossoms. We will listen to their talk, for the subject is a grave one, the question of right and justice. For a long time the young. girl has been prepared to understand him; in his- tory she soon recognised the unanimity of nations in the idea of justice ; in mighty Rome, her father showed her a world of right. But here it is no longer a question of sfudy^ of his- tory, of science, but a question of life itself. He hopes that in her impending crisis, in the love which will come of it (violent perhaps, and blind), she may preserve the light of. justice, of wisdom, and of reason. At heart, woman is our ^udge ; her influence, her fascination, if it is unjust and capri-^ cioiis, is only our despair. To-morrow she will judge, this beauliflil girl. In the most modest form, in a few low wordn to her mother, she' will draw tears from one who may never weep again, who perchance wiU die for that. She is so well prepared both by the example of her mother, and the lessons of her father by the atmosphere of reason in The Revelation of Heroism, 127 which she has Kved, that she will be less liable than others to the caprices of her sex. But of the generality, we may say with Proudhon, " Woman is the desolation of the just." Say to her, for instance, if she loves ; " Of course, you deem this favored man, the most worthy of your lovers ? You have discovered in him something good and great?" And she will ' answer frankly, "N"o; I chose him because he pleased me.^' In religion she is the same. She makes God in her own image, a God of preference and caprice, who saves whosoever has pleased him. Love seems to her all the freer for falling on the unworthy, on one who has no merit to compel love. In feminine theology, God would say: "I love thee, because thou art a sinner, because thou deservest nothing. I have no reason for loving thee, but it is pleasant to me to forgive." Oh ! how thankful I am that her father has taught her jus- tice ! for that teaches her true love. I thank him in the name of all the loving hearts who wUl soon be agitated by her, who will hang upon her youthful wisdom, and wait for the decree ' of her lips. ' Let them know indeed that, thus enlightened, only to the most worthy, to the deserving, to the just man, above all to the man of noble deeds, in whom her father teaches her to recognise the lofty beauty of heroic justice, wiU she belong. What is this justice? It is the right beyond the right, md seemingly opposed to it; the injustice of Decius, who discovered that it was just for the best man to' die for all, ia the deeper mystery of devotion and sacrifice. Never until now had her father spoken to hgr of her own time, of the great nineteenth century, greatest in invention, and also one of the richest in ieroic devotion. To-day, he anveils to her that sacred bleeding side of the world, of which she has lived in such total ignorance ; he repeats to her the Golden Legend — of the martyrs dead and living. A great day for her young heart ! — and how it transfigures 128 The Revelation of Heroism. her ! Hew radiant this virgin, and who would not accept her now for a symbol of the future ? But no, she is a woman, and she turns pale ; her self-control cannot restrain a tear ; one orient pearl drops fl-om her beau tifiil eyes. Ye are rewarded, O ye heroes, who dying and bequeathing to your country all your dreams, said, " In the future, virgina shall weep for us." But enough, enough for one day. A gentle woman advances slowlj-, smiling and interrupting them. The mother is happy to see the father and daughter so closely united ; she looks on them, and blesses them, and says : " Ah I my poor little one ! this will be thy happiest love." But will she love elsewhere ? He has captured a glorious prize, this father, master, pontiff, who makes revelations of heroism to a young, heroic heart, and fathoms its lowest depths. One cannot talk much of heroes without being him- ■eelf a hero for the moment. Such indeed does he appear to the child who hangs upon his words ; he would paint his ideal, but she sees but him. We know the enthusiastic love of Mme. de StaSl for her father ; and I have no^oubt that that young girl, then all nature, all passion, powerful, eloquent, divine, exalted him above himself. He was great in her eyes, and that made him so — or at least contributed to it. Commonplace before and after, but in that solemn hour, young, bold, transfigured, ha arose to the noble idea of '89^— the infinite hope of equality. He might change, he might fall, and she too, under his inllu- «nce. No matter — the child's dream, one moment realized, took the measure of the whole world. This is a strong tie then, so strong that all others seem weak and insufiicient. I have seen other daughters, less The Revelation of Heroism. 129 known, but not less admirable, in whom this first affecticin seemed to have closed the heart against all others. The sweetness and delicacy of the close intimacy they enjoyed in the filial relation seemed attainable in no other. One had a father nearly blind, and she was his eyes; he saw through her, she loved through him. For another, the rest of the world had been destroyed, her father existed alone ; she declared that with him she would welcome the profoundest solitude at either pole. " Talk not to me," said she, " of the divorce that men cal! marriage !" For our own daughter there remains to us the serious duty of warning her of the common fate. Alas ! our pure and tender union can be but transient. Nature urges us on, and does not allow love to fall back upon itself. It is a painful task to tear heart from heart, to calm, to regulate the naive impulses of the child, and lead it on to wis- dom : " My dear (JhUd, in your beautiful season of eager and radiant life, which vivifies all things, one thing escapes you which you must sometimes recall — death ! "Our undying love can avail you nothing; your mother and I must soon leave vou. What, if loving me too well, you should wed, in me, grief? " Of late, the intimacy of this normal initiation, the deep joy I have felt in revealing to you the elements of man's greatness, have too fondly enraptured your heart, my child, and identified it with mine. You have seen me in your filial illusion, young with the eternal youth of the heroes I have described, and at the same time mature, calm, wise, with the gift you call the sweetness of autumn. All this, my daughter, Is not what God designs for you. For you is the beginning, not the end. You require the brave, fierce strength of those who have much to do, in whom time may do its work, to soften and ameliorate. Their present defects are often excellences in the future. Your gentleness is only too inclined to cherish the gentleness of a father. I wish for you — and may God grant you — ^the enei-gy of a husband. (,* 130 The' Revelation of Heroism. " At this very time you are already the beginning of a wife : another initiation awaits you, and other duties. Wife and mother, wise friend, and universal comforter, you are created to be the happiness and the salvation of many. Take heart, tlien, my daughter, and the cheerful courage OTie feels in marching to duty. Though my heart may suffer in teach- ing you these sterner laws of life, it yet bears itself proudly. " Does the lover exist whom we would desire for you ? 1 know not ; but whatever happens, love will not fail you. The niatemal is the purest love, and you will be a mother to all. All shall recognise in you the most benign reflection of Provi- derce." Book II.^Woman in the Famtly. I. THE WOMAN WHO WILL LOVE MOST. A DIFFERENT RACE Bbfoke pursuing further the young girl's destiny, which in our first book we liave been tracing, let us take a general view of marriage, and the physiological questions of race and' amalgamation. Love is the mediator of the world, the redeemer of all human races. Love means peace, harmony, unity, and is the great peace-maker. Political hostilities, discords, contrary in- terests, all these are as nothing to it ; it cancels and overcomes them ; or, even more, it laughs and mocks at them. Diversity indeed is the very thing it prefers ; contrast is a seduction, the unknown a charm, a mystery which it would fathom ; the con- trariety which might be expected to blunt, only whets the edge of its desire. Every one who has been in Berne, has seen the portrait of Magdalena Nageli, with the huge chamois gloves — a robust woman and a fruitful mother, who was beloved for her great strength. Though daughter of a patrician of Berne, she waa engaged in the family washing, at a fountain with her servants, when there passed by a young noble, of a house always hostile to hors^an hereditary enmity, like that of the Montagus, and Capulets in Romeo and Juliet ; and the young man lingered to • 32 The Woman who will Love Most. gaze at the beautiful girl, as she clapped the linen with a hand of iron and wrimar it with an arm of steel. He saw thai there would be born of her a racS of men as strong as bears , so he hastened at once to his enemy's palace, and implored him for' his friendship and his daughter, because he -despaired of ever finding another woman so vigorously framed. The most energetic . races on earth have sprung from a union of opposite, or seemingly opposite elements: for in- stance, the blending of the white man with the black woman, which produces the mulatto, a race of extraordinary vigor; or on the contrary, of identical elementSv; for example, the Persians and the Greeks, who married thek near relatives. Which is precisely the way in which race-horses are improved ; they are permitted to breed only with theii- own stock,' so as to refine their blood. In the fii'St case, the principle consists in the fact that there is so much more attraction between opposite; the negress adores the white man. In the second case, it proceeds from the perfect harmony of liJces, which co-operate. The native speciality accumulates and increases from mar- riage to marriage. The races deemed inferior, only appear so from their need of a culture contrary to ours, and especially from their need of love. How touching are they in this aspect, and how well they merit a return from the favored races, who find in them an infinite source of physicgl regenera- tion and youth ! The river thirsts for the clouds, the desert for the river, the black woman for the white inan. She of all others is the most loving, the most generating ; and this not only because of her youthful blood, but, we must also admit, from the rich- ness of her heart. She is loving among the loving, good niiiong the good (ask the travellers whom she has so often saved). Goodness is creation, it is fruitfulness, it is the very benediction ofaholyact. The fact that this woman is sofruit. fill, I attribute to her treasured of tenderness, to that ocean of goodness which permeates^her heart. The Woman who will love Most. . 133 "Africa is a woman ; lier races are feminine," says, very truly, Giistavus d'Eichthall. The i-evelation of Airica in the red race of Egypt was in the reign of the groat Isis (Osiris was secondary) . In many of the bhxck tribes of Central Africa, thi- women rule ; and they are as intelligent as they are amia- ble and kind. We see this in liayti, where they not only im- provise charming little songs for their festivals, inspired by their affections, but in business operations solve very compli- cated mental problemsi It was a pleasure to me to learn that in Hayti, through liberty, comfort, and intelligent culture, the negress is disap-, pearing, and that without amalgamation. She is becomuig the true black woman, with straight nose and thin lips ; even her hair is changing. The coarse and bloated features of the negro on the coasts of Africa are (like the swollen hippopo-- tamus) an effect of his burning climate, which at certain seasons is drenched with Avarm floods. These floods fill the valleys with refuse, which decays there ; and the fermentation swells and puffs up everything, just as dough rises in an oven. But there is nothing of all this in the dryer climates of Cen- tral Africa. The frightful anarchy of petty wars, and the slave-trade, which desolate the coasts, contribute not a little to this ugliness ; and it is the same in the American States under the influence of slavery. Even tliere, where she remains a negress, with no refinement, the black woman is still very beautiful. She possesses the charm of supple youth, which ' the" Greek beauty, formed by gymnastics and always a lit- ! tie masculinized, never had. She may soorn not only the ' odious Hermaphrpdite, but the muscular beauty of the crouch- ing Venus (in the Jardin des Tuileries). The black is a very different woman from the proud ladies of Greece ; she is essentially young in blood, in heart, and in t)ody — of gentle, child-iike humility, never sure of pleasing, ready to do any^ thing in order to displease less. ISo tyranny wearies her' obedience ; annoyed by her face, she is in no wise comforted by her ]iprfect form, so full of touching languor, and elastic 134 The Woman who will love Most. freshness. She thi-ows at your feet what you were about to adore; she trembles and begs your pardon — she is so grateful for the pleasure she bestows ! She loves, and her whole heart flows into her warm embrace. Only let her be loved, and she will do anything, learn any thing. In the black race, the woman must first be elevated and through love she wiU elevate the man and the child. But for her there must be a system of education entirely contrary to ours. Cultivate in her first, what she already has so richly, the Sfinse of rhythm (dancing, music, etc.) ; and through the art of design lead her on to reading, to the sciences, and the agricultural arts. She will be in raptures with nature as soon as she learns of it. When the earth is made known to her — so beautiful, so good, so womanly — she will fall in love with it, and with more energy than one would expect from her cli- mate, she will bring about a marriage between the earth and man. Africa had only the red Isis ; America shall have the black Isis, a glowmg female genius, to impregnate nature and reanimate exhausted races. Such is the virtue .of the black blood, that wherever a drop of it falls, everything revives ; no more old age — a young and puissant energy, it is the very fountain of youth. In South America and elsewhere, we behold more than one noble race languishing, drooping, dying ; why is that so when they have life at their very dooi-s ? The Spanish Republicans, true nobles and perfect gentlemen, were'better masters than the other colo- nists ; they were generously the first to abolish slavery. Ah ! in return, beneficent Africa can restore them to strength and life. Observe this African race — so gay, so kind, so loving. From the day of its resurrection, at its first contact, by love, with the white race, it furnished the latter with an extraordinary combination of faculties which give force, in a man of inex- naustible powers — a man, did I say ? rather an element, like an inextinguishable volcano or a great American river. How long was it without the rapturous gift of improvization, which for the last fifty years it has possessed ? No matter, for al.l The Woman who will love Most. 135 that it affords the best machinist, and the most vivid dramatist since Shakespeare. We find an miknown source of beauty in the black race The red rose, which was formerly the only hue admired, has, we must confess, but little variety. Thanks to the art which combines, we have the numberless tea-roses now, with their thousand shades, — and, others still more delicate, veined or tinted with faint blue. Our great painter, Prud'hon, has painted nothing more lovingly than the beautiful dark woman in the hall of the Louvre. She is a little in the shade, like a mystery unveiling itself. Her beauty is seen as through a cloud. Her lovely eyes are not large, but deep, and full of expression. The spectator, who perhaps sees in her what is in his own heart, regards her as Night shrouded in Passion. A dark and glowing picture ! And yet I have seen one somewhat clearer, and even prettier. Last winter, visiting an eminent Haytian, as distinguished in literature as in business, I was received, in his absence, by a young lady, as timid aa she was charming, whose rare beauty took me by surprise. A scarcely perceptible shade of delicious lilac threw over her roses a mysterious magical charm, quite indescribable. Pre- sently she blushed, and the fire of her eyes would have dazzled the two worlds. A thousand honors to the black France ! for so would I name Hayti, since her kindly people so love her who oppressed their fathers. Receive my vows, O youthful state ! and may we afford thee protection in atonement for the past, and develop thy free genius, the genius of that cruelly calumniated race whose sole civiUzed representative in this world thou art. By an equal title thou art representative of the genius of woman Through thy charming women, so loving and so intelligent, must thou cultivate thyself arid organize thy schools. Such tender mothers will, I am sure, become admirable instructors. A rigid normal-school for the governesses and school-teachers (especially after the delightful method of Froebel) is the insti tut ion I would first desire for Hayti. .36 The Woman who will Love Most. How France has been loved ! How deeply 4° I still mourn for the love and friendship with which the tribes of North America welcomed us — so proud and fierce a race ! It is really a glory to us that those men, with the piercing eyes and the second-sight of the hunter, preferred us for their daugh- ters, and at once discerned the truth — that a Frenchman is a superior man. As a soldier he lives everywhere, and as a lover he creates everywhere. The Englishman and the German, strong and well-formed as they appear, are ooth less robust and less generative ; they can do nothing with the foreigner. If the English or German woman is not always at hand, following them on their joui-- neys, their race dies out. Soon there will be nothing left of the English in India — ^no more than the Franks of Clovis , among us, or the Lombards in Lombardy. The black woman's love for us is perfectly natural ; that of the red woman, the American Indian, is more surprising. She is stern, haughty, and sombre. A Frenchman's gai'fety, some- times rather volatile, might have shocked her. Her deep pro- phetic powers could hardly be expected to consort with our joy- ous dancers, who even in the wilderness, while an eight months' winter reigned, danced to the songs of Paris. But she knew them to be brave, she saw that they were serious, kind, loving, helpfal, fraternizing at once with her tragic warriors ; and so they found fa,vor in her eyes. If she checked the audacity of our wild scape-graces who sometimes intruded on her privacy, it was in deUcate, dignified words, that did not wound. The reply of the betrothed maiden is well known. " The friend I have before my eyes prevents my seeing you." These red women treated us like boisterous children, who Ri-e sometimes a little troublesome to their mother or their sister, but she does not love them the less. From these amours a mixed race remains — the Franco- Lidians ; but they are scattered — few in number, and gra- dually dying out ; the noble race is fast becoming extinct. The Woman who will Love Most. 137 In a hundred years what will be left of them? Perhaps Preault's hust. A doleful image — ah ! so very sad— which the great sculptor of tombs seized upon instinctively, with unconscious genius, and which remains to perpetuate the poor but noble woman of the race that Chateaubriand caricatured. Some ten years ago, an American speculator bethought him of exhibiting in Europe a large family of lowas. The men were magnificent, ol a proud and regal beauty — on their necks the claws of bears, significant of combats. Very strong ■ — yet not with the great muscles of the blacksmith or the boxer, but with beautiful ai-ms, almost like a woman's. A child too, ten years old, was like a pretty Egyptian statue of red marble — perfect, but with a fearful gravity. You could not look on him without thinking, "That is the son of a hero." What consoled these kings for being made a show of on a stage, like monkeys, was, I think, their latent scorn of the crowd of superfine gentlemen, who were there with their opera-glasses — volatile, restless, gesticulaters, the veritable monkeys of Europe. The only person in the party who seemed sad was a woman, the wife of a renowned warrior named " The Wolf," and mother of the child. She had suffered much before, but how much more here ! She drooped ; she died. Alas ! what could France ofier to one of the last of those poor women who had loved France so well ? Nothing, but a tomb to preserve the fire of a lost genius. Antiquity (even the Jewish) has never had, nor known, nor dreamed of anything so sad ; for here we behold a superior being who has not only endured every personal misfortune and sorrow, but is accursed in not having been left to the legitimate expan- sions of his race. Hidden, but mighty grief of the American world ! What with his eternal war with the wilderness and Ills savage contests with bears and men, the Indian has not been permitted to reveal himself fully. And then the prosaic power of old Europe laid before him, in guns and fire-water, evei y instrument of treachery or conflict. 138 The Woman who will Love Most. She looks all this in the face^ this woman — like a sphynx, Btern and bitter — and yet und^r that bitterness, oh ! the heart of the mother and the wife ! How gladly in the long famine of winter would she have cut bloody morsels from her own body to nourish her little one ! With what joy, to save it, would she have been burned at the stake by a hostile tribe! And what unfathomable depths of love would not the hero of her choice have found in her ! One indeed felt, in gazing on her, the mysterious infinite of pride and silence she concealed. Her life was as mute as her death. All the tortures in the world would no more have drawn from her a sigh than the sing of love. She had not lost the power of speech ; she spoke as she ever did, with the thrilling expressions of the strange world, enigmatical and gloomy, that she contained within her ; strange ! but per- haps nothing greater in all the realm of mind. XL WOMAN WHO WILL LOVE MOST. THE SAME RACE. Love has its earthly plan. Its true aim is to unite, tr blond all races in one universal marriage ; so that froip China to Ireland, from the north pole to the south, all shall be brothers, brothers-in-law, nephews — ^like the Scotch clans, for instance, the six thousand Campbells all cousins. It should be the same with ah. humanity. We should form but a single clan. A beautiful dream ! but we must not yield to it too soon. In such a union the blood of all races being mingled together, suppose, which would be difficult, that it should blend— I imagine it would be very pale. A certain neutral, colorless, faded element would be the result. Very many special char ractei-istics, ah. charming, would be lost; and the definitive The Woman who will love Most. 139 rictory of love, in that total fusion, would be fatal to love Lteelf. An able intelligent book on the mingling of races is much needed. We must not suppose that they can be blended with impunity. An indiscriminate mingling degrades tlio race, or ruins it. It is only successful between sympathetic races, seemingly opposed, but not so in reality. Between tlie negro and the white there is no anatomical opposition, of any importance. The mixed race lives and is strong. On the contrary, between the French and English, which seem so nearly related, there is even in the skeleton a marked diifer- ence. The offspring are either of short life, or dwarfed, or in their ensemble present some visible discordance. Between the French and the German the results vary con- siderably. The man finds a great charm in such a marriage. Parched, burning, of an eager mind, he enjoys by contrast the moral freshness — ^he finds music, an appreciation of nature, and complete amiability, which render life very pleasant to him, although perhaps a little monotonous. The child (if there is one) does not always live. Generally it is frail, but charn> ing. Rarely does it preserve the paternal fire ; neither French nor German, it becomes European. I one day asked an intelligent young man, who was teach- ing some wise birds'to read and calculate, if his little heroes were not raised above their kind by skilful blending, if they were not mixed ? On the contrary, said he, they are of a very pure race, not impaired by combining. This set me to reflecting on our actual tendency toward the mingling of races, and the belief, often incorrect, that combin- ing, as it does, the endowments and the simple elements of both, the mixed race is necessarily superior. Among those of our great writers whom I have known, only three are of mixed race. Six are pure Frenchmen ; and the three of mixed blood, being foreign, not through the father, but the grandfather, have three-fourths French ele- ment, a very strong predominance of t'le national sap. »40 The Woman ,vho will love Most. One important point to consider, which may seem para- doxical, is that foreign women, of the most distant races, are easier to become acquainted with than European — especially tlian F]-ench women. If I marry an Oriental T can very easily foretell what my marriage will be. One can foresee and determine the Asiatic wife, through great classes — race, nation, tribe. Even in Europe, the man who marries a German woman, appropriat- ing her, transplanting her, is almost sure to have a peaceful life. The ascendancy of the French mind turns all the chances in his favor. But races in which the personality is strong, are not so safe. They say the Circassian maidens like to be sold, feeling sure of feigning wherever they go, and putting their masters under their feet. It is almost the same with the Polish, the Hunga- rian, the French women — ^the superior energies of Europe. They have often a masculine intellect ; they marry their hus- bands, rather than are married. So it is necessary to be acquainted with them, to study them beforehand, to know if they are women at all. The French personality is the most active, most individual, in Europe — the most complex too, and most diiEcult to under- stand. I speak especially of the daughters. There is less dif- ference among the men, moulded as they are by the. army, by centralization, by the machinery of a quasi-identical education. Between one French woman and another the difference is immense, but between the French maiden and the French woman, as till greater difference. So, the difficulty in choosiug is not slight, but the foretelling of them is. In return, when they yield, and are constant, they permit a more thorough and closer intimacy, I think, than any other European women. The English woman, an excellent wife, obeys by the letter of the law, but always remains a little obstinate, and changes but little. The German woman, so loving and gentle, wishes to belong to her husband, to assimi. late herself with him ; but she is effeminate, dreamy, and in The Woman who will love Most. 141 spite of herself, fickle. The Frenchwoman hrings you a prize ; she reacts on you ; and when she has received your thoughts most clearly, she gives you badk the charm, the personal, inti- mate fragrance of her free womanly heart. One day I mot, after twenty years' absence, a Frenchman . living in a foreign country, and married there. I asked hin jestingly, if he had not married some superls English rose, 01 a beautiful German blonde. He answered seriously, but not ■without vivacity, " Yes, Monsieur, those are very beautiful, more brilliant than ours. I compare them to that splendid fruit, which gardeners cultivate to the highest development, the magnificent pine-apple strawberry. The flavor is not wanting — it fiUs the mouth ; one only misses the fragrance. I prefer the French woman, and southern French too ; for she is the wild strawberry." Whatever we may think of this poetical comparison of a newly married man, it remains fixed and sure that the per- sonality of the French woman is extremely powerful for good or evil. So marriages in France should be prudent, and pre- pared with serious reflection ; yet it is the very country of all Europe in which marriages are most precipitate. This arises not merely from the quick calculations of interest which, once arranged, urge marriages to conclusion ; it results also" from the great defect of our nation^mpatience. We hurry every- thing. I think the evil is increasing. In proportion as we become more earnest in business, precipitation in matters of the heart seems to increase. Our language has lost a number of elegant, graceful words which once marked the degrees and shades of love. What is left is curt and hard. The heart is no changed at bottom; but the people, jaded with wars, revolu- tions, and deeds of violence, are tempted to look in every thing for an enterprise, a coup-de-main. The marriage ot Romulus, by stratagem, would have pleased them only too well. T|hey must have razzias; I could almost call it viola- tion by contract. Sometimes the victims weep — not always ; 142 The Woman who will love Most. tliey are but little astonished in these times of lotteries — lot- teries of money, of war, of pleasure, of charity — to he thua pet~up in a lottery. Frequ'ently these fortuitous marriages suddenly unmask, the very next day, an unexpected battery ol irreparable evils, of ruin and ridicule, which strike full in the face. Physiologically such unions, often impossible as unions, pro- duce abortions, monsters that die or kill the mother, or render her ill for life — ^in short, which make a nation ugly. Morally they are still worse, for the father, who thus marries his 'daugh- ter, is not ignorant of the consolation she will soon accept. Marriage under such conditions constitutes and regulates the universality of adultery, makes intimate divorces, often thirty years of mutual distaste, and in the marriage couch a temper- ature that would freeze mercury. Our peasants were formerly firm in marrying those with ivhom they were best acquainted — a relative perhaps. Throughout the Middle Ages they struggled against the church, which forbade the marriage of cousins. The restric- tion, at first excessive (even to the seventh, degree, and later CO the fourth), no longer exists in reality. One can have dis- pensation if he likes, to marry his cousin, or his niece, or the sister of his first wife. What is the result? That now, when it is easy, very few profit by it. The casuists, those false geniuses,' who in almost everything have cultivated the art of finding the wrong side of good sen^e, say, pleasantly: "If wedded love be added to the love of kindi-ed, there will be too much love." History teaches' precisely the contrary. Among the Hebrews, who at first allowed marriage with sisters, we see the young people, far from caring for each other, going out of the family, out of the nation-^running after the daughters of the Philistines. Among the Greeks, who could"^ marry their half-sisters, such marriages were very cold, and but seldom productive. Solon felt himself called upon to inscribe in the law that husbands should be required to remember their wives but once in a de- The Woman who will love Most. 143 cade; and the marriage with sisters was abolished. I'he Ro- mans married no closer than their cousins. In fact, marriage ought to be a new birth. The delightful moment when the wife first enters her bridal home, is lost to the sister. The beautiful Greek, as we see her in the marbles of the Parthenon, never entered such a house; but was there from her birth, seated on the paternal hearth. She faithfully represented the spii-it of father and mother, the old familiar traditions. She could lend herself but little to the young ideas of her brother-husband, to the mobihty of Athens. Magnificent as she was, she was somewhat tiresome. The race lost nothuig by it, it was the most beautiful in the world ; but love lost much, and the family was hardly renewed. But Greece cared little for that ; she dreaded fecundity, and only wished to strengthen native genius, by cultivating to the highest degree the vigor of each lineage, and'its pecu- liar originality. She looked — not at numbers — but simply at the hero ; and she obtained him by the concentration of ener- . getic races, and a marvellous increase of activity, which, in a short time, it is true, wore out and exhausted the races. Breeders of race-horses practise this very art. By uniting animals of near kin they accumulate the blood of the breed. The perseverance of a- century in this direction, produced, about 1789, the famous Echpse, that horse of horses, that flame more rapid than voice or eye, with whom no horse dared to run, and who, by his four hundred sons in twenty years, fetched the price of all Europe. I have read all that has been written of late on this subject, and what seems to me probable, is, that marriage between ]-elative8, while it may weaken the weak, and further degenerate them, may on the contrary strengthen the strong. I so con- clude, not only from the experience of ancient Greece, but of our own French coasts. Our sailors, prudent men, who go everywhere, and know everything, and do not decide like j)easants, by local routine, generally marry their cousins, and are none the less an 41ite of strength, intelligence, and beauty. I44~ ^he Woman who will love Most. Tlie real danger in sucli" unions is the moral one — real foi all but the sailor, who is free, by his wandering life, from aver- ■whelming influences at home. It is not without good reason that in France we many our relatives less and less. (See the official statistics.) By the charm of common memories, such marriages are liable to retain a man firmly in the grooves of the past. The French woman particularly, exerting an influence already, by her energy and the wealth she has brought (for the law fa,vors her more than any woman in Europe), if she is also sustained by relatives, may become at home a power- ful instrument of reaction, and a serious obstacle to progress. Imagine how great may be the double power of domestic and religious tradition, to trammel and impede : at every step opposition, dissension — or at least sadness and inertia; consequently, nothing done, and no advance made. A pretty Veronese at the Louvre expresses this idea perfectly. The-, daughter of Lot is so slow in quitting the old city, which is tumbling about her head,' that the angel takes her by the arm, to drag her away ; but for all that, she manages not to ad- vance a step, saying, " Only wait till I have put on my shoe !" We have no time, my beauty. So remain, and be a pillar of salt with your mother ! — ^But no, we will not go alone ; be carried, if you cannot walk. The vigor of the modern man, which can draw worlds along, will not be greatly retarded by thy weight, poor, light-witted thing. If the relative has not that special education which might associate her with progress, the foreigner (I do not say the stranger) should be preferred. She should be preferred, I say, in two cases, whereiu she is known even more perfectly than the relative. The first case I laid down in I? Amour, where a man forms his own wife. This is the surest ; for he knows what he has made. I have two examples in jny mind. Two of my friends, one an eminent artist, the other a di* The Woman who will love Most. 14,5 tinguished and prolific writer, adopted and married two young persons, entirely fresJi, without relatives and without culture. Simple, lively, charming, wholly occupied with household affairs, but gradually partaking of the ideas of their hushands, in ten or twelve years they were completely transformed. The same in external simplicity, they became mentally ladies of lively intelligence, perfectly imderstanding the most difficult matters. What was done to accomplish this ? Nothing at all. These two men, busy, and extremely productive, have bestowed on tteir wives no express educa- tion. But their thoughts were elevated, and they communi- cated to them at all times their emotions, their projects, the aim of their efforts. Love did the rest. But the success, I grant, is not always the same. A relative of mine failed in a similar attempt. He selected for a wife a Creole child of a vulgar, worldly class, with a coquettish step- mother, who very soon spoiled everything. He had roved about the world considerably, and was then a functionai-y in the . Department of Finance. He returned home sad and weary, without the animation, the fire, of those great creators who, always at work, have always a great deal to say, to vivify a young heart. I will return to this again. The other case is that, in which of two men united in heart, m faith, and in principles, one gives to the other his daughter,' reared and educated in those principles and that faith. This supposes such a father as we saw in our first book, on Education ; it supposes a mother too — two phenixes. If we found them in the second generation, we should realize some- thing impossible as yet, but which will be less so hereafter : the hypothesis of two children brought up for each other — not together, but in a happy harmijny — knowing each other early, but seeing each other for a short time at long intervals, so as to become each other's