TYPES OF NOBLE WOMAN HOOD.

Western Star, Issue 1339, 23 March 1889, Page 1 (Supplement)

TYPES OF NOBLE WOMAN HOOD.

In the course of his running commentary to Gtotthelfs "TJlric," Mr Euskin gives some interesting notes on types of noble womanhood as drawn in various works of fiction. THE PURPLE QTTEENS. "The essentially right life for all woman-kind," says Mr Euskin elsewhere, is that of the Swiss Paysanne, and Gotthelf's Freneli (the heroine in| £ TJlric") is the perfect typa of it. Hence it is after Freneli" that Mr! Euskin calls the Alpine Violet in the' pretty nomenclature with which he has proposed to supersede the barbarous Latin of the botanist?; she is "the entirely pure -and noble type of the Bamese maid, wife and mother.*' Gotthelf has joined in her, he now continues, "the three perfections of womanly grace of womanly honour, and of pure intellect." Her character is indeed thus "too complete to be exemplary, or even, in the common world, credible Nevertheless, women of her type, and even coming near her standard, are frequent in the Barnese, TJri, and Tyrolese Alps; and in dedicating the pansy of the Wengern Alp to her, I meant to indicate at once the relation of her noble strength to her mountain land, and the peculiar sadness and patience in sorrow which invest her even through the happiest scenes of her life, with the purple robe of the kings and queens who reign at once in earth and heaven." *

"THE REASON FIRM, THE TEMPERATE WILL." " But," continues Uc Ruskin, " the itwo points of character in which Freneli is eminent above even these gracious women, such as they are generally, are her frankness—md yet command of her lip . Many very noble women are subtle, reserved, or inexplicable even to themselves ; they know not their own hearts, or the tendency of their owa thoughts. But Ereneli knows always, not her own I mind merely, but her power, capacity, I sensibility; knows how truly she can love, how unwearily she can labour, how faithfully she can keep the law and receive the Qjspel of Christ. And further, she is frank and simple to the utteriDost, even to those who are seeking her destruction. She never deigns to deceive, never loses in anger and peac?, or in jealousy the sweetness, of her life and conduct. She expresses neither indignation nor pride to the lover who has left her, asks for no atonement on his return, speaks of her own affection to him as quetly as if it were a sister's, and trusts to his respect for it to guard him,against imprudent contest with his own fortune." WOMEN WHOM " PALE PASSTON LOVES." Mr Kuskin then proceeds to ask "how far the women who have thin perfect power alike ovtr their own

affections and the expression of feeling,' differ in the elements of their nature from those whose passions possess add conquer them. Alike Scott, Gotthelf, and Miss Edgeworth assume that noble training and right principle can always give the power of self-command. Sbakespeare allows the passion always to conquer in the most lovely naturep. . . . . They are conquered by love in an instant, and confess it as soon as they have the chance : while even with Scott and Miss Edgeworth, reserved as the affection may be, it is always deeper than other lover's, and usually anticipates it; but never conquers their own characters or for an instant shakes their purpose?."

Shakespeare's maidens of high DEGEEE. But with regard to Shakespeare ? s types of womanhood, " itißof little use," says Mr Buskin, " for lessoning in daily life to study the thoughts of ways of maidens who are always dukes' daughters at the least. Indeed, in returning to my Shakespeare after such final reading of the realities of life as may havb been permitted to me (dazzled too easily, and too often blind), it grieves me to find in him no laborious nor lowly ideal; bis perfect shepherdess is a disguised princess; his miracle of the White Island exultingly quits ker spirit-guarded sands to be Queen of Naples, and his cottage Rosalind is extremely glad to get her face uncrowned again." WOMEN WHO WOEK. But the noblest types of womanhood are not "dukes' daughter*" in the least. Gotthelf s Swiss heroine, Freneli, is only a farm servant; and Scott'a Jeanie Deans is of the same type in Scotland. For as for women's work, says Mr Buskin in a passage in " Fors Clavigera,' with which we (Pall Mall Gazette) may bring his latter notes to a conclusion, " what should it be but scrubbing furniture, dusting walls, sweeping floors, helping with the farm work, or the garden or the dairy ? Take the facts of such lite in old Scotland, seen with Walter Scott's own eyes:—' On reaching the brow of a bleak eminence overhanging the primitive tower and its tiny patch of cultivated ground, he found his host and three sons, and perhaps half-a-dozen attendant gillies, all stretched half, asleep in their tartans upon the heath, with guns arid dogs and a profusion of game about them, while in the courtyard, far below, appeared a company of women actively engaged in loading a cart with manure. The stranger was not a little astonished when he discovered, on descending from the height, that among these industrious females were the laird's own lady and two or three of her daughters ; but they seemed quite unconscious of having been detected in an occupation,unsuitable to their rank, retired, presently to the " bowers," and when they reappeared in other dresses retained no traces of their morning's work except complexions glowing with a radiant freshness, for one evening, of which many a high-bred beauty would have bartered half her diamonds. He found the young ladies not ill-informed, and exceedingly agreeable; and the song and the dance seemed to form the invariable termination of their busy days."

" You think such barbarism for ever; past 1 ? No, my dears; it is only the barbarity of idle gentlemen that mustj pass. Tliey will have to fill the carts—; you to drive them."