From The Saturday Review. from the sphere of either of their great predecessors. To approach Mrs. Browning were LA FEMME DANS L'HUMANITE.* indeed a feat as difficult as undesirable, and A TREATISE ON Woman, with special referto adopt the style habitual to Mrs. Hemans ence to Mdlle. Ninon de l'Enclos and other would merely be to mistake the taste of the ladies of historical frailty, it would occur, age. Of the poets now before us, Jean In- probably, to no one but a Frenchman to gelow is in flavor most luscious, in form write. And no one but a very ingenious most voluptuous, and in the music of metre Frenchman would venture on such a paradox most subtly melodious. Yet she, too, is wide as to say that the celebrated courtesan in enough away from the Hemans mode of treat- question improved the morals of her age. M. ment and diction, as the poem, fairy-like in de Pompery is very susceptible to female atits tripping fancy, entitled "The Music of tractions. He can condone anything in a Childhood," proves. Jean Ingelow is not pretty woman. Chivalry seems to have enalways free from obscurity,-a fault which, tered on a new phase in these latter days. as in Shelley, often arises from the loading The fair sinner can no longer reckon on findon of decorative diction to the darkening of ing a knight to break a lance in honor of her the original thought. The verses contributed charms, but she is pretty sure, if sufficiently by Mrs. Tom Taylor are written with a tren- conspicuous, of some kindly biographer who chant hand; each epithet comes with point, will do her the more substantial service of and every word adds character to the picture. whitewashing her memory. Upon M. de Of her four poems in this series, there is Pompery her moral delinquencies make no most spirit and most motion of metre in more impression than water upon a duck's the family sketch, colored with a mother's back. Mary Stuart's insincerity, Madame joy, entitled "The Baby Brigade." There de Longueville's gallantries, the ill-regulated used to be three schools of poetry,-the By-passions of Mdlle. de l'Espinasse, are all matronic school, heroic and passionate; the Lake ters of trivial, or at any rate secondary, imschool, long identified with Coleridge's "Ode port. They were beautiful women, and to an Ass ;" and the Cockney school, artificial beauty, like charity, covers a multitude of and far removed from nature. Each of these sins. Nor is beauty regarded in these instansystems has had its day, and now leaves not, ces merely as an extenuating circumstance. at all events, in the present volume, a wreck In the view of M. de Pompery, it is an essenbehind. The Hon. Mrs. Norton at one time tial part of woman's nature. It is that which used to be Byronic and passionate; but she makes her what she is. "La beauté," he has at least, in the poem called "Crippled says, "est tellement la première raison d'être Jane "—become simply naturalistic if not de la femme, que si la beauté lui fait défaut, actually prosaic. Of the remaining poems scs qualités s'effacent, et que lorsqu'elle relittle need be said; they will be read but splendit, ses imperfections disparaissent.” scarcely remembered; few of the thoughts This is very comfortable doctrine for the will by their beauty or novelty take posses- well-favored portion of the fair sex, but it is sion of the memory or lay hold of the tongue a little harsh towards those whose personal by any felicity of expression. Out of the endowments are less remarkable. Madame many lines which we have scanned, the following stanzas by Miss Muloch strike us as posde Staël, for instance, was not beautiful, yet sessing more than the common measure of one would hardly, on that account, blot out that electric fire, or rather of the ethereal her name in the catalogue of womankind. beauty, which used to be deemed the life of M. de Pompery seems to have a lurking suspoetry::-picion that the facts do not exactly square with his theory. When he comes to reduce his work into the form of a series of axioms, he materially enlarges that hard saying of his, that woman and beauty are convertible terms. Every woman, he says, either believes herself, is, or ought to be beautiful. This is a very elastic proposition, to which no one 66 A SICK CHILD. "How the trembling children gather round, Startled out of sleep and scared and crying! Is our merry little sister dying? ་ Will they come and put her underground. "As they did poor baby that May day? Or will shining angels stoop and take her make her "La Femme dans l'Humanite. Par Edouard de Pompery. Paris: Hachette et Cie. 1864." need take exception. It is virtually an admis- what beauty consists. If it be the one essension of the existence of those diversities of tial and universal attribute of woman, there female attractiveness which M. de Pompery ought to be some common standard whereby seemed, in his impulsive gallantry at start- to judge of it. It is casy to define woman as ing, to ignore. The plainest woman may beauty, but will M. de Pompery go on to labor under the delusion that she is beauti- specify what constitutes beauty in woman? ful, and if not, one may say without impiety Unless he does so, he is only defining an obthat it would be more in accordance with the scure term per obscurius. As a matter of fitness of things if she were beautiful. fact and of history, there is no point about According to M. de Pompery, there are which so much difference