dream. All this, of course, left free for the two young hearts. But with a little diplomacy one may create and cultivate love. Nature is so amiable a conciliator! A double education 7 14 fr The Man who will love Best. seems the only true logic for man and ■woman, each being only a half. The eastern idea, of the same being divided, and always longing to be united, is true. One should sympathize with, and help the poor half to find its "other half," and restore the lost unity. III. THE MAN WHO WILL LOVE BEST. If in the life of woman there is one period more fearful than another, it is the marriage of her daughter. To her, even the best, the happiest marriage is an overturning of her existence. Yesterday the house was fuU, now it is empty. We did not at all perceive how large a place this child filled ; we were too used to so natural a happiness ; we are not, indeed, conscious of living and breathing ; but if our breath fail but for a mo- ment, we sufibcate, we die. How difierent the position of the mother who can say,_" Mj son is married," from that of her who must say, " I have mar ried my daughter." The one receives, the other gives. One enriches her family by a happy adoption ; the otheir, when the din of the wedding is over, returns home — so poor ! shaU we call, it " severed from her daughter ?" " widowed of her child ?" No, those terms do not express it. "We must always regret that a word is wanting to our language — a sad word, and full of lamentation — orha. What she gives up is herself. It is herself who goes to live ill the house of a stranger, to be kindly or unkindly treated. She dwells there in imagination. The man is loving to-day; but how wUl he be to-morrow ? In fact, the son-in-law is the least of all she has to worry about. How will his family behave — ^his mother whom he loves who influences him ind Ftie Man who will love Best. 147 who rules at home ? How many ways she has of annoying Ihe young wife, to break her in perhaps, so that she sliall oppose her but little ! Therefore, the mother-in-law, to pro- tect her daughter, must be respectful, and pay court to the mother. I can perfectly understand the restlessness, the eager anti- cipation, of her who for the first time looks on her future son- in-law — or at least, the young man who may become so. Ah I how I sympathize with her secret emotions. She is smiling, gracious, but at heart how moved ! Truly, it is life or death with her ; for what is this young man ? Her rival. The more amiable, the more loveable he may be, the more will the mother be forgotten. A rare moment in which to observe her, for never is woman so interesting. That strife of restrained but transpa- rent emotions imparts to her an irresistible natur.al charm. She is beautiful in het love and her self-abnegation, beautiful by her many sacrifices. What has. she not performed and guifered to create this perfect flower ? Such a daughter is the visible virtue of her mother, her wisdom and her purity. Like every woman she has had her ennuis and her dreams, and she has put them all to flight with the simple words " my daughter !" She has confined hei-self to the domestic hearth, between God and her husband, devoting her most beautiful years to duty, to the culture of one sweet hope. And now, is it strange that her poor heart beats so wildly ? That heart is in her face whatever she does ; and at times it glows with glorious radiance in the light of her lovely tearful eyes. If you please, madame, try to be less fair. Do you not see that we are confused, and know not what we say ? She is tempted to make use of this power. She sees that it depends wholly on herself, whether she shall charm this young man, and do with him as she pleases. She might become absolute mistress of the future household ; she might preserve her daughter froin the tyrannical influenee of her new family ; she mihgt, day by day (for what is impossible to a woman of 148 The Man who will love Best wit ?) make him a good hiislDand — amiable, even obedient. To trust him now with her cherished idol, before she is sure of him, seems impossible ; she must subdue this son-in-law. And so behold her, still young as she is, recklessly plunging into dan gerous coquetries. She thinks she can stop and retire, at will And what is the consequence ? Why that he loses his wits, often forms mad schemes, and oftener withdraws altogether. But the marriage has already been announced, and the young lady is compromised. What remedy for that ? Am I writing fiction ? No, it is what I myself have seen more than once, and the cases are frequent. The mother loves her daughter BO much, that to marry her well she submits to the strangest conditions — a deplorable arrangement, which sometimes leaves all three overwhelmed with sadness and mortification. The wisest, the most reasonable, almost always make this mistake : they choose a son-in-law to suit themselves, and not their daughters ; they consult their own fancy, according to a certain ideal, more or less romantic, which most have in their minds. A double ideal, but always false — I say that frankly. They admire masculine energy and strength, and they are right. But it is less the producing and creating force than the destroying energy that they select. Strangers to grand achievements, completely ignorant of what constitutes true strength of mind, they understand by valor only that short- lived daring which serves on the battle-field, and jthink, like children, that it is fine to break everything. The man of brave speech has all the advantage with them. They pooh- pooh the true warrior who holds his tongue and shrugs his shoulders. , Their judgment is no sounder as to the gentle than to the rude characteristics. They find a powerful charm in the man who resembles them, — a puppet of no sex. They weave, very awkwardly, a sentimental little romance over some good- for-nothing, girlish page — Cherubino, a sh&pherd in a comic opera — N"emorino, more a woman than Stella. In their novels, Proud'hon very truly observes, they never succeed in creating The Man who will love Best. 149 a man with a genuine masculine character ; their hero is always a woman's man. Now, in real life, and in so serious a matter as a mother choosing for her daughter, they act just as they do in their novels. Their preference is often, almost always, for the woman's man, the nice young fellow of " correct principles." In the first place, they are flattered to perceive that they we more energetic, really more man-like than he. They think they can govern him ; but they are often deceived. The amiable, insipid character is frequently but a mask assumed for success ; the man, at heart, is selfish, and to-morrow will show what he is — harsh, unfeehng, false. Madam, in so important a matter, where it is a question of life -mth you, and even more so with her for whom you would a hundred times sacrifice your life, will you allow me to lay aside reserve and idle subterfuges, and tell you the plain truth. Do you indeed know what your charming daughter needs, she who. says nothing, can say nothing? But her age and nature speak for her ; respect those voices of God ! Well ! she needs a man ! Don't laugh. The article is not so common as you may thmk. A loving man is necessary ; I mean one who will alway continue to love. She needs an arm and a heart : a'atrong arm, to uphold her, and smoothe her way of life ; a rich heart, from which she may draw for ever, which she has only to touch to-elicit the true gpark. Woman is conservative, she requires solidity ; and that is natural. There should be firm, sure soil for the hearth and the cradle. 150 The Man who will love Best. But everything is unstable. Where shall we find the firm- ness we desire ? No position, no property in these times can promise that. Look — not at France, not at the Continent, that sea of sand, in which everything is for ever going and coming : but look at that sacred island of property — old England. If you except five or six houses of no great date, every estate there has changed hands often within two hundred ■ years ; only one thing is substantial — ^faith. You need a liian of faith. But I mean active faith. • " That is, a man of action !" Yes, but productive action — a producer, a creator. The only man who has any chance of stability in this world is he whose strong hand renovates it, who creates it day by day, and if it were destroyed could recreate it. The men who possess this action, who in art, in science, in manufactures, in business, work with energy, it matters little how they define their crec?o-^they always have one. A beautiful miracle ! you say. Yes, madam, beautiful, and very new ; it is faith in things ' that are proved, faith in observation, in reason. Would you know the secret of that increase of modern activity which for the last three hundred years has made every century infinitely more active, more inventive, than the one that preceded it ? This — that men are no longer in the mists of that fantastic age which doubted all reahties, and founded its faith on dreams. They stoutly maintain that what is, is. You will find it also in the stronger conviction of certainty. Tlie.vigor of our actions increases by the security that a firmer soil bestows. In the sixteenth century, Montaigne doubted. Excuse him ; the ignorant man had no idea of the intellectual- strength his great precursors had already displayed. Pas-. cal, in the seventeenth century, doubted, because he chose to doubt. Galileo and many others, proved the earth solid. To-day thirty new sciences, erected on thousands of ob- Bej-ved and computed facts, have made this earth a rock. Step The Man who will love Best. iji with firm t~ead and fear not — it is the immovable rock of truth. The modern man knows what he wishes, what he does, and whither he goes. Who are the sceptics of to-day ? Those who are pleased to be so, those who will not be informed, nor know tbe times they live in ; those who, always reserving to themselves the right to change, are alarmed because there are so many immu- table things. When they proclaim their doubt I ask, " What does it avail you ?" Does this imply that the active and productive men of these times have perfect knowledge of the thh-ty sciences which constitute our security ? 'No, they know only the great re- sults; they feel their spirit, they feel these sciences under them, firm and living. At any moment, if they fall, they will gather incalculable strength from the maternal soil of truth. And herein is the real difference between us and our fathers. They tumbled about in a marsh of earthy water or watery earth, and when their feet slipped, they could do nothing with their hands. But we, no longer slipping, do much with our hands, much with our minds, much with our inventions. We invent ten times as much as the age of Voltaire, which invented ten times as much as the age of Galileo, which in- vented ten times as much as the age of Luther. That is what makes us gay, whatever happens ; that is what makes us laugh, and stride through life with the &m step of giants. Whoever feels himself powerful — that is to say, full, strong, productive, a creator and a generator — ^has an inexhaustible fund of serious gaiety (I mean that), and of courage and love as well, madam. Give your daughter to such a man — a man who will always be above his business, who will take her into his actions, who will suek her into his whirlpool. I dare swear that he will love her, and that every hour of the day and the night (and there lies the gist of the matter) he will have much to tell her. i?2 The Proof. IV. THE PROOF. li? God had given me a daughter, I should have made my' fell beloved. How ? By exacting a great deal, by impos* ing difficult tasks — but noble ones and just. Of what use is royalty, if one does not use it ? Doutitless there is a time when a woman may do much for a man — when, perceiving his value, she charms him, by imposing lofty condi- tions, and requiring him to give serious proof of his love. Why, sir, at such a time all nature makes an effort, every- thing rises one degree ; the ilower displays the sensibility which is the charm of animal life ; the bird utters a divine song, and insect-love bursts even into flame. And do you think that man wUl not change then, and be a little more than man ? Proofs ! sir, proofs ! else I care little for your insipid asseverations. I do not ask you, like those princesses of chi- valric romances, to- fetch me the head of a giant, or the crown of Trebizond. These are trifles ; I exact much more I demand that you transform me, a young girl of obscure family and common education, into a noble, regal, heroic creature, such as I have always had in my mind — and that not transiently, but by a complete and radical transformation. Whatever your career, bring to it an imperial spirit and a •noble will. Then I shall have confidence in you, I shall think you sincere ; and, in my turn, will see what I can do for you. He who can do nothing for me, whom love itself cannot raise above prose, above the " earth to earth " of this age, God save me from having him for a husband ! If you cannot change, it is because you do not love. " Alas !" the mothers say, " what would happen if one presumed to use such severe language ? Love is not the fashion ; yomg people are so hlas&, so cold • they find so The Proof. 153 many opportunities of pleasure everywhere, and are so little anxious to establish themselves! The days of chivalry art fai- off." Madam, in all times, man eagerly prefers the difEcult. In those days of chivalry, do you suppose the young squire could not have had all the common girls of the neighbor- hood ? In the strange pell-mell and confusion of the feudal house, wenches and ladies were at the pleasure of the page And yet he longed only for the proudest, the " impossible she,'' her who made his life a nuisance. For her, from whom he got nothing, he would be a knight ; for her he would die at Jerusalem, and bequeath to her his bleeding heart. And now there is another crusade, a crusade of labor and study, of the immense effort a young man must make to plough the furrow of a strong speciality, and sow that sjjeci- ality with all human sciences. Everything depends on this, and henceforth he who does not know everything, cannot know anything. I see from here, on the rue Saint-Jacques, by the opportune chance of a half-open window, a young man who, early in the morning, has had no rising to do, because he has sat up all night ; but he is not weary now. Is it the morning air that, has so wonderfully refreshed him ? No, I think it -must be that letter which he reads and re-reads, and wears out, and devours. Never did Champollion's zeal peruse the trilingual scroll with more of eagerness. A woman's letter, you may be sure — short and elegant. I will content myself with tran- scribing a line : " Mamma, whose hand is lame, bids me write to you, and say that she expects you to spend your holidays here, and that you must pass yoar final examination as soon as possible. Succeed and come.'' We must not forget what a young man is in the streets of Paris, lest we forget his sadness, his languor, and his homesickness. To be sure, science is beautiful to the master, to tlie inventor, launched upon the sea of discovery ; but how dry and abstract to the student ! Veril}', the idle, tliough1> 154 The Proof. less fiicndfi, who never fail to come in his moments of lukoi warmness, find a fine prize now. A^i ! but there is the letter. In the midst of his wild com- panions' talk he catches a glimpse of her. She holds him fast, and fixes him ; she serves him as a fever or a headache — any- thing to prevent him from going off with them to-night. So they take themselves away, and my young friend betakes him- self to his letter-reading, over again. He studies it seriously, in form and meaning, and tries to discover by the writing if she was moved — seizing on some dash omitted, or some com- ma forgotten, as a significant matter. But the same letter, read at different hours or moments, is full of changes ; yes- terday it was passionate, to-day utterly cold ; stormy one day, the n'ext almost indifferent. Some one, I know not who, regretted nothing of his youth, " but a fine disappointment on a beautiful prairie." Add to that the sweet pain of studying, deciphering, interpreting, in a hundred ways, the letter of your beloved. " What ! a young lady write to a young man ?" Yes, sir, her mother wishes it — a wise mother, who would at any price cheer and guard the young fellow. But she by no means relishes the English method, which proudly thinks it can bring flame to flame without danger. The Swiss would go still farther in their grossness ; they deem it well that the lover should spend his nights with his betrothed, who, granting all things but one, never fails, they say, to rise a vii'gin. A virgin ? — ^perhaps, but not pure. Every nation has its vices. The Germanic races, above all bibulant and gluttonous, are so much the less inflammable. But when the lacteal regimen of English Pamelas is so thick ened with meats, and even spirituous liquors, those sanguine and ovei'-fed virgins ought themselves to wish for better pro- tection and' defence from their own passions. I do not mean to say that it is not sometimes necessary to allow lovers the happiness of meeting and talking together. But such conmiunicaticns, hovcever pure we may suppose The Proof. 155 tlicm, if too frequent, would be liable to precipitate their longings, consuming them -with a slow fire, and making them martyrs. Let us, if possible, jjl-olong the more beautiful period of life. Let there be letters, first from the mother ; and then, as matters progress and become safer, sometimes a word from the daughter, written under her mother's eye. But I have forgotten to tell how love begins. Happy they who know nothing about it ! who, rocked in the same cradle, I'eared on the same hearth, enter at the same time upon love and life ! like Isis and Osiris, the divine twins, who loved each other in' their mother's womb, and still loved after death. But the fable has it, that even before they were born, in the darkness of the maternal prison, they made the most of time, and their precocious love was fruitful — that they created even before they lived. We would not have our children quite so fast as those glowing gods- of Africa. There should be initiation and patience ; we must deserve to be gods before we enjoy the divine moment in its plenitude. It is all very well, very charming, for them to live and play together at the age of three, four, or five years ; but after that I deem it wise to separate the sexes. Though he saw her only when she was small, very small, and played with her, wherever he may go he vrill remember the pretty httle girl — cousin, friend, whatever she may be (for at four years old we are all relations)— the sweet creature to whom he behaved badly, with whom he often quarrelled ; and he wiU be sorry for it, recollecting her amiability, her good temper, and her childish wisdom. Thoughtless as he is, as aU little boys are, there will sometimes come over him, with the plea- sant remembrance of games and sweetmeats, a longing to gee her again. And, indeed, at last, when she is twelve perhaps, he will see her again, — but more sedate, already not daring to play so much, in all the charm and dignity of that first reserve the maiden wears, as she sits by her mother in the family gatherings. 156 The Proof. Beatrice Portinari was only twelve,, and wore a puiple dress (that is, a violet red one) when Dante saw her for the first time. In his heart sh8 ever retained that age and thai dress ; and even unto death she was for hiin a queenly child clothed on with light. So shall my collegian carry always with him the image of his little Beatrice. She will save him from many evils, especially from vulgarity. Should j)leasure present itself to the boy (as is only too common) in the form of some degrading indulgence, it would disgust him. Hia heart is already above that. Let two or three _years pass by, and then let him see her again, gay and pretty. In the development of his rose, the charming vivacity of Shakespeare's Perdita, who goes and comes, and helps her mother, is shepherdess and princess at once — behold the new ideal which shall guard my young friend. If ladies of questionable delicacy would attract his early fancy they will come too late. Comparing them with her he will say: "My cousin is entirely different." Petrarch, in a most beautiful sonnet, full of a naive confes- sion, tells his Laura that she is to him a sacred shrine towards whom, himself a pilgrim,~he journeys all his life. And yet he confesses that in the chapels that dot the road he halts, from time to time, to offer short prayers to Madonnas. I would have no chapels, no Madonnas by the way. At every step I would have the traveller descry his Laura afar off, and swerve not from the path. But I am wrong ; Laura herself is willing that he should have other mistresses ; she is not jealous, — she consents to share his heart. She knows, indeed, that man needs diversity. She knows that in the Jardin des Plautes ever waits that rav- ishing woman with the beautiful form — If ature, the great Isis, who intoxicates young hearts. She knows that in the schools of the Pantheon, and everywhere, her lover will pursue the vir- gin. Justice. Besides, she takes, their part, and interposes for them. She prays him, through his mother, to forget her, if ha can, for her sublime rivals. A beautiful, a glorious time, when The Proof. 13; woman protects ^\ ornan ! and this absent young girl imparts com-age to him, in the midst of study and privation ! Import- ant, most important, is it to prolong the fruitful labors of this season, to preserve its energy just when it is perfect, to keep the cup fidl. The hard life, the isolation of studies which achieve greatness, is very differently sustained when this Robinson Crusoe of Paris can say, in a double alibi of all base and V ulgar life : " I have here my mistress and my mind." Marriage is coirfession : I have said that before, and I re- peat it, because it is .very true and very suggestive. Oh ! how delightful, what a joy and a safe-guard, to have for your confessor a girl of eighteen, to whom you are free to speak, but who herself is also free not to understand en» tirely, and not to influence you too much. Sometimes her mother is anxious, and says, " Is he not ill ? I should think so — he is sad. Add a line for him." It is indeed well that a young man should tell a maiden of his emotions, the heights and depths, the hopes and joys and sorrows of his mind. "Yesterday I learned — what opens up a new world to me. It seems to me that, in this direction, I too shall succeed. Aid me, encourage me ! I shall yet be a man, perhaps." Do you know what I think? That this same young gentle- man is a shrewd and adroit seducer. It is a living joy to a woman's heart to mould a man, — to recognise, day by day, some progress in him, which she has made. In the quiet life of the domestic hearth, with a mother infinitely loving, with an old, indulgent father, it is a delightful novelty to her, gra- dually to join her life to the ardent life of a young adventur- ous man, who takes her in his bark. She is much embarrassed ; she is afraid ; she flings herself, in tears, on her mother's bosom. Some delightful day she sto])s astonished, as she is writing thus to him : " It is always a pleasure to converse, to exchange ideas ; and all that pi'oves youv mind clearly enough. — But your heart?" I ?8 How she gives her Heart away. HOW SHE GIVES HER HEART AWAY. "How many improbabilities are there in the preceding pages ? A student in love ! A student taking his mistress for a confessor ! A student shutting himself up to prepare for his examinations ! A student studying ! O that is too absurd ! The author is evidently ignorant of what schools are. lie forgets how long it takes to attain a profession, to set up an office, to get practice, and all that." You enlighten me. I forget that all young Frenchmen must be notaries, attorneys, functionaries, note-takers, and manuscript-mongers — must plunge indiscriminately and fright- fully enciimbered into two or three professions, in which their long noviciate will compel them to marry late — when most of them, indeed, are already worn out. Who does this? Those prudent mothers especially, who want a son-in-law in good position. To them " functionary" is synonymous with stability, in this land of the imstable ! A notary ! how pleasantly the word sounds to them. And yet, in most cases, the man plunges into debt to get his office. So the blindness of this spirit of reaction, the ignorance and the fear of woman, make of the most adventurous people in the world the most foolishly timid, ^the most inert, — a mol- lusk on his rock. The Englishman, the American, the Russian have the whole world for the theatre of their activities. The English-woman deems it perfectly natural to marry a Calcutta or Canton merchant. She follows her husband, an officer, to the farthest isles of Oceanica. The Dutch woman will accept with equal cheerfulness a husband from Java or Surinam. The Polish woman, to comfort an exile, does not shrink from living in Siberia, and the perseverance of such devotion has created beyond Tobolsk an admirable Poland, with a better dialect How she gives her Heart away. 159 than tbat of "Warsaw. But let us even take Germany, whicb thinks so much of home; and you see her sproadmg far and wide, over the two Americas. The closest family travels most, sure of carrying its happiness with it. Love e'\'erywherc creates its own country, extends and populates it. With Lovi: man has wings. Only you of all Europe do not see that, il' you are not in soldiei's clothes, you are a sedentary people, a prudent people, you drag on where you were born. But a man is soon ruined on 'Change in your lottery life, in your money panics, and the oyster itself is shipwrecked. So much for your stability, your sure position, for which one must put off marrying till a mature age, till the age when mo3t, who have got to the end of it, have nothing to do but make love. Gaul and old France were the homes of hope. They be- lieved in a future, and they made that future. They loved and married young; at the age when we, quite worn out, finish up, and take a wife, they had had for a long time home, fa- mily, and posterity. To be sure, all the children did not live ; yet the people, gay, loving, prolific, everywhere left traces of themselves. Our ancient Gauls built up, I know not how many nations in Europe and Asia. Our mixed races of the twelfth century founded numerous colonies. Our Frenchmen of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, by their energy, their facile sociality, subdued the new world and Frenchified the savages. Who put a stop to this ? Just Louis XIV., who, attacking Holland, gave it to England, henceforward mistress of the sea. But for him we might have had the two Tndias. And why ? Because we were loved, and had children everywhere. And the English have none any where — except in one place, the United States, whither the whole congregar tion of Puritans betook themselves in a body. Think of that, young man ; and in the streets of Paris, where you have so many resources, of ideas and of arts, and a thousand ways of making yourself a man, look around you a little, and consider where you are. Embrace with a bold searching scope, all science, and the whole globe — univerfial .6o How She gives her Heart away. humanity. Love, and love, too, a loving and devoted woman, who will follow you with noble courage into the uncertain- ties of fate, and all the inventive boldness of your own brave thoughts. '■ But, sir," says my young friend, " would you know why we are so prudent, with a woman's prudence. It is because women, mothers, impose such conditions upon us. Those fine laws, ^vhich make them equal with man, make them rich and influential, even more influential than fathers : for the father can have only a hypothetical fortune, involved in business, ■while that of his wife is oiiten secured by contract, and remains apart. That is why she rules, and does as she chooses. She takes her boys from school to put them, one knows not where. She gives her daughter to whoever pleases" her. I, for in- stance — who am I ? What shall I do ? or what shall I be ? I do not know yet. That depends on a woman. I am regarded with favor, at a distance ; but if with the least boldness I ap- proach nearer, this mother will be alarmed, will draw back, and reserve her daughter for a man of position and rank." The young gentleman is right. A great responsibility at this moment rests on the mother. She has immense power, to make and to unmake. One word from her can work a marvellous transformation ; our hero may take his rank, may become a hon sujet. Moreover, if this word confirms his courage, his young loving heart, through one bond alone, may become great. You are a woman, and still young, madam ; but you are already in that second youth wTien prudence is developed, when things have lost their glow, when one grows suspicious of everything alive. Please do not impose so much wisdom on them already. Do not require this young man to begin with old age. You loved him, you took pleasure in his en- thusiastic letters. Pray, take him as he is, young and glow- ing.. Your daughter will lose nothing by it. Act a little with her ; consult her. I warrant her less timid than you. And in truth she is right to be bold. Such spirits, in theu- first How She gives her Heart away. 16 flight, may seem eccentric by their own excess ; but there must be too much at first, in order that there may be enough at last. Soon balanced, they will attain their true power, and properly directed, will supply the man with his ideal of a wise energy. Here are our young people, brought together ; and I should like to pause at this delightful point of perplexity and restless- ness. Besides, so little is known about it. We are always too far above it. We deal only with the surface, the pretty quarrels, the sweet seeming-contentions of love. It is some- what allied to war, and, in most cases, we approach it trembling. ~ Thus it is ivith these. The strong charm of power bewilders the maiden somewhat ; and, on the other hand, the young man, however truly he may love, has an extreme fear of ridicule. He is wrong. Woman, the true woman, is too tender to be sarcastic. Our heroine especially, reared as we have seen, is by no means the saucy, jesting Rosalind of Shakspeare — nor the laughing, giddy, empty-headed girl we see too often here. Her playful badinage is delicate ; — a pretty kind of strife that would not even be felt by our young men-of-the-world. But he, less blase, is disturbed, and rebels at the least thing. He can bear nothing from her — ^is vexed, and answers crossly. He sufiers ; and, at the same instant, she sufiers too. To be so sensitive towards each other, — ^is not that love ? Love ! what is it, and whence comes it ? How much has been written about it, and how idly ! Neither statement, nor analysis, nor comparison avails. Love is love, a thing like nothing else. A pretty metaphor is that of de Stendhal, who likens it to a branch steeped in the salt-springs of Saltzburg. Two months afterwards it is taken out, changed, adorned with a rich and fantastic crystallization — girandoles, diamonds, flowers of hoar-frost. Such is love, steeped in the deep springs of the imagination ; and the comparison exactly applies to his pretty, ironical, sensual book on Love. 162 How She gives her Heart away. To him tlie subject is very dry — a poor branch of 'vrood, a stick — such the reality ; and all the rest is but the dream, the embroidery, the idle poetry that wp weave upon it at pleasure, A capital theory that, to render utterly sterile the most fruitful of all subjects ! A trite theory too, in spite of the piquancy of its form. 'Tis the same old Thesis, " Love is but a fleeting show." Love ! I have found nothing more real in this world — as real as second-sight. It alone bestows the power of seeing a hundred new truths otherwise invisible. As real as creation ; the true things that it sees, itself makes true. With woman, for instance, it is so pleasant to be loved, that, delighted and transfigured, she becomes infinitely beautiful : beautiful, not only as she looks, but as she is. Real like creation, double and reflected, so that the created creates in its turn. This radiance of beauty which our love imparts to woman reacts upon and re-radiates from us, by wholly new powers of aspiration, of genius and invention. What name shall we give it ? No matter what ! It is Master, the power and the creator. If it abide with us, we are strong. Without it, we could achieve nothing great iu this world. Surprise magnifies its power. Happy, most happy the young man Lf chance should develope some unforeseen beauty in him ! By just that much has he advanced. For example : it is discovered that in Paris our hero spent too much. He suffers himself to be censured ; but presently they find out that, by reducing his expenses to the' minimum of his absolute wants, he supported a poor family on his salary. His lady-love is afiected ; she has but little to say that day, and dares not look at him. From crime to crime they detect the culprit, till they dis- cover that while they were most earnestly urging him to secure a position in his career, by the first successes of the schools, which by and by should lead to the great success of life, he has acted like the groat painter Prud'hon, and our iUu* How She gives her Heart away. 163 trious physiologist, Serres ; botli of whom, with no fortune but their talent in intellectual competition, abandoned the prize themselves, and worked for a rival. Thus Prud'hon sent to Rome a rival who, without his. aid, would have been unable to continue his studies. Serres, in a medical college, finding among his comrades a poor English surgeon, who was -lying of Imnger, conceived the idea of competing for him, succeeded against himself, and so won for his friend a place as pupil at the Hotel Dieu. An act of courage in the cause of humanity is another pretty bouquet to offer, her he loves. One has not always such prizes; but they await those who are worthy. A man fallen into the river, a fire, a shipwreck, a hundred chances furnish the occasion. Such acts induce love ; for women are weak, and very suscep- tible to them. I confide this receipt to all who are not loved : Be beautiful — that is the only way. From the day when that lightning flashes across her, she recognises her master, and feels herself powerless. Let him not take advantage of that. How could he ? I know not, for there have been no nuptials yet — but there is marriage. The father and mother, almost in lov£ with liim, holding him in high esteem, respect then- t^te- &-t§tes. They have confidence — and they are right. What wise conversations, though so tender, so touching ! She talks, untiring, of their house, and its arrangements — of the cares of their futur^home ; he, of love and their future children. She listens, her eyes downcast, but resigned and docile. She takes care not to interrupt him — does not object to a word. But must it be told? she is so gentle, she appears so submissive, that he is tempted, tempted to try his power. Then the poor child sud- denly grows pale ; she does not struggle,, but throbs, and can do no more ; her breath fails her. How can he ? She totters, leans on him, and at last sits down, overcome with her emotions. " Spare me, I beseech you ; it is thy wife, who for a . few days implores thy forbearance." And then she puts both her hands in his. " After what thou hast done, how could 1 resist thee ? 5ut thou ;svilt make me miser ible. You see they 164 Thou shalt leave thy Father and Mother. repose confidence in thee — in thee alone. They have seen me so moved, that they well know how weak I am. Love ma for myself, my husband ; protect me, defend me, for I can no longer protect myself." IV. THOU SHALT LEAVE THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER. OuK Sakontala's farewell to her birth-place, to her sisters, her flowers, her favorite birds, and her pet animals, is no; idle comedy; it is human nature. She has loved them, and she weeps for them ; she has counted the days, and now that the day approaches, it comes too soon. She now feels how much it all was to her, how pleasant and soft this nest that she must leave — the happy family table, the circle of young brothera and sisters who adored her, the weakness of her father, stern to all others, but gentle to her. One person, indeed, is alsne in her sorrow, the real victim of this sacrifice, her poor mother, who controls herself so well, and scarcely ever weeps. Oh ! it is too much for the young girl ! No dream of happiness, no mirage of fancy, can compen- sate for this. The night before the parting, at the table, with her eyes on her plate, she hardly dares to look up, lest they should swim with tears. The rest go down to the garden, but not she ; on some pretext she remains, to roam from chamber to chamber through the home of her youth, which she is about to leave for ever. She bids adieu to each ai'ticle of fur- nitui-e, every beloved thing : her piano, her books, her father's chair ; but to her mother's bed most of all. There she bursts into tears. And why ? does she not love ? Never doubt it. Yes, she truly loves. Strange, but natural, that at the moment of follow- Thou shalt leave thy Father and Mother. 