IX.
WOMANLINESS.
There is something in woman fascinating to woman herself, and something in a girl irresistibly attractive to a girl herself. Mere words being unsufficient to express the emotion caused by this charm, a girl makes use of a large force of e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, utters her indescribable "Oh"s!"
and "Ah"s!" in every variety of crescendo and diminuendo, and emphasizes her pitch with gestures that point her meaning, till not the slightest doubt exists that she has been impressed by something wonderful. She does not know, indeed, just what it is that makes Sallie Henderson so delightful; but "Oh, she is per-fect-ly lovely!--too sweet for any thing!" Now I think the quality which so attracts is womanliness, the most desirable of all the gifts a girl is permitted to cultivate. All the littlenesses in the social customs of girls; all their raw, untrained, ungenerous acts, their indulgences, their prejudices, are the weak and despised signs of unwomanliness.
Womanliness is not primness, let me be understood. The straight, smooth hair, the folded hands, the demure face and exact deportment from ten years of age to eighty, do not always indicate womanliness; nor does the attempt to turn young girls into elderly women produce it. So many patchwork quilts, so many hand-st.i.tched shirt-bosoms, so many worsted stockings, made before a girl is fourteen, are so many quilts, bosoms, and stockings more than she will make when she is forty. Hours for sewing, for helping in the home, for studying, are necessary to even children, because industry, patience, application, and system must be encouraged in earliest years; but the hours girls spend in the house doing things neatly and in order, as their grandmothers did before them, ought to be balanced by hearty exercise in the fresh air, by seasons of mirth, and by freedom from restraint. The out-of-door exercise, the gayety, the deliverance from tasks, are quite as necessary for older girls as for younger ones.
There is a value to be placed on the very trappings of girlhood which do not in the least interfere with womanliness. At sixteen or eighteen, perhaps at twenty, a girl can toss a jaunty little felt hat upon her head, pin it in a twinkling above her wayward hair, tie on a bit of blue or red somewhere about her blouse, tuck in her handkerchief in a pardonable way, brush her short walking-skirt into becoming folds, tie up her tennis shoes, and there she is in five minutes, prettier, fresher, more becomingly dressed than all the older women of the household, who have been standing before the mirror trying this effect and that for the last hour. Ask a girl how she does it, how she manages to make her hat bend down and up, and in and out, in all kinds of alluring ways, and she does not know,--it belongs to girls to do such things. Of course it does! Whatever they do must be bewilderingly charming sometimes, because they are girls. You know, when we buy choice roses from the gardener, we are always particular to select those just approaching blossom. A delicacy, and yet a richness of color and fragrance are upon them; a brightness and yet a tenderness in tone,--the bloom is there more soft and beautiful than in the fully opened rose. That bloom and color, that tenderness and dreamy softness, that richness and freshness, are yours, dear girls.
Yes, indeed! there is something charming in a girl simply because she is a girl. It is in the ring of her laugh, in her irony, in her frankness or her coyness, in the way she does the commonest things,-- puts on her scarf, or catches hold of your arm,--things that only too soon disappear in conventionalities, ceremonies, and proprieties. But there is no need of this change as concerns much that is now called only girlish. The womanly element is the main quality to be nourished into greater perfection, but only the weakness of girlishness is to be excluded from character. Girls are to grow wiser, and to avoid what must bring harm, but still to keep the attractive freshness of maidenhood.
Some of the most delightful women we meet are those who can be girls with girls, and women with women. The young do not lose their respect for them because they appreciate them, nor do elders lessen their regard for these women because they have kept the loveliness of girlhood.
Girls, I am not trying to defend you: your girlhood needs no such effort; but I do want to make you all feel that the very sweetness of your natures, the loveliness of your lives and conduct, your attractive grace, which ought to strengthen with years and become something more than beautiful,--become divine,--is womanliness.
G.o.d did not make all the girls beautiful, strong, or intellectual; but He did make them all capable of becoming womanly. You may well doubt this ability the next time you see an intelligent and pretty girl avoid the glance of a former friend who is now miserable and weak; and you may question its very existence in the wretched and outcast one. Ah! but who can judge, or even know, the inner life of one"s past acquaintances? It is not for you, nor for me, to slight, to scorn, to condemn the fallen. Of this we are sure,--that no beauty, no intelligence, can compare with womanliness; and that no girl, weak and wicked as she may be, is utterly lost to a return to womanliness.
