Good Things Said of Women.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5267, 10 July 1888, Page 2

Good Things Said of Women.

If the Bible (observed Mary E. Spencer, an American lady) had said"that man was made out of a woman's rib I would bolieva it; for of all things in this world a man ia most helpless alone. A chicken two hours out of the shell oaa take better oare of itself than a man can. So it is all right that a man by 20 or 25 should be looking round ' for a woman to take caro of him; and a woman ia never permitted to look round for a man. The women do not need to go courting. I am euro that there is aomo mistake in the translation. It should read that a man was made of a rib of a woman. I cannot stick a pin down in literature but I come upon the praiso of woman; and it is not for mo to cay that it is not all deserved. Let me give you a tat.to of my . collection of nice things. Martin Luther aaid, " Earth has nothing- more tender than a woman's heart when it is tho abodo of pity." Micbelet said, ""Woman is the Sunday of man; not his repose only, but hia joy—the salt , of his life." That is a little mixed as a figure, I allow, but Michelet meant well; and when one is in love he cannot help getting a little flurried. At least it is 60 with women, John Adams said, "All that I am my mother made mo." Lord Lansdowne said, "If the wholo world were put into ouo scale, and ' my mother in the other, the world would kick the beam." I J&eihat, because of all things I am sure -the. very bestiaanoblo mother. The Arabs say, " One may got a w__s hundred wives; but ho can never got but one mother; therefore a mother is equal to a.hundred wives." But Leopard Sohcfer has it better yet when he says, " But ono thing on earth is better than the wife* that is the mother." ' However, the -wife geta otiough praise, and need not be jealous. N. P. Wilfie said*' as sweetly as ho tseadiall things, "The sweetest thing in life.is tho unclouded welcome of a wife." Ric liter (that is, the divine Jean Paul) said, " No man can either live piously or dierighteouawithonta wifo." Emerson said, " A beautiful woman is a practical poet, taming her savage mate, planting tenderness, hopo, and eloquencein all she approaches." I have, however, novor heard that Mrs Emerson had much taming to do—only she mutt see that hor mate had his hat on when ho went abroad. Among the very pretty things said of woinon, Whittierhas given us this: "If woman lost us Eden, such as she alone restores it." Voltaire said, " It is woman who touches us repose, oivility, and dignity." Rnskin says a great many fine things of women; Shakespeare has no hercos; ho haa only heroines. This is always true in a ruder, earlier stage of society. Woman always begins civilisation. The honor of woman haa always been tho corner-stone in building socially. A race lacking rospeot for women has never advanced politically and socially, but has. speedily decayed. ' Lessing said, • " Nature meant to make woman its , inostorpioco." Ooufuohis 2200 yours ago said, " Woman is tho world's masterpiece." But Malherbe spoke the minil of all 'Frenchmen when, ne said, "There nro only two beautiful things in the world—women and roses; and the only two sweot things—women and inolone. ' This was gr Hunt but natural; and it gave woman her true placo as a blossom and fruit of nature. Concerning women and men m equals Ruekin says, " We are foolish and without excuse iv claiming the Superiority of our sex to tho other. In truth, each haa what tho other has not. Ono cbmplotos tho other; and they ure in nothing alike. Tho happiness of both depends on each asking and receiving from tho other what the other only can give." Thackeray drew his contrast, "Almost all woroeu will giva a sympathising- hearing to men Who aro in : love. Bo they over so old, they grow young again in that conversation, and renew their own early time. Men are not quito as generous." Voltaire said, "All the reason- , ings of men arc not worth one sentiment of woraon." Gladstone says, " Woman is tho most perfect when the most womanly." Dr Clarke says, " Man is not superior to woman, nor woman toman. Tho relation of tho sexes is ono of equality; not of better and worse, or of higher and lower* Tho loftiest ideal of humanity demands' that each shall-be pet foot in its kind, not bo hindered in its best work. The lily is not inferior to the roso ; nor ia tho oak • ' superior to tho clover; yet the glory of tho hlyie one, and the glory of the oak is ' another; and tho use of the oak is not tho use of the clover." "Woman," says another writer, " must bo regarded as woman, not as a nondescript animal, with greater or loss capacity for assimilation to man." Dr. Clarke says, again—" Educate a man for manhood, a woman for womanhood; both for humanity." " "~ I think that tho aim hereafter will be to let women make women of themsclvos. Woman will at her best be the queen'—man at his best the king. Each will worship tho other. Man must so live that woman at her highest shall honor him, and woman so live that man at his highest shall turn joyously to hor. Miss Abigail Dodge says, " No monarch has been so groat, no peasant so lowly that he had not been glad to lay his best at the feet of a woman." lam sure that this pioturo may be reversed ; for there is no wors'.iip as groat as that which a woman bestows ou a princely man.