165 ing her husband she misses ber lovor. The room in which s)ie dreamed of him, the table on which she wrote to him, have their share of her regrets. The stormy alternations of lier iove for so many years, come back to her memory now. From jer new happiness, she throws a backward glance over tha world of sighs, and dreams, and idle fears, in which passion takes delight ; she mourns for it all, even to the sweet bitter- ness she often found in tears. Nothing moves her more than the sight of the friends of her childhood — the dumb animals out of doors, who have been told nothing — the dog, the cat of the house, who know all about it all. The dog follow? her with wistful eyes ; and the cat, dull and motionless, refusing to eat, lies always on her bed^the little girl's bed, that will be empty to-morrow. They seem to say to her, " You go, but we remain. You leave us for a stranger. You quit the home of gentleness and love, where you had everything your own way. Whatever you did was right, whatever you said was beautiful. Your mother, father, everybody, hung on your lips, eager to receive all that escaped them. Your sisters quoted your opinions as supreme reason, and decided by your word, ' She has said it.' Your brothers were your knights, silently admiring you, ima- gining nothing higher than you, loving in other ladies only what resembled you. " Mistress, protectress, beloved nurse, who so offcen hast fed us from thy hand ! whither art thou going, and what will be- come of thee ? Thou art now to have a master, and thou must Bwear obedience. Thou departest to dwell with a stranger — - with one who loves thee, true — but a proud young man, and stern. How much wiU his active energy, bent on other mat- ters, leave him for his wife and home ? From his daily work — he will come home at night, often sad, often severe. His dis appointments, his failures, wUl return to thee in the form ot unjust caprices. " This house of love whither thou goest, how often will it be more dreary to thee than thy d«ar paternal home ! All was i()6 Thou shalt leave thy Father and Mother. BO serene here*! when thou didst laugh, all laughed. Thy idle merriment, thy clear young voice, thy goodness' that made us all happy, created here a paradise, a house of blessedness. All was love and indulgence, and all were emholdened bj thee. For thy father and mother had not the heart to scold the children or us. The dog well knew that at certain times everything was permitted; and the cat as well. At such moments when the family were at dessert, we stole in to par- take of the feast ; and thy birds came, clapping their wuigs, to receive a kiss from thy lips." Woman is born to suffer. Every great step of life is to her a wound. She grows up for marriage ; that is her legitimate dream. But her " vita nuova " is a rending away of the past. To grant to love its boundless pleasm-e, she must suffer in her flesh. How much more so, when soon the other husband, the other lover, the child from the depths of her being, shall tear her heart ! Nor is that all. Our fathers had a sombre pro- verb ; " A mother's sorrow endures long." Here " mother " stood for " matrix,'' and the meaning of the jjroverb was that, in addition to the physical pangs of maternity, weariness and anxiety, sorrow and pain follow her, and shall foUow her, all her days. On what day, at what moment, shall the victim be produced ? What matter ? says the legislator. What matter ? echoes the priest. The astrologer of the middle ages said, " It matters much." And he was right. But how is the day to be chosen ? Ho set up his glass, and looked at the sky, saw nothing, and decided. What we must look at, is woman herself, the dear creature who gives up all, who suffers and devotes herself We must love her, and wish her to suffer less by her sacrifice. K any day, any week, be propitious and safe, let us choose that. Let me pause here, and ask how_it happens that the nume- rous authors who have treated of love and marriage, have never once touched on these questions. And yet they were Thou shalt leave thy Father and Mother. 167 the very foundation of their suhjeot — at least, tie point of necessary departure, without which they could speak and reason but at random. Happily, nature does not rely on us for the great func- tions of life which preserve it. These are accomplished instinctively, and, as it were, under the .dominion of sleep. Our physiological chemistry is marvellously complicated, and goes on its way, taking no counsel. So it has been with the perpetuity of the human race, operating by love and mar- riage, through the constitution of the family. All this has in nowise changed, and man, in these great essentials, has remained in the track of reason. Unreasonableness belongs to exalted geniuses, the men of thought and authority, the guides of the human race. For example, to the political economists, those profound politi- cians, who have thought they could regulate love, and retard or hasten the operations of fecundity ; not one of them knows what fecundation is ; they do not know that they are maintaining the Malthusian theory, wherein they are alvciys groping. And, for example, the theologians, who have so lucidly explained the Conception without knowing what con- ception is. And, for example, the casuists, who have so sagaciously directed and purified conjugal life, without know- ing what marriage is. And, let us add, our own writers, who, in so many eloquent books, have discussed the right and the truth, accused man or woman, and weighed the question of the superiority of one sex over the other. Our great novelist, a woman of wonderful power — our great orator, a man of potent and terrible arm, who stiiking the pro and con., brings forth flash on flash, the world looking on — is it not astonish- ing that neiflher of these two has reached the bottom of the matter, the lowest wells from which indeed springs all the rest ? Lowest ? Nothing is lowest. Let us abandon these old ideas of a ladder and a top and a bottom. " God is a sphere," said a philosopher. Heaven is under our feet, as well as over our heads. Formerly we humbled the stomach i68 Thou shalt leave thy Father and Mother. to ex.ilt the brain. We have found (in 1848) that the brahi digests ; at least, without it no sugar is made, which alono permits digestion. To return : until 1830, when the ovum was demonstrated, the crisis of love, theory was but folly ; before 1840, when the law was laid down and the fruitful seasons indicated, all practice was blind. The persevering observations of great anatomists, the authority of the Academy of Sciences— a perfect pontiff in these matters — and at last the sovereign dictum of the College of France, from 1840 to 1850, gave to Europe those discoveries, henceforth to be accepted as articles of human faith. How apropos does science come in? Medicine, before the scourge of the century (the universality of diseases of the matrix), stammered, and turned aside, after having vain recourse to the brutalities of surgery. Then Ovology comes to its aid. It is the careful study of the functions which must open the way to a knowledge of their changes. And who knows? The first, gently nursed by love, may perh^^s a,ntici- pate the second. ^ Forgive, my young friend, these serious words, at an hour when, of course, your heart is occupied with very different thoughts ; but love is anxious. For thy sake, for hers, I would draw thee back from thy poetic heaven to the real. But the real is herself, so it is heaven stiU. The question is of her, and of your future. When the health, the life of your darling is at stake, you will not accuse us of excess of wisdom, and tender precautions. Is it not a spectacle to make us reflect, to see around na young and charming women, smitten by love itself, con- demned to refusals, to involuntary evasions, or (hateful con- trast) to tearful concessions ? A desolate condition indeed, which overclouds love, and will soon extinguish it — which makes generation a fearful thing. One shrinks appalled when, to the trials of maternity he knows that increased pains are added. To the most ten Thou shalt leave thy Father and Mother. 1O9 der outgushings of hearts, which make ihmi one, thei-e cornea a time full of grief and terror of the future, and death between kisses. Formerly this scourge was less noticeable. In the first place, because they died sooner, and so did not take their full measure of suffering ; but also from another cause : woman, then not at all refined, living a less intellectual life, had stronger physical reactions against both pain and bad treat- ment. I here allude especially to what is mildly called amorous passion, but which might be better termed the de- mands of selfish pleasure, exacting too much, desiring wrongly, consulting neither the period nor the suffering. She, weak and delicate, feels all this, and feels it deeply. It is no jest ; but demands our serious attention, and the love of every moment. What I would say to the mother, I would insijit upon to the lover. In truth, more fragile than a child, woman absolutely re- quires that we love her for herself alone, that we guard her carefully, that we be every moment sensible that in urging her too far we are sure of nothing. Our angel, though smil- ing, and blooming with life, often touches the er^rth with but the tip of one wing ; the other would already waft her else- where. Ask not of the ignorance of the past, what shall be done in this great matter ; it knows not, and cannot answer. Ask science alone to advise, and love alone to execute. Science replies first, very simply : That we should love in her hour of love, without precipitation, letting things take their course, to succeed each other in their natural order — but one thing at a time, avoiding congestions and all perma- nent irritations. Therefore, we know the true moment, lawful and sacred, in which marriage should take place. In a treatise approved by the Academy of Sciences, and authorized by it8 high approval, it is stated that one ought only to marry a 8 170 Thou shalt leave thy Father and Mother. young girl ten days after tlie process of ovulation, that is to say — ^in the cahn, serene, and sterile week she has between the-two periods. (RaciborsM, 1844, p. 133.) This excellent observation, as humane as it is reasonable, is no quack theory, but profoundly scientific, and derived from established facts, and the known laws of Ovology. The deduction is natural, and so it will remain invariable, an impera- tive and necessary law of marriage. In fact, nothing could be wiser. The sterile period should be chosen, says Raci- borski, because she would suffer too much if she were en- ceinte in the first months. How cruel would it be to inflict upon her at the same time three pains — her periodical indis- position, the initiation of marriage, and the disturbances of a first pregnancy. " But her mother would attend to that,'' says some one. Not she. She wiU allow the favorable period to pass, and marry her daughter three or four days later — just when the woman is most susceptible ; and she becomes pregnant imme- diately. The ten full days allowed'will be a blessing, for thus science interposes between impatient passion and the wife, shielding her as" in a mother's arms, and better than she could. So every great discovery, every great truth, whicL at first is but a light, and Speaks only to the reason, is nol slow in reaching those practical results which touch the heart. - Snfiicient unto the day is the evil thereof; one labor at a time. Spare the bride, I pray you, at such a time, those noisy repasts of provincial weddings with which fools would stiifl her. If she does not eat, they will say, " Don't you see ? she is sad ; they have to force her. She does not love her hus- ' band — that's plain." I perceive that the good sense of our fathers desired, on ,the contrary, that she should come to this trial of separation and tears, of moral and physical suffering, only when prepared by her mother, well refreshed, light and gay, and so much the less vulnerable. Thou shalt leave thy Father and Mother. 171 The rites and symbols of marriage are even now very iiD- [lerfect. Pfeople busy themselves excessively in teaching the weak- that she is weak, so that she may feel dependent. It would be much more instructive, more original, more humane, to teach the strong that here he must not show himself strong, to inspire him at such a moment with delicate attentions and compassion. Love will provide for that, they say. But it ia quite the contrary. Love, be it confessed, makes strange transformations. At times, in man, a wild beast roars with impatience — the ferocity of desire. Physicians begin to suspect that precipitation and reckless insisting (shall we call it cruel pride?), are often prime causes of enduring irritations, and incurable congestions. Incurable, of course ! How can there be a cure when every day the malady is aggravated ? ^ Recall, at the decisive moment, that pious, that religious maxim, that sovereign exorcism which can put your devil to flight quicker than any formula — the legal definition, " Mar- riage is consent." It will not be worth while to remember it at noon, if you cannot think of it at night, in the moment of agitation, when your trouble is greatest. Then, then is the time to remember, " Marriage is consent." I should indeed rejoice if thou hadst a mind to think of this in the evening — if, laying aside pride and all its follies, con- sulting only thy love and thy heart, thinking only of thy poor little one, thou wouldst talk with her mother, who, without thee, dares not have a wish. "We must soften, must blunt these thorns, if not remove them. The merciful rite of India speaks in this matter like "our own physicians. The daughter of France is often sarcastic, laughing at our expense, butat the same time the most nervous in the world, and most readily captivated by imagination. She ought not to be afraid of him whose absolute mistress she is to be; and- yet she trembles to such a degree, that were there no other 172 Thou shalt leave thy Father and Mother. difficulty, there would still be a grave one in her depression of spirits. Man, so selfish, thinking only of himself, complains much of some sorcery which he says paralyses everything. But the more veritable terrors of woman are not counted. Her cheerfulness should be restored, that is the great point. He must be patient, magnanimous, and desire not as against himself, l)ut for the sake of both, that she, too, may be happy; he must consult her, obey her, and make this his triumph — that her pain do not displease her. Happy he who can prepare his own happiness ! "Who would have it free, and desired, who trusts in tenderness and good- nature. A sincere adorer, with true devotion he honors the approaches of the temple, and guards its portal with a tender and patient persistence. Of themselves those holy doors will move for him. The living fire of the god, that seems so far off, is at the very threshold. In a higher, a more advanced state, to which hereafter we shall come, it will be truly understood that this pleasant invi- tation is precious, especially by the new ways it opens to the heart; that it is but one step in the progression that love makes in the gradual conquest of the beloved, in every serious union, and such progressions must have long preceded the fes- tival which is love's j)roclamation. The soul-marriage must have existed long before the legal nuptials, if it is to continue afterwards, and strengthen more • and more. Let us efface from our language that immoral and fatal phrase ; the Consummation of Marriage. A progressive state, it finds its consummation only in the consummation of life. The wedding is but a publishing of this long initiation. Useful, indispensable, as a guarantee, it nevertheless has often, like the noisy, brilliant festival, a very badTeffect upoil the mar- riage. The uproar seems to signify that a great day is over. and lovfe has given up its aU; and the succeeding days are dull The Young Wife. — Solitary Thoughts. 173 and cold. It is -irrong to date by a festival what should be eternal. No, even at that divine moment, know that it is indeed di vine only because it consummates nothing, ends nothing; it in divine, because it begins. Thine idol has given thee all she could, has given herself in accepting thy love, has given her- self in saying, "I am thine," has given herself in opening for thy entertainment one of the great portals of her soul. But that soul is a whole realm of dehghts which thou must no\p survey. The world of discoveries within her, which awaits thy explorations, how couldst thou know it in advance ? She h-^r- self does not know it. She only desires, passionately, tlr,&t thou shouldst be her lord and master. Once possessed, she instinctively feels that she can be even more than she is. She will do what she can, so that with the infinitude of new sen- sations that love wiU create in thee, thou shalt entirely tra- verse her boundless sea of yet virgin emotions, of chaste and delicate desu-es. VII. THE YOUNG "WIFE. HER SOLITARY THOUGHTS. In my Book of Love, I have touched upon the great exter- nal points. In this I attempt more : I would observe Woman herself, especially the woman who has strong family ties, and whom even the most desirable marriage quite uproots from the soil to which she was bound by a thousand fibres. A truly dramatic passage this ! From parents whom she regrets to a husband she adores, she passes, not hesitating, not strug- gling, but with sacred sorrow. Does she love the less on 174 The Young Wife. — Solitary Thoughts. that account ? Infinitely more, to the fuirextent of her sacn- fice. She gives herself up with all her grief; with boundless love, and an unstinted faith she puts into his hand her bleed- ing heart. I know not whether the man, bewildered by his own hap- piness, can preserve enough coherency to perceive all this ; but for myself, I know no sight more touching than such a young girl (shall I say maiden or woman ?) as she suddenly finds herself transplanted away from her old habits, and all her familiar world, into a strange house. To be sure, it is, or it will be, her own ; but she has still to become acquainted with it. Until then, all is strange to her. She does not know -where to find any thing. Each new article recalls to her the good old family things -she left behind. True, her husband, with his strong persona- lity, his youthful enthusiasm, his charming infatuation, warms and illumines all ; but he is not always there ; and if he be absent but for a moment, all, all is changed, looks vacant and solitary. The other house, in its great harmony of multiple afiTectiona ■ — father, mother, brothers, sisters, servants, pets — ^was a world ready made. But here is a world to make. Happily, the ardent and powerful creator, the life-giver, Love, is here. But Love is jealous. " If you wish," says he, " to create, begin with me ; if you wish me to bear you into the future on my wings, do not tie me down vnth that strong thread of the past.'' The first law of the Drama, unity in action, is the first law of life. Hope not for the strong without the simple. "Fool, to think the heart is 'in pieces,' to think that though it be shared, each part is still an entity! What will become of thee, if thou hast forever there that complaining, I will not say jealous, mother, with whom thy wife will live, whom she will confide in every day? Let but a cloud come between you, and it is -talked of again and again : she is comforted by her mother ; and so the cloud takes form, and hangs on the The Young Wife.— Solitary Thoughts. 175 horizon. But thyself, thy love, and Niglit would have dissi- pated it entirely. " And her brothers — think you they will not be a little jealous of the man who takes from them her who was the jcy of the family, and its peculiar charm? True, their young and pure emotions are not to be condemned. But that only makes the tie stronger, apd the secret hostility more natural. The strong family feeling, lost sight of for a moment, and eohpsed, will soon return. To have grown up together, to be able to talk, among themselves, of a thousand nothings, precious and, dear, of which you have no knowledge — ^this is a sort of marriage. In the past there is this strength and danger too, that, embelUshed by time, by losses and regrets, by the sweet tears we shed for it, it is a hundred times dearer than when it was the present. The holy brightness of the domestic hearth, the cradle in which they slept or waked together, irresistibly allures them backwards, to over- look the present. The heart is double, and it is shared. Tra- dition, old times, and retrospective thoughts contend with love hour by hour. Nature says : " March, then ! Take thy wife away ! With- out quite parting her family ties, live with her apart. The more distant her family, the more thine own wUl thy wife be; the more, too, will it be thy duty, thy happiness, to be all in all to her. Thou canst not neglect her. Thou art her father, day by day to form her mind ; thou art her brother, to cheer her with friendly chat and sweet companionship ; thou art her mother, to care for hei- in her little womanly ueeds, to caress her and pet her. In thy maternal, as well as conjugal arms, she will learn to find her cradle when she suffers ; and by all her petty, trifling, childish things thou shalt raise her, so much the more, to thine own aspirations." This is a little hard, but it is true and serious — indeed, a law of marriage. So she will have her hours of solitude ; in fact she has them "^he very next day. For as they thought 176 The Young Wife.— Solitary Thoughts, themselves surely intrenched for a charming tSte-vViSit , the . famil)- physician, an intimate friend, passes the sentry, and would carry off the husband. Any idle pretext serves his purpose — sotne urgent and important business, for instance, in which her husband alone can aid him. Of course the latter liates it, but goes. And as for her, she is so reasonable, that even at such a time she would not interfere with their friend- ship. In reality, it is all done for her sake. An old and very wise custom it was to let the bride breathe a little. Would to heaven the three days' abstinence — save furtive snatches — which once was imposed on them, were the rule now. Then love gathered strength, and grew with its desire ; and the bride had time to compose herself; for kind Nature quickly restores, soothes, and strengthens — ^but on condition that there be a little rest. Love lost nothing by it, as we see in the Song of Songs. For the bereaved virgin, when she was no longer besieged and persecuted, languished as though she were already a widow, and wished him to return at any price. Truly a naive and significant outburst ! She was very well satisfied until then, this chaste maiden ; and why did you trouble her ? Do not laugh, incorrigible man, but love and adore her. See her (as in that glowing poem of Syria) dis- tracted, rising at night, and seeking him through all the gloomy streets, at the risk of shocking encounters. Protect her, and lead her home again ; or rather bring back her hus- band to her. Ah! how happy he is ! They wUl not complaia again ; the pain of absence will render every other trouble pleasant. To returij to her who does not roam the streets at night : behold her for the first time in her new house, alone with her own thoughts. She recollects herself now ; she broods over her wondrous dream, and reproduces its details. She turns to her husband, so tender, so generous, so good ; and her eyea water. She recalls his gentleness, his patience, his infinite delicacy xmder certain mysterious circumstances, and she The Young Wife. — Solitary Thoughts. ij~ blushes. Sometimes she fancies this is all an illusion, a dream — and she fears to wake. But no — doubt is impossible , for a very palpable sign reassures her, a' sign which will not pass away. " So much the better ! it is all true,'' she says. Thus her deep happiness, armed with thorns, sj)eaks to her from time to time — " So much the better ! I am his, then, sealed with his fove. It is done, and God could do no more.'' So haughty before, and so stately always, she was still a woman, and she is loving; she clings because she suffers, she would belong and depend / she enjoys in solitude the humili- ties of passion. If the thorns are sharp, she exalts herself the more by the difficulty and the duty. She is as a wounded woman, who insists on suckling her child. Then a strange struggle takes place, wherein, much desiring, he devotedly resists. If he is magnanimous and strong, if he abstain by mere force of love, oh ! her very heart -melts, and in her delight she repays him lavishly, in caresses, in kisses, in tears, and overwhelms and intoxicates him. She no longer reckons with him, but gives herself up in a hundred charming ways, in short renders discretion impossible to him. He grows - dizzy ; his cruel exaction fills him Avith remorse. But having but the sublime side of love, she, to her sorrow, perceives only the divine uniting. It is not an unusual .thing for this fatal sensuality to be pro- longed too far, sometimes for weeks and months, to the grave peril of the devdted victim. He is sad, dejected, full of regret, and yet sins on the same. She, proud, pure, and cou- rageous, insists that they take no one's advice. The only remedy to be thought of, as I see, would be (if the husband were a soldier or a sailor) sailing orders, or close duty for a month. But what despair for her ! At the first hint of going, she weeps, and cries, "Let me die! what is the dif-. fei ence ! To lose thee is to die !" She is very noble in all this ! acknowledge that, my friend, 8* X78 The Young Wife.— Solitary Thoughts. But of thee I know not what to say. I pity thee, poor slave of the body, I pity our slavish nature. How exalted, and how poetic ! She is the poetry of lieaven fallen around you. May you feel it, and weave with it a deli- cate religion ! This frail but fascinating emanation fi-om a better T7orld is given you, — for v^hat ? To change you, to make you a better man. And you need it ; for, frankly, you are a barbarian. Civilize yourself a little. With your gentle companion you may reform your manners ; by her pure love you may sanctify your heart. Even yesterday, you were in company with noisy friends, pursuing pleasure without restraint ; and now you are with this young saint, this virgin, this charming sybil, who knows, or comprehends, or devises everything, who hears the very grass grow in the ground. _ " She has always lived in so harmonious, so pleasant, so well- regulated and quiet a, home, that your young strength, your manly vitality, though they please her much, disturb her. Your bold step, your somewhat jioisy way of closing doors and windows, startle her ear. Her mother walked so softly , her father spoke but httle, and in so low a tone. But your ring- ing voice, with the true military quality, good to command sol- diers with, made her start— I will not say tremble — the very first day ; but she laughed in a moment. Soften yourself for your gentle companion, for she wishes to be your companioa in everything. She would assist and serve you, and be your little friend, she says. And so she is, but a weak and frail one ; and you must take the more care of her because she does not like to be taken care of. • "Z delicate? Not at all. Zsick? Never." She says to her mother, " Everything goes well." But some day, when you are in haste to go, and are detained by her, through ov^r-attention to her toilet, you are thoughtlessly harsh to her. Then, see how her heart overflows in tears. Just then, her mother arrives, and catches her in the act j but The Young Wife. — Solitary Thoughts. L79 blames herself: " No, inamma, it is nothing ; I was wrong and he corrected me." The busy man, compelled to be absent long hours together, finds, in her very sadness, a beautiful, delicious compensation, in being so anxiously awaited. How touching she is ! and what a pity you could not return secretly and conceal yourself, so as to witness her agitation, especially in the last moments. How freely, then, might you read on her frank face, in her eloquent eyes, all that she feels for you in her heart ! She need not speak — I can hear it all : " Why is he not here ? It is so long since he went away. Will he tell me something ? Will he have some news to entertain me with ? I do so long for him ! to hear him ascend the stairs quickly and iirmly, as he always does! Then, in a moment, everything, will be changed ; the house, full of happiness and mirth, will fairly tremble with joy. The table, the hearth, will glow again. Such a fine appetite, such rapid stories ! His plate shall be here. — No, batter here. These are his favorite dishes, ours — for us two alone (Fido shan't have any) — a kiss for every mouthful. If the fire makes me sleepy, or if I make believe, he, who never sleeps, will know how to wake me. I have on the head-dress he thought so pretty. — But I am wrong. — If he should be tired ? Or oh ! if he should say that I have taken possession of him, expressly for to-night, I should feel so ashamed !" Such are her simple thoughts, which perhaps I should have done as well to keep to myself It is four o'clock, and you are not expected till six, but still she cannot keep still. She goes and comes, and looks at the sun, and takes her place at the window. " What is the matter ? Night is earning on, and my flowers are closing. The smoke is rising from the chimneys. Those people are very happy ; they have returned, and their families are united. What is he doing, and ^\here is he ?" By accident, that day, something unavoidable detains you /8o She jvould be His Partner and Client The clock strikes seven. Oh ! how hev tide, her torrent of fancies, apprehensions, dreams, rushes in ! Even her natural sweetness is disturbed. A tear of impatience escapes her, and (cotild I have believed it?) she stamps her foot. Ten or twenty times already, the table, the fire have been retouched, improved, perfected ; but they bring not back the master. Her anxiety is at its height ; her pulse beats rapidly But hark ! a sound on the steps — three steps at a time — he rushes in. And she, too — another would have controlled her- self, would have maintained her dignity — would have waited ! But this poor little thing waits for nothing, but hastens to drown herself in your kiss, and faint between your arms. VIII. SHE WOULD BE HIS PARTNER AND HIS CLIENT. One day I heard a pretty saying of the peasants : " See, they have been married only a week, and already they are sp loving !" That already is charming. It expresses a very truly and deeply human idea — that we love in proportion to our intimate knowledge of each other, in proportion to the length of time we live together and enjoy each other's society. This may astonish the blase, the sick, and the tilled. The deranged stomach thinks it necessary continually to change its food ; it finds everything insipid, and has no appetite. If it were healthier, it would see that the same is never the same ; when one's taste has its natural and correct tone, it peiceives the marvellously delicate shades with which the same food is incessantly diversified. If this is true of taste, the lowest of the senses, how much more so of love, the most delicate, the most complex I She would be His Partner and Client. l8l In tlie higher orders of animals, we a.I know that there is much more variety in the rene^'ings and metamorjshoses of a BJngle female, than in the brutal tasting of many. With man, love is a voyage of discovery in a little world — infinite, always infinitfe, because always renewed- — from mystery to mystery, by the eternal revealings of the beloved — ever new and ever tinsounded ; because we are always creating there. The honeymoon days of marriage are those of dizzy, blind passion — if I may say so, a season of physiology. In these first tastings of the tree of life we hardly distinguish its true flavor. The newly-wedded wife would be much humiliated, if she possessed sufficient sang-froid to perceive the truth, in spite of so many fine speeches — namely, how much her sex has to do with her lover's infatuation, how little she herself. It is only with" time that a man learns to fully appreciate a distinct, loving, and beloved personality — the woman whose preference for him makes her superior to every other. He love'j her, then, for the pleasure she gives and has given; he loves her as his own creation, sculptured and impregnated by himself. He loves her for that high attribute of love, that in its most passionate climax it is no longer frenzy, nor annihilation, but God made manifest. "People love," they say, "because they do not yet know each other ; as soon as they do, they will love no longer." ~ Who, then, do know each other ? I meet in the world only people who are ignorant of each other, who in the same chamber live strangers to each other ; who, having failed av.'kwardly at the only point where they might have blended, remain discouraged, inert, in stupid juxtaposition, like one stone against another. Who knows ? the stone struck, might? Iiave given forth electric sparks, or perhaps gold or diamonds. Another maxim is: "The marriage once consummated, adieu to love;" Marriage, indeed ! and where will you find it ? I see it i82 She would be His Partner and Client. almost nowhere ; the married people I know can scarcely lie called married. That term, marriage, is very elastic ; it admits of iramensa thermometrical latitude. One is married at twenty degrees, another at ten, another at zero. Let us alwaiys distinguish and ask, " In what degree are they man and wife ?" Everything in married life depends on the beginning ; and ■we must confess that, in general, the fault lies not with the women. Young ladies, really young, whom confession, ro- mance, and the world have not precociously matured and de- veloped, bring to marriage delightful luxuriance of heart, an instuictive docility, andgood intentions. They have great ex- pectations of the life on which they are entering. She, who, with her parents, was industrious, studied zealously, and seemed to know everything, wishes now to learn everything anew from her husband. And she is very right, for it will all return to her invested with life and ardor. She at first received it passively, as inert and cold matter ; but now she will grasp it, quickened with that burning electricity which is the only magnetism that unites soul and body. Yet we grant that her father acted wisely : if he had given her a stronger impress, he would have committed a blunder. The unknown and unforeseen fate of his daughter, was this very same future husband ; it was necessary then that her education should not be too definitive, but somewhat elastic. Besides there is no stamina in the family — the mother, very often, still entertains the old superannuated ideas which cannot be those of a young man ; and the father, though more decided, has not been able to influence his daughter as to many difficult and dangerous questions, wherein the heart and the judgment are at stake. How many maxims in morality and facts in history, has he not sIio'bti her in profile ! but it belongs to the husband lo fill them up. Those vague, those incomplete family traditions, the hesita- tion and vacillation in the life and words of old persons, are She would be His Partner and Client. 