May I here appeal to you, dear girls, to hasten this return? May I urge you not to slight even the sinful? As you are girls with most precious endowments, remember to encourage the growth of these gifts in other girls. Then will womanhood seem even more blessed than now,-- when girls defend it and purify it. A girl may have all the privileges that a boy has; a woman, all the rights that a man now has in excess,--pray, do not let us stand in the way of such favors!--but the fact remains that "woman is not undeveloped man, but diverse"; and the one thing she owes to the world, to herself, to her Maker, is a reverence for her own s.e.x. Girls, I repeat, you cannot sufficiently realize your obligations to your own kind. Because you are girls and not boys, women and not men, oh, try to be loyal to girls and women!
Pay homage to womanhood; adorn it, place sacrifices upon its altars, rejoice in unceasing service to it, exalt it by every worthy endeavor!
This reverence for woman is the first and truest step towards womanliness. When this has not been taken, and a girl is therefore unkind to her social inferiors out of fear of what rumor will say,--"the fume of little hearts,"--I blush for an indecent girlhood, and I grieve for an unpromising, unchristian womanhood. We know that encouragement, not intimacy, the gentle rebuke of a bow or a greeting, are more helpful to arouse the sparks of womanliness than the cold stare or averted head. Next to the respect of woman for woman, comes the regard of woman for man,--a deference (when physical, mental, or spiritual strength in man demand) that is due from her who, const.i.tuted differently, has greater power to pay respect and grat.i.tude, to honor and love.
Gentlemanly boys and men have a right to expect you to be refined, courteous, agreeable towards them in all the ways of ladyhood,--not that they are your superiors, but your helpers: made after a different pattern, but still your sincere friends.
The womanly in girls implies the lady, no doubt, more than the manly in man indicates the gentleman. We ought always to find in girls that gentleness and delicacy of manner, that minute attention to the comforts of others, that visible respect towards others, so agreeable and so refining in all circles. Marguerite de Valois wrote, "Gentleness, cheerfulness, and urbanity are the Three Graces of manners." I believe they bear a close relation to ladylike deportment.
All can acquire these habits of politeness and attention to others, though they come not with ease to those of us whom unfavorable surroundings continually influence. A woman in an almshouse, a girl serving a ship"s crew, can be a lady and not cost her masters more, though her efforts cost her much.
But, valuing all that const.i.tutes a lady, believing that these gentle graces are necessary to every girl, I believe the ladylike is but a part of true womanliness,--that infinitely precious, indescribable something in woman that makes her royal by birth, queen of herself, and fit to occupy the throne that is placed beside the king"s throne,-- not higher, not lower, but beside it; not his, but like his; her own, from which, with equal though with differing eye, she looks in blessing on the world.
Oh, how, girls, shall we get this womanliness into our characters, or, rather, how shall we make it shine out of them? If we stop to think once in a while what it is, if we remember that it is una.s.suming as it is beautiful, and only waits for our acquaintance, we shall the sooner embrace it. And then, if we are reminded that it does not despise common things, lowly homes, simple pleasures, any more than it does benevolent acts, patient lives, and ordinary toils, we shall oftener be found cherishing it. Let us remember that womanliness is in our elders,--women like Susan Winstanley, of whom "Elia" tells in "Modern Gallantry." You know she was cold toward her lover, and when asked why, she replied she was perfectly willing to receive his compliments and devotion, as was her right; but that, just before he came to pay his regards, she had overheard him roughly rating a young woman who had not been quite prompt with his cravats, and she thought what a simple change of place might have caused, and said, "I was determined not to accept any fine speeches to the compromise of that s.e.x the belonging to which was, after all, my strongest claim and t.i.tle to them."
Let us remember that womanliness is in all the motherliness we see in our mothers; that it is in all the sacrifices and n.o.ble deeds of silent women, as well as in those of celebrated women, like Elizabeth Fry or Mrs. Browning; that it is in the acts of all those who make the ordinary home "like the shadow of a rock in a weary land," and a "light as of a Pharos in the stormy sea." If we are impressed with the remembrance that womanliness is in such and such characters, we shall try harder to imitate them; we shall be more thankful we are women, and more grateful that it belongs to us especially to impart what man lacks, and what he must depend on us to supply.
Here, again, I want to emphasize the fact that womanliness does not require a girl to abandon merriment, vigorous exercise of the body, or brain, or heart, freedom in sports, and "a jolly good time." But let us have every thing in its place. Kid-gloved hands in a huckleberry pasture, or on a row-boat, would be as unbecoming to a girl, you will agree, as a soiled collar in the school-room, or a dusty jacket in church. We do not object to boys sitting astride a fence: it is rather manly than otherwise, if they do not concoct a plan to tear their clothes; but it does seem a bit out of the womanly way for a girl.
