No More Learning

It may


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16138
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
they were taught to please, and they only live to please. Yet
they do not lose their rank in the distinction of sexes, for they
are still reckoned superior to women; though in what their supe-
riority consists, beyond what I have just mentioned, it is difficult
to discover.
The great misfortune is this: that they both acquire manners
before morals, and a knowledge of life before they have from re-
flection any acquaintance with the grand ideal outline of human
nature. The consequence is natural. Satisfied with common
nature, they become a prey to prejudices, and taking all their
opinions on credit, they blindly submit to authority. So that
if they have any sense, it is a kind of instinctive glance that
catches proportions, and decides with respect to manners, but fails
when arguments are to be pursued below the surface, or opin-
ions analyzed.
May not the same remark be applied to women ? Nay, the
argument may be carried still further, for they are both thrown
out of a useful station by the unnatural distinctions established
in civilized life. Riches and hereditary honors have made
ciphers of women to give consequence to the numerical figure;
and idleness has produced a mixture of gallantry and despot-
ism into society, which leads the very men who are the slaves
of their mistresses to tyrannize over their sisters, wives, and
daughters. This is only keeping them in rank and file, it is
true. Strengthen the female mind · by enlarging it, and there
will be an end to blind obedience; but as blind obedience is
ever sought for by power, tyrants and sensualists are in the right
when they endeavor to keep women in the dark, because the
former only want slaves and the latter a plaything. The sensu-
alist, indeed, has been the most dangerous of tyrants; and women
have been duped by their lovers, as princes by their ministers,
whilst dreaming that they reigned over them.
I now principally allude to Rousseau; for his character of
Sophia is undoubtedly a captivating one, though it appears to me
grossly unnatural. However, it is not the superstructure but the
foundation of her character, the principles on which her educa-
tion was built, that I mean to attack; nay, warmly as I admire
the genius of that able writer, whose opinions I shall often have
occasion to cite, indignation always takes place of admiration,
and the rigid frown of insulted virtue effaces the smile of com-
placency which his eloquent periods are wont to raise, when I
read his voluptuous reveries. Is this the man who, in his ardor


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MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
16139
for virtue, would banish all the soft arts of peace, and almost
carry us back to Spartan discipline? Is this the man who de.
lights to paint the useful struggles of passion, the triumphs of
good dispositions, and the heroic Alights which carry the glowing
soul out of itself? How are these mighty sentiments lowered
when he describes the pretty foot and enticing airs of his little
favorite!
But for the present I waive the subject; and instead of severely
reprehending the transient effusions of overweening sensibility,
I shall only observe that whoever has cast a benevolent eye on
society must often have been gratified by the sight of humble
mutual love, not dignified by sentiment or strengthened by a
union in intellectual pursuits. The domestic trifles of the day
have afforded matters for cheerful converse, and innocent caresses
have softened toils which did not require great exercise of mind
or stretch of thought; yet has not the sight of this moderate
felicity excited more tenderness than respect ? - an emotion simi-
lar to what we feel when children are playing or animals sport-
ing;* whilst the contemplation of the noble struggles of suffering
merit has raised admiration, and carried our thoughts to that
world where sensation will give place to reason.
Women are therefore to be considered either as moral beings,
or so weak that they must be entirely subjected to the superior
faculties of men.
Let us examine this question. Rousseau declares that
woman should never for a moment feel herself independent; that
she should be governed by fear to exercise her natural cun-
ning, and made a coquettish slave in order to render her a more
alluring object of desire, a sweeter companion to man whenever
he chooses to relax himself. He carries the arguments, which he
pretends to draw from the indications of nature, still further; and
insinuates that truth and fortitude, the corner-stones of all human
virtue, should be cultivated with certain restrictions, because, with
a
* Similar feelings has Milton's pleasing picture of paradisiacal happiness
ever raised in my mind; yet instead of envying the lovely pair, I have with
conscious dignity or Satanic pride turned to hell for sublimer objects. In the
same style, when viewing some noble monument of human art, I have traced
the emanation of the Deity in the order I admired, till, descending from that
giddy height, I have caught myself contemplating the grandest of all human
sights; for fancy quickly placed in some solitary recess an outcast of fortune,
rising superior to passion and discontent.


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16140
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
respect to the female character, obedience is the grand lesson
which ought to be impressed with unrelenting rigor.
What nonsense! When will a great man arise with sufficient
strength of mind to puff away the fumes which pride and sensu-
ality have thus spread over the subject? If women are by nature
inferior to men, their virtues must be the same in quality, if not
in degree, or virtue is a relative idea; consequently their conduct
should be founded on the same principles, and have the same
aim.
Connected with man as daughters, wives, and mothers, their
moral character may be estimated by their manner of fulfilling
those simple duties; but the end, the grand end, of their exer-
tions should be to unfold their own faculties, and acquire the
dignity of conscious virtue. They may try to render their road
pleasant; but ought never to forget, in common with man, that
life yields not the felicity which can satisfy an immortal soul. I
do not mean to insinuate that either sex should be so lost in
abstract reflections, or distant views, as to forget the affections
and duties that lie before them, and are in truth the means
appointed to produce the fruit of life; on the contrary, I would
warmly recommend them, even while I assert that they afford
most satisfaction when they are considered in their true sober
light.
Probably the prevailing opinion that woman was created for
man may have taken its rise from Moses's poetical story; yet
as very few, it is presumed, who have bestowed any serious
thought on the subject, ever supposed that Eve was, literally
speaking, one of Adam's ribs, the deduction must be allowed to
fall to the ground, or only be so far admitted as it proves that
man, from the remotest antiquity, found it convenient to exert
his strength to subjugate his companion, and his invention to
show that she ought to have her neck bent under the yoke, be-
cause the whole creation was only created for his convenience or
pleasure.
Let it not be concluded that I wish to invert the order of
things. I have already granted that from the constitution of
their bodies, men seemed to be designed by Providence to attain
a greater degree of virtue. I speak collectively of the whole
sex; but I see not the shadow of a reason to conclude that their
virtues should differ in respect to their nature. In fact, how can
they, if virtue has only one eternal standard ? I must therefore,