183 precisely what the young wife must be removed from. She desires a man of decision, who will never be in doubt, who will think and act with firmness and strength ; who even on trying and painful occasions will retain the serenity and good-humor of invincible courage. She will take ple.isuro, with such a true man, in being able to act the woman ; in liav^- ing for her confidence and her life a good pillow (but not too soft) on which she may lie in perfect rest. Of such a prize, she says, with her whole heart, " He is my master ;" but her smile adds : " Whose mistress I am" — mistress by the great subordination, mistress, in the full delight of obeying — -which, when one loves, is bliss unutterable. I do not remember what Indian law-maker it is who forbids the young wife, loving and admiring, to look at her husband too much. And what should she look upon, if not her own living, luminous book, wherein she may read at a glance, both what she shall believe, and what she shall do. How happy she will be ! What limitless faith, what a pas- sion of obedience she brings to you. As a maiden she eludes you. You may read in the songs of the modern Persians, in the ballads of Provencje, how she flies through all nature, taking a hundred forms that she may be pursued. But once overtaken, wounded, become a woman, far from flying, she follows, willingly follows her captor ; she would even be held a closer captive. And in this there is no decep- tion; in this naive and humble aspect, she fears only to be troublesome ; she walks behind, step by step, and says, " I will go anywhere." Create, if you can, a new world, full of unknown perils, she will follow you there. She will become an element — air, water, fire — and follow you into the infinite ; or, better still, she will be all imbued with life which sh.al] mingle with your own — ^if you like, a flower ; if you choose, a hero. Beneficent gift of God ! Woe to the cold, dull, proud man, who, thinking he possesses everything, knows not how to 184 She would be His Partner and Client. profit by the unbounded devotion, the delicious abandonment of her who gives hei-self up, without reservation, that he may be made the happier for it. The man has a hundred ideas, a hundred objects of con centration ; she only one — ^her husband. You should say to yourself, on going out in the morning, " What will my darling, my soul's joy, do all alone, the many hours she will wait for nie ? What shall I bring to her to interest and refresh her ; for it is from me she receives her life." Remember this, and never bring back to her, as so many do, the cares of the day, the" bitter dregs of failure. You are sustained by the excite- ment of the struggle, by the necessity of exertion, or the hope of doing better to-morrow ; but she, this poor woman- soul, so sensitive as to all that relates to you, she would be very differently affected by the blow ; she would retain the wound, and languish of it long. Be young and brave for both ; return serious, if the misfortune be indeed important, but never overwhelmed — spare, oh ! spare your child. The best way to strengthen her against these chances, is to very gradually initiate her into your business. This is practi- cable in many professions; we improperly circumscribe the circle of those which woman may enter, though many are, doubtless, too laborious for her, requiring effort, time, and will. But you could not better employ your time. What an admirable companion ! what a useful partner ! How much will be gained by it, especially for your hearts, and your domestic happiness. Thus to be one is true strength, repose and freedom. She wishes to work with you. Well, take her at her word ; set about it, not with the petty attentions of gallantry, but with strong, earnest love. Know that at this time she is ca])able of great effort, of continued application, that she will do anything to be loved. I can cite th« noblest, the most surprising examples of this; • She would be His Partner and Client. 185 An illustrious physician, at the head of One of the greatest Schools of the age, had, in his young wife, his favorite dis- ciple and his competent assistant, possessed of a mind truly manly in its vigor, and of profound sagacity. The great physiologist, who discovered and defined the law of Ovology, often saw, and saw correctly, as has heen proved, through the eyes of a woman. This is perhaps the noblest fact of its kind; that an admirable wife, by persevering devotion, thus contributed to the revelation of marriage. Without this woman would women have ever been understood ? Her heroic exertions, directed by genius, fathomed the great mys- tery, which has opened a world to us. Hitherto we had loved at hazard, we had loved in the dark. Humanity, which henceforth^ill love in the light, will not be ungrateful, and in drinking from its wells of affection and happiness, wiU always remember Madame Pouchet, of Rouen. Every man, taking into consideration the character of his profession and the capacity of his wife, should establish his commimity of interests in a greater or less degree, but it should inevitably be done. The artist, absorbed in his technicalities and his specialties, and in the minute details of execution, ought not to retire within himself, and shut out his \viie from the great idea which inspires his work, and which she herself would have fostered and sustained. The lawyer or the politician cannot afibrd to keep her in igno- rance of what makes up his life ; she can seldom be of any use to him, but she should be none the less informed. She is much more at home with the natural sciences. The physi- cian, who returns home fatigued and harassed with his grave responsibilities, cannot be a " society'' man ; he will scarcely go to the drawing-room to pass his leisure moments. How com- pletely might he rest on the domestic hearth, pursuing hia peaceful study of the secrets of life, which indirectly may arm him for his combat against death. Infinitely varied are the souls of women ! Men, as I have l86 Arts and Reading. — The Common Faith. said before, are cast in the same mould, made uniform by edu- cation ; but women are much moi'e natural, and very diverse. Nothing is more charming than the fact that no one woman resembles another. Voyagers on tropical seas, sometimes be- hold the water, for immense dfstances, transformed into a bril- liant parterre, glowing with an infinite variety of bright-hued creations. Are they plants, flowers ? Yes — living flowers, a marvellous iris of exquisite lives, seemingly fluid, but organ- ized — moving, active, having volition. It is the same with that social parterre which the female world presents. Are they flowers? No, they are souls. Most men, sensual and blind, in their flatteries and caresses, say ; " They are flowers ; let us pluck them ; let us inhale and enjoy their perfume; they bloom only for our pleasure.'' Oh ! how much greater the pleasure would be if they would cherish the poor flower, if they would leave it on its stem, and cultivate it according to its nature ! What a charm of hap- piness would it not give back to him who would devote his soul to it ! But as the flowers are varied, so are the modes of nurture. One needs grafting, the introduction of a diflferent sap, for she is as yet young and wild ; another soft and sweet, and thoroughly permeable, needs only imbibition — ^nothing is want- ing but to infiltrate her life ; another is more than fiuid, she is fantastic, a fly-away ; the dust of her love is scattered to the wind; she must be housed, concentrated, above all, fecun- dated. IX. ARTS AND READING. THE COMMON FAITH. A BiED-soisTG of our fathers, shows the trivial ideal of their day : Arts and Reading. — The Common Faith. 187 I was little, and a fool, When tbey sent me to school; I was little, and a fool, "When they sent me to school ; But nothing there I heard, Save a little loving word, Which, now I have a lover, I am always saying over. But this "little loving word," you must develop; and what does' it contain ? The three worlds, all that is real — and no more. She would be but too happy to leave you to work, to act, to reason alone ; she would be glad to be only a charming thing, that gave you pleasure. But you must make an indivi- dual of her, and introduce her more and more into your world of thought. The more intellectual she becomes, the more means will she possess to unite herself more closely with you. Make her strong— never fear. She wUl bfe softened at finding herself more free through you, haj)py in having more to give, in possessing a will, so as the more completely to lose herself in you. Learn this new thing, one which shall constitute one of the blessings of the future, in a more civilized society: namely, every art, every science affords us special means whc aby to penetrate more profoundly into the personality. It is not easy for two souls alone to fathom each other, and to mingle together. But each of those great methods which are called sciences or arts, is a mediator that touches a new chord, and discovers an organ of unknown love, in the beloved Learn this other thing, too little observed, which renders our communion of ideas with woman delightful : namely, thtit she receives them by senses which are altogether different from ours, and gives them back to us,. under most beautiful and touching forms which have all the charm of complete surprises. WTiat to man is only light, is to woman warmth, first of all 1,88 Arts and Reading. — The Common Faith. An idea takes the form of sentiment ; if it is profound, it bw. comes nervous emotion. A thought, an invention, some use- ful novelty, affects your brain pleasantly, and makes you smile, as with an agreeable surprise. But she, she feels at once the good which, will result from it, a new happiness for humanity. This touches her heart — she trembles — she shivers with agi- tation — she is well-nigh weeping. You hasten to strengthen her, you take her hand tenderly, but her emotion is not calmed ; like a circle in the water, spreading into ever- widening circles, it extends throughout her whole system, to the very depths of her nature, where it mingles wdth her tenderness, and, like everything else in her^ melts in love for you; so she throws herself on your breast, and clasps you in her arms. What boundless happiness will you enjoy in traversing with Eer the world of Art ; for each art is but a different way of loving; each, especially in its perfection, blends itself with love, or with religion, which is the same thing. Whoever initiates a woman in these higher temples, is her priest and lover. The stories of Heloise, and thejiew Heloise, do not belong to the past, but to the present, and the future — in a word, to eternity. That is why the maiden can pursue art only to a certain extent, and why her father is an imperfect guide. He cannot, he wi.' not, allow her to pass with him beyond certain grave and frigid regions. He leads her there, but when she would advance farther, in her young and pure enthusiasm, he stops — draws back ; for she stands on the dangerous threshold of a new world — Love. For instance, in drawing, he gives her the old Florentine school in its grandeur, the Madonnas of Raphael, the chaste pictures of Poussin. It would be impious to place Correggio before her^^mth his quiverings, and his burning passion. It would be immoral to show her the deep but unwholesome meaning," the feverish and sinister grace of the dying Italy, In the smile of the Joconda. Arts and Reading. — The Common Faith. 189 Life itself, life with its emotions, teaches only by love. vVhen the superb Nereid, the luxurious blonde of Rubens, treads the foaming waters, murmurs the marriage hymn, and already conceives of the future — so much the worse for th(4 maiden who shall feel that emotion, shall understand that je ne sais quoi, which issues from her amorous mouth. In hei heart, she would know it too well. Even the master-piece of Greece, pure and sublime in its greatness, so far, so very far from the sensuality of the painter of Antwerp — ^the fainting women, the swooning mothers of the temple of Theseus — what maiden would dare copy them ? Such the palpitation, such the heart-beating, visible under those beautiful robes, that she would be troubled. The con- tagion of love and maternity would utterly confuse her. Oh ! better that she wait awhile. Only under the eyes of her lover, in the arms of her husband may she be inspired by these things and appropriate to hereelf their life — may inhale their effluvia and their warm impregnation, may drink long draughts of their beauty, adorn herself with it," and endow with it the fruit of her bosom. Music is the true glory, the very spirit of the modern world. I define it, the art of :£using hearts, the art of mutual penetra- tion and sn intimacy so close, that by it, into the heart of your beloved, your wife, the mother of your children, you shall penetrate still deeper. What Dumesnil and Alex- andre have said of grand symphonies, of the music of friend- ship, of chamber music, I admire too much to repeat. I liave only this to add ; that between man and woman all is the music of love, the music of home, and of the closet. A duet is a marriage ; the singers do not simply lend themselves to it, but they give up their hearts for the time, give themselves up with even more abandon than they desire. What shall I say then of her who every evening sings, with the first comer, those moving, pathetic melodies which blend two souls toge- ther as completely as the first kiss ? The lover, the husband, igo Arts and Reading. — The Common Faith. will come too late, she has nothing more to bestow 'upon him. Happy the man, whose -wife renews his heart, day by day, with music in the evening! "All that I have, I give' to you," she says. "My ideas? N"©, I am still so ignorant; but through you I shall in time know everything. . All I have to give you, is the breath of my heart, the life of my life, my 60ul, without form, in which my love floats like an uncertain shadow, a dream. Oh, take both me and my dream!" "Ah! how Uttle I know of music," he says. "What a sava,ge life I have lived." She begins, and strives to abandon herself wholly to the inspiration, but cannot satisfy herself— it is so pure, so lofty ! He soars on golden wings into the vast heaven of love. He would also accompany her a Uttle with his voice ; at first, he dares not, but hums low, timidly restraining his power. Then, by degrees, launching out, he thrills her in his tura. Half choked, she tries to go on — she trembles — oh, how united they are ! — but their emotion is too strong, their voices fail, the song dies away in an abyss of profovfid harmony. Music is the crown, the perfect flower of arts. But to make it the principal basis of education, as is often done, is senseless and decidedly dangerous. Music is a modern art, almost without a past ; the arts of Design, on the contrary, are of all times, and are represented in every period of his- tory. For this reason, alone, they furnish rich and varied instruction. At every epoch, sculpture and painting afford not only models for imitation, but the moSt fruitful texts for intel- lectual improvement. These texts identify themselves won- derfully with those of literature, and even supply their place. What Rabelais and Shakspeare could not express of some ilea, some nice feature, some aspect of their age, is told by Da Vinei, by Correggio, by Michael Angelo,*or Goujon. All the too passionate books which the father avoided, from which, at the utmost, he only dared to make extracts, ar« Arts and Reading. — The Common Faith. lyi laid open before you. And what delight will it not afford you thus to place between you and your beloved all the trea- sures of life, both the Bibles of history and the Bibles of nature ! Their admirable concordance will be to her as a pillow on which her faith may rest. Every evening, without exciting her too much, and without interfering with her re- pose, some pleasant and improving reading, varied with affec- tionate conversation, may reveal to her something of the universal love, and some new aspect of God. She may now properly know all things, for she is a woman. What would have troubled the maiden will sanctify the wife's heart, and give her, by your side, sweet sleep and blessed dreams. It is through love that woman receives everything, even her intellectual culture. Would you nourish her with the trite and the commonplace ? Under the pretext of facility this is always done ; we know that, on the contrary, only the great and strong are simple. Woman says modestly : " I leave great facts to men, and read only light novels." But these novels, tame and insipid with their sickly images of love, are not the less complicated in incident and plot. 'No, let us always look to the highest; there shall we find the great intellect and the strong heart, even purity itself. Love ! where shall we look for it. Many a woman seeks it in Balzac. She had better go to Madame Sand, for in her works there is, at least, always an aspiration for the ideal; and better still, to the Cid and Homeo, to Sakontala and Virgil's Dido. But from an enormous height, above all other human works, the great legends of antiquity excel the rest, putting them to shame. Our ideas of progress create no illusions ; antiquity has left us to fathom the depth of Analysis, which is the ground- work of progress. With its synthetic power, and the organic vitality which propelled it forward, this young giant, with two strides, touched the poles, and reached the very bounds. ig2 Woman the Goddess of Goodness. ries of the world. Analysis has created the great tj'pes d divine simplicity. Thus, marriaae in Persia is of a type so heroic, that even in Rome it suffers a prosaic, vulgar de- basement. Hence, affection, ardor, the divine power of life and instinctive tenderness, love — sensual it may be — but diffusing itself in impulses of universal beneficence : such is the story of Egypt. Nothing has ever been added to it,- and we can only adore it. X. THE GREAT LEGEND OF AFRICA. WOMAN THIS GODDESS OF GOODNESS. (Fragment from the History of Love.) The chef-d'oeuvre of Egyptian art, the Rameses, as it is seen in Ipsamboul, in Memphis, and in the museum at Turin, affords a unique example of goodness in power, and of sub- lime repose. Its expression, which one might deem peculiar to that face, I have found again, in a degree, in the head of a young man, on a beautiful coin of Leyden. It is cha- racteristic of the race, and very different from the sharp, thin, Arab profile, which seems cut with a razor. In this head there is an extreme gentleness, and a fulness, which, how- ever, is not heavy, but seems the effect of a peaceful develop- ment of all the moral qualities. Man's heart is in his face, sanctifying, beautifying the external forms by the internal ray. This extraordinary expression of countenance is more than iiidividual; it is- the revelation of a race. In it we perceive that the great Egypt was as a moral festival ; the joy and the Woman fhe Goddess of Goodness. 193 divme smile of that deep African world, shut in on every other side. The highest type of the African, ahovo the negro, above the black, appears to be the Egyptian. So unfortunate, so constantly kept down, from the time of Joseph to that of Mohammed Ali — even to our own time indeed — the poor fellah of Egypt is yet a man of intelligence and un- common dexterity., A mechanic in the service of the pacha told me that the poor man whom he took into his workshops paid the closest attention, imitated him perfectly, and became in a fortnight as good a workman as a European in two years. This is also owing to their gentleness and their great docility, to their necessity of pleasing and satisfying. An excellent race of men, they desire only to love and to be loved. In the cruel immolation of the individual and the family, which power has ahvays compelled, their mutual ten- derness seems so much the greater. The premature death of the man yielding to excessive toil, the child snatched away by cruel military razzias, make for them an uninterrupted suc- cession of tears and sighs and mourning. The old lamentation of Isis, seeking her Osiris, has never ceased in Egypt ; ^long her great river, at every moment, yon hear it repeated. You find it painted and sculptured all through the country. What are those monuments of grief, that infinite care to save what may be saved of the body, that binding the dead with fillets inscribed with prayers, that commending to the gods the absent one ? I have never visited Egypt ; but when I go over our Egyptian museums, I feel that this immense effort of an entire people, these excessive expenses imposed upon the poorest, are the most ardent expression of aspiration the heart of man has ever shown — to cherish the beloved object, and follow it in death. Religions until then had dealt in epics ; but hush ! — here is the Drama ;> and a new genius arises over Europe and over Asia. 9 194 Woman the Goddess of Goodness. Let us lay the scene first. This land of toil and tears, Egypt, is in itself a feast, and a land of joy. In the burning bosom of Africa, fervid mother of a swarthy race, is opened by a breeze from the north a valley of promise. From un- known mountains' the torrent of fertility descends. "We share the frantic joy of the traveller, well-nigh dying of thirst, who, overcoming the sands at last, reaches liis long«d-for oasis— 7 Egypt at last, the great oasis of Africa. In Egypt, the first word is "Isis," and "Isis" is the last; for Woman reigns there. It is a remarkable saying, that of Diodorus, that in Egypt husbands swear obedience to their wives — an exaggerated expression of the great fact of female predominance. , The lofty genius of Africa, the queen of ancient Egypt, is this Isis ; her throne eternally decked with attributes of fecun- dation. The lotus is her sceptre, the calyx of the flower of love. Instead of a diadem, royally on her brow she bears a vultsre, the insatiate bird, that never cries "enough.'? And to show that this greediness will not be vain, in her strange headdress the insignia of the fruitful cow rise above the vul- ture, to signify maternity. This kind fruitfulness, this inex- haustible maternal goodness, is what glorifies and purifies the heats of Africa. Presently come, too thickly indeed, death and mourning, and the eternity of sorrow to sanctify them. Do religions spring only from nature, from climatej fi-om the inevitable destinies of race and country ? Oh ! much more from the needs of the heart. Almost always they arise out of the sufferings of the wounded soul. In the pangs ol a new dispensation, man plucks from it, as from a tree of sorrows, fresh fruit of consolation. Never has any rehgioh borne clearer testimony to this than the faith of old Egypt. It is manifestly tbe sublime consolation of a poor laborious people, who, toil- ing without respite, fearing death so much the more because family was everything to them, sought their alleviations in immortal nature, trusted themselves to its resurrections, and Woman the Goddess of Goodness. ig? prayed to it for hope. And Nature, deeply moved, swore ta them that they should never die. The potent originality of this great popular conception is that thus for the first time, the human soul and earth and heaven associated their triple drama with the outline of the year. The year dies only to rise again. Love caught at this idea, and be- lieved in the eternal renaissance and resurrection of the soul. When I see among the mountains some peak of basalt, which has pierced the superincumbent strata, and overlooks all other summits, I ask myself from what profound depths, and by what enormous force, has this giant arisen ? The religion of Egypt fills me with just that astonishment : From what depths did it spring, of physical tenderness and love and grief? The abysses of nature ! In the universal mother. Night, were conceived before all time, a daughter and a son, Isis and Osiris, who already loved each other in the womb/ and who were so utterly one that Isis became pregnant. Even before she was, she was a mother , for she bore a son, who was called Horus, but who was no other than his father — another Osiris of goodness, and beau- ty, and light. 'Then the three were born — a wonder! mother, father, son, same age, same love, same heart. How beautiful ! behold them at the altar — woman, man, and child — persons mark you, and living beings. Not the fantastic trinity by which India united in a discordant marriage three ancient religions. Not the scholastic trinity by which Byzan- tian subtlety argued/its~metaphysics. But life, and nothing more ; from that burning ray of nature flashed the triple hu- man unity. Oh, until then, how fierce and terrible were the gods! The Indian Siva keeps his eyes closed, lest the world should perish nnder his devouring glance. The God of the pure, the Fire of the Persians, hungers for all that exists. But here naturo herself is on the altar, under the sweet aspect of Family, blessing creation with a mother's eye ; for the great god is a 196 Woman the Goddess of Goodness. mother. How does this reassure me ! I had feared that the black race, governed too much by the beast, impressed in its infancy with terrific images of the lion and the crocodile, would produce only monsters. But thus is it softened, hu- manized, made feminine. The loving African, in his profound desire, has exalted the most touching object of all earthly religions. What ? That living reality, a good and faithful woman. Most ardent this, but so pure! Ardent, as we compare it with cold, ontological dogmas. Pure, as we contrast it with modern refinements, with our faint conceptions, our pious corruptions, our world of equivocations. All innocent, the joy bursts forth. Immense and popular, the joy of exhausted Africa — a deluge of water, a prodigious sea of sweet water, comes. I know not whence, but over- flowing the land, deluging it with happiness, infiltrating and insinuating itself into the least of its veins, so that not one grain of sand shall complain that it is thirsty. The little dried- up canals smile, as the babbling water visits them with refresh- ment. The drooping plant laughs with all its heart, as the welcome wave moistens its root, and takes possession of its stalk, and mounts upward to its leaves, and hangs upon the stem, which gently sighs — ^the whole a charming spectacle, and one wide scene of love and pure delight, for the great Isis is inundating her well beloved. ^ The good Osiris works and works. He created Egypt herself, and the land is his chUd. He made the worship of Egypt, and he engendered in her the arts, without which she would have perished. But nothing lasts. The gods havci disappeared. The living Sun of goodness, which planted in the bosom of Isis all the fruits, and everything that was salutary, could of himself cre- ate all things except time and duration. One morning he was gone. O, void, immense ! where is he ? Isis, distracted, searches for him. Woman the Goddess of Goodness. 197 The sombre doctrine spread throughout all western Asia, that even the gods must die but that dogma of Syria and Asia Minor, and the isles, couid not even ajjproach, it seems, this robust Africa, which has so vivid and so ever-prosent 3 sentiment of life. But why deny it ? For everything dies. The Father of Life, old Nile himself, is exhausted and dried up. At certain times the Sun is no longer himself, but, dejected and pale, has . lost his rays. Osiris, life, goodness die together, and by a bar- barous death, his limbs all scalttered. His weeping wife finds his remains ; but one part is wanting, and she seeks that, tearing her hair. " Alas ! that pfl,rt is Life itself, the energy of Life, the sacred power of Life ! If you are wanting, what shall be- come of the world ? Where may you be found again ? " She implores the Nile, she cries to Egypt. But Egypt takes care not to give up her assurance of'perpetual fertility. Yet, so great a grief well deserved a miracle ; and in that fierce combat of tenderness and death, Osiris, all dismembered as he is, and cruelly mutilated, resuscitated by an omnipotent will, returns to her. And so great is the love of the dead, that, by the magic of the heart, he finds a last desire. He has returned from the tomb only to make her a mother again. And, ah, how eagerly does she receive the embrace! But it is only an adieu, and the glowing bosom of Isis will never warm that icy germ. What of that ? The fruit it bears, sad and pale though it be, proclaims no less the supreme victory of love, which was fruitful before Ufe, and is fruitful after it. Interpreters of this legend ascribe to it a significance of astronomical symbolism ; and, certainly, the coincidence of the destiny of man with the course of the year, the decline of the sun, etc., has been recognised from the earliest times. But all this is secondary, and of later observation. Its primal origin was in humanity, the actual wound of the bereaved widow of Egypt, and her inconsolable grief. On the other hand, let not the African and material coloring igS Woman the Goddess of Godness. deceive you. Here, truly, is something more than regret for physical joys, and unsatisfied desire. In such suffering doubt- less nature demands something. But Isis did not desire merely a man ; she longed for him whom alone she loved, her own and not another — the same, always the same. The sentiment is entirely exclusive, and entirely individual. We perceive it in the infinite care bestowed upon the body, so that not a single atom shaU be lost, so that death may change no part of it, but one day shall restore, in its wholeness, this sole object of love. " I long for him who was mine, who was myself, and my completeness. I desire him, and he shall live again. The beetle reappears, and the phoenix ; the sun, the year return. And so I long for him, and he shall arise again. Am I not life and eternal nature ? Though he disappear some day, he will certainly return to me. I feeUhim, I carry him within myself. In myself I had hini before I was. I tell you I was his sister and his lover ; but I was his mother also. Simple and profound truth ; and thus under a mythological form the triple mystery of love is expressed for the first time. The wife is a true sister to the man in the labors of life — more than sister, and more than wife, to console him, and to rest his weary head at night. She comforts his fatigue ; a nurse, she lulls him to sleep, and taking him again into her bosom, brings him forth with renewed life, forgetful of all things, and rejuve- nated for the joyous waking of the morn. Such is the power of marriage, but not of transient pleasure. The longer it lasts the more is the wife a mother to the husband, the more is he her son. It is their guaranty of immortality. United thus, who shall disunite them? Isis contained Osiris, and so inclosed him in her maternal tenderness, that all separation was but a phantasy. In this legend, so tender, so pure, so simple, there is a mar- vellous intimation of immortality, never surpassed. Be hope- ful, all afflicted hearts, forlorn widows, and little orphans! Woman the Goddess of Goodness. 199 jrou weep ; but Isis also weeps, and she does not despair. Osiiis, dead, yet lives, continually renewed in his innocent Apis. Down there, he is a shepherd of souls, a gentle guardian of the world of shades, and your dead one is near him. Fear not ! all is well. One day he will return to claim his body from you. Envekpe with care those precious remains. Embalm them with perfumes, with prayers, and with burning tears. Preserve them very near you. O happy day, when the Father of souls, issuing from his gloomy realms, shall restore to you your beloved, shall join him to his body again, and say; I have taken care of him for you. The eternity of the soul — not vague and impersonal, as in the creed of Asia — but the individual soul, consecrated anf' eternalized in love, the imperishable permanence of the adorea one, the tender goodness of God held fast by the tears of a woman and pledged to restore — this sublime blessing is the boon of aU, and henceforth shall never pass away. God has promised only for the good ; he will separate them from the wicked. In this, for the first time, we clearly apprehend the Judgment and divine justice. Wait- ing, let us labor, let us buUd with eternal materials, let us per- petuate our memories, let us address ourselves to future ages in the language of marble and granite. AU Egypt is as a book to which aU the wise may come, one by one, to learn. Consequently, all nations imitate her, and become emulous of immortality. They heap up, and they accumulate. Each day enriches the inheritance of the human race. Thus by a moral of art, of labor, of immortality, thia adorable legend fertiUzes the whole earth. 200 How Woman excels Man. XL HOW WOMAN EXCELS MAN. The true happiness of the teacher is La finding himself Burpassed by his pupU. Woman, constantly cultivated by man, and enriched by his thought, soon believes ; and soma morning she finds herself superior to him. She becomes superior to him, as -well by these new elements as by her personal gifts, which without the inspirations she deiives from man would scarcely have come to light. Melo dious aspirations, and sensibility to nature, these were in her, but they have flourished by love. Add one gift (so high, that it is the all in all, that which chiefly distinguishes our race from others) : a true and charming womanly heart, opulent with compassion, with knowledge to console all, the divinations of pity. She is docile, she is modest, she is unconscious of her splen- dor ; but at every moment it blazes forth. You take her to the Jardin des Plantes, and she dreams there of Alps, and virgin forests of America. You take her to the galleries of pictures, and she dreams of the time when there wiU no longer be museums, when whole cities shall be galleries, and have their walls painted like the Campo-Santo. At the labored concerts of artists, she thinks of the concerts of the people which shall be hereafter — grand confederations wherein the souls of all the human race wiU be united in a final harmony of universal friendship. You are strong ; she is divine — a daughter arid a sister of nature. She leans upon your arm, and yet she has wings. She is feeble, she is in pain ; and it is just when her beautiful languishing eyes bear witness that she sufiers, that the dear sibyl soars to lofty heights and inaccessible summits. Who knows how she mounts thither? How Woman excels Man. -20) Yonr tenderness lias done much towards that. If slio has this power, if as woman and mother, united with man, she possesses in the midst of marriage the sibylline virginity, it is because your anxious love, surrounding the dear treasure, baa divided and distributed your life, — for you, hard labor and the rude contacts of the world — for her, peace and love, ma- ternity, art, and all the tender cares of domesticity. How well you have done ! and how grateful am I for it! Oh! woman, fragile globe of incomparable alabaster, wherein bums the lamp of God, one must care for thee well, bear thee with a pious hand, and guard thee closely in the warmth of his bosom. It is by sharing with her- the miseries of the special labor with which your days are occupied, dear workman, that you will preserve her in the nobleness which only children and women have — that amiable aristocracy of the human race. She is your nobleness, your own, to raise you above yourself. When you return from the forge, panting, fatigued with laboi-, she, young and fresh, fiours over you her youth, bi'ings the sacred wave of life to you, and makes you a god again, with a kiss. With so divine an object near you, you will not blindly follow the temptations which allure you from, your rugged and narrow path. You will each moment feel the happy necessity of elevating and extending your conceptions, in order to fol- low your dear pupil whither you have elevated her. Youi young friend, your scholar, as she modestly calls herself, will not permit you, O master, to shut yourself up in your avoca- tion. She beseeches you every moment to come out from it, and aid her to remain in harmony with all that is noble and beautiful. To suflSce for the humble needs of your linle com- •ade, you will be forced to be great. She is practical, and she is spiritual ; she has the most oc- taves, above and below. She is a lyre of ampler range than you,^but not complete, for. she is not very strong in tha middle chords. •9* 202 How Woman excels Man. Slie readies into the details of matters whic'u escape us. And on the other hand, at certain times, she sees over oui • heads, pierces the future, the invisible, and penetrates through the body into the world of spirits. But the practical faculty she has for small things, and the prophetic faculty that sometimes leads to great, have rarely a medium, strong, calm, and melodious, whereby she can fall back upon herself, and fecundate herself. For the most part, she alternates rapidly without change, according to the month. Now her poetry declines to prose, then her prose rises to poetry, often by fierce storms, by sudden gusts of the mistral, like the climate of Provence. An illustrious reasoner laughs at these prophetic powers, and denies them, incontestable as they are. In the effort to depi-eciate them, he seems to confound the spontaneous inspi- rations of the woman with somnambulism, a sickly, dangerous state, a nervous debility, often caused by the arrogance of the man. He asks what we can do with a faculty so uncertain, " besides being physical and inevitable." I know that inspiration, even the most spontaneous, is not entirely free. It is always mingled and marked with a measure of fatality. If for that you would degrade it, you must con- tend that eminent artists are not men. You must class with the women Rembrandt, Mozart and Correggio, Beethoven, Dante, Shakspeare, Pascal, all the great writers. Is it abso- lutely certain that even those who believe in relying exclu- sively on logic, never yield to this feminine power of inspira- tion ? I find traces of it even among the closest reasoners. Let them become ever so little artistic, and they unwittingly fall under the wand of the fairy. We cannot say (like Proudhon) that woman is only recep, live. She is productive by her influence upon man, both ir. the ideal, and in "the real. But her thought seldom, attaihra Bti-ong reality ; and that is why she has created so little. The political world, is generally almoRtmaccessible to her How Woman excels Man. 203 A generatire and essentially masculine spirit is necessary to it. But she has the sense of order, and is well fitted for ad- ministration. The great creations of art seem even now impossible to her. Every noble work of civilization is a product of the genius of man. All this has been made, very foolishly, a question of self- \ ove. The man and the woman are two relative and incom- plete beings, only two halves of a whole. They should love and respect each other. She is relative : therefore she should respect the man, who creates everything for her. She has no support, no happiness, no wealth which does not come from him.. Ha is relative : therefore he ought to respect, to adore the woman, who creates the man, and