To be sure, there is not much difference between climbing fences and many of the gymnastic performances for girls; but time and place must be regarded. I should not frown if I heard a girl whistling, under two conditions,--she must be a good whistler, and confine her musical exercise to the woods. I think it is fine to see a girl go over a fence without sticking between the bars, and it really is too bad to have to be pulled through by an "I told you so!" It is fine to see a girl play ball or tennis; to see her row or ride, or climb a tree when there is need. But all this climbing, and striding, and shouting, womanly enough at times, become most unwomanly under certain circ.u.mstances, especially in the home.
Such indications go far to p.r.o.nounce us loose in manner, immodest in deportment, coa.r.s.e and vulgar, where we are not understood. No girl can afford to wilfully bring upon herself the criticism of bad manners.
She can afford to do right when she feels the world is wrong; but she is accountable for her example, and the influence she exerts upon those not as strong as she is. Beyond this lies the fact that womanliness is opposed to mannishness, and that unwomanliness grows faster than its virtuous opposite. "Ill weeds grow apace," says a German proverb.
One plantain in a garden will eat out not only the flowers in the plats, but the very gra.s.s in the borders. Any thing that takes away from modesty, refinement, gentleness, takes away from womanliness. Says Beaconsfield, "The girl of the period,--she sets up to be natural, and is only rude; mistakes insolence for innocence; says every thing that comes first to her lips, and thinks she is gay when she is only giddy."
I sometimes think, girls, it is the motherliness in some of you that often makes you womanly; not altogether the quality that makes little folks hug their dolls,--not altogether that,--though, in their gentle cares, their tender caresses and a.s.sumed anxieties, they are little women in themselves; but I mean, too, the motherliness that makes girls careful of others. It is an all-sheltering fondness; it is a delicate superintendence over the comforts of another; it is a brooding thought about the nestlings of one"s heart, hearth, or a.s.sociations; it is a cultivated instinct that smooths out difficulties, and steps right along beside purity and loveliness.
This characteristic of womanliness is not that weak, unsubstantial quality which we sometimes a.s.sociate with effeminacy.
I would not imply that womanliness does not exist in those women whom superior talents have raised above the average man. A great lecturer, after holding her audience long by her eloquent appeals for reforms, stepped down into the crowd slowly departing, and earnestly inquired after this sick friend, that poor one, and the prosperity of another.
The marvel of her womanliness was even more striking than the power of her oratory.
As I said at first, girls, girlishness, while inferior to womanliness, is no hindrance to it. It is most proper for girls to discuss tucks and ruffles, gloves and boots, bangs and twists. They think about these things properly enough, too, or they would not make such good use of them. They are in no danger of becoming less worthy women, provided they do not exclude thoughts on higher things. But girlishness, construed to mean just a love of dress and finery, does not make womanliness. If it did, every well-clothed girl on the street would be virtuous. I confess, however, that it would require a good deal of persuasion to make me believe that untidy skirts, b.u.t.tons clinging by a thread, or utter inattention to style, to neatness and wholeness, were traits in a womanly woman.
We are told that true manliness and true womanliness are one and the same. At some points, these qualities meet and mingle. In the strongest parts of character, men and women are the same. In trying moments, in hours of great interest, in times of rare experience, men and women do the same work in the same way, and then the high quality which enn.o.bles their characters is human kindness. It is well that great artists have painted the face of Christ so that it is as womanly as it is manly. It is a beautiful way some persons have of thinking of G.o.d as father and mother too.
But with all these resemblances of manliness to womanliness, there is a difference which all may recognize if they will. Allow a boy to stretch out his legs, climb spouts, jump gutters,--he is still perfectly manly; but a girl cannot do these things in a community without censure, unless necessity requires. I know that the custom which demands different decorum for a girl is arbitrary, and not of divine origin. To go unveiled is not allowed in some countries. But conformity is surely enjoined upon us; and that, so far as it is reasonably observed, is a really womanly trait. I cannot help thinking that girls are made of finer material than boys, but of stuff that will wear just as well as the stockier goods in boys. Inasmuch as a girl has more confided to her keeping than a boy has, she ought to be so much the more watchful. A girl ought to guard purity, modesty, patience, hope, trust, because she has had these things given her in large measure.