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MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
16141
if I reason consequentially, as strenuously maintain that they have
the same simple direction as that there is a God.
It follows then that cunning should not be opposed to wis-
dom; little cares to great exertions; or insipid softness, varnished
over with the name of gentleness, to that fortitude which grand
views alone can inspire.
I shall be told that woman would then lose many of her
peculiar graces; and the opinion of a well-known poet might be
quoted to refute my unqualified assertion. For Pope has said, in
the name of the whole male sex:
“Yet ne'er so sure our passion to create
As when she touched the brink of all we hate. »
In what light this sally places men and women, I shall leave
to the judicious to determine. Meanwhile, I shall content myself
with observing that I cannot discover why, unless they are mor-
tal, females should always be degraded by being made subservient
to love or lust.
To speak disrespectfully of love is, I know, high treason against
sentiment and fine feelings; but I wish to speak the simple lan-
guage of truth, and rather to address the head than the heart.
To endeavor to reason love out of the world would be to out-
Quixote Cervantes, and equally offend against common-sense; but
an endeavor to restrain this tumultuous passion, and to prove
that it should not be allowed to dethrone superior powers, or
to usurp the sceptre which the understanding should ever coolly
wield, appears less wild.
Youth is the season for love in both sexes; but in those days
of thoughtless enjoyment, provision should be made for the more
important years of life, when reflection takes place of sensation.
But Rousseau, and most of the male writers who have followed
his steps, have warmly inculcated that the whole tendency of
female education ought to be directed to one point, - to render
them pleasing
Let me reason with the supporters of this opinion who have
any knowledge of human nature. Do they imagine that marriage
can eradicate the habitude of life? The woman who has only
been taught to please will soon find that her charms are oblique
sunbeams, and that they cannot have much effect on her hus-
band's heart when they are seen every day — when the summer
is past and gone.
Will she then have sufficient native energy to


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16142
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
look into herself for comfort, and cultivate her dormant faculties?
or is it not more rational to expect that she will try to please
other men, and in the emotions raised by the expectation of new
conquests, endeavor to forget the mortification her love or pride
has received ? When the husband ceases to be a lover,- and the
time will inevitably come,- her desire of pleasing will then grow
languid, or become a spring of bitterness; and love, perhaps the
most evanescent of all passions, gives place to jealousy or vanity.
I now speak of women who are restrained by principle or prej-
udice. Such women, though they would shrink from an intrigue
with real abhorrence, yet nevertheless wish to be convinced
by the homage of gallantry that they are cruelly neglected by
their husbands; or days and weeks are spent in dreaming of the
happiness enjoyed by congenial souls, till their health is under-
mined, and their spirits broken by discontent. How then can
the great art of pleasing be such a necessary study? It is only
useful to a mistress. The chaste wife and serious mother should
only consider her power to please as the polish of her virtues,
and the affection of her husband as one of the comforts that
render her task less difficult and her life happier. But whether
she be loved or neglected, her first wish should be to make her-
self respectable, and not to rely for all her happiness on a being
subject to like infirmities with herself.
The worthy Dr. Gregory fell into a similar error. I respect
his heart, but entirely disapprove of his celebrated Legacy to
his Daughters. '
He advises them to cultivate a fondness for dress, because a
fondness for dress, he asserts, is natural to them. I am unable
to comprehend what either he or Rousseau mean when they
frequently use this indefinite term. If they told us that in a
pre-existent state the soul was fond of dress, and brought this
inclination with it into a new body, I should listen to them with
a half-smile, as I often do when I hear a rant about innate
elegance. But if he only meant to say that the exercise of the
faculties will produce this fondness, I deny it. It is not natural;
but arises, like false ambition in men, from a love of power.
Dr. Gregory goes much further: he actually recommends dis-
simulation; and advises an innocent girl to give the lie to her
feelings, and not dance with spirit, when gayety of heart would
make her feet eloquent without making her gestures immodest.
In the name of truth and common-sense, why should not one