the pleasure of man, who by the magic of eternal desire has drawn from him, from age to age, those jets of flame which are called arts and civiliza-^\ tions. She renews him every evening, bestowing by turns the two graces of life: — in soothing him, which is harmony,;'; in putting him oif, which is the spark. She has thus created' the creator, and that is all he is. ' I do not upbraid woman for not pi'oducing things for which she was not made. I only accuse her of feeling too exclusively, sometimes, her proud and charming ascendancy, and of not taking into account the- world of creation,-^th^J£i"oductive sense of man, the fruitful energy, the prodigious eifo_rt_of' Jthe great workman. She does not even suspect their existence. She is beauty, and loves only the beautiful, but mthout effort — the beautiful ready made. There is another beauty of which she can scarcely conceiViC, that of action, of heroic toil, which has even made that beautiful thing, but is more beautiful itself, and often even Sublime. A thousand pities for the poor creator^ — to see that, in' ad- miring the effect, th« cod pleted work, she does not ^dmir^ the cause, but often despises it ! that it should be precisely 204 How Woman excels Man. the effort he makes for her that kills her heart' oi.t, and that by deserving more he begins to please her less. "Let me do what I may, I do not attach her to me. She has been mine this long time, and yet I shall never truly pos- sess her." Such was the rather singular remark that a man of true merit, of a loving and faithful heart, always in love with hi wife, made to me one day. She, brilliant, but good and ti'uo, complaisant and amiable towards him, could be the object of no serious reproach. She had no faults, but her superiority and her ever increasing distinction. He felt, not without sorrow, that she, his darling idol, was no longer wrapped up in him as at first ; and that, in spite of his devotion, she soared into a sphere independent of that in which he had concentrated his enetgies. These words perfectly explain the types I have set up in my chapters on education: "The raodenunan Js essen tially a worker, a producer; the woman a harmony." The more the man becomes crea;yye, the more striking the contrast. It explains much of that coolness, which we should be wrong to regard as fickleness, ennui, satiety — a coolness which is not always because the pair are wearied with finding each other ever the same, with never changing — but on the contrary, because they have changed, and progressed and ascended. This progress, which should be a new reason for loving each other, is nevertheless the cause, that finding no longer their old points of union, they have'but little influence' over each other, and despair of regaining it. Will they continue thus coldly apart, indifferent, united only by interests ? No, the danger increases ; the heart will play its part elsewhere. For in France, the heart is very absolute, It demands the closest union, or another love. It gays, "all or nothing.'' Indulge me in a paradox. I maintain that in spite of the reckless gaiety universally feigned, our period is that in wlucb How Woman excels Man. 20j love is tlie most exacting, most insatiate. If it talses liold upon an object, it aspires to penetrate it to its lowest depth Extremely cultivated, provided with so many new ideas, and new arts, which are as so many senses by whioli passion is tasted, however little we may have in us, we are sensible of that by a thousand touches, to which our ancestors were itiscinsible. But it too often happens that the beloved object escapes : perhaps from want of consistency, the true feminine fluidity — ■ perhaps by brilliant transformations and the acquisition of dis- tinctions — perhaps, indeed, by friendships, those secondary relations which divide the heart and weaken it. The man is humiliated, discouraged ; very often he perceives the sad consequences of this in his art, and in his energy, and depreciates himself on account of it. Then, often er than one would suppose, a passionate egotism reanimates and exalts his love. He longs to regain, to repossess his dear creature, who sometimes, without irony, but with proud coldness, says smiling : " Do what you can.'' " Ter totum fervidus iri, lustrat Aventini montem, tor saxea tentat limina nequicquam, ter fessus valle resedit." Three times, ardent, he makes the circuit of the mountain, three times shakes the cold rampart of stone, three times falls, and sits down in the valley. The difficulty, the mysterious negative influence, the inva- lidating impediment, comes almost always from outside. But it is not invariably found in an enemy ; it may be,a mother, a sistei', or a drawing-room friend, for aught I know. The most honorable cause has sometimes such effects. Indeed, a vehement friendship, turning aside the strength of love, some- times suffices to disturb the harmony of marriage. I knew two accomplished ladies united in a close friendship. One, only, was married. The other remained unmarried, in order to devote herself entirely to this attachment. The husband, a man of genius, a brilliant, fascinating writer, had 2o6 How Woman excels Man. evinced remarkable talent. The important question was, wonld. his gift from the fairies become, permanent? would it be strengthened ? He felt his inspiration by intervals — I was about to say, by chance. Then, his work eclipsed everything. What would he not have performed, if the strange spark had been blessed and watched over by love ? She was extremely beautiful, and her heart more lovely still. She had an elevated, but very serious, moral nature, which made her slightly sensible of these capricious gleams ; and to confirm her in that, she had the friendship, the adoration, of a woman, herself adorable. Against this couple, so united and so perfect, could the husband hold his own ? A third pei'sou was de trop there. His fine but wavering qualities, mingled with the sensitive defects which sometimes are attached to genius in decline, hardly coincided with the straight line which they applied to them. The two friends, virtuous, pure, and transparent as the light of noontide, indifferently relished his uncertain and sensuous graces, his transient twilight. His uncertainty increased. He was very gravely wronged by not being believed in. His friends had faith in him, and called on him to make good his promise ; but nothing can take the place of the internal support. The wife is the grand umpire, and the sovereign judge. He would have succeeded better, perhaps, with an inferior woman. She, by her noble beauty, by her open purity, by her estimable talents, com- manded too much respect. Such excessive perfection affords but little chance of appeal against its judgments — judgments always benevolent, but frank. This singular and charming man could do nothing save blindly. He needed a beloved hand to bandage his eyes, and complete the blindness, which rendered him productive. On the contrary, he lived with judicious reflection ever at his side. Solitary in the inspired moment, he yielded to the ])ru- dence which Checks inspiration, and so he feU short of his mark, and missed his aim. How Woman excels Man. 20^ Will the women permit me to interpose a \r jvd lierc !■ They have rciore delicate ears, they wUl hear better : besidca they 1 ave more time, for the most part. Man, that, fanntio of toil, intoxicated with enthusiasm and struggle, will not hearken to me. Madam, be not perfect ; keep faults enough to console n. man ; nature intended him to be proud. It is essential to your interest, and to that of your family, that he should ba BO, that he should think himself strong When you see him dejected, sad, discouraged, the best remedy is to be downcast yourself, to be more a woman, and younger — even a child, if need be. A'ld my second maxim : — Madam, do not divide your heart. I will tell you what I saw at Plydres in Provence, in a de- lightful garden. It was planted with handsome orange trees, at suitable distances, and in the best exposure ; they had no- thing to complain of; in a country where the people like to mingle diiferent kinds, they had refrained from planting between these orange trees, any plant, or tree, or vine, which could injure tliem. Only some borders of strawberries were along the walks^-excellent, delicious, fragrant strawberries. As we all know, these have but little root ; so they spread on the surface and extend, without penetrating, their small and delicate fibres. Yet the orange trees drooped and fell into sickliness. The gardeners were troubled ; what could be the matter ? They had sacrificed everything. They nevei' sus" pected that the innocent strawberry vines could be the cause of all. But if those robust trees had been consulted, they would have confessed that their prostration came from that small enemy. They did not complain — they only died. At Cannes, not far ofi",' they know that the orange tree 13 vigorous only when solitary. So. they not only allow it no companion, small or great, but before planting it they dig the ground to the depth of eight feet ; they dig it three times 2o8 The Humiliations of Love — Confession. over, to he sure that it is clean and free, that it contains no forgotten root, no living herb, which might claim its share of the sap. The orange tree desires to be alone. Madam — and so does love. XII. THE HUMILIATIONS OF LOVE CONFESSIOX. Love is a very diverse thing, in kind and in degree. It differs very much in different nations. The French woman is an admirable partner for her husband, in business, and even in ideas. If he does not employ her, it is possible that she may forget him. But let him fall into difficulties, and at once she recollects that she loves him, de- votes herself to him, and sometimes (as in '93) diesibr him. The English woman is a reliable wife, courageous, indefa- tigable, who follows anywhere, and suffers everything. At the first sign she is ready. " Lucy, to-day I set out for Aus tralia." " Well, only give me time, dear, to put on my bon- net." The German woman loves, and loves always. She is hum- ble, obedient, and would like to obey stiU more. She is fitted for only one thing, love — but that is boundless. With the German woman you can easily change expedientsj and if the one you have is bad, emigrate to the ends of the earth. With the German woman you may live all alone, at a retired country-seat, in profound solitude. The French woman is capable of that, only provided she is occupied, and you have known how to create for her a great activity of mind. Her strong personality is"" much more embarrassing, The Humiliations of Love — Confession, 2O0; •jut it renders her capable of going far in a sacrifice, et en tc tne extent of immolating her vanity, and her craving for dis- play. Stendhal, an ultra Frenchman, strongly opposed to Ger- many, and ridiculing it every moment, makes this just remark : " The best marriages are those of Protestant Ger- many." He saw Germany in 1810, 1 saw it in 1830 — and often since. Things have changed in the higher classes, and in some of the large cities, but not throughout the country ; there is every- where the humble obedient wife, anxious to obey — in a. word, the loving woman. True love, profound love, is recognised by this, that it kills all other passions : pride, ambition, coquetry, all are lost in it, all disappear. It is so far from pride, that it often runs into the other ex- treme, and ranges itself on the opposite pole. Anxious to be absorbed, it goes far out of itself, very easily forgets what is called dignity, and without hesitation sacrifices the graceful appearances intended for the public. It conceals no bad quali- ties, but sometimes exaggerates them — aspiring to please by no merit, but by excess of love. Lover and mystic are herein completely blended. In both the humility is excessive — a desire to abase themselves, so much the more to exalt their god ; whether it be a beloved woman, or a favorite saint, the efiect is the same. I forget which devotee it was who said : " If I could only have been the dog of St. Pauline." More than once have I "heard a lover say the same thing : " If I were only her dog ! " But such disparagements of the soul, such excesses of humility, love should not indulge in. Its efibrt, on the con tvary, shotild be to elevate her who loves, at least to hold her up to the man's level, to cultivate a union by that which binds her fast, .which alone renders her real — equality. When two souls are so disproportionate no interchange, no blending can 21 o The Humiliations of Love — Confession. be possible. Tou cannot harmonize everything and nothing. This is the torment which Colonel Selves (Soliman PacLa) did not hesitate to acknowledge. " How," said he, " can you know that an oriental woman loves you ?" We who have tho ha])piness to possess in our European women souls and wills, whatever embarrassment these wills may at times cause us, ought yet to avoid whatever may shatter them, and break the mainspring of the soul. Two things, especially, are infinitely dangerous to them : The first — by which imprudent women of the present day are very much abused — is the magnetic power. Their unfor- tunate facility of submitting to it is a real disease, which per- manently injures them, and is aggravated by cultivation. This peril should not exist ; it is disgraceful to see a man who is not beloved, and who has no power over her heart, assume an un- limited power over the will of a woman. She becomes hie slave — compelled to' move at his sign, or disclose before witnesses the most humiliating secrets. She follows him fatally. Why ? She cannot tell ; he is her superior neither in talent nor energy; but she surrenders herself, under pretext of medical treatment, or for the amusement of society — and behold her abandoned to a thousand unknown chances. Have these victims the true medical inspiration? time will show. But whatever it be, the gift is dearly paid for, since it creates an invalid, a humUiated invalid, who parts with the disposi- tion of her own will. Even he whom she loves, 'her lover or her husband, if she beseeches him to assume this power over her, ought to consider well before he does so. Instead of evoking from her this passive slavery, this obscure inspiration, he should associate her with the active faculties, which are those of liberty ,_ and should exercise over her only one kind of attraction — open love. Another power which every generous man will beware of exercising, is that of violence — the fascination of fear. Women throughout Asia (t might almost say throughout The Humiliations of Love — Confession. 2n the world) are treated like children. But we should considel thai, except in Europe, they are married while children — in the warm countries at twelve, at ten, and sometimes in India even at eight years of age. The husband of a child of eight years is obliged to be her father, in some sort her master, in order to educate her. Hence that apparent contradiction in the Indian laws, which in one part of the country prohibit the striking of wives, and elsewhere permit them to be corrected " like small scholars." They are always children, and this childish discipline (not servile nor violent) they patiently sub- mit to. Where polygamy is practised, they remain timid and sensual, and are held somewhat by fear, receiving in just the same degree caresses and correction. Our women of the North, on the contrary, marriageable later in life, are quite mature, and in no wise children when they are married. To treat them as children would be the most shocking abuse of power, and let us add, the most dangerous. It is generally found that the seasons when their vexatious humor provokes the brutality of man, are those in which they are most easily injured, when any violent emotion would be dangerous. They have their hours, their days, of cruel agitation, when they suffer (they confess it themselves) from the demon of contradiction, when everything conspires to displease them, when they must offend. Then they should have sympathy, not irritation. It is a very unsettled state; and as at bottom it conceals an emotion by no means hate- fuV it often only needs a Uttle relaxation of rule, a little address and love, to change the proud humor suddenly, and transform it mto the most charming sweetnBss-^repaxations, tears, and loving abandonments. Men should deliberately reflect on this point ; women are more uniform than they are. The excesses of temper of which they . are too frequently guilty, should ' especially put them on guard against themselves. When a woman ia excited and violent, it is generally a very natural cause (and in 212 The Humiliations of Love — Confession. truth an amiable one) which disturbs her, and incites her to provoke the man by sharp words and defiances. French- women perfectly understand this. It is not a question of self- love, but of love. There is no need to retaliate (as they are too apt to do in England) ; nor is it wiser to laugh, or coax a sudden change from quarrels to caresses. But parry a little, maneuvre a little. In an interval of weakness, of natural reac- tion, her good-humor returns ; she confesses that she is wrong, and repays you by being good again. In barbarous times the government of the family, like the government of the State, was a system of coups d'Stdi. Let us pass on, I beg, to times that have been civilized and soft- ened by mutual understandings, by that freer and milder rule which comes from harmony of will. Man's domestic coup d'Stat is that ignoble brutality which lays its hard hand upon a woman, that savage violence which profanes a sacred object (so delicate and so easily wounded) ! that impious ingratitude which insults and outrages one's own altar. The woman's coup d^etat, a war of the feeble against the strong, is her own shame — the adultery which humiliates the husband, imposes upon him children not his o^vn, and degrades both, rendering them for ever miserable. Neither of these crimes would be common, if the union were every day strengthened by mutual confidences, by a per- manent communion, wherein the most trifling differences, dis- sipated as soon as perceived, would not have time to swell into such tempests. In their obligation to tell each other every- thing, they would be more watchful of themselves. Teiijpta- tions, if they are not brooded over, lose their force. Coujugal confession (a sacrament of the future) is the very essence of marriage. As we emerge from the coarse and bar- barous state in which we are stUl plunged, we shall leani that we are married precisely for that — ^to unbosom ourselves every day, to disclose all tilings without reserve, our busi- The Humiliations of Love — Confession. 2i^ ness, our thoughts, our feelings — to keep nothing to ourselves, to share our souls entirely — even those formless clouds, which may become great storms in the heart that nurses instead of expelling them. This, I repeat, is the foundation of marriage. Is genera tion essential to it? No. Even in sterility there may be complete union ; without children there may be marriar/e. Does it consist in an interchange of pleasure ? No. Even when the pleasure has died out with age or disease, still there is marriage. But it consists in daily interchanges of thought and will, in the continual blending and harmony of two souls. Let the beautiful maxim of the law — marriage is consent — be verified every day ; let the confidences of every moment assure both that they are in the way wherein each consents to what the other desires and does. Whom should you marry, lady ? The man who is willing to live before you in the full light of day, concealing no thought or act, conceding and communicating everything. Whom should you avoid ? The man who, freely promis- ing to give himself up, still holds himself aloof — who, in the selfish inclosures of his soul, appropriates to himself an exclusive part in what should be common property — who keeps one sentiment under lock and key, one thought to himself Pure, gentle, and faithful women, who have nothing to con- ceal and nothing to atone for, have yet, even more than others, the need of loving confessions, of continual overflowings into a loving heart. Why is it that men, generally, profit so little by such an element of happiness ? It must be because a used-up youth, or the bewilderings of the world, render us blind and brutish, true enemies of ourselves, that we do not at once perceive that so tender a communication is the most exquisite enjoyment a woman can bestow upon us. Oh, as for that, most men are unworthy of it ! They emile, they scarcely listen ; sometimes they show that they art 214 Tli^ Humiliations of Love — Confession. sceptical in. regard to simplest revelations, which should nol only be accepted, but adored. And yet there is nothing so very new in it. In matters of business the married pair consult and confide in each other. They should be equally confidential in matters of the heart, in matters of religion and love, as to agitations, emotions, and .all the secret life of imagination. We are united, married, only by an extreme, conclusive and perilous pledga — to deliver up our last secret, and to put ourselves mutually in each other's power, by telling each other everything. Do not pass by the dear creature when she is a little ill, when her heart is. troubled with foolish dreams, as will often happen to the purest ; do not leave her distrustful of her husband, whom yet she "loves; teach her to- trust in your indulgence, and ask your advice, rather than deliver up her important secret (which at bottom is just nothing at all) to some one who henceforth will have a threat for-bothher and you, who win hold her by it, and on the street, without a word, will have but to look at, your poor innocent to make her blush, and cast down her eyes. And here again is something to reflect upon : — If a worthy and reasonable woman become somewhat capricious, her hus- band should ask himself the reason, and if the fault may not be in himself. In the midst of life, with all its intoxication and its folly, we neglect the essential things, we neglect even what we love most. The husband should say to himself: " Perhaps she is right ; I am growing tedious, too much absorbed in one thing." Or rather, " Do I sufficiently respect her delicacy in our physical rt'Iations. Am I not disagreeable to her ?'* or again, " She justly regards me in a painful aspect, morally; I am hard and s i-did. Ah, well ! I will recover her heart ; I will be more charitable, more generous, more magnanimous. I will be above myself. She must necessarily perceive that, after all, I am better than he who makes himself agreeable to her, and especially that I love her more." The Communion of Love. 215 Very few words are necessary. Sometimes it is enongli that they merely regard each other with love in the evening Dcelmud, an artist — who has two or three times displayed decided genius — in an engraving which he calls le Cafb, hag very well expressed the loole of two sympathetic souls, who have no need of word ; they understand and appreciate each other so perfectly. But I would- add one thing, especially in the man — a something which should say : Be sure you cannot have a safer shelter than you have in me. XIII. THE COMMUNION OF LOVE. I CANNOT- do without God. ' A momentary eclipse of the high central Idea darkens this wonderful modem world of sciences and discoveries. All is progress,/ aU is power, but everything lacks grandeur. Minds are struck and staggered by it — conceptions enfeebled, iso- lated, scattered. There is certainly the poetical ; but the grand whole, the harmony, the poem, where are they ? I do not see them. I cannot do without God. I said, ten years ago, to an eminent thinker, whose bold and energetic severity I liked: You are a radical ; and so am I, in one -sense, for I wish to live; and strict centralization would kill off all individual life. But the loving unity of the world, far from killing it, stimulates it — because this u^nity is love. Who would not desire such a centralization, and whc does not perceive it throughout the universe ? 2l6 The Communion of Love. Because we have abandoned the untenahle argument of an arbitrary providence, existing from day to day by personal decrees and little coups d'itat, is that as much as to acknow- ledge that we do not perceive that high, impartial Love, which reigns by its own grand laws ? And being Reason, ig it not also Love ? As for me, I feel beneath me the mighty wave that bears me up. From the depths of life a strange fervor arises, a fruitful aspiration ; a breath passes before my face, and I feel a thousand deaths in me. To reduce all religions to one head, in order to cut that one off, is a very easy proceeding. But if you effaced the last trace of historical religions and established creeds in this world, the Eternal Creed would remain. The Maternal pro- vidence of Nature, adored in the midst of dead and living religions of the past or of the future, and of which you do not think, remains immutable ; and when the last great Deluge shall burst over our little globe, it will still endure, indestruc- tible as that "World of which it is the charm and the life. This, my faith in a loving cause, obscured, I could no longer act. Without the happiness of feeling that this world is beloved, and that I am beloved in it, I should no longer wish to live. Then lay me in the tomb, for the spectacle of Progress would have no more interest for me ; though Art and Thought should soar higher still, I should no longer have strength to follow. Though to the thirty sciences that were born but yesterday, you should add thirty more, or a thou- sand — as many as you please — I should not want them. What could I do with them, when Love is extinguished in me 9 The Orient — humanity in its first beautiful da'wn, before the sophistical centuries obscured it — set out from an idea which will become dominant again in our second childhood, a zenith of wisdom. That idea is, that the Communion of Love, sweetest of the mysteries of God, is also the highest, and that its clear gleam for a moment displays the Infinite to us The Communion of Love. 21 7 Dark in an inferior state of being (and such is ours at fir-st), it becomes brighter and brighter, in proportion as the flame is fed with refining and sanctifying love. I do not here repeat what I said last year on this subject, so important to all, about the touching, the terrible mystery wherein a woman, to impart life, sports with her own — wherein pleasure, happiness, fruitfulness, bring us face to face with death. We feel it in that hour, in our profound- agitation ; we feel it in our quivering flesh, and in our icy bones ; a thunderbolt falling could add nothing to it. At the moment when we are so neAv losing our beloved, when the chill of the agony is upon us^ if voice remained to us, we should utter one cry, torn from our inmost being, and from the depths of truth : " Woman is a religion." We may utter it now, we may utter it always ; for it will be always true. I said it of my own little girl, while yet she was but a child — " A religion of purity, of mercy, and of poetry." How much more should I say it now, that, ti-uly a woman and. a mother, she, by her grace, radiates on all sides a har- monious power, which from the family circle projects into society still wider circles — " A religion of goodness and civilization." It is especially in religious eclipses — when the traditions of the past pale on the horizon, when a new world, complicated and fettered even by its own greatness, organizes itself but slowly — that woman can do much to sustain and console. To the support of the central Idea, which, slowly evolving itself, develops the oneness of inteUigence, she, without knowing it, brings the charming unity of life, of love, of religion itself. In the great assemblies of men, which have not worship for their object, in the popular concerts of Germany (wherein five or six thousand musicians are met), in the vast political or military fraternities of Switzerland and France, such as 10 21 8 The Communion of Love. they have been and will l3e,'the presence of womea bestows a holy emotion. Our Country is not there, if our mothers and our wives are not there with their children. Speaking only of family and of individual happiness, I should simply say of woman, in the language a good laborer one day made use of before me : " She is the Sunday of man.'' That is to say, not merely the repose, but the charm, the salt of life, and the reason why we wish to live. The Sunday ! -the joy, the freedom, the festival, the cherished, the sacred part of the soul — not the half, nor a third, nor a fourth, but the whole. Fully to fathom the significance of that word Sunday, which means much more than idleness, it is necessary to know all that passes in the mind of a laborer on Saturday evening, all the dreams that float there, all the hopes and aspirations. Is it woman in general, or some pretty mistress, to whom you must look for your Sunday ? No, it must be your own wife, your gentle, amiable, faithful wife ; because only with her is a sentiment of certainty mingled with your enjoyment — a feeling of definite possession, which deepens your happiness, and makes it delightful. The penetrating perception, and fine appreciation of a woman so devoted, who affords you so many pleasures, far from lessening your content, opens to you, in a thousand delicate forms, a vast unknown of beatitude. In her is every sweet and sacred emotion. She brings back to you, even purer than of old, the solemn impressions of your childhood. Your morning awakings, when you were but twelve years old, which you can yet recollect — the freshness of the early dawn, the silvery bell of the village, as it sounded then — all seem far away, and vanished, never to return. But, on Sun- day morning, having toiled late into the night, and awaking rather later than usual, you are greeted by the soft smile of your wife, who for a long time has been gazing on you, and who, with ber cheerful voice, and her round arms about you, TKe Comrnunion of Love. 219 salutes and blesses you. She haa waited, and prayed, for you. And you exclaim to yourself, " Ah, my dawn, ray angelus ! how sweet the sentiment of morning that you bring to me ! I feel as though twenty years of my life were effaced. Oh ! how young you make me ! and how I wish I were truly young, for your sake !" But she, with tact, putting you off and evading you, offers you a diversion — some cherished idea tha^ you lately dis- cussed with her, some favorite project which occurred to you even yesterday ; thence to your common interests, to the family and the children, the transition is easy. And so, when she is sure she has you in a gracious mood, inclined to a favorable hearing, she suggests something that shall do your heart good, and sanctify the day, some good to be done. The times are hard, and the effort is not trifling ; but with plenty of work, and God aiding you, you still may do it. You do not say no ; you wish to please her. But before you have time to tell her all your thoughts, her quick tact pre- vents you : " See, my dear, Charles is awake, Edward ix pratthng ; the baby has not slept this long time, and is listen- ing. Why, how late it is ! I must dress them." : 'Tis dismal, gloomy weather. It is snowing, and there is a high wind. The northern birds, leaving early, foretell a hard winter. There will be no visitors ; will it be a cheer- less Sunday ? By no means ; where she ia, who could be sad ? It is not the bright blaze on the hearth, nor the hot breakfast, that warms the house. It is her affectionate vivacity that inspires and animates all. She is so thoughtfid for her own, and so loves and cares for them, so softly lines their nest, that there is only room for joy in it. And their happiness is doubled by the winter. They con- gratulate themselves on the bad weather, which shuts them up, and the pleasant day they are going to pass together. There is little noise. As for the husband, he takes advantage of the day to do some odd job for himself. He is like Rembrandt's 2.10 The Communion of Love. little picture of the Carppnter ; at least, if he does not plane like him, he reads and re-reads a book. But as he reads, he is conscious that the children are out there, because from lime to time they utter something very low. Behind him he per- ceives, not with his eyes, but with his heart, something that makes no noise — ^her gentle, wavy movements^ and her light Btep. She does only what is indispensable, and, with her finger on her lip", makes a sign to them to be very good, and not disturb him. And what are the children doing? I am curious to know. , They are reading a good book. They are reading of the bold adventures,, the hardihood and sacrifices of the old travellers, who opened the world for us, and suffered so much for us. " This coffee, children, that your father drinks, the sugar you put into your milk so freely (perhaps too much of it), were all bought with heroism and suffering ; be grateful, then. To Providence we owe those other providences, the great souls who slowly bind this globe together, who enlighten it and make it fruitful, who bring it, or soon will bring it, into the harmony and unity of one single manly soul." By degrees she tells them of those material communions which prepare them for the moral one — of navigation, commerce, roads, canals, railroads, and the electric telegraph. Material ! I conform to the foolish phraseology of the time ; but they are in no I'espect material. These things come from the mind ; and they return to the mind, of which they are the means and shapes. In introducing nations to each other, sup- pressing ignorances and blind antipathies, I maintain that they are equally moral and religious powers, or as I have said, comm^unions. To teach them gradually, according to their intelHgence, with suitable slowness and precaution, is to impart to children religious instruction, to train them in a divine spirit, in the spirit of goodness and tenderness. Who does not feel these revelations in his heart when they The Communion of Love. 221 come to hirn from beloved lips ? The ohildren are amused , but he, who knew all this before, in receiving it again from her, with such a softening charm, is silent in his perfect ecstasy, and feels that all our new arts are but powers of love. Father and children are alike nourished by her soul and her ' sweet wisdom. They listen, and when she has finished, they awake as from a dream. A slight noise, a little tic-tac, ia heard on the window. It is the remonstrance of a winged neighbor ; the house-sparrow says, in his frank, petulant way : " What, you little selfish things ! when the weather is so bad do you take care only of yourselyes." This speech has a tre- mendous effect ; they open the window and throw him bread. But what an excitement when one of their guests, bolder than the rest, taking advantage of the chance, enters and bravely hops to the farther end of the room. " O thank you, cousin Red Breast, who, without ceremony, remind us of what we had forgotten— the universal relation- ship. You are right ; is not our home indeed yours also ?" They hardly dare to breathe ; their mother throws him - some crumbs, very carefully, so as not to frighten him. And he, not at all abashed, having picked them all up, and even approached the hearth, flies off, leaving this adieu behind him : " Good by, my good little brothers !" If dinner-time weie not so near, their mother would have much to say ; but they must have something to eat, and you too, little robins. At dessert, she tells them of the banquet of nature, to which God invites aR his creatures, great and small, to sit down, placing them according to their intelligence, their industry, their activity and labor — the ant high up, and some giant like the rhinoceros or hippopotamus low down. If man sits in the highest seat, it is because of one thing alone — his perception of the grand harmony and the Love divine, his tender sympathy with aU that emanates from it, his sublime gift of Pity. 222 The Offices of Nature. Why is it that this discourse, which at another time might pass unheeded, enters the hearts of the children ? What engraves this hour on their memory, and why are they touclied ? Because their parents consummate before tliem that act of fraternity which their mother's prayer bespoke' in the morning : the laborer will share his toil with his brother — even his life and his soul. With tearful eyes she embraces him, and the table is sanctified. Enough for one day. Now children, gladden your father's heart by a double song — a song of the French land in its days of great sacrifices, which, in the hour of need, you would imitate ; and a hymn of gratitude to God, the benefactor of the world, who has given you this day, and perhaps his own tomorrow. " 'Now let us go to bed. Tour father, very tired, is almost asleep now. He sat up so late last night, to finish his Satur- day's work ! Sleep, my own — sleep, my children ; and' God keep you while you sleep." And so blessing them all, she carefully covers up the fire, making no noise, hardly breathing, and quietly lies down near him, very careful not to wake him. Though he sleeps, he well knows she is there ; for she is his spring-time of love, his summer in the midst of gloomy winter. In herself are sJI seasons. What is aU nature to her sacred charm ? XIV. THE OFFICES OF NATURE. The two natural and reasonable aspects of religion are demonstrated in the tendencies of the man and the woman, as they are displayed by each. Man perceives the infinite in the invariable Laws of the universe, which are the ways of God's The Offices of Nature. 223 esfistence ; woman, in the loving Cause, the father of 'N'ature, who creates better out of good. She feels God in that which is the life, the soul, and th6 eternal act — love and generation. Are these points of view contradictory ! By no means, The t-«ro harmonize in this, that the God of the woman. Love would not be love if he were not love for all, incapable of caprice or arbitrary preference, if he did not love according to law, reason, and justice — ^that is to say, according to tho idea that man has of God. These two columns of the temple are so deeply planted that ao one will attempt to overthrow them. The world, however, alternates ;' sometimes it sees only Laws, sometimes only the Cause. It for ever oscillates between the two reli- gious poles, but it does not change them. Science — at present not centralized, as it soon vrill be — is much inclined to recognise only Laws, and forget the loving Cause, imagining the machine could go without a motor. This ibrgetfulness is what produces the sad religious eclipse by which we are now darkened, but it cannot last long. The beautiful central light from which proceeds all the joy of the world will reappear. Though weakened for a time, the senti- ment of a loving cause will return to us. No, laws are not causes ; and what would become of our progress if we did not recover the idea of causality and life ? There is neither cheerfuhiess nor happiness here below, independent of the idea of production. Speaking of children, I have already said that we can develop them and render them happy only by making them creators. Wellj from their little world, let us carry the principle into the great one. When we perceive that it is stagnant, that there is no longer vita warmth in it, an overwhelming despondency takes possession of the heart, and we become happy again only by recovering the idea of the great fruitful movement where, free, and yet restrained by the high animating Reason, we, workmen of a creative Love, also shall create in joy. 224 The Offices of Nature. This explanation was necessary to introdace lis to the inmost heart of the man and. the woman, and to their two religions, wherein each plays a distinct and very delicate part, each^ fearing to wound the other; for generally they d^ not know how much, after all, they harmonize — hence the gro|iings, the hesitations full of fears, the faint contest between two Bonis which in reality are but one. Never in the daytime, before witnesses, is this tender struggle ; the children must be asleep, even the light put out. It is their last thought on the pillow. ( But although each maintains a true and sacred aspept of religion (he the Laws, she the Cause), there is this mat^ial diiference : that in God the man perceives rather His rtwdea of existence. His laws of action ; the woman His love, i^hich continually prompts His actions. She is more in the sanctuary of God, I should sa) , and nearer to his heart. Thus, having the Love, she has all the rest and understands it all. She touches at will every note on the grand key-board, while man for the most part knows but a few. She comprehends by, intuition all the natural manifestations of God, from grave toj gay, from lively to severe. She is sovereign mistress of this | divine art, and teaches it to man. " Whence, indeed, does | she get all this?" he asks. "Where finds she this treasure of loving things, this torreut of enchantments ? " Where, but ip thine own love, and in the love she beays to thee, in the reserved riches of a heart which no outpourings, no genera- tions can empty. Every day it, gives out a world, but still the universe remains. So simple, so modest, and yet so superior ! From day to day you go on blindly, never marking the course of time, your eye fixed on the earth, by the necessities of toil; but she perceives more clearly the progress of time, for she is in harmony with it. She follows it hourly, charged with the duty of foreseeing for you, your needs, your pleasures, your repasts, and your repose; in every moment a duty, but also The Offices of Nature. 223 a poetical delight. From month to month, wai'ned by the pangs of love, she scans the passing time, and watches its sacred march. When the solemn hours of the year are struck^ in the flight of seasons, she hears the impressive chant uprising from the depths of nature. She has her ritual, in no wise arbitrary, which to her expresses the life of her country, in its immutable relations with the life divine. It is no easy matter to meddle with that. The traditions, the authority, which impose upon one people the rites of another, tend to produce naught but jai- ■ ring discord. The songs of the exalted Orient, beautiful as they are, are discordant in Gaul, for has she not her song of the lark, which as bravely rises to God. Our sunrise is not the sunrise of America nor of Judea, nor are our fogs the heavy mists of the Baltic; and all these have their voices. Our climate, our hours, our seasons, all sing after their own fashion ; and the woman, with her fine French ear, has caught them all. Yet, do not ask her for them ; she would sing you only the conventional strain. But when she is at home alone, somewhat saddened by your absence, and quietly working — in her pensive mood, she hums in an undertone, a simple and holy strain that comes of itself— of the day and the hour, her own humble vespers, her heart- song for God and for thee. How well she knows the festivals, the true festivals, of the year ! In that, be guided by her ; for she alone perceives the days of grace wherein heaven is loving towards the earth, the high divine indulgences. She knows them, because she makes tliem — she, the kindly smile of God, the festival and the Christmas, the everlasting Easter, of love, wherein the heart Ves, and lives, and lives. Without her, who would care for spring ? How sickly, then, and sad, would be the fruitful warmth vnth which all life ferments. But with her — enchantment ! Freed from their winter confinement, they go forth into the 10* 226 The Offices of Nature. air. She in a -nhite dress, although at times the warm sun is chilled by a touch of the north wind's breath. All is life, but all is combat, too. In the meadow, growing green again, there is sport and contest ; kids against kids try their sprouting horns ; the nightingales, that have come a fortnight before their mistresses, contend in duels of song for priorities of love. In the midst of this pleasant combat, out of which pro- ceeds a seeming peace, she appears — she, the truce, the goodness, the beauty, the living joy of this world ! As she advances, her tender heart is divided between two loves. From both sides they appeal to her. With brimming hands her children bring her young flowers, and cry, " Mamma ! see! see ! " while ariother whispers in her ear, and still she smiles. Not with impunity may one thus have a charming woman on his arm, so near his bosom and his heart. Very sweetly he urges her, and she is not insensible. Devoted and tender, she hearkens to all, so truly does she wish to make them all happy. " Yes, my little ones — yes, my darling." She says to them, "Let us play, then;" and to him, " O, whatever you wish !" But in her extreme goodness, which renders her even weakly obedient to her childrei), whoever knows how to observe her may detect behind her smile a pensive abstrac- tion. Her husband thinks only of her, but she thinks of God. When the pretty festival of field flowers, and the labors of haymaking, return with the warmth and mildness, she, like the others, comes with her rake to work. But beautiful as she always is, her form has now assumed a sweet luxuriance, which, while it renews her freshness, yet weighs her down. Her white bosom, whence her children have drawn their hfe, those treasures which even he who knows them best would hide away, these render her a little languid, a little indolent. She is soon fatigued, and they forbid her to work ; but they work for her. Her children, gay and happy — ^her husband, The -Offices of Nature. 227 full of tenderness — cannot pass a flower without bringing it to her, without presenting it to the sovereign rose. Tliey load her table with them, they cover her bosom and her head with them. She runs from the fragrant shower, and cries, " Enough ! enough !" But they do not spare her. She can hardly see through the flowery rain ; she no longer defends herselij and is overwhelmed and drowned in caresses, kisses, blossoms. Already summer is upon them, and the heat is extreme ; the delicate wife must not be agitated. The three months between haymaking and vintage are terribly oppressive to man, equally to him who works with his hands and him who works with his mind. Heavy and sharp, the hot sun strikes the brain, and that in two ways : at the same time that it prostrates our strength it exalts the passions. Her husband is enervated by the season, by his labor, by indulgence. She perceives that, and it alarms her. She hazards a word of ad- vice, a word of true religion. "At such a time as this, when God is perfecting his work, and completing his yearly treasure of nourishment for the human race, does not the exclusive employment of man's strength belong to Him?" But it is not well taken ; he becomes cold, even angry. By what pious stratagems shall she wean herself from him ? By what charm- ing evasions, and lowly prayers for postponement? Then comes the inexorable July, and with it the harvest revels, the triumph of the year, the crowning banquet of plenty. The extreme heat stings like a wasp, and makes her ill ; and so her petition is granted, and a little bed made for her near the cra- dle of his children. O, happy autumn ! golden time of happiness and freedom ! The end of toil is come, and love which, in the murderous months, made war on love, may at last throw prudence away, and indulge the promptings of the heart. He who was angry at her refusals wUl never kno-yv who suffered most, She has but one word for him — she returns to him entii-ely; and 228 The Offices of Natjre. on tLe promised day he reminds her. "But, mj dear, sliOiild not the work be finished first ? This graj', uncertain weather, veiled hy a transparent gauze of mist, is so admirable for, the vintage ! Let us make haste. This mild, pale sun, piercing through the haze, to bestow a parting kiss on the amber grape, wiU kiss away the dew from it. Now is just the time to gather them. In the evening we shall no longer be separated. It is not so warm now ; I shall return to the'e and take refuge with thee 'all the winter long." — ^Here is joy indeed ! In certain countries the apes and the bears are fud- dled with grapes. Why should not the wits of man be stag- gered? As for this one, he is drunk before he has drunk; but she is sober. " Softly, softly, let us set a good example, and work." In the vintage there is complete fraternizing ; aU are equal there, and your smart worker is your only aristocrat. Tr. her it is a great pleasure to sup in friendship with the people. All are welcome, even those who have not helped. She will be truly happy to have them. She knows all the village well, and misses the absent. So and so, what about him ? He is unwell. Well, we will send for him. And another is travel- ling. Thus she inquires for all, wishing she could have them all together, unitd and fiiendly. The place is ample — one of those amphitheatres of hills from which some vineyards look down upon the sea — ^the weather so mild, you may diae in the open air. A gentle breeze favors the departure of the winged travellers that flit athwart the sky. The day is short ; although not old, it seems already to assume the pensiveness of evening. Never was she more beautiful ; her eyes beam with im- pressive sweetness ; and each feels that she looks on him, and wishes him well, that she thinks of him, and of all. By her tender jegards the whole country is blessed. Her daughter had twined for her a charming crown of vine branches, delicate heliotropes, and the red vervain — a The Offices of Nature. 229 royal and right feminine crown, which perfumes all the air around. She declines it at first, but her husband insists ; he would crown her, if he could, with all the crowns of earth. Yet she seems sad. "What is the matter — ?" "Ah, I am too happy !" "All our friends, all our kindred, are here. And all these good people — not one has stayed away." "Alas! my dear, those, only those, who suffer and who weep are absent. Pardon — " She can say no more ; her emotion chokes her. To hide a falling tear she bends over her glass, and that adorable pearl is mingled with the blood of the vine. Her husband snatches the- glass from her lips, and empties it at a draught. But those who do not understand, and only know she weeps, are moved in sympathy with her. And all are in communion with her heart. Book III. — Woman in Society. WOMAN AN ANGEL OF PEACE AND CIVILIZATION. Woman, in her superior aspect, is the mediator of love. A profound and delightful influence which is manifested in two revelatio7.s. In proportion as the first, the attraction of sex, and plea- sure — the sanguine storm of life — fades out and dies, the second appes rs in all its celestial sweetness — the influence of peace, consolation, and mediation. Man is, most of all, an agent of creation. He produces, but in two senses ; for he also produces wars, discords, and combats. In the midst of the arts and the ideas, the torrent of benefactions, that flow from his fruitful hand, flows also a flood of evils, which woman follows, to soften, console, and heal. I am traversing a dangerous forest, and I hear a stealthy step. Surely that must be a man, I say, and I stand on my guard. But behold, it is a woman. "Hail, gentle angel of peace !" An Englishman who made a benevolent tour throuirh Ire- land, t'lirty years ago, to inquire into the evils of the land Woma>n an Angel of Peace. 251-. and seek a remedy for them, described the fierce defiimce of those indigent and miserable creatures, ■«'hom the entrance of a stranger into their miserable huts greatly disturbod, "Was he an agent of the customs ? Was he a spy ?" But, happily, he was not alone. Behind him they caught a glimpse of a woman's countenance, and they had henceforlli nothing to conceal ; they were reassured and full of confi- dence. They could not imagine that he would have brought his wife among them if he had not wished them well. Livingstone met with the same experience, in his admirable expedition to the unexplored regions of Africa, in 1859. A man, alone, would have been suspected, and probably put to death; but the sight of his family satisfied and pacified them. " Peace I peace," was the prayer, the eager cry, of thoso good people, as they expressed themselves in their simple language to the European missionary who brought them the protective arts. The w'omen said to him, " Give us sleep :" and this sleep, this peace, this complete security, they beheld in the train that approached, with the rolling house and the oxen. They beheld them in Mrs. Livingstone, sur- rounded by her three children. That spectacle satisfied them; for they well 'knew that he would not have brought that precious nest into a den of lions, if he had not wished to do good to men. If the mere sight of a woman has so much effect, how is it with her words ? with those accents which penetrate from heart to heart ? The language of woman is the universal fraxinella, the peace-maker, which everywhere softens and heals. But the divine gift is free to her only when she is free, when she is no longer a dumb statue of modesty, when the progress of years has emancipated her, 'untied her tongue, and unfettered her actions. ti a moment of true nobleness and magnanimity, a woman 232 Woman an Angel of /Peace. of fine genius has justly described and appreciated mature age, and even the approach of old age, which no woman con- templates without a shudder. This formidable period seems to her to have its own charms — a tranquil grandeur which youth has not. "Youth,'' she says, very nearly (I regret that I cannot recall her exact words), "is an Alpine country, full of sur- prises, with its rocks, its torrents, its cascades. But old age is a majestic French garden, with noble shadows and beautiful long stretches of promenade, wherein we may see afar off the friends who are coming to meet us — wide walks, where several may go abreast and talk together — ^indeed a ^ pleasant place for social converse." We should be wrong to conclude from this beautiful com- parison that old age is samely and monotonous ; it is just the contrary. Woman has privileges tlien which she has not had at any other age. The customs of society held her cap- tive ; she was required to avoid certain conversations — certain associations were forbidden her ; even the walks of charity were often difficult and dangerous to her. An unjust world was prone to speak evil of her. . But as she grows old she is enfranchised, and enjoys all the privileges of an honest liberty. The result is, that the whole scope of her mind is brought into play ; she thinks and speaks in an original and independent manner. Thus she becomes herself. All young and pretty women are at liberty to be fools, because they are always sure of being admired. But not so > with the old woman. She must have wit ; and beca.use slie has it, she is generally agreeable and amusing. Madame de S6vign6 expresses this idea very prettily (I quote from memory): "Youth and spring," she says, "are green, uniformly green ; but we autumnal people are of all colors." Such a woman has it in her power to exert, on all around ber, those amiable social influences which are a peculiarity of Woman an Angel of Peace. 233 France. These, in fact, are but manifestations of that bene- 'rolent and sympathizing disposition which puts a man at his ease, which lends wit even to those who have it not, and gives them confidence, overawing the gigglers, who take thought- less pleasure in embarrassing the timid. Tliis royalty of goodness fiUs her parlor with a gentle ra^ diance. Especially does she encourage the man whom the fine talkers silence, and who, under the protection of a woman of esprit, who lends him her countenance, assumes a modest confidence. The conversation there is not the vacant badi- nage we find everywhere else, 'that eternal gossip in which empty heads have all the advantage. When some well-in- formed man has stated his point clearly, without prolixities or pedantry, she- adds just one word from the heart, which often makes it clearer to himself, imparting warmth as well as light to what he has said, and rendering it agreeable and easy to understand. Then they look at each other, and smile, and there is mutual appreciation. We are not sufficiently sensible of the fact that sometimes a simple word from a woman can save a man, and raise him up, teach him to respect himself, and give him an abiding strength, which until then he had not. I one day saw a forlorn, sickly child, with a timid, sly, pitiful countenance — and yet he had talent. His mother, who was a hard woman, said to me: "I cannot imagine what is the matter with him." "I can, madam," I replied; "he has never been kissed" — and that was only too true. Well, in Society, that capricious mother of genius, there are many who fail (and not the smallest number either), because they have never been kissed, applauded, encouraged. No one knows how this happens. No one has a grudge against l.hem ; but no sooner do they timidly venture a word, than every one turns a cold shoulder to them; or worse — they take no notice of it, or very likely laugh at it. 234 Last Love. — Women's Friendships. Beware lest this snubbed and- flouted stranger be an angel of genius unawares. Oh, if at such a moment som( woman, influential by her wit, her grace, her culture, had caught up the remark (often forcible, sometimes profound), as it escaped from the lips of the pariah — if taking him by the hand, she had distinguished him, and shown the sneerers and the jeerers that this pebble was a diamond — what a change would have been there. Justified, exalted, triumphant, he would soon have shown that in such company he alone was a man, and the rest — ^nothing. II. LAST LOVE. women's FRIENDSHIPS. The great divorce of death is so overwhelming to the wife, left alone and unconsoled, it is so bitter to her, that she de< sires and hopes to follow her husband to the tomb. " It wiU kill me," she says; But alas ! it is but rarely that she can die. If the widow does not mount the funeral pile of her husband, as they do in India, she L, in danger of surviving him a long time. Nature seems to take pleasure in humiliating the sincerest, and doing her a spite, by preserving her in all her youth and beauty. The jjhysical effects of grief, are various, even directly opposed, according to temperament. I have seen a lady buried in grief and drowned in tears, hopelessly pros- ti'ated for life, jet in a flourishing plenitude of health. Her entire engrossment in her sorrow, her fixity of grief, had lent her beauty what it lacked — a lovely luxury. She blushed, she groaned for it, and the shame of her seeming heartlessness added to her despair. 'Tis a, decree of nature, 'tis the wiU of God, that this pleas- Last Love. — Women's Friendships. 235 mg flower shall not fade and- die. She cries for death, and i\ will not come ; life is thrust upon her ; she must continue to be the delight of the world. Even he whom she longs to follow forbids the sacrifice. The love that has brought her so many hopes and so many vows, which has done so much to develop her heart and make her an individual, would not have her bury it all, nor take it out of the world with her. J£ it is true love, it permits her, perhaps even enj oins her, to love again. Among our coast-people, in so many respects superior, I have observed two things : that the wife, often anxious; and always thoughtful, for her husband, loves him and is very faithful to him ; but as soon as he dies, she marries again. Among oui sailors engaged in the dangerous American fisheries — especially those of Granville, that town of brave people (where there are no illegitimate children except those of foreign emigrants), the woman immediately remarries if her husband does not return. The step is necessary ; otherwise the children would die. Should the dead come to life again, he is content that his friend has adopted and supported his family. Even if there were no children to bring up, it is impossible (if only in gratitude) that he who had loved her, whom she had rendered happy, could wish to leave her always unhappy. To-day she says no ; and she sincerely believes "that she will always be able to fortify herself by sorrow and the strength of her remembrance. But he, who knows her better than she knows herself, can easily foresee that a violent change in all her. feelings and habits is beyond her power, that she must remain desolate. Can he bear to look into the future, and see her coming home at night, to find no one there, and to weep by her cold and lonely hearth ? If he reflects, if he has the least knowledge of human na- ture, he will think with compassion of that mysterious snfl^er- ing which wa treat so lightly, but which physicians describe and deplore The craving for love, which, in a blas6 man, 236 Last Love. — Women's Friendships, quickly dies out, in a pure woman, on the contrary, is pro- longed, and often aggravated. A less rapid circjulation, a life less gay and less cerebral, less diversified by fancy, a slight embonpoint, by which (even in spite of her fasting and her tears) she is strengthened and beautified — all this agitates and oppresses her. The determinations of blood to the head, the extreme ner- vous excitements, the dwelling on the past, by which they have profited so little, fill their lives with pains and humilia- tions, which are their secret ; they are martyrs to their own unprofitable reveries. Punished by their very virtue, and their postponed duty^ they too often become victims to the cruel diseases of their time of life. Or perhaps the poor lonesome creatures, toys of fate, for all their strictness, fall into some sudden shame, at which the world ruthlessly laughs. He who has loved his wife and is dying now, should look into the futm'e for. her ; for he can see better than she can, through her tears. He should foresee and prepare for her, should im- pose no obligations upon her, but rather deliver her from her scruples — should even, magnanimously, constitute himself her father, to liberate the dear child, to direct and instruct her beforehand, and arrange her future life for her. Thus the first union is neVer quite dissolved. It is main- tained by obedience, by gratitude and affection. If she mar- ries again, far from forgetting him, on the contrary living by his law, in the calm of her heart she says to herself I did what he wished ; whatever happiness is mine now I owe to him. To his forethought I am indebted for the consolations and the tranquillity of the last love. It is for the highest interest of the widow, if she must re- sign herself to a second marriage, to take the nearest — I do not mean the next of kin, as in the Jewish law — ^but the kin- dred spirit. I mean one who loved the dead, one who was part and parcel of the husband's own soul, and for whom, the widow, from the very fact that she once belonged to him, Last Love. — Women's Friendships. 237 far from losing, on the contrary possesses additional tJiarnis That power of transformation, inherent in marriage, through which the woman at length contains physically and moially another existence, would perhaps distress the irreproachable wife, if the second husband were not identical with the first in love and friendship. Why is the widow generally prettier than the young girl ? Sorne one has said, " because Love has passed over her." But he should also have said because " love still abides ^vith her ;" we see in her its beautifying traces. In cultivating such a flower time has not been wasted. Promising but little in the bud, love has created from it a rose, a hundred-leaved rose, in each leaf a seductive charm. She is all grace, aU soul. Does possession detract from her attractions ? No, it rather adds to them. If she was happy while watched over by a worthy heart, render her happy again. In the brilliant freshness of her middle age, so much richer, you will have little cause to re- gret the meagre, frail beauty of her first youth. Maidenhood, itself, blooms again in a pure woman whom a tranquil life has consoled and beautified. She is innocently attuned to the harmony of her two loves. Has a man only one life, has the soul but one mode of per- petuating itself ? Apart from the persistent influence of our immortal energy, do we not at the same time bestow some emanation from ourselves, upon the friends wlio receive our thoughts, and sometimes prolong the dearest aflTections of our hearts ? The glowing historian who inherited the last love of his master', Bernardin de Saint Pierre, caught a reflection from him ; and in the critical austerity of an eminent historian of our own time, one may recognise a great inheritance, if it ' be true that he had the glorious happiness of communicating with the soul of the eighteenth century, in the person of Ma- dame de Condorcet. Many, either already aged or perfectly free from the r& straints of youth, would not accept a second marriage. 238 Last Love. — Women's Friendships. An adoption satisfies them. The widow can perpetuate the soul of her first hushaud ic an adopted son, whom he may have recommended to her. Such an interest will fill her heart, and give her an object in life. There are so many children without parents, so many whose parents are far away. We do not realize how much, in our severe schools, a forlorn child has need of a woman's pity. For a lad lost in one of those immense colleges which are almost armies, the best of good genii is a lady to keep a maternal eye upon him, to visit and comfort him, to intercede for him when he is punished, above all to take him out into the fields and walk with him, and teach him, more perhaps than he would'learn in a week's study, and to watch his play and choose his playmates. She will be still more useful to him when he Ls transferred to the high schools. She wUl preserve him there frcm many perils that even a mother could not avert ; for he will confide to her a thousand things of which his more timid mother would never have known. Her skilful tact will guide him safely through that intermediate epoch, when the, blind fury of indulgence sometimes ruins the man. A delicate mission, in truth, which often imparts to the young man an admirable refinement, though a little efieminate perhaps — but which, on the other hand, sometimes steeps a poor woman's heart in bitterness. She finds it difficult to re- gard herself altogether as his mother ; and sometimes she loves him ^"ith a diflferent love. For her own sake, I would that this good and tender creature would devote herself rather to the maternal proltection of a class, the most unhappy and the least consoled — I speak of women' themselves. Women, who so well know what women suffer, should love and help each other. But they do not ; their rivalries, their jealousies are so very strong — an instinctive hostility, which even survives youth. Few ladies can forgive a poor work- woman, or a servant, for being young and pretty ; and thus they deprive themselves of a very sweet privilege which b& Last Love. — Women's Friendships. 239 longs to their condition, and is wortli almost as miicli as love itself — that of protecting love. Their happiness should be to instruct and advise the lovers, to bring them together, to make the poor workman understand that his cafe habits are more expensive and every way less agreeable than domestic life. A word from an influential pereon will frequently pro- mote or strengthen love. Often have I seen a husband, who imagined that he was sick and tired of his wife, thus reclaimed ; a word in her praise overheard by chance, a gesture of admir- ation accidentally observed, some exclamation of a third per- son in envy of his happiness — either of these sufiiced to show him, what everybody else saw, that she was more charming than ever, to arouse his heart which only slept, and to remind him that he had always loved her. There are in every household critical hours, which a saga cious female friend may perceive or divine, and wherein she can happily interpose. She " confesses" without confessing the young woman, directs without directing ; and when the wife comes to her, with her heart swollen, dumb, and fast locked on its own trouble, she gently unlocks it, unlaces it. And then the trouble bursts forth — some severity of her husband, his little regard for her — while another, on the contrary— the rest may be conjectured. At such a time her friend will enfold her,^and take possession of her. It is easy enough, for a wo- man of intelligence and experience, to take the weeping child to her bosom, to restrain her, to dispossess her for a while of her right over herself The unforeseen happiness of finding a mother again may save the young wife from some foolish step, from some reckless vengeance which she would for ever regret. Sometimes with true pride she will not deign to revenge herself thus. She demands a separation — a course too often pursued now-a-days. Indignant at the fiist manifestations of folly in her high-spirited young husband, w'lich a few quiet Wirds would have cured, the wife, especially if she be rich. 240 Last Love. — ^Women's Friendships. will listen to nothing, will wait for nothing, hut fliiis into a passion, and insists on going home. Her influential family take her part, and the servants, her own creatures," testifj against her hushand. She will have her dowry hack, hut not her liberty; though still so young, she is virtually a widow. And can she take hack the intimacies she has shared, that definite communion which involved the yielding of her per- son, and which transformed her ? Alas, no ! that she can never take back, more's the pity ! Is there, then, indeed no alternative — cannot the young man be reclaimed? His feults belong only to his age, he is neither wicked nor avaricious. Let her parents have her dowry then ; it is she alone whom he loves and regrets. He, sees plainly and, especially since he is separated from her, that he can never find another to please him. And in her very pride, so fatal to their happiness, is there not something to atti-act love ? " Love ! we have nothing but love in this world. To-morrow we must die ; love then to-day, for I know you stiU love each other!" • This' is what her thoughtful friend says to her, and she does more than she says. While she caresses and consoles the little wife at her country-house, she attires her one day, whether or no, and makes her beautiful. Visitors are coming. But for her only one is coming, and who is he ? Guess; if you can. " The husband ?" No, a lover. In countenance perhaps they may resemble, but in soul they are quite difierent persons. If it were the husband, would he manifest such a charming em- barrassment, so much love and ardor, so violent a return of passion? Well, why don't they explain themselves ? Neither knows what to say ; they stammer, they promise, they protest : — ^in short, both have lost their wits. Their friend laughs, and tells them they haven't even com- mon sense left. It is late ; supper is soon over, for " she has a headache,'' she cannot entertain them, and they are very will- ing to excuse her, themselves so exhausted with emotion. The Woman Protecting Woman. 241 new lovers may safely be left alone now, no danger that they will quarrel. Give them a hearing at your earhest conveni ence, but now — let them repose. And does it end here ? No. The amiable friend who has re-united them is determined that the storm shall not again cloud their horizon. So she extracts from them two promises. First, that they will abandon the influences in which this storm was brewed, for such misunderstandings do not often arise be- tween those who love, except from outside influences. If one of the married pair commits an indiscretion it is almost always exaggerated by the interference of some unlucky friend, from whom they must get away. Change of place will sometimes effect a change in everything else. Another prevailing evil, which the friend will seek to re- medy, is want of occupation. An idle, vacant existence is necessaiTly productive of melancholy, morbid reveries, and bad temper. To blend their souls and Kves together, the husband and wife should co-operate, should work together as much as they can — but at all events work; when apart, each will regret the other, and suffer a little for being separated ; and in that way they wUl continue to desire each other — ^full of impatience for the hour when they shall meet, and longing for the coming of night. III. WOMAN PROTECTING WOMAN. CAROLINE CHISHOLM. Thb fifth part of the world, Australia, has, up to this time only one saint, one legend — an English woman, who died I believe this year. ^ Without fortune or assistance, she achieved more for that 11 14.2 Woman Protecting Woman. i*ew world than the British government and all its Emigi-aticn societies. TLe richest and most powerful among the king, doms of the earth, mistress of the Indies and an empire of a hundred and twenty millions of men, failed in the coloniza- tion which was to have redeemed her losses, while an unpre tending woman succeeded and carried the affair by her own intrepid courage. And in her let us render homage to her persevering race. A French or German woman might have possessed equal cou- rage, and generous pity ; but I doubt if she would have per- sisted against so many obstacles with such admirable stub- bornness in a good cause — such sublime obstinacy. Caroline Jones was born about 1800, on a farm in Nor- thampton county. At twenty she was married to an officer in the East India Company, and accompanied him to India. Brought up in the decent, serious orthodoxy of English coun- try life, her lot was cast in those military Babylons where license has full sway. The orphan daughters of the soldiers were for sale in the streets of Madras ; she collected them, and filled her house with them ; and in defiance of ridicule, continued her charitable work, tUl her dwelUng became a royal orphan asylum. The health of her husband. Captain Chisholm, demanding a change of climate, he obtained leave to recruit for a season ir Australia, and went there in 1838, taking his wife and chil- dren. But soon obliged to return to his post, he left her there alone ; and it was then that she began her com-ageous enterprise. Everybody knows that Sidney and Australia were princi- pally peopled by convicts, and criminals of a class that with us would be convicts. Constant transportations took crowds of men there, but comparatively few women. You may imagine how much these few were sought after, and pursued. Every vessel that arrived loaded with women, was waited for at the landing, and saluted with wild rejoicings, clamorous as Woman Protecting "^Yoman. 243 the cries of famine. The most violent and revolting assaults were common ; even the wives of the men employed on the island were not safe in their hiisbanOs' absence; and as foi" the ti-ansported girl, she fell among the crowd like game that they got on the scent of again. To appreciate the' horrors of such a situation, you must know what an English woman is. She has none of the address, the internal resources, the expedients, wjiich characterize our women. She does not know how to work ; she has absolutely no capacity for any duties except the caie of childi'en and housekeeping.- She is very dependent and iuodest, as she has no dowry. Married, she is often beateu ; while if not mar- ried she is a wretched creature, without self-reliance, continu- ally alarmed, and continually getting into trouble ; morally, she is always falling down and hurCjyig herself. Somebody has called her " a lost dog," that ruus about looking for his master, and don't know how to mahd one for himself. Even the fiUes publiqiies of Englund are more to be pitied than ours. The French girl of this unfortunate class, pro- tects herself by irony, and can make herself in a manner re- spected ; but the English girl has not the least resource, the least defence against her shame, not a word to say — only the Irish women know how to talk. , She endures her moral abasement by drinking gin every fifteen minutes, which keeps her in a half stupid state, so that she hardly knows when she is insulted. Alas ! girls of only twelve or fifteen, driven to this mode of life, and to petty thieving, constituted a large proportion of those arrested by the police, and sent with hasty trials to Australia. They often crowded them into old vessels like the Ocean, which foundered off Calais, and cast upon our shores four hundred corpses of women — almost all so very young and pretty, that they who saw them wept and tore their hair at the sight. We can guess what became of such a human flock, helpless 244 Woman Protecting Woman. as young lambs, driven into that community of convicts Pursued in the streets of Sidney, they only escaped continual outrage by going outside of the town at night, to sleep on the rocks, under the beautiful stars. Caroline was insulted, both as to her woman's heart and her English modesty, by this revolting spectacle. She ap- pealed to the authorities: but they, wholly occupied with the surveillance of so many dangerous men, had too much to do to trouble themselves about those miserable women. She appealed to the clergy : but the English Church, like every- thing English, believes too much in the inherent depravity of human nature, to repose confidence in human remedies. She apjiealed to the press, and provoked from the journals ironical answers. Yet so positively she insisted that it should not cost a cent, that finally the government magnificently placed at her dis- posal an old magazine. In this she immediately gave shelter to one hundred girls, who thus had at least a roof over their heads. Man-ied women, in the absence of their husbands, were permitted to encamp in the court, to be out of the reach of night attacks. But how to feed this troupe of girls, most of whom could do nothing, Caroline, a plain captain's wife, and burdened with three children, was sorely at a loss. So she explored the coun- try for married people with families, who would employ them, and thus made room for more. In less than a year she had saved seven hundred gu-ls : three hundred English Protestants, arnd four "hundred Irish Catholics. Many of these marided, and in their turn threw open their own homes to their poor trans- ported sisters. Having supplied all the families near Sidney, she had to go farther for asylums. Travelling is scarcely practicable tor a young woman in a country thus peopled, where the dwellings, often many miles apart, render all public oversight and pro- tection impossible; But she was not afraid ; mounted on a Woman Protecting Woman. 245 good 1 orse, which she called " Captain" (in remembrance of her absent husband), she set out in search of charity, travelling by the roads sometimes, but often where there were none, and frequently crossing rapids. The boldest feature of these jour neys was that she took her young girls with her, sometimes as many as sixty, to hire them as servants in families, or to marry them. She was everywhere received, by men not so bad as they seemed, as a very Providence, with love and reve- rence. But she never slept except in a sure place, and always with her gii'ls, preferring to pass the night in her "badly- covered wagons, to being separated from them. Then the people began to perceive the grandeur, the beauty of her en- terprise. Up to that time they had done nothing ; everything was in a Isransition state, for they had continually renewed their fruitless colonies only to see them again and -again de- stroyed. Moreover, there was no improvement in intelligence, manners, or customs among them. Vice remained vice ; pros- titution was even more shameful and wasteful than in Lon- don. The revolution eifected by this excellent woman may be thus summed up : Death to sterility, and to unchaste bachelorism ! The Governor had replied to the first petitions she addressed to him, "How does it concern me ? Is it my business to find wives for them ? " And yet everything depended upon that ; for it contained the secret of life, of progress, for that new world. So this woman, chaste and holy before all men, did not hesitate to constitute herself the universal match-mater of the colony, a very minister of marriage. She endeavored to advise judiciously as to choice in these hasty matches. But what could she do ? She believed that in complete solitude, where there was no third person to intrigue and make mis- chief, kind nature would arrange everything — the pair would try to love each other ; in time they would become attached, and they would end by adoring each other. Especially did she endeavor to bring families together again. 246 Woman Protecting Woman. She would assist a young girl, who was well married, and mistress of a house, to send for her parents. She also sent to England for unfortunate needle-women, who were dying there of hunger, as ours are to-day. And for her recompense, they came near killing her. The populace of Sidney were indig. nant because she brought out so many emigrants, whicli reduced their wages. Bands of ruffians collected under her windows and demanded her life, but she courageously ap- peared before them, talked to them, and made them listen to reasoni They retired, full of respect for her. At the expiration of seven years she went to London to convert the ministry to her ideas, and gave a course of lectures to diflEuse them. Lord Grey, the minister, and the committees of the House of Lords, saw fit to give her audience, and consult with her. Her husband became her first disciple, and returned alone to Australia — a rare and beautiful circumstance. This couple, so attached to each other, imposed upon themselves -a painful separation for the sake of doing the more good. She was on her way to rejoin him when she fell ill, and it is said mortally. (Blosseville, ii, 110, 1859.) Hers is one of the world's stories, and her memory will grow the brighter with time. One peculiarity which we must not overlook, is that this inspired woman was of a most practical mind, wholly devoid of chimel-as and exaggerations. She had, in the highest degree, the executive talent ; did all her own writing, and kept in order endless details of business and personal accounts, with the utmost exactness. And here follows a trait of character purely English : Believing herself responsible to her husband and children for the small family patrimony, she estimated that, on the whole, notwithstanding the . large advances she had made, all had been returned to her except a very trifling sum. During her entire apostleship, she had impOi verished her family only to the amount of sixteen pounds, That, was not dear for the makjng of a world. Consolation for Imprisoned Women. 247 IV. CONSOLATION FOR IMPEISONED WOMEN. In her MSmoires, approved by the Institute, Madame Mai let said, in 1845: "Ten thousand women enter our French ])risons every year. The worst criminals are treated best; for they occupy the central establishments. The less guilty, to the number of eight thousand, are placed in branch pri« sons — damp, dilapidated convents, where they live in forlorn, corrupting idleness, without work, without linen, and some- times without beds." Let us hope that since that time they are better provided for. Even in 1840 they were guarded by men ! and to this day a woman arrested and put in dm-ance, is under the protection of the wisdom of ten boys, twenty years old. (See the sad case of Oslinda, tried 14th of September, 1858.) In the general account of, crimes and offences, the women number very few (seventeen in a hundred) — a remarkable fact, seeing that women earn much less than men, and are, therefore, more tempted by poverty. When we examine, vs^ith Madame Mallet, into the details of tiials, this number still further diminishes, and in great part disappears. The majority of these crimes or misdemeanors are involuntary. In some instances, prostitute mothers beat their children of twelve years, or knock their teeth out with blows of their fists, to compel them to go on the streets, and steal. In others, it is the lover, who, though he does not commit the crime himself, causes it to be committed, by forcing the woman to steal foi*' his benefit : if she reftises he breaks a stick over her back With some, it is hunger alone that drives them into evii ways ; with others, it is goodness of heart, and even piety — for they prostitute themselves to maintain their parents, and their vices are entitled to the rewards of virtue. 2^8 Consolation for Imprisoned Women. Most of them are good, affectionate, charitable creatures, The poor are well aware of that, and appeal to them with confidence and from choice. Among these dregs of the city, there is abundant benevolence; in the country, on the con- trary, much cruelty — ^the people give a little lest they should be burned out ; but they let their parents die of hunger. The true and frequent cause, which drives these women to vice, and even to crime, is the ennui and sadness of their lives. Virtue, for a poor girl, means, to sit fourteen hours a-day making the same stitch for ten sous — -Jier head down, her chest bent, her bench hot and tiresome. Sedet cetemum- que sedebit. Add to this, in winter, that miserable charcoal- pan, all the fuel she has, though shivering with cold — ^which is the cause of so many diseases. One fifth of all the female, criminals are seamstresses. Woman, poor chUd that she is, requires constant moving about, constant change of position ; every new sensation is delightful to her. Still she does not need much novelty to make her happy. Her paradise is in the trifling variety that the household affords her, with its many little cares, and the rearing of children. Love her — make her life a little more pleasant, a little less fatiguing, and she will do no evil. Take out of her fingers, for at least a few hours in the day, the everlasting needle, that penance of eternal monotony. Which of us could endure it ? Madame Mallet has thoroughly explored our prisons, for v/hich she is greatly to be praised. Would that more of oui l:idies would imitate her, that they would overcome theit lepagnance, and enter that hell, which, bad as it is, contains many angels — ^fallen angels — some of them nearer heaven than )'our comfortable saint. The defect of her good book,' is its timidity, its caution Consolation for Imprisoned Women. 2^^ She approves, and she does not approve, religious superin- tendence. She follows the custom of the time and the opinion of its judges, for the most part favorable to the "cellular" system, which produces, by its deficiency of air and light, emaciated and entirely artificial beings. The remedy, on the contrary, is to tear down the walls, and to let in fresh air and sunshine ; for light moralizes. Another remedy is labor, under very different conditfons — • severe, but somewhat varied, and lightened with music. (This plan has been successful in Paris, through the liberality of some Protestant ladies.) Imprisoned women are crazy for music ; it soothes them, restores their moral equilibrium, xind calms their heart-burnings. Leon Faucher has wisely said, that " Pi'isoners- from the country, men and women, should be put to field labor, not immured in yom- horrible walls, which are only consumption factories. Yes, set the peasant to tilling the earth again — in Algeria at least." I would add, that even the working woman can be very profitably colonized under a semi-agrioultnral sys- tem, where, several hours in the day, she might do a little gardening, which would contribute to her support. We have no need of costly penitentiaries at the antipodes, as the EngUsh have. Let us colonize the shores of the Medi- terranean. Africa supported the Empire ; and she will again be populous and fruitful, from the day that we seriously try to render her healthy. But the great, the decisive, the sovereign remedy, is— love and marriage. " Marriage ! an d who would desire that f " Many a thought- ful person. Broussais said : " The disease which is excess of strength in one man may be weakness in another ; or in a different temperament, and under different physical circumstances, it it no longer disease." I also think that a person who, in the suffocation of our cities 11* 2^0 Consolation for Imprisoned Women. and in a society so contracted, has pinned by violence and ez. cess of strength, would be precisely in the right place, and perhaps estimable, in the freedom of the Atlas, or the adven- turous life of a military colony. Madame Mallet remarks, that " In general, passionate women, who, excited by rage or jealousy, have committed a criminal act, are not at all de- jDraved." Place them, then, where they may healthily expend their energy ; they -would concentrate it on love and a family, and become the veriest Iambs of gentleness. And those martyrs, those saints of prostitution, who have yielded from filial piety or maternal love — who will believe them irredeemable ? Ah ! those unfortunates, on whom vir- tue itself has inflicted such tortures, may be virgins among the purest. Their broken but pure hearts, more than any other voman's, long for honor and love ; and none have a better right to be loved. Even the truly guilty, if they are sent out of Europe, and placed under a new sky, in a land which knows nothing of their faults — if they feel that Society, though a mother who punishes, is still a mothet — if they see, at the end of their trial, fprgetfulness of the past, and love perhaps — ^their hearts will melt, and in their abundant tears they will be purified. When I behold those bald Mediterranean shores, those mountains, arid indeed, but which, retaining their springs, may always be rewooded, I feel that twenty new nations might be founded there with little difficulty. Instead of returning home a miserable workman, our soldier may become a pro- prietor in Africa or Asia. He will like much better to take, as a wife and.helpmeet, not some statue from the Orient, but a true living wife, a soul and a mind, an energetic French woman, softened by trial and pretty with happiness. This is my romance for the future. It pre-supposes, I con- fess, one condition — that Medicine will busy itself with the great objects of this century: the art of acclimating man, and of improving races by intermarrying among diflerenj Consolation for Imprisoned Women. 251 nations, the art of harmonizing families by associating dif- ferent races, conditions, and temperaments. It requires more skill to contract marriages for us than for those English — such as the marriages that Caroline Chisholm improvised. I long for a French Caroline here, who, surrounded by the aids of science, and enUghtened by physicians, would skilfully place hberated women in the most advantageous positions. For example, if the passionate woman is married, in the ex- citing air of the mountains, to a violent man, we must anti- cipate renewed excesses on her part ; mate her rather in the plain with a quiet man, whose gentle force and noiseless energy she wiU respect. These are the only reliable remedies. The present plan improves nothing ; the authorities admit that it multiplies offenders. (Mallet.) The, silence imposed upon them in the central prisons is torture to the women ; many become insane from it. And what does this lady propose ? To aggravate this evil, which makes maniacs, by putting them into cells, to be catechised by a chaplain." In general, what could he bring to bear upon them but vague generalities? He does not vary his discourse ac- cording to the class and person. The work-woman is only bored by it ; the peasant woman does not understand a word. Should one address a vicious girl, hardened in guilt, in the same words that he uses to a quick-tempered girl, in -nowise vicious, who has struck one unlucky blow ? Is even the best chaplain, whose profession it is to ignore love, the world, and life, capable of understanding antecedents so complicated, situations so diverse? How much less the nuns, who are employed as superintendents. Madame Mallet, who recom mends them, acknowledges that they understand nothing of it — that they hate the convicts, having no idea of the cir cumstances that brought them there, nor of the temptations of poverty. Every member of a corporation is, by that very fact, 1^2 Consolation for Imprisoned Women. moulded in certain general forms, in which he possesses ii>fi. nitely less of that special and individual character which is pverything in the medicine of souls. A man, even a layman, with our uniformity of education, is much less fitted for this duty than a woman. I mean a woman of the world, who has age and experience, who has seen and felt much, who knows life, who has inore than one heart at her finger ends, who is acquainted with a thousand delicate secrets that men" would never imagine. " Do you believe, then, that you could find many ladies devoted .and courageous enough to visit these sad places often, and come face to face Avith these unhappy creatures ? Un- doubtedly, it is a grand thing to feel that one is doing good ; but the strength to persevere is also very necessary.'' I dare say that this necessary strength will be found, not in the heart only, but in the mind. To an elevated, pure, enlightened woman, who has reached the age when she may command, it is a marvellously instructive study, and in the highest degree affecting, to^read in this living book. Lay aside your dramas and your theatricals-^the great play is here. Reserve your interest and your tears — all fiction palls in the pre- sence of such realities ; so tragic, alas ! so delicate also, are the destinies of these women. Will it not be a true happi- ness for you, madam, to gently unravel these tangled skeins that I put into your hands, and if it be possible, with your skill to take up these poor broken threads and hind them together again? O, madam, the angels would envy you. Angel of goodness, pardon me for speaking to you on a most sad, harrowing, and terrible subject. But all is purified in the fire of charity, with which your heart is aglow. Thera 1 an be no reformation in prisons if means cannot be founa I o restore the state of nature there, and put an end to that I'xecruble tyranny of the strong over the weak, who are be.atcn and made sport of. All the world knows it, but no one Ukes to say it A Consolation for Imprisoned Women. 253 man of sad memories (of great political faults, but he had a heart), the man best acquainted with prisons, when we were friends, more than once explained to me, with blushes and tears, that mystery of Tartarus — those bottomless pits of despair. The effects are different; the man falls so low that a liUla child can make him tremble, the woman becomes a fury. It is not by walls and dungeon-bars that we should put an end to that. There would be instead only the shameful sui- cide, the cripple, and the idiot. What is necessary is air and labor-^fatiguing labor. And for the married prisoner, it is necessary to restore what no one has a right to take away from him — marriage. I submit to the law^yers, my illustrious colleagues of the Academy of Moral Sciences, the following question: "Does the law, in committing this man to prison, in suppressing the ciyil effects of his marriage, mean to con- demn him to celibacy ?" As for me, I do not believe it. Many of these unfortunate people cling tenaciously to their families, and continue to make honorable sacrifices for them. I saw, 'at Mont-Saint-Michael, a convict, a very skilful hatter, who, in the depths of his prison, by deprivmg himself of everything, worked to maintain his wife, and waited patiently for the time when he should be re-uuited to her. The Catholic Church believes marriage to be indissoluble ; then its rights should be permanent. Why has she not expos- tulated here, in the name of religion, of morality, and pity ? The thing has practical difficulties, I know. A wise consi- deration is necessary; we should not indiscreetly introduce to the prisoner a perverse husband, who might exercise an evil influence upon her. An administration burdened with so many generalities can- not easily enter into the minute information which this would demand, such as seeking at'a distance for information, and keep, ing up, for one woman, a delicate and disagreeable corres- pondence. It is here that the services of a woman of kind heart 254 The Healing Art in Woman. and approved virtues are necessary. If the prisoner is in a great city, or not too far off, she should procure work for her husband there, so that the prisoner may have the pleasure of his visits on such days of the month as the intelligent superintendent may indicate. Woman is love itself. Give that back to her and you may make her all you wish. They are worth the trou ble ; they retain a great elasticity, are sometimes exalted and very capricious in their loving, hut never cast down like men, nor ignobly pusillanimous. She who should bestow on this weak flock one ray of happiness, would be so beloved and adored that she could lead them at her will. Madame Mallet understands this well ; it is her great means of discipline and regeneration. She advises that it should be employed — and that the husband should be admitted to the prisoner. But she imposes upon the privilege so many fetters and restrictions, that» to see him thus would be, perhaps, to suffer still more. Kbestow- ed at all, it should not be grudgingly. Surveillance, if there is any, should not be exercised by officials, mockers, who would be all eyes and ears for their raptures, and whose very faces would freeze them. It Bhould be left to the sagacious goodness of a reliable and respected lady, who will take everything upon herself, whose indulgent virtue will guard her poor hu"' miliated sister in her supreme consolation, and who should be responsible only to God. V. THE HEALING ART IN WOMAN. EvEETBODT knows that my good afld learned friend, Di. Lortet, of Lyons, has the most bountiful heart in the world, in its benevolent devotion. His mother'was his inspii-er. Such 1 he Healing Art in Woman. 255 js lie is she made him. This lady is a legend of science and charity. The father of Madame Lortet, Richard, a manufacturer ol Lyons, a grenadier, and nothing else, took it into his head, while in his regiment, to learn mathematics, and soon after- ward gave lessons to his ofKcers and others ; and when he re- turned to Lyons and married, he bestowed on his daughter a similar education. She commenced exactly Hke Froebel's ba- bies, with a study in which children delight, geometry ; arithme. tic, on the contrary, fatigues them extremely. She became the wife of a manufacturer, leading an active life of trade. During the civil convulsions of Lyons, she risked her own safety for both sides, saving sometimes royalists, sometimes jacobins, intrepidly forcing the doors of the authorities, and extorting pardons from them. The terrible exhaustion that followed these agitations is well known. Towards 1800, it seemed as it the world was coming to an end. Senanoour wrote his des- perate book, l!' Amour, and Granville the Dernier Homtne^ Madame Lortet herself, notwithstanding her indomitable courage, sank amid the universal ruin. A nervous malady took possession of her, and seemed incurable. She was then thirty years old. The learned Gilibert, whom she consulted, said : " Nothing is the matter with you. To-morrow, go with your child to the gates of Lyons, and collect me such and such plants." She could scarcely walk ; but she obeyed. Next day he sent her to collect other plants, a quarter of a league further; and every day he increased the distance — till in less than a year the invalid had become a botanist, and, with her child of twelve years, walked her eight leagues a day. She learned Latin, in order to read botanical works and teach her son. For him, also, she studied chemistry, astro- nomy, and medicine. Having thus prepared him for the medical profession, she sent him to study in Paris and in Germany, and she was well repaid. With the same impulse the mother and son, during all the fighting at Lyons, nm-sefl, 256 The Healing Art in Woman. concealed, and served the wounded of both sides. In all things she was associated with the adventurous generosity of the young doctor. If she had lived with him in the centre of a great medical community, she ^vould 'have pursued tb« study of medicine, and confined herself less to botany. Now, she was the herbalist of the poor; she would then have been thuir physician. I have been reminded of all this by what I have now under my own observation. I ani writing in a very beautiful place on the banks of the Gironde. If either here nor in the neigh- boring villages is there a physician ; but they are all gathered in a small town, by no means central, where they have almost nothing to do. Before one can be obtained, and his expensive journey paid for, the poor patient dies. In many cases the disease, if -attacked in time, would have been but a trifle — a fever, which a little quinine would have arrested — a croup, which, cauterized at once, would have disappeared ; but they are very slow, and the child dies. Where is Madame Lortet? An American lady, with an income of a thousand livres — rich, too, in heart, and general information, and who, moreover, had the delicate mind and timid reserve of English modesty- resolved, notwithstanding, to give her daughter a medical education. In that land of action and imtnigration, where circumstances often carry one very far from the great civilized centres, suppose her daughter should marry a manufacturer, established on one of the western rivers; the thousand opera- tives, the thousands of laborers engaged in clearing the land, should be provided with medical aid on the spot, and not be suffered to die while waiting for a doctor, who, perhaps, would be a hundred leagues off. In those very severe winters, no aid is to be expected ; and how much, less in other countries, Hussia for example, where the muddy grounds of spring and autumn intern:ipt all communication for at least six months. In the United States, lectures on anatomy are attended by both sexes indiscriminately; If prejudice debars them from The Healing Art in Woman. 2^"^ dissection, they have a substitute in the admirable models of Auzoux. He told me that he made as many of these for th« United States as for all the rest of the world together. Supposing the knowledge equal, who is the best physician ? 27ie one who loves most. This beautiful saying of a great teacher would lead us to infer that woman is the true physi- cian. So she is, in all barbarous nations ; there it is the woman who knows and applies the secret virtues of simples. So has she been in other nations not barbarous, but of high civilization — in Persia, for instance, the guardian of all the sciences, and mother of the magi. In fact, man, much less sympathetic, as a result of his phi- losophic and generalizing culture, so easily consoled himself, inspires the sick with much less confidence than a woman. She is more easily touched, but, the misfortune is, too easily — she is liable to be gravely aifected, to contract a nervous malady from the suffering she beholds, and become ill herself Then there are those cruel, bloody, shocking acci- dents, which, at times, it would be dangerous for a woman to look upon. So we must relinquish the pleasing prospect. Although woman certainly brings a consoling, healing power mto the world, she is no physician. But how useful would she be as an auxiliary. How much would her intuition, as to a thousand delicate things, take the place of man's education. In him, instruction develops more than one faculty, but in her it smothers many. This is espe- cially noticeable in the diseases of women. To penetrate their elusive secret, that mysterious Proteus, one must be the woman herself, or love her dearly. The priest of medicine requires gifts so various, and even so opposed, that to exercise them successfully, he must be double, or rather, complete — a man-woman — the wife asso- ciated with the husband, like Madame Pouchet, or Madame Hahnemann — or the mother associated with the son, like Madame J^'Ortet. I can conceive also that a widow lady of 258 The Healing Art in Woman. advanced age might practise medicine with an adopted son, whom she herself has formed. Will our physicians, incontestably the first men in France, the most enlightened, be willing that an ignorant person, whom they themselves have instructed and taught to think, should Bay what one has in his heart ? As to that, here is the true aspect of the case. To the physician belong two offices, not sufficiently considered. 1st. Confession — the art of drawing fi'om the patient those disclosures of antecedent circumstances which throw light on the physical crisis. 2d. Moral intui- tion-T^to complete such confessions, to see beyond them, and force the patient to deliver up the tiny kernel, often impercep- tible, which is at the very bottom of the trouble, and which, as long as it remains there, will, in spite of aU the most successful remedies, continually produce relapse. how much better could a woman, a good woman, not too young, but with a young, emotional, and tender heart (who has tact and patience even in her pity) perform this office. Man is naturally stern. He must coldly, gravely observe, and decide from the physical appearances and the little the patient may choose to say. But if the wife of the doctor were there, if she could remain near the inValid, how much more would she discover ! How much more would her compassion elicit, especially from another woman ! Sometimes a few tears would suffice to melt the ice and get at all the story. 1 had for a neighbor at Paris, a collier, about thirty years of age, who had an estate in Auvergne, and a stall here, which was quite profitable. . In his own country he had married a pretty Auvergne woman, rather short, but handsome, whose countenance, clouded at times, her flaming eyes in a mo- ment rendered the more brilliant. She was good enough, but she knew that she was much noticed, and was not displeased. They dwelt in a dirty, narrow, dark, and unwholesome street. Sometimes the collier, young and strong__as he was, had spells of fever. ; and these became more frequent, tUI he grew pale The Healing Art in Woman. 259 and ill. A good physician, whom they callejJ in, explained to them that the dampness of their lodgings had caused the fever, and that the fogs of Paris were not good for a man who had so long breathed the bracing fresh air of Cantal. He told them, also, that he could easily break up the fever then, but that it would soon make its appearance again if the patient did not return to the country. To this the collier said no- thing ; and his fever increased. A lady neighbor, whom the collier's wife served with coal, saw that, behind the judicious observation of the doctor, there was yet something else. And so she said, " My little friend, don't you know why your husband has this fever, and why it will stick to him, and he will have it more and more ? It is because your pretty eyes are too fond of being looked into. And don't you know why the fever has been increasing for some days ? Because of his struggle between love and ava- rice. He is afraid he will earn too little down there ; so he will stay here and die." Neither the man nor his wife would have taken a decided step in the matter ; but the lady did take one. She apprised his relations of the true state of the case, and they wrote to the collier, that his property was in bad hands, that it was being frittered away, that while he thought himself thriving in Paris he was going to ruin in Auvergne. This woke the man up and settled the matter. His fever left him, he gave up his little stall, took his little wife, and departed. Both were saved. To save others is to save one's self; it is a great comfort to a wounded heart to be healed by healing. The woman who has a great sorrow, sharp troubles, and heavy losses, seldom knows what wondrous pharmacy, if I may use the word, ia in them, for the evils and the pangs of others. A poor mother has lost a child, and a lady goes to her and^ weeps. The mother scarcely dares to cry any more — perhaps the lady has lost all of hers, and is left utterly alone ; while she, for all this 26o The Healing Art in Woman. trouble, has still the happiness to see around her a beautiful family. She has her husband ; she has the consolations of his love, revived, re-animated by tliis very loss. So she compares herself with the lady, and says: "I have still a great deal left." We are advancing towards a better time, a time more in- telligent, more humane. This very year the Academy of Medicine has discussed a most important question — the reno- vation of hospitals. They would do away with those lugu- brious structures, reservoir's of disease, impregnated jwith the miasmas of so many generations, where sickness and death are aggravated and multiplied tenfold, by terrible obstructions; they would attend the poor patient at his own house — an im- mense advantage for him, for there they become acquainted with him, and see him in his needs, amid the surroundings which cause his disease, and renew it as soon as he returns from the hospital. Finally, for those rarer cases, in which it is necessary to remove the patient, they would erect small hospitals around the city, where the sick person, no. longer swallowed up and lost in a crowd, would be regarded in a different light — would become a man again, and no longer be a number. I never enter without terror those old and gloomy con- vents, which to this day serve for hospitals. The admirable cleanness of the beds, the floors, the ceilings, is useless. It is the walls I fear ; for there is the spirit of the dead, the trace of so many departed generations. Do you think it is for nothing that so many dying people have fixed on the same spots their melancholy eyes and their last earthly thoughts, as though they saw some imperious beckoner there, to whom, ia the words of the Roman gladiator, they said, " Ave, CiEsar ! Morituri te salutant !" Small, healthy hospitals, outside of the city, surrounded by gardens, would be a humane reform — and, first of all, for wo- men. Crowds of women are carried off by contagious fevers The Healing Art in Woman. 261 during confinement, because woman is much more liable tai contagions than man. She is more imaginative, more quicklj affected by the thought of being there, lost in an ocean of disease, among the dying and the dead ; that alone is enough to kill her. Her relatives, if she has any, can visit her bu twice a week. The sisters are occupied with their professional duties, and rather worn out besides with seeing so much misery. The house-surgeon is but a young man — but that is well ; precisely because he is young and not yet hardened, can he, if he is good, effect the most, morally. And what an immense amount of instruction may he draw from it all! what ennoblings of the heart ! Dr. L., then a young surgeon in a Paris hospital, saw a girl of twenty, in the last stage of consumption, come into the hall. No woman friend had" she, nor relations. In her absolute loneliness, amid that dismal crowd, in the shadow of her ap- proaching end, she surely saw, without a word from him to her, a gleam of compassion in his eyes — and thenceforth she always watched him, going and coming through the hall, and never again thought herself quite alone. And so, with this pure and solitary sympathy, she gently departed. One day as he was passing, she made a sign. " "What do you wish ?" he said. " Your hand," — and then she died. That pressure of the hand was not for nothing ;'it was the token of a passing soul, and a tarrying soul profited by it. Even before I knew of this circumstance, in looking on this man, as charming as he is skilful, I have felt that he was one of those whom woman has endowed-, and who find treasures of healing in the tendernesa of their hearts. The best man is still a man, and a woman cannot tell him everything. There are times especially when the patient, doubly ill, is vulnerable to everything — weak, easily affected, and yet not daring to speak. She is ashamed, then she is afraid ; she weeps, she dreams ; not even to the sister of charity, the oificial sister, can she tell all ; a sworn celibate, she could not understand, and has no time to listen. 262 The Simples. Ko, she needs a geod -woman, a true woman, who knows all about it, who feels it all, who can make her tell all — who ivill cheer her up, and say to her, " Don't fret, I will go see your children, I will find you work ; you shall not want hereafter," Such a woman, as delicate and penetrating as she is good, would also guess what she would not dare to tell, that having just seen her neighbor die, she is afraid of death. " Never fear, you shall not die, my dear ; we will save you." And a thousand other simple, tender things out of a mother's heart. The sick woman is like a child ; you must talk to her as to a child, and caress and soothe her ; a woman's caress, her tender embrace, has often a marvellous power. - And if the lady has influence, authority, acknowledged intellectual ascendency, from that position her benevolence is so much the more effi- cient. The invaUd is very happy in her bed, quickly recovers strength and courage, and gets well, to please her. VI. THE SIMPLES. The good often die in solitude, and those who would console are not always consoled. Their sweetness, their resignation, their harmony, preserve them longer than they desire. Too often does the pure woman who has lived only to do good, and who should be surrounded and supported when her own hour comes, behold thfen all friendships and relationships depart, and find herself left to approach the solemn bourne alone. But she needs no support ; and by herself she goes. She lias no thought but to obey God ; she knows that she is in f^ood hands, and so she hopes and trusts. All that she still has of tender and holy aspiration, all that she has dreamed The Simples. 263 of, longed for in vain, for the happiness of others , all that she has planned but faUed to execute — in these is tl e promise of the future, through these the entrance to the other -world. The eloquent words of pious men, concerning this solemn tiirae (the Migrations of Reynaud, and the Consolations of Dumesnil), sustain her and give her hope. In that book of metamorphoses (7%e Insect), has she not read: " How many things are in me which have never been developed !^anoth*r and a better soul, perhaps, which has not strength to rise. Why are not these upward soarers, these powerful wings, that I have sometimes felt, stirred in life and 'action ? These delayed germs remain in me, too late for this life, but in time no doubt for another." A Scotchman (Ferguson) has made this ingenious, but striking and truthful observation : — " If the embryo, captive in its mother's womb, could reason, it would say : ' I am pro- vided with organs, but they serve me not here — with legs, but I cannot walk — with teeth, but I cannot eat ; but patience! for they speak, and tell me that nature calls me out of my present life. A time will come, when I shall always live, and this machinery be busy. Now it rests, it waits — ^for I am but the chrysalis of man.' " Of these prophetic senses, the one which aspires most, hesitates least, and resolutely promises everything, is love. -" On this globe, love is the true motive for being; sc long as one loves, he cannot die." (Grainville.) Such is eaxth, and such man. How can he come to an end, when he has within him so profound a reason fbr duration? Why, enriched by tenderness, by charity, by every sympathy, would he ^have amassed this treasure of vitality, if so many vibrating cords were to be broken at last ? And so she has no fear of God ; but advances peacefully towards Him, wishing only what He wishes, but sure of the life to come, and saying : " Lord, I still love thee." Such is the faith of the heart; but it does not prevent tha 264 The Simples. feebleness of age and sex from operating occasionally to pro- duce melancholy hours. At such times she goes out to see her flowers ; and she talks to them, because she trusts them. Her thoughts grow calmer in such discreet society, for they are not inquisitive — they sniile, but they are silent. At least they speak so low, these- flowers, that we can hardly hear them. They are earth's silent children. As she fondles them, she says : " My dumb darlings, in me who have so much to say to yqu, you may have perfect con- fidence. K you brood over some mystery of the future, speak ! I will not tell." And one of the wisest of them, some old sibyl of the Gauls (vervain or heather, no matter which), replies : "Thou lovest us; and we, too, love thee, and wait on thee. We are thy future, thy immortality here below. Thy spotless life, thy pure breath, thy sacred person, shall return to us. -And when the superior part of thee, set free, shall spread its wings, the gift of our friend will remain to us : thy precious and hallowed remains, widowed' of thee, shall flourish again in us." No vain poetry is. this, but literal truth. Our physical death is but a return to vegetable life. There is but little of solid matter in this changing envelope ; most of it is fluid and evaporates. Thus exhaled, in a little while we are -eagerly appropriated by the greedy absorption of herbs and leaves. The various world of verdure by which we are sur- rounded, is the mouth and the absorbing lungs of nature, which has continual need of us, and finds her renewal in our physical dissolution. She lies in wait, and is eager. She does not let that escape which is so necessary to her ; she attracts it by her love, transmutes it by her desire, and blesses it with happy processes of appropriation. She inhales us rji the sprout, and exhales us in the blossom. For the body as (veil as for the soul, to die is but to live again. There u nothing but life in this world. The Simples. 265 A barbarous ignorance has made death a spectre. The loathing, the terrors of the grave should disappear. Man, who made the tomb, is afraid of it. Nature makes nothing of tlie sort. Why do you talk to me of shadows, of outer darkness, and the cold bosom of earth ? Thank God I can smile at that. There is nothing there to detain me ; I shall hardly leave my trace in it. Go .on, then, and pile up stone, marble, and brass ; you cannot hold me. Even while you weep, and look for me below, I am already a shrub, a tree, a flower, a child of light — and have uprisen to the dawn. Antiquity, so fai"-seeing, so enlightened, so advanced by a kind gleam from God, expressed this simple mystery by ap- propriate images : Daphne became a laurel, and was not the less beautiful for it ; Narcissus, melted in tears, remains the charm of fountains. This is poetry, but it is no deceit. La- voisier might have said it ; Berzelius could not have put it better. Science ! science ! sweet consoler of the world, and true mother of content, thou hast been called cold, indifferent, un- sympathetic for the Moral ; but what repose was there for the heart in the night of ignorance, thick with chimeras and monsters ? There is no joy but in the True, the light from God. The toughest of animal remains, those which most obsti- nately preserve their forms, even shells, yield at last, and dissolving into dust and atoms, enter upon the vegetable life. Even now I have an example of this under my eyes. In the very place where I am writing, at that port of France where the ocean and the great Gironde meet in a combat of love, that everlasting wrestle that continually unites them, the torn rocks give up to the waves their old stony race, and become sand. Then a hundred vigorous plants fix their roots in this sand, to appropriate it to themselves, and take strength from it ; and they become so wildly fragrant that the traveller on the road, the sailor m his bark, inhale the odor and ar« 12 266 The Simples. delighted, and the very sea is intoxicated. What, tiien, are these potent plants ? The least, the most humble of our Gallic simples — rosemary, sage, mint, wild thyme in abundance — and so many, so very many immortelles, that whether they live or die is neither here nor there. Old Gaul hoped and believed. The first -word she ever wrote was "Hope," on an antique medal ; the second, in the great book which inaugurates the Renaissance : " Here lies Hope !" May not you and I, then, find it in the tomb ? But the good, sweet woman who is left alone, who, without fault of her own, has been betrayed by fate, where shall she find Hope ? Here, among these sands, on this poor but perfumed land, which indeed is not even land, but only sea sand that once lived ; no earth at all — nothing but life. The poor little soul of all these marine lives becomes a flower, and is exhaled in odors. In bright, sunny places, screened by oaks from the north wind, very late in. the season she breathes again in the fra- grance and life-giving virtues of simples. Their wholesome perfumes, sharp but agreealile, do not cloy the heart as those of the south do. These, our spirits, are true souls, per- sistent beings, which convey to the brain the desire of life. The phantasmagoria of tropical plants, their ephemeral qua- lities, inspire us with languor. It is only here in the north that a virtuous vegetation counsels us to create in our works new reasons for existing. And not to exist alone, but to contume in natural groups — groups of souls — ^loving and beloved, acting out together a composite immortality, wherein many are united. Though separately feeble, they combine and live by force of love. Medicine may laugh at our simples. Tet, though they act but slightly on constitutions hardened by "heroic" reme- dies, and burnt by "heroic" alimentation, they are enough The Simples. 267 for sober people, for women of gentle manners, regular habits, and healthy organs — women sensible and pure in spite of the times. Let woman then in her innocence trustfully store them. It is a feminine grace to gather and preserve these treasures of France. On stony hills well sheltered, in the early morning, she shares with the bee the rosemary — whose blue flowers flavor the honey of Narbonne — to distil from it that celestial spirit which soothes the most distracted brain. Early in autumn she gathers berries from the bushes, in company with the bird, beseeching him not to devour all, but leave her a part. From these she prepares those useful conserves, which we too easily forget. Gentle cares are these, which prolong life and render it de- lightful. If the humbler plants do not always heal the body, they assuage and fortify the heart, and smoothe for it the broad rdad to vegetable existence. Every morning, all alone, with the i-ising of the sun, she offers up her heart to God, and dreams of her cherished past, and the approaching future ; and then she turns a kindly eye upon her pretty heirs, who are so soon to inherit her life ; for these touching symbols of vegetable love are also those of our animal absorption — what we call death. How can we hate it, fresh and charming as it is, and sweeter under the turf than the gentlest sleep ! A worn-out, agitated life expe- riences among this friendly people the attractions of profound peace. Meanwhile, every good ofiice is fulfilled which a sister may perform or require, every interchange of friendship effected. She waters them herself, covers and protects them in winter, heaps up around them the fallen leaves and flowers, which at the same time shelter and nourish them, and takes what is her own from them only with thanks. If, with her still beautiful hand, she gathers fruit from peach or cherry tree, she smiling says: "Lend this to your sister; with all hei heart, when her turn comes, she will restore it to you." 268 Children— Light— The Future. VII. CHILDREN LIGHT THE FUTURE. OcTK cradle impressions are omnipotent on our death-beds. Light, that universal mother, by whom the chUd was warmly caressed at its life-waking, who received it before its own mother, who even revealed its mother to it, in the first inter- change of glances — flight warms and blesses its decline, with the mildness of this life's twilight, and the dawn of the future life. We have the future, the vita nuova in advance, in the society of children. They are already the angels, the pure souls we hope to see. Life is so active in these moving flowers, these eiiger birds, so indefatigable ia their «port, that a sort of youth seems to emanate from them. The most afflicted heart, ope that broods most over the lost treasures of its memory, and cherishes its wounds, is, in spite of itself, refreshed and renewed by them. Won from itself by their innocent gaiety, it exclaims, astonished : " Is it possible that I had fol-gotten all this ?" It would seem that God permits the misfortune of orphan- age, expressly for the consolation of childless women. True, they love all children, but much more those whose affec- tions a mother does not engross. The unexpectedness, the lucky chance, of this late maternity, the exclusive possession of a young heart, happy to recline on the bosom of a loving woman, is to them a felicity more intense than any other happiness in nature. To the joy of being a mother after all. is added something ardect, like the raptures of the last love. Nothing approaches nearer to infancy, or loves it more, than that second infancy, full of experience and reflection, which we call old age, and which by its wisdom best understands the voice of the young age. By a natural inclination, children Children — Light — The Future. 269 and aged persons are drawn toward each other — these charmed by the spectacle of innocence, those attracted by the indul- gence they are sure to find. And herein is one of the most beautiful of earth's harmonies. To realize it, I should wish — ndeed it is my dream — that orphans might no longer be col- ected in great establishments, but distributed in small houses n the country, each under the moral direction of a lady who would find her true happiness in her ofiice. The studies, the sewing, and the husbandry (I mean a little gardening for the family, as the JEnfants of Rouen do), should be conducted by a young schoolmistress, assisted by her husband. But the religious and moral part of the education, its freer part, read- ing for amusement and instruction, recreations and walks, should be the business of the lady. For children, especially for girls, there must be certain indulgences, a certain elasticity, and everything cannot be provided for. The mistress, repre- senting as she does absolute order, would hardly be the best judge of these. There should be by her side the children's friend, who would never decide without the mistress, but would obtain from her such concessions, such reasonable in- dulgences as nature might seem to require. A woman of tact would thus leave to her upon whom devolved all the care and all the trouble, the honors of government; but at the same time making herself beloved by her, and rendering good ofiioes to the whole household, she would exert a quiet influ- ence, would control without appearing to do so, and at length form the mistress herself, and set her own moral seal upon her. Never called upon to punish — on the contrary interfering only to soften the severities of discipline — this lady would win the comjplete confidence of the little ones. They would be happy to open- their little hearts to her, concealing from her none of their troubles, none of their faults even — so that she could advise them. To know is everything. As soon as wb know, and see to the bottom of the difficulty, we may, by 270 Children — Light — The Future. modifying habits a little, render punishment supei-fluous, and induce the child to reform himself. He will do so by choice— especially if he wishes to please and be loved. There are, in such a house, a hundred delicate matters which the mistress cannot attend to, which require the exer cise of goodness, patience, and ingenious tenderness. Ima- gine a child of four years old brought to such a place. In its distraction of grief, the imaginary fears with which its for- lornness fiUs it, it will be a wonder if it lives. It must have some one to envelop it with kindness and caresses, and gra- dually calm it with quiet diversions, untU. the stricken flower, torn from its parent stem, shall thrive on another by a kind of graft. This is difficult, and is never effected by general rules. ' I saw one of these poor desolates who died in a great establishment at Paris. The kind sisters had put some toys on his bed, but he would not touch them. He wanted a woman to hold him in her arms, kiss him, mingle her heart with his, and take him back again into the maternal bosom. When they live and grow, then comes another danger — a kind of hardening. All who feel deserted, and know that their friends have been cruel to them, enter upon life by the iron gate of war, and are prone to regard society as their enemy. Other children fling in their faces the odious " bas- tard ;" and they are soured, embittered, filled with hate for their comrades and all human nature. Thus are they on the high road to crime, and in a fair way to deserve the scorn that at first was so unjust. Such is misanthropy at ten. If the child is a girl, the scorn of any one is enough to make hor self-abandoned, reckless, and ripe for evil. Oh ! for a good heart to care for her young soul, to make her feel by tender- ness all the good- there stiU is in her, to show her that in spite oi her misfortune the world is still her friend, to teach her to respect herself and honor those who love her. There comes a time, a peculiar'ly critical time, when collec< live kindnesses are entirely inadequate, and personal affection is Children— Light — The Future. 271 necessary. Imagine the poor child subjected to the unfriendly formalities of a common table, the great crowded dormitories, those dreary galleries wherein a chilling cleanliness is the only idea of health: subject to harsh rules, rising early to be washed in the cold, shivering, trembling, yet afraid to speak, ashamed of her own suffering, and weeping, she knows not why. Where, at this moment, are the dear old family com- forts, a mother's heart melting in sweet caresses, in excesses of attention, in a thousand useful and useless cares — all around the little one an atmosphere of warmth, eager solici- tudes, and anxious oversight ? But for mother and family, the orphan has only the hospital, with its great grim walls and its grimmer officials, who, according to rule, disti'ibute their ser- vices indifferently, fond of no one, and cold to all. It is not easy, especially in those establishments in which order is every- thing, to be kind without appearing unjust and partial. Now nature demands strict personality in kindness, that ardor of tenderness and warmth of love with which a mother clasps her child to her bosom. How necessary then, that there should at least be one friend, some conscientious, tender, intelligent woman, to supply, however imperfectly, what the poor thing needs so much. And this need is the more serious because, just at this time, that only mother to the orphan, the Law, is going to desert her. The State has done its duty, and now the hospital is about to exclude the child from its cold shelter and bar its doors against her. She must go forth into the unknown, the vast mysterious World, which to her ignorance seems a frightful chaos. And where wUl you put her ? In a farmer's family ? In some respects that would be well ; but those rude peasants, who are doing their best to exterminate themselves, will treat her as they treat each other, and kiU her off with labor. She is but poorly prepared for so terrible a life, wavering as she stiE is in her crisis of transition. But there are greater 272 Children — Light— The Future. dangers than this for her ; if, for instance, she is drawn into some great industrial vortex, if her lot is to confront the cor- ruption of cities, that pitiless world wherein every woman ia fair game. Agirlwithout relatives isso little respected! Even the head of the family to which she has been entrusted, wiU often abuse his authority ; the man will make sport of her, the women will drive her in, the " young gentleman " will run her down ; and so behold her taken. Otherwise she will find her- self engaged in an implacable war — a very hell — while outside, there is another hunt, of passers-by and all, and (worst of all) oi friends, who attract, console, caress, only to betray her. I do hot know on the face of the earth anything more pitiful than this poor bird, without a nest, without a refuge — this innocent young flower, ignorant of all things, incapable of protecting itself — ^this poor Kttle woman (for she is one already), abandoned to chance, just at the critical moment when nature endows her with a charm and a perU. Behold her, alone, on the threshold of the hospital which she has never passed before, and wMch now she steps over trembling, her little bundle in her hand; already tall and pretty, and, alas! so much the more exposed, she goes — whither ? God only knows. No, she shall not go ! The good fairy who serves her for a godmother shall save her. If our orphan, having led a half rural life, can support herself, partly by the needle, partly by gardening, it wiU cost the establishment but little to keep for a while a skilful, industrious young girl ; who can maintain herself. And :^eantime her protectors will cultivate her, and complete in her that sort of education which wiU render her a desirable wife for some worthy laborer, manufacturer, mer- chant, or farmer, who will find his true safety in taking from such a house, and from such worthy hands, a girl care- fully fitted for a life of toil. Never having had fireside or family,- she will so much the more delight in her home, and, even in the humblest circumstances, wiE be altogether CJiildren — Light — The Future. 273 happy, a hundred times gayer and more charming than the young lady who always thinks she is conferring a favor, and is never satisfied. At present, our good farmers are at a loss to find wives in their own class, or if they do find them they are ruined ; for their women look higher — to marry a black coat or a clerkship (that is gone to-morrow). They have not the simple, energetic habits, nor the intelligence, tjiat the noble life of agriculture requires. But our orphan, instructed in aU useful things, zealous for her husband, proud to manage a large farm-house, would make the man's happi- ness and his fortune also. If our good lady were only good, she would simply adopt the child, and take this nice girl home, to make a jewel of her, that she herself might every hour have a festival of inno- cence and gaiety in the possession of a daughter who adored her, and who, under her hands, would become an elegant young lady. But she is wary of that ; she chooses rather to deny her- self, and not force the child into a condition where marriage would be difficult. Let her but put on a hat some day, and all would be lost. So she leaves her to her cap, or better still, her own pretty hair ; she leaves her half peasant, with all the possibilities of reading and music, as we see in Switzer- land and Germany. And thus the future is rendered easy to her ; midway of all, she may easily rise, or descend, if it be necessary. To see what has not yet come to pass, is a gift of advanced age, of a various experience and a pure life. Now the admi- rable and delightful woman of whom this book is a biography, is clearly impressed with the approaching future of European societies. Great and profound renewals there are to be. Women and families will necessarily be surrounded by new circumstances. Will the rudimentary woman of " L' Amour,'* or the cultivated lady of " La Femme," suffice ? By no means. The latter, herself, clearly perceives that the wife of the com- 12* 274 Children — Light— The Future. ing man must be more complete and stronger, harmonized with him in thought and action ; and such she would have her orphan be. Her prudent effort, is to render this beloved child different from herself, and ready for a bettfer state of things, for a society more masculine by labor and equality. And what then ? is this but a dream of hers ? in the reali- ties around us we note already the forecast shadow, the imper- fect image, of the coming beauty. In the "Backwoods" of the west, on the very confines of a savage world, the American woman — wife or widowT-who works and tills the ground all day, in the evening none the less reads, none the less explains the Bible to her children. Once passing into Switzerland, over the dreariest of fron- tiers, the fir forests of Jura, I was surprised to see in the fields the daughters of watchmakers, beautiful and well-bred girls, well-infoi-med, and quite ladies, working in velvet bodices, at hay-making. Nothing could be more charming. By that amia- ble alliance of art and agriculture, the earth seemed to flourish Tinder their delicate hands, and evidently the flowers were proud to be handled by a clever person. But what impressed me most, and made me fancy for a moment that I was already " assisting " at the next century, was a meeting I had, on Lake Lucerne, with a wealthy family of Alsatian peasants. The picture was in no respect unworthy of the sublime frame in which I had the happiness to see it. The father, mother, and young daughter wore, with proud simpli- city, the ancient but beautiful costume of their country. The parents were true Alsatians, of stout hearts, fair talents, and wise heads, square and solid; the daughter much more French, refined at Lorraine, her iron changed to steel. De- cidedly young, she was slender, active, and full of vitality; with a slight figure and yellow arms, astonishingly strong ; but they were very brown. Her father said: "That is be- cause she will work in the fields ; she lives in the fields, labors there, and reads there. Children — Light — The Future. 273 " The oxen know lier well and love lier. When she is tired, she mounts one, and they draw all the better for that. But that does not hinder the little one from reading Goethe or Lamartine to me in the eveijing, or playing Weber or Mozart for me." I wish our lady-patroness of orphans had seen that charming realization of her own ideal. It is doubtless towards an analogous or identical type that the world to come will tend. To form such a treasure, to realize in her that vision of a pure and vigorous life, with its fruitful equalities and noble simplicities, which shall free man, and prompt him to produce works of liberty in the name of love, is a great religious act. For so long as our women take no part in labor and action, we are serfs and can do nothing. Give that vision to the world. Madam. Let it be your che- rished thought, the worthy occupation of your declining years. Put into it all the graces of your heart, your matured wisdom, your strong and noble will. Should you serve God by doing so much good in the land, with what confidence could yon retui'n unto Him ! I picture to myself this -beloved lady, on a beautiful winter day, when the weather is mild ; she has had an attack of fever, and is still weak, but convalescent, and wishes to go down and sit in the garden. Supported by the arm of her dear adopted daughter, she is going to see her little ones play again, her children whom she has not seen for a week. As she approaches their sports cease, and her darlings encircle er. She looks upon them, but sees them only confusedly ; still she fondles them, and kisses those of four or five years old. Is she in pain? Not at all; but her sight is failing. She wishes most of all to see the fading light, which ia BtiU reflected from her silver hair. She gazes in vain, in 276 Children — Light — The Future. vain — dimmer and dimmer. A kind of twilight has tinted hci pale cheeks, andher hands are joined. Then her little ones speak very low : " Oh ! how she has changed ! And how young and beautiful she is !" A youthful smile has indeed passed over her lips, as though she communed with an Luvisible spirit. For her own spirit, emancipated by God, has taken its free flight, and soared upwards into light. Notes. Notes. o NOTE I. The Moral Character of this Wobk, [See Translator's Preface.] NOTE 2. Education, Children's Workshops and Gardens. The true exponents of the Middle Ages were Speech and Imitation ; those of the present age, Action and Creation. What education is suited to a creative age ? That which teaches how to create. It is not sufScient to appeal to the inspiration of the moment (as according to Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Jacotot, Fourier, Coignet, and Issaurat), but we must assist the mind to discover the rail on which it may dash for- ward. The genius of Froebel has effected this. When in last January his amiable follower, Madame de Marenholz, explained his system to me, I saw 'at once that it was the education for the times, the only true method. Rousseau, with his system, creates a Robinson Crusoe, a her- mit ; Fourier has recourse to the apish instinct, and makes the child a mere imitator; Jacotot developes the specialty of speech and argu- ment. But Froebel puts an end to all this nonsense, by proscribing imitation ; his system of education is neither external nor imposed, but evolved from the child itself; nor is it arbitrary. Thus history has a new beginning in the child, in the creative activity of the human race. Read the charming Manual of Madame de Marenholz — not to follow it servilely, but to derive suggestions from it. And see the Paris Syhool, under the direction of Madame Koechlin. 28o Notes. NOTE 3. Justice in Love, and the Husband's Duty. In this age, apparently a cold one, love has nevertheless revealed itself under countless new aspects of passion. Never before has it spoken in such mighty tones ; never has it so longed for tlie infinite. She was hving only yesterday — she who wrote such burning measures — shcj the muse of eternal love, with its tempests and its tears, Madame Valmore. The striking feature of our time is, that love now suffers and weeps for a profound and absolute possession, which hitherto was neither desired nor thought of. To this demand Science replies with her sa- cred revelation : " Tou long for perfect unity ; and you have it already, in that absolute interchange of lives, that transmutation of beings which constitutes marriage." But is love satisfied with this ? No, not yet : the ordained oneness of the flesh is a sacrilege if there be not with it a free union of hearts. And in order that this may exist, lovers should create in themselves, by life-long study, a common basis of ideas, and a language which will incite them continually to communicate with each other. The silent tongue of love, its communion, must again assume its sacred function, which, ignoring all selfish pleasure, implies the alliance of two wills. The casuist, without heart or soul, has made no stipulation on behalf of the woman. But to-day it is the man himself, who in magnanimour justice must plead her causes-even, if necessary, against himself; foi she has a right to three things : — 1st. She should never be impregnated without her unqualified assent It is for her to say whether or not she is strodg enough to accept that chance of death. If she is ill, feeble, or badly formed, her husband should spare her — especially at the time when the ovum is exposed (during menstruation and the ten days following). Is the intermediate period sterile? It certainly ought to be, since the ovum is wanting; but passion may cause its reappearance. M. Coste thinks it is in this condition for at least three days previous to menstruation, which is also the opinion advanced in the Memoir approved by the Academy of Sciences. 2d. The husband owes his wife enough of the etiquette of love not Notes. 281 to make her a passive minister to his pleasure ; there should be nona for him unless shared by her. A Catholic physician of Lyons, a regu- lar prcifessor, gives it as his deliberate opinion, in a popular work pub- lished this year, that the scourge which decimates wottien originates chiefly in the fact, that the greater part of them, though married, are in reality widows. Solitary in pleasure itself, the selfish impatience of the man, desiring only self-gratification, and that for a single instant, arouses her emotions only to disappoint. To excite, but always in vain, is to provoke disease, irritate the body, and desiccate the soul. The wife submits to it ; but she becomes melancholy and sarcastic, and her bitterness affects her blood. With the exception of occasional business talk, there is no conversation between them; at heart, no mar- riage. For marriage exists only through the sustained study of the heart's duties, in the interchange of those salutary raptures which re- new hfe. If this be wanting, the espoused pair become estranged, and ill at ease with each other; the children of such a marriage are to be pitied, for the family is dissolved. Does the man pretend to be satisfied with the brief pleasure he takes by force from ice and marble ? He derives from it only wretchedness, for though practically a materiahst, his mind has all the requirements of a far-advanced age, which demands in everything the very depths of the profound ; in a word, he would penetrate even to the souL 3d. Another physician, himself an excellent husband, said to me: " The best thing in your work (L'AmBur) is what everybody has laughed at — that portion about the half-maternal duties of love, those willing offices which suppress the dressing-maid. That tiresome and dan- gerous third person is as a wall between husband and wife, rendering their relations quite fortuitous ; so that a man gets to visiting his wife, as if she were his kept mistress. The advantage of marriage is to be able to be together at all times, and consequently at those rare mo- ments when your wife — ^like all women, somewhat cold — may be in- spired by a natural longing. Affection and gratitude have much effect with women in this respect. They are much more promptly, moved by him who understands the management of their httle mysteries, and who tenderly nurses them during their periods of weakness. If you wish to understand women, remember how, in natural his- tory, moulting enfeebles, and destroys hfe among annuals. Terrible in the inferior species, it leaves them wholly at the mercy of their ene- 282 Notes. mies. Man, in whom, fortunately, it is not violent, changes continu. ally as to his skin, and even his internal epidermis. In his intestinal processes, day by day he '' sheds" part of himself, and is enfeebled by it. Woman loses far more than he, having in addition her peculiar function every month. She has at such times, in common -nuth aU animals during their moulting season, a desire to hide herself, but also to lean upon something. She is the Melusina of the fairy tale : the beautiful fay, virho on earth often assumed the form of a pretty, timid, little adder, and hid herself to cast her skin. Happy he who can soothe his Melusina, who can comfort her, and make himself her nurse. Who, indeed, can supply his place ? It is profanation to expose her beloved person, so timid about so innocent a matter, to the tricks of a silly maid, who would make a jest of her. Such an extreme of inti- macy should be granted only -to him to whom it can be a joy and a favor — a favor, which at first costs her some pain, but which, Uttle by Uttle, she will find so full of comfort, that she would on no account withdraw it. Nature loves habit; and she makes free use of the per- fect liberties of childhood. Those are happy moments of grace and complaisance, and easy com- pliance, when her cherished confidant enthrals her with his harmless magnetism. The charming humility of her who knows so weU that she is queen, is without defence, and yields without a struggle — in pro- found forgetfulness, abandonment without reserve 1 Love, hitherto experienced only as a half-conscious dream, has now a chance to assert itself in complete bliss — in that salutary crisis (so profound with woman) in which she gives up her very life, to have it returned to her a thou- sand fold, in new beauty and new embellishments according to the law of Nature. NOTE 4. Woman in Sooiett. What society ? Past or future ? I have not spoken of the first, nor repeated the history of the Salons, which is given at sufficient length in my Louis XIV. There is much talk of the good these Salons effected, none of the good they prevented, of the genius they stifled. Madame Henriette exerted a happy influence for ten years. But Madame de Montespan, by her viciousness, and Madame de Maint6- Notes. 283 noQ, by her negative mediocrity, rendered France barren foi forty years. Tiie society of tlie future, we can only imagine. In the third '(.oJi it has been my endeavor simply to point out the position which the widow and the single woman will occupy — that of an emancipator, through goodness, of aE enslaved souls; for even in a free society there will always be slaves — slaves to poverty, to age, to prejudice, to passion. In a perfectly harmonious community, a great-hearted wo- man would be the good genius of maternal power, interposing in every case that the law does not reach, — a supplement to Liberty, a highei 9r4«r of Liberty, a direct interposition of God. 'SSR SKIX. ^ NEW BOOKS And New Editions Recently Issued by CARLETON, Publisher, New York, [Madison Square, corner Fifth Av. and Broad'way.J ' ' ■ 1 N. 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