What can there be more beautiful than womanliness! The next time you see the Sistine Madonna, look behind all the mother in the lovely face for the woman in it. Then see if you do not remark the same in Raphael"s St. Cecilia, and in the Venus de Milo, Wherever masters have succeeded in painting the Virgin, notice, aside from the holy look,--if any thing can be aside from that,--the womanly look. What is it which makes us love some women"s faces the moment we see them? Sometimes it is because the loveliness of their character beautifies most ordinary features.
Sometimes it is because we expect them to do some very womanly deed,--to heal us of diseases, to right wrongs, to defend causes, to uplift the fallen. Girls are not all weak and uncertain, because they are girls.
No; they are strong and brave, and reliable in danger. The boiler of a steam-yacht exploded; several girls were on board; the crew were busy saving themselves; the girls, with an electric shock of mother-care, jumped to save one another. They neither fainted nor screamed, with one exception, which was a somewhat feeble serving-girl, who was stoutly shaken and told to faint if she dared.
Perhaps you think that refinement and good education produce greater womanliness than ignorance and low surroundings. So they do; but the worst of circ.u.mstances, as we have already shown, cannot crush it.
There is much to be feared from over-refinement, or, rather, superficial cultivation, which breeds selfishness, vitiates strength, encourages false pride, enervates the whole life of a girl. Look at the girl half clad, sleeping in the lazy sun that falls across her narrow doorway, droning out life; now and then, in an hour of wakefulness, muttering some coa.r.s.e word. And then regard the over-cultured, the wrongly-bred girl; the peevish, dictatorial, selfish, haughty miss of a certain other door-way,--a parlor-way. The womanliness in both would not amount to so much as is in one bright gleam from the eye of an Evangeline.
We cannot tell so much what womanliness _is_ in girls as what it _does_.
It lies mostly in the little acts they perform,--those things which are so often done that we neglect to speak of their worth, and yet should feel most sad without them. The humblest deeds, the oft-repeated ones, form the beauty of characters and faces. They put beautiful lights into girls" eyes, softness into their cheeks, and winsomeness into the whole face. Then, too, deference to the feelings and notions of others has much to do with the sweetness of womanhood. It cannot be wrong to read a letter on the street, to shout to one"s friend on the opposite side of the way, to whistle to a horse-car driver; but, so long as these offend preconceived notions of good manners, deference to the opinions of others should forbid such habits.
Now let us see, just once more, what we mean by a womanly girl. Exact attention to points of etiquette, gracefulness, accomplishments, proper subservience to the will of others, do not of themselves make womanliness; many more than these characteristics, and greater, are needful. First of all, a girl must feel she is a woman, with a heart to cultivate in its affections, restrain in its desires, curb in its selfishness; with a mind to enrich by such means as shall promote its best peculiarities, and supply its needs; with a soul to enlarge into more generous impulses, and into the performance of more worthy deeds.
Such a girl looks practically, but at the same time cheerfully, on life. She is willing to make the best and most of her lot, and, though out of patience with it sometimes, is not always battling against circ.u.mstances.
Discontent, to be sure, is as unmanly as it is unwomanly; but I fear it is an ill more widely spread among girls than among boys. It is an evil seed, and brings forth nothing but choking weeds and noxious plants. No position, nothing that a girl can do, harms her, provided she be womanly; therefore, choice of position cannot help, unless she is sure she has power to do better in another place. Some servants are more womanly than the women who employ them. We are all servants to one another: each holds the mastery. Surely we must be novices before we can be superiors. In one sense, servitude is an ornament; for politeness is but a visible sign, of glad service. Surely, politeness is a real property of womanliness.
A truly womanly girl is genuine in what she says and does. Avoiding the bombast, the occasional coa.r.s.eness of rougher natures, the self- esteem, and the dictatorial manner, she yet says no, when she means no. If that causes hurt, she is not slow to express her sympathy and show her sorrow. She does not do things for effect, nor to arouse unjust indignation.
If we were to study the points of character that have made women celebrated, we should find them within the power of any earnest girl to obtain through great strength of womanhood. I mean those women who have been the bravest, truest, tenderest, most loved by the world.
Philippa pleading with bended knee before Edward III. to spare the lives of the men of Calais, Catherine urging her suit before Henry VIII., Madame de Stael supplicating Bonaparte for her father"s liberty, Marie Antoinette ascending the steps of the scaffold, are but few of the women of history who furnish us examples of highest womanhood.