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MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
16143
woman acknowledge that she can take more exercise than another,
or in other words, that she has a sound constitution ? And why,
to damp innocent vivacity, is she darkly to be told that men will
draw conclusions which she little thinks of ? Let the libertine draw
what inference he pleases, but I hope that no sensible mother
will restrain the natural frankness of youth by instilling such
indecent cautions. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth
speaketh; and a wiser than Solomon hath said that the heart
should be made clean, and not trivial ceremonies observed, which
it is not very difficult to fulfill with scrupulous exactness when
vice reigns in the heart.
Women ought to endeavor to purify their heart; but can they
do so when their uncultivated understandings make them entirely
dependent on their senses for employment and amusement ? when
no noble pursuit sets them above the little vanities of the day,
or enables them to curb the wild emotions that agitate a reed
over which every passing breeze has power ? To gain the affec-
tions of a virtuous man, is affection necessary ? Nature has given
woman a weaker frame than man; but to insure her husband's
affections, must a wife, who by the exercise of her mind and
body whilst she was discharging the duties of a daughter, wife,
and mother, has allowed her constitution to retain its natural
strength, and her nerves a healthy tone,- is she, I say, to con-
descend to use art, and feign a sickly delicacy, in order to secure
her husband's affection ? Weakness may excite tenderness, and
gratify the arrogant pride of man; but the lordly caresses of a
protector will not gratify a noble mind that pants for and de-
serves to be respected. Fondness is a poor substitute for friend-
ship.
In a seraglio, I grant that all these arts are necessary; the
epicure must have his palate tickled, or he will sink into apa-
thy: but have women so little ambition as to be satisfied with
such a condition? Can they supinely dream life away in the lap
of pleasure, or the languor of weariness, rather than assert their
claim to pursue reasonable pleasures, and render themselves con-
spicuous by practicing the virtues which dignify mankind ? Surely
she has not an immortal soul who can loiter life away merely
employed to adorn her person, that she may amuse the languid
hours and soften the cares of a fellow-creature, who is willing to
be enlivened by her smiles and tricks when the serious business
of life is over.


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16144
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
Besides, the woman who strengthens her body and exercises
her mind will, by managing her family and practicing various
virtues, become the friend and not the humble dependent of her
husband; and if she, by possessing such substantial qualities,
merit his regard, she will not find it necessary to conceal her
affection, nor to pretend to an unnatural coldness of constitution
to excite her husband's passions. In fact, if we revert to history,
we shall find that the women who have distinguished themselves
have neither been the most beautiful nor the most gentle of their
sex.
Nature – or to speak with strict propriety, God — has made
-
all things right; but man has sought him out many inventions
to mar the work. I now allude to that part of Dr. Gregory's
treatise where he advises a wife never to let her husband know
the extent of her sensibility or affection. Voluptuous precaution,
and as ineffectual as absurd. Love, from its very nature, must
be transitory. To seek for a secret that would render it con-
stant would be as wild a search as for the philosopher's stone,
or the grand panacea; and the discovery would be equally use-
less, or rather pernicious, to mankind. The most holy band of
society is friendship. It has been well said by a shrewd satirist
that Rare as true love is, true friendship is still rarer. ”
(
»


## p. 16145 (#491) ##########################################

16145
GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY
(1855-)
SHEN a volume of verse entitled (The North Shore Watch, and
Other Poems' was printed in 1883 for private circulation, it
was recognized by those who chanced to see it as work of
exceptional merit. The Elegy which named the book was felt to be
one of the most artistic and beautiful composed by an American: the
high spiritual quality of the song was as marked as its dignity of
diction and depth of feeling. There were noble sonnets in the little
collection, — the two on Gibraltar, for example; and classical and
patriotic pieces which proclaimed a poet
whose quiet insistence on form, and con-
servative avoidance of strained expression,
made him all the more acceptable to those
who believe in inviolable literary traditions.
Since this modest but genuinely poetic
volume appeared, a second edition in 1893
has testified to the recognition of its writer,
Professor George E. Woodberry, as one of
the purest of the younger American lyric
poets. His work is academic in a good
sense; it is, too, wholesomely though un-
obtrusively American — with the American-
ism of a Lowell, not of a Jingo. Professor G. E. WOODBERRY
Woodberry's prose likewise is that of an
informed scholar, an artist sensitive to the delicacies and graces of
language, a thinker with a grasp on general principles. Some years
after the first appearance of the poems, was published Studies in
Letters and Life' (1890), made up of literary papers contributed to
the Atlantic and the Nation. These essays and appreciations are
excellent examples of really suggestive, sane, and attractive criticism.
The writer's critical faculty is also illustrated in his admirable Life
of Poe) in the American Men of Letters) series; and he has writ-
ten the perceptive and judicious biographical sketch of Poe for the
definitive edition of that poet made in conjunction with Mr. Edmund
Clarence Stedman. Few American scholars of the more recent school
unite as does Professor Woodberry, literary culture and facility with
the judgment, breadth of outlook, and ideal standard which insure
criticism of the atmospheric sort.

XXVII—IOIO


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16146
GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY
George E. Woodberry was born at Beverly, Massachusetts, May
12th, 1855; and was educated at Phillips Academy, Exeter, New Hamp-
shire, and at Harvard, whence he was graduated in 1877. During
the years 1877–79 and 1880-82 he was professor of English Literature
in the Nebraska State University. This Western residence broadened
Professor Woodberry's conception of what the United States stands
for and is. Since 1891 he has occupied the chair of professor of Lit-
erature at Columbia University, in New York city. After graduat-
ing from Harvard, he was for a short time on the editorial staff of
the New York Nation. At Columbia his influence has been a stimu-
lus to the nobler ideals of literature and life; while his poems on set
occasions, academic or other, have been adequate, and such as to
enhance his reputation. Whether as a writer of prose or verse, Pro-
fessor Woodberry's work has dignity, taste, and imaginative worth.
[The following poems are all copyrighted by George Edward Woodberry, and
are reprinted by permission of the author, and of Houghton, Mifflin &
Co. , publishers. ]
AT GIBRALTAR
I
E
NGLAND, I stand on thy imperial ground,
Not all a stranger: as thy bugles blow,
I feel within my blood old battles flow,-
The blood whose ancient founts in thee are found.
Still surging dark against the Christian bound
Wide Islam presses; well its peoples know
Thy heights that watch them wandering below;
I think how Lucknow heard their gathering sound.
I turn, and meet the cruel, turbaned face.
England, 'tis sweet to be so much thy son!
I feel the conqueror in my blood and race:
Last night Trafalgar awed me, and to-day
Gibraltar wakened; hark, thy evening gun
Startles the desert over Africa!
II
Thou art the rock of empire, set mid-seas
Between the East and West, that God has built;
Advance thy Roman borders where thou wilt,
While run thy armies true with his decrees:


## p. 16147 (#493) ##########################################

GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY
16147
Law, justice, liberty,- great gifts are these;
Watch that they spread where English blood is spilt,
Lest, mixed and sullied with his country's guilt,
The soldier's life-stream flow, and Heaven displease!
Two swords there are: one naked, apt to smite,-
Thy blade of war; and, battle-storied, one
Rejoices in the sheath, and hides from light.
American I am: would wars were done!
Now westward, look, my country bids good-night -
Peace to the world from ports without a gun!
FROM (MY COUNTRY)
O
DESTINED Land, unto thy citadel,
What founding fates even now doth peace compel,
That through the world thy name is sweet to tell!
O thronèd Freedom, unto thee is brought
Empire,-nor falsehood nor blood-payment asked;
Who never through deceit thy ends hast sought,
Nor toiling millions for ambition tasked:
Unlike the fools who build the throne
On fraud, and wrong, and woe;
For man at last will take his own,
Nor count the overthrow;
But far from these is set thy continent,
Nor fears the Revolution in man's rise;
On laws that with the weal of all consent,
And saving truths that make the people wise.
For thou art founded in the eternal fact
That every man doth greaten with the act
Of freedom; and doth strengthen with the weight
Of duty; and diviner molds his fate,
By sharp experience taught the thing he lacked,
God's pupil: thy large maxim framed, though late,
Who masters best himself best serves the State.
This wisdom is thy Corner; next the stone
Of Bounty: thou hast given all; thy store
Free as the air, and broadcast as the light,
Thou flingest: and the fair and gracious sight,
More rich, doth teach thy sons this happy lore,-
That no man lives who takes not priceless gifts
Both of thy substance and thy laws, whereto


## p. 16148 (#494) ##########################################

16148
GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY
He may not plead desert, but holds of thee
A childhood title, shared with all who grew -
His brethren of the hearth: whence no man lifts
Above the common right his claim; nor dares
To fence his pastures of the common good:
For common are thy fields; common the toil,
Common the charter of prosperity,
That gives to each that all may blessèd be.
This is the very counsel of thy soil.
Therefore if any thrive mean-souled, he spares
The alms he took: let him not think subdued
The State's first law, that civic rights are strong
But while the fruits of all to all belong;
Although he heir the fortune of the earth,
Let him not hoard, nor spend it for his mirth,
But match his private means with public worth.
That man in whom the people's riches lie
Is the great citizen, in his country's eye.
Justice the third great base, that shall secure
To each his earnings, howsoever poor,
From each his duties, howsoever great;
She bids the future for the past atone.
Behold her symbols on the hoary stone, -
The awful scales, and that war-hammered beam
Which whoso thinks to break doth fondly dream,
Or Czars who tyrannize or mobs that rage;
These are her charge, and heaven's eternal law.
She from old fountains doth new judgment draw,
Till, word by word, the ancient order swerves
To the true course more nigh; in every age
A little she creates, but more preserves.
Hope stands the last, a mighty prop of fate.
These thy foundations are, O firin-set State!
And strength is unto thee
More than this masonry
Of common thought;
Beyond the stars, from the Far City brought.
Pillar and tower
Declare the shaping power,
Massive, severe, sublime,
Of the stern, righteous time,
From sire to son bequeathed, thy eldest dower.
Large-limbed they were, the pioneers,
Cast in the iron mold that fate reveres;


## p. 16149 (#495) ##########################################

GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY
16149
They could not help but frame the fabric well,
Who squared the stones for Heaven's eye to tell;
Who knew from eld and taught posterity.
That the true workman's only he
Who builds of God's necessity.
Nor yet hath failed the seed of righteousness;
Still doth the work the awe divine confess,-
Conscience within, duty without, express.
Well may thy sons rejoice thee, () proud Land:
No weakling race of mighty loins is thine,
No spendthrifts of the fathers; 10, the Arch,
The loyal keystone glorying o'er the march
Of millioned peoples freed! on every hand
Grows the vast work, and boundless the design.
So in thy children shall thy empire stand,
As in her Cæsars fell Rome's majesty –
O Desolation, be it far from thee!
Forgetting sires and sons, to whom were given
The seals of glory and the keys of fate,
From Him whom well they knew the Rock of State,
Thy centre, and on thy doorposts blazed his name
Whose plaudit is the substance of all fame,
The sweetness of all hope — forbid it, Heaven!
Shrink not, O Land, beneath that holy fear!
Thou art not mocked of God;
His kingdom is thy conquering sphere,
His will thy ruling rod!
O Harbor of the sea-tossed fates,
The last great mortal bound;
Cybele, with a hundred States,
A hundred turrets, crowned;
Mother, whose heart divinely holds
Earth's poor within her breast;
World-Shelterer, in whose open folds
The wandering races rest:
Advance! the hour supreme arrives;
O'er ocean's edge the chariot drives;
The past is done;
Thy orb begun;
Upon the forehead of the world to blaze,
Lighting all times to be, with thy own golden days.
O Land beloved !
My Country, dear, my own!