Literature supplies as great ill.u.s.trations: Antigone going to bury her brother"s ashes in spite of the king"s threat to take her life; Zen.o.bia in chains in the midst of a great Roman triumph,--a woman still, with firm though downcast eyes; Rebecca, in "Ivanhoe," standing on the tower ready to give the fatal spring the moment Bois Guilbert should approach with dishonorable purpose,--all furnish vivid pictures of what strength of womanliness can accomplish. Simple traits caused their n.o.blest actions,--love, sympathy, tenderness, purity, bravery, resolution, endurance; but these qualities, grown almost to their utmost, make these women dear to us. It was not intellect, it was not pride, it was not position; but it was the womanhood perfected in them that enabled them to do their work, and enables us to love and follow them.
We are under the strongest obligations, girls, to our s.e.x, ourselves, and the world.
X.
GIRLS AND THEIR FRIENDS.
My dear girls, do not fancy that I am going to preach on friendship: so wide a theme is beyond the scope of these little talks with you.
I simply wish to express a few old-fashioned opinions about girls and their friends.
Though now and then I may seem to be talking about that which is less than friendship, or that which means more, please understand I fully recognize the fact that, though acquaintance, friendship, love, often merge into one another by advancing steps of familiarity, they are really three distinct qualities.--One"s acquaintances are many, one"s friends comparatively few, one"s lovers fewer yet,--or they ought to be. Do you know, girls, you do suggest the most delightful subjects for a talk! There is no such thing as resisting your attractive traits!
But I am going to say a few very plain things about what may not be charming in you.
Girls feel very quickly. They are not in the least slow to comprehend with the heart; in fact, it often seems as though that organ were constructed with as much delicacy as is the Aeolian harp, which quivers and utters sounds when the air just stirs about it. The most of you are very emotional; and that quality of emotion, when it is pure, is your blessing, and a part of the womanhood in you: it is the necessary expression of your soul. I know the word emotional has not a pleasant sound, and, in common use, implies lack of reason and want of control; but it is a good word, and what it truly means is good. Feeling, or the product of feeling, which is emotion, does for us what reason cannot do,--it frequently causes faith where reason would destroy it. Do not boast you are not emotional, and have no care nor sympathy for fine sentiment; for this boasting is not laudable in a woman. The girl who reasons more than she feels will make a calm philosopher, but a very poor friend.
Though we are not to speak so much about G.o.d"s highest gift to us,-- the power of loving,--I would like to show you just what feeling is capable of doing. You know most girls have an affection for somebody or something, and if that love is not bestowed on a friend, it will be on a cause, an ambition, an absorbing desire. Hypatia, Joan of Arc, Charlotte Corday, Florence Nightingale, Harriet Hosmer, Rosa Bonheur, Mrs. Siddons, represent as much love for the causes they lived or live for as did Vittoria Colonna for her husband, Hester and Vanessa for Swift, Heloise for Abelard, Marguerite for Faust, Ophelia for Hamlet, Desdemona for Oth.e.l.lo, or Juliet for Romeo. These last, I repeat, were bound in the cause of love not less than the former; and they all owed their endeavors--their success, if they gained it--to the feelings and emotions of their natures.
But the trouble is, girls, you do lack judgment in the management of your feelings. It has been suggested by an able philosopher that persons differ from one another princ.i.p.ally in the amount of judgment they possess. Really, you do not always bestow your friendship worthily, but too often let your emotions master instead of guide you; then your eyes become blind to every thing that is best for yourselves and your friends: you get selfish, pa.s.sionate, and demoralized.
Hold the reins of feeling in obedience to what is good and right, no matter what the suffering is which follows. Do you remember how Irma loved the king in that grand struggle for character which Auerbach paints "On the Heights," where the full, rich nature of Irma, so capable of loving, so p.r.o.ne to err, yearns for the fulfilment of her longing, yet will not yield an inch of conscience when once she knows it is wrong for her to love? You know she dies struggling, but it is on the heights, where, Goethe tells us, "lies repose." There are many and many women martyrs who go to their graves unknown, suffering no pangs of the Inquisition, the gallows, or the guillotine, but tortured by unrequited affections,--by a love which it was not possible to gratify without a loss of principle or a sacrifice of conscience. Is it not better to break one"s heart than to break one"s soul?
My dear girls,--I would not say it were I not obliged to do so,--you seem the least conscientious in making friends, rarely thinking how grave and yet how sweet a joy a friendship is. In the first place, you seize upon a friendship as though it were something to be worn already made, like a new bonnet which pleases you. No matter what the girl is, she suits your present whims; so your swear an eternal friendship with her, when you do not begin to realize that real friendship depends upon time and growth,--that it consists largely in a mutual finding out of two persons.