## p. 16150 (#496) ##########################################

16150
GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY
May the young heart that moved
For the weak words atone;
The mighty lyre not mine, nor the full breath of song!
To happier sons shall these belong.
Yet doth the first and lonely voice
Of the dark dawn the heart rejoice,
While still the loud choir sleeps upon the bough;
And never greater love salutes thy brow
Than his, who seeks thee now.
Alien the sea and salt the foam
Where'er it bears him from his home:
And when he leaps to land,
A lover treads the strand;
Precious is every stone;
No little inch of all the broad domain
But he would stoop to kiss, and end his pain,
Feeling thy lips make merry with his own;
But oh, his trembling reed too frail
To bear thee Time's All Hail!
Faint is my heart, and ebbing with the passion of thy praise !
The poets come who cannot fail;
Happy are they who sing thy perfect days!
Happy am I who see the long night ended,
In the shadows of the age that bore me,
All the hopes of mankind blending,
Earth awaking, heaven descending,
While the new day steadfastly
Domes the blue deeps over thee!
Happy am I who see the Vision splendid
In the glowing of the dawn before me,
All the grace of heaven blending,
Man arising, Christ descending,
While God's hand in secrecy
Builds thy bright eternity.
LINES
NO"
Ow snowy Apennines shining
Should breathe my spirit bare;
My heart should cease repining
In the rainbow-haunted air:
But cureless sorrow carries
My heart beyond the sea,


## p. 16151 (#497) ##########################################

GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY
16151
Nor comfort in it tarries
Save thoughts of thee.
The branch of olive shaken
Silvers the azure sea;
Winds in the ilex waken:
Oh, wert thou here with me,
Gray olive, dark ilex, bright ocean,
The radiant mountains round,
Never for love's devotion
Were sweeter lodging found!
SODOMA'S (CHRIST SCOURGED)
I
SAW in Siena pictures,
Wandering wearily;
I sought not the names of the masters
Nor the works men care to see;
But once in a low-ceiled passage
I came on a place of gloom,
Lit here and there with halos
Like saints within the room.
The pure, serene, mild colors
The early artists used
Had made my heart grow softer,
And still on peace I mused.
Sudden I saw the Sufferer,
And my frame was clenched with pain;
Perchance no throe so noble
Visits my soul again.
Mine were the stripes of the scourging;
On my thorn-pierced brow blood ran;
In my breast the deep compassion
Breaking the heart for man.
I drooped with heavy eyelids,
Till evil should have its will;
On my lips was silence gathered;
My waiting soul stood still.
I gazed, nor knew I was gazing;
I trembled, and woke to know
Him whom they worship in heaven
Still walking on earth below.


## p. 16152 (#498) ##########################################

16152
GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY
Once have I borne his sorrows
Beneath the flail of fate!
Once, in the woe of his passion,
I felt the soul grow great!
I turned from my dead Leader!
I passed the silent door;
The gray-walled street received me:
On peace I mused no more.
SONG
From Agathon
W**
HEN love in the faint heart trembles,
And the eyes with tears are wet,
Oh, tell me what resembles
Thee, young Regret?
Violets with dewdrops drooping,
Lilies o'erfull of gold,
Roses in June rains stooping,
That weep for the cold,
Are like thee, young Regret.
Bloom, violets, lilies, and roses !
But what, young Desire,
Like thee, when love discloses
Thy heart of fire ?
The wild swan unreturning,
The eagle alone with the sun,
The long-winged storm-gulls burning
Seaward when day is done,
Are like thee, young Desire.


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16153
MARGARET L. WOODS
(1859-)
HE
“obscure cry of human suffering ” is the motive of Mrs.
Woods's first book, A Village Tragedy. ' The story is
simple, the incidents meagre; but so admirable is its con-
struction, with such sureness is the ethical problem presented, if not
solved, so great is the author's power to create illusion by the state-
ment of uncolored facts, that the sombre, hopeless tale at once takes
hold of the reader, who follows its conclusion with gloomy satisfac-
tion. In its quiet, unemotional pages a terrible and inevitable tragedy
is presented; illustrating Taine's doctrine that virtue and vice are
products no less than sugar and wine, and that a man's character is
formed by his blood and nerves. The humor of the book, bitter and
riin, is contrasted with a pathos reduced to its lowest terms in point
of language, only made intense by a look or a gesture. The luxury
of grief, the cries and moans, are not there; the facts of a perfectly
supposable case are set before the reader in simple narrative.
(A
Village Tragedy' is real with something of the reality of Defoe's
Plague of London. '
Small as is the canvas of A Village Tragedy,' we are subtly
aware that the author selected it from choice, and can draw with a
free hand and large conception. Her next book, Esther Vanhom-
righ, is painted out of doors with unlimited space. In construction
alone is there evidence that these novels are the work of the same
hand. The painstaking veracity and the truthfulness to detail so
manifest in her first book, are lost in the rapid action of Vanessa's
story,
,-a modern theme thrown into a past century, creating an atmo-
sphere, reconstructing a period. The background is filled with vig-
orous portraits, with the life of London, the talk of the tavern and
the town; historical and imaginary characters walk across the stage
bold and unafraid; and the sense of proportion, of values, that makes
a picture, - that constructive ability shown in the earlier work,-
fixes each part in its proper relation to the whole. No incident, no
minor character subordinates the central figures where the light is
focused. Swift is a historical Swift brought to life again; Stella is a
fine cut, cameo-like portrait. Esther is a study of the passion of love;
not delicate or ethereal love, but the passion of a rich, full nature,
painted as some great marine painters paint the sea, blown upon
by the wind. The surge of emotion, the tumult of jealousy, the


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MARGARET L. WOODS
intricacies of wounded feeling, the coming and going of despair and
hope, the final and desperate appeal,- all these motions of the mind
toss and froth before us like the surface of a strong sea.
(The Vagabonds) is a return in form to the earlier manner of A
Village Tragedy,' but enlivened by an undercurrent of quiet humor,
and broadened by a philosophy which teaches that the inequalities of
fortune are generally external, and that things adjust themselves in
the practical and patient life. As A Village Tragedy reproduces the
country town, "The Vagabonds) carries us, open-eyed and eager,
behind the scenes of a traveling circus: we do not say how good this
is; the sense of local color is wanting because it is part of the atmo-
sphere, and no more to be set apart to look at or comment on than is
one ingredient of a loaf of bread to be separated from the rest. The
commonplace people in their conventional distresses are interesting
because they are human. Not situation but character is dramatically
presented,— its niceties shaded like the blush on a peach, from pale
to red. Such minute observation, such discriminating insight, tempt
the reader to wonder whether Fritz in “The Vagabonds) and Aunt
Pontin in A Village Tragedy,' both minor but most entertaining
characters, are portraits or original conceptions. Whatever they
are, the author has succeeded in seizing and fixing on her canvas
what in other hands would be fugitive impressions or mere puppets
of illusion.
There are many well-established modes of writing fiction; but not
to the familiar philo-natural school, as M. Brunetière calls it, nor to
the psychological, nor to that of the symbolists, does Mrs. Woods
belong. Nor are her books panoramas of manners and life in an
extended sense, although a high estimate may be set on her fine
imaginative power to reconstruct the past. Her métier is to paint
human nature, and to show the universality of human experience. To
no external condition belong honor, generosity, pride, cruelty, faith,
or self-sacrifice. Acrobats and clowns, peasants, scholars, ladies of
fashion, men of the world, are moved by the same emotions, the
same sorrows. Under the canvas walls of the circus tent, in the sor-
did country village, in the London of Swift and Vanessa, the human
heart beats to the same music.
In her creed, environment is destiny. Even such dramatic cli-
maxes as the death of Esther Vanhomrigh, the finding of the body of
Annie in A Village Tragedy,' and Joe in The Vagabonds) saving
the life of his rival whom he hates, are evolved from a chain of
events. Her people, drawn on broad lines, but with infinite discrimi-
nation, and ability to recognize and reproduce subtle distinctions,
work out their own salvation with results as certain as a problem in
mathematics.


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MARGARET L. WOODS
16155
In the matter of style, Mrs. Woods has accepted Boileau's dictum
that as the mind of man teems with confused ideas, he “likes noth-
ing better than to have one of these ideas well elucidated and clearly
presented to him. ” And for her reward she has helped to make
English literature human.
Margaret L. Woods was born in London in 1859, the daughter of
Dean Bradley of Westminster. Early in life she married Dr. Woods,
the president of Trinity College, Oxford. She has published A Vil-
lage Tragedy' (London, 1888), Esther Vanhomrigh' (1891), “The
Vagabonds" (1894), and a volume of Lyrics and Ballads” (1888).
ESTHER VANHOMRIGH'S CONFESSION TO DEAN SWIFT
From “Esther Vanhomrigh. ) By permission of the American Publishers'
Corporation, publishers
HERE
was a thorough search made round the two parlors
and on the stairs, but no paper was to be found.
It was
decided that the dean must have dropped it between St.
James's Street and Bury Street; and the party settled down as
before, with the exception of Esther. When the search had
proved in vain, she remembered seeing a folded piece of paper
lying by the altar rails in church, close by where the dean stood.
Sending welcome injunctions to Patrick, the dean's footman, to
join the revels below-stairs, she ran up for her hood and gloves,
and left the house as quickly and as quietly as she could. The
dusty streets were beginning to be shady, and were compara-
tively quiet, for it was not much past five o'clock; and the
fashionable world had not yet left its after-dinner wine for the
coffee-house, the tavern, or the Mall. Yet had they been noisier
they would have seemed a haven of peace to Esther, a fugitive
from the crowded stage of conventional merriment in which
she had been playing her part for so many hours. She turned
down by St. James's Palace into the Mall, where a certain num-
ber of people were already walking; and so past the milk fair at
the corner, to Spring Gardens. Thence she took a hackney to
the rectory, near the quiet church the Stones had chosen for the
wedding The rector, whose dinner had been large if not lux-
urious, sat over his empty bottle of Florence wine smoking a
pipe of tobacco; and though he wondered much what Miss Van-
homrigh might want with the church key, he sent it down by


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MARGARET L. WOODS
the maid without exerting himself to formulate a question. So
she went on to the church. The flower-seller had gone from
the steps, and the costermonger's cart from below them. Some
grimy children were playing at marbles by the door; and inter-
rupted in their game by the unexpected arrival, gathered round
to stare at her, as she painfully turned the big key in the lock,
with a faint exclamation of annoyance as she split the palm of
her glove in the process. She had no sooner entered than a
pale, inquisitive, snub-nosed little face, about on a level with the
lock, was thrust in after her. She hastily withdrew the key and
closed the door behind her. There was something strange and
unnatural about the emptiness of the place, with the long rays
of the afternoon sun streaming above its untenanted pews and
bulging hassocks and cushions. The church smelt of dust, for it
was not sufficiently fashionable to be open for those daily prayers
which were wont to offer a convenient rendezvous for the beau
and the fine lady. It had none of the dim impressiveness of a
mediæval church, that seems reared with a view to heaven rather
than earth, and whose arches, massive or soaring, neither gain
nor lose by the accidental presence of ephemeral human creatures
below them. No- the building seemed to cry out for a congre-
gation; and the mind's eye involuntarily peopled it with its Sun-
day complement of substantial citizens and their families.
Esther walked quickly up to the altar rails and looked over.
There lay the folded paper, just as she remembered it. She fell
on her knees on the long stool placed there for the convenience
of communicants; not with any idea of reverence, for Esther was
a philosopher after the fashion of the day, but merely in order
to reach the paper with greater ease. She snatched it up and
glanced at it. Yes, it was undoubtedly the lost key. Tossing
her head with a little “Ah! ” of triumph and satisfaction, she put
it away safely in her pocket. The prize was secured; yet she
lingered, ungloved her left hand, and touched a spot of ground
just within the rails, pressing her warm palm and shapely fingers
down upon the cold stone. Just there Swift had stood; so close
to where she knelt that if he stood there now, his robes would
brush her as he moved. She hid her face on the arm that lay
on the communion rails, and with a thrill of passionate adoration
saw once more the impressive figure that she had seen that morn-
ing, and heard again the grave tones of his voice. The sensation
of bustle attendant on a wedding, the near presence of the little


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MARGARET L. WOODS
16157
crowd of relations, had robbed the scene of its emotional quality
at the time; but now she was fully sensible of its significance.
She was kneeling just where the bride had knelt: and for her
the recollection of the stupid, vulgar girl, who had been round
to St. James's so often lately with tiresome questions about mil-
linery, faded before the realization of the woman's heart that
she had seen beating a few hours ago, on the spot where her
own beat now; not more full, surely not so full of love and pride
in the man beloved, but blest in a completed joy that was not
Esther's yet.
Might it not one day be hers also ? A minute or
two only she continued kneeling, and then passed down the aisle
and out to the steps like a somnambulist, – pale, with wide eyes
and close-pressed brooding lips. Another person so rapt might
have forgotten to lock the door, or else to return the church
key to its owner; but Esther's methodicalness-a natural quality
-
cultivated in response to Swift's approval — never forsook her,
and quite mechanically she struggled with the massive lock and
left the key at the clergyman's house with a message of thanks.
As she called a coach she asked herself with a start whether
she had done these things; then smiled and blushed at her own
self-absorption. Up till now she had had no definite purpose
beyond that of finding the lost paper; and having accomplished
this, she was going home again. But now, smiling, she thought:
“Patrick will be drunk by this time; at least, if he is not drunk
yet, he will not, in justice to himself, leave such a feast until he
is. I had better take it myself. ”
It seemed a simple and natural thing to do: but though Swift
received the Vanhomrighs at his lodgings as often as any other
friends, that did not mean very often; and she knew he hated to
be unexpectedly invaded by any one, most of all by ladies. Yet
to lose this opportunity of finding out the truth about this sud-
den departure would be too tantalizing. It must be only one of
those foolish mystifications by which he loved to throw dust in
the eyes of his acquaintance, and to which she had become almost
resigned. As she drove on, the desire to see him, to ask him a
thousand questions such as he would not answer before others,
and to extract from him a promise to write, grew till it became
a necessity. So she got down at the corner of Bury Street, and
flew on to the well-known door. She did not observe Mr. Eras-
mus Lewis, who was passing through the street on the other
side; but he observed her and her destination. On the door-step


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MARGARET L. WOODS
she paused, struck with sudden terror at finding herself enter-
ing uninvited that presence which could sometimes be so awe-
inspiring. Then with a touch of scorn at her own unreasoning
vacillation, she resolutely raised the knocker.
No one
came in
answer to her rap; but she found that the door was on the latch,
and went in. The doors of most of the rooms stood wide open,
and there was a feeling of loneliness about the dull little house.
She went up-stairs and knocked timidly at Swift's parlor; but
here too no one answered. The bedroom beside was obviously
empty; and with an inconsequent sensation of relief she said to
herself he must be gone out, and peeped carelessly into the par-
lor. It was a dreary room at the best of times; and now it bore
all those marks of disorder and discomfort that attend a move,
even from lodgings. A large wooden case half full of books
stood near the door, the floor and the chairs were strewn with
volumes, and those shabby odds and ends which seem never to
appear except on such occasions; while the hearthstone and empty
grate were piled with an immense heap of papers, mostly torn
up very small.
The cloth had fallen off the heavy old oak
table, which filled the middle of the room, and was generally
completely covered with books and pamphlets. It was quite bare
now, except that the man who sat at one end on a high stool
had bowed his body on it, and lay face downwards on its pol-
ished surface, with arms and tightly clenched hands stretched out
before him. He was wrapped in a loose gown, and wore neither
peruke nor cap; but his head, which must have been left un-
shaven for some time, was covered with a short thick growth of
blue-black hair, dashed with glittering silver at the temples. As
Esther stood by the door, amazed and undecided, a sound broke
from him: a groan, ending in a long, low, sighing wail. It was
a heart-broken sound: the cry of one worn out with some intol-
erable misery of mind or body. In an instant all hesitation
disappeared, all fear or desire for herself, - everything vanished
except the consciousness of her adored friend's anguish. She
moved forward quickly and silently, and falling on her knees by
the table laid her hand on his arm. He made no sign, but again
that muffled wail broke forth, like the lamentation of a damned
spirit. Trembling excessively, she pulled him by the sleeve,
and said in a voice so broken it was scarcely more than a whis-
per:-
Oh, sir! For pity's sake — for God's sake – »


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MARGARET L. WOODS
16159
With an impatient gesture he folded his arms round his head,
so as more completely to shield his face, and spoke hoarsely from
beneath them: “You confounded rascal, I thought you knew bet-
ter! Go-go-go, I say! ”
The last words were spoken with increasing vehemence.
Esther, who had often been awe-struck before him, did not fear
him now. He was suffering, how or why she knew not; and
without her reverence for him being in any way impaired, he
awoke her instinctive feeling of responsibility towards all suffer-
ing creatures. The first shock over, she was comparatively calm
again, only thinking with painful intensity what she had better
do. So for a minute or two they both remained in the same
position, till he burst out again with greater violence than before:
"Knave! Beast! Idiot! Go, go! ”
Then she touched his hand. "It is Hess,” she said.
He lifted his head slowly, and turned his face towards her,
as though with reluctance. It was pale with the livid pallor of
a dark skin no longer young, and the firm lines of mouth and
cheek were slackened and hollowed. He looked a ghost; but
hardly the ghost of himself. In a minute, as he realized Esther's
presence, the life and individuality began to return to his face,
but in no amiable form.
“So, madam,” he said after a pause, with a grimace that did
duty for a smile, “ you are here! Ha! Charming! Pray, to what
am I indebted, et cætera ? »
Esther was too much shocked at his appearance to consider
how he received her.
“I have brought the paper you lost,” she returned hastily.
«'Tis here. But no matter — you are ill. You must let me find
your drops for you, and send for Dr. Arbuthnot. ”
He sat upright, and clutching the edge of the stool on which
he sat with both hands,—“I am not ill,” he said with harsh
impatience. Leave me. ”
«
“You are either ill or in some great trouble,” she replied:
«in either case not fit to be alone. If you will not have my
company, you must let me send you some other friend; though
a truer one it cannot be. Patrick will only come home to sleep
off his wine. ”
“Friend! ” he cried, friend! ”
And with a shriek of laughter he rocked himself to and fro
on the stool. Esther was standing up now; she looked at him
)
»


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MARGARET L. WOODS
steadily, with a severity born rather of amazement than of any
conscious criticism of his conduct: but he was calm again so in-
stantaneously that she almost doubted whether it was he who had
laughed. They were silent for a minute or two, looking at each
other. He was apparently calm, but the singular blueness of his
eyes had disappeared; they glittered under the heavy black eye-
brows, each with a curious spark in it, not at all like the azure
eyes so familiar to his friends. The change in them made his
whole face look different; from having been pale, it had now
flushed a dark red.
“You talk to me of friends, child,” he resumed hoarsely, but
in a more normal tone, leaning forward and smiling at her
bitterly, both his hands still clutching the stool, “as though you
expected me to believe in 'em, or to fancy you believed in 'em.
No, no, Governor Huff has too much wit for that. Friends!
Fellows that suck your brains, suck 'em dry, dry, and pay you
with their damned promises; that when you've slaved and slaved
and made a million enemies, and when they think you're done
with, fling you out an Irish deanery, as you might fling a stick
into the sea for your dog - Hi! Swim for it, sir! He paused
a moment, moistened his dry lips, and drawing in his breath
let it out again in a low fierce exclamation. « But 'tis not I, 'tis
they who are done with,- Oxford, Bolingbroke. Puppets! Pawns
on the board! Oh, when I am gone they'll know themselves,
and whistle me back when 'tis too late. And I shall come, ay,
blundering fool that I am, I shall come. The moths,- do you
remember at Kensington, Hess ? — they come back to frizzle
where they frizzled before, don't they ? ”
He laughed again the same sudden shrieking laugh. The
perpendicular line was defining itself on Esther's white brow;
a line which looked severe, but really indicated only anxiety or
bewilderment.
"I esteem your political friends as little as you do," she
replied, mentioning them disdainfully, and thought I esteemed
'em less.
have others - better ones Mr. Gay, Mr.
Pope-
"Mr. Addison - Mr. Steele,” — he broke in with a mincing
accent meant to imitate her feminine voice. « Was that what
you was going to say, miss? Ha, ha, ha! Warm-hearted, generous
Joseph! Steele, true as-thyself! Gay, now — Gay's a charming
fellow when one feels charmingly. As to Pope,”— at that name
But you
>>


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MARGARET L. WOODS
16161
(
he dropped his sneer and spoke with sombre earnestness — “as to
Pope, never talk of him, Hesskin. He's a thing I believe in, I
will believe in, I tell you, Brat — so don't let's think of him
for fear for fear - Ah! Did you say he was crooked ? »
«I said nothing, sir,” she replied with dignity: "I would aim
at no man's defects of person, least of all at Mr. Pope's. But if
I cannot name a man friend but you'll mock at him, I'll bring
your women friends to your mind,- the truest, the most attached
of 'em. ” And she held her head higher. «There's Lady Betty
Germayne, my mother, Molly, and — myself. That's four. ”
Women's friendship! Women's friendship! By the powers,
she talks as though it were a thing to be calculated, — four
—
female friendships to one male. Pshaw! Weigh froth! Weigh
moonshine! They're more weighable than the parcel of vanity
and caprice called female friendship. Don't I know why Madam
Van and you were all anxiety to know Mr. Gay before I left ?
Why, to be sure, she must have a poet in her ante-chamber like
other women of quality ; for Madam Van is as mad as old New-
castle, and thinks herself a duchess. And when that poor dean
that's been so useful is gone, why, he's gone; and Hess must get
another fellow to teach her how to talk and make the wits in
love with her. Ay, I know what your female friendship's worth. ”
Esther stood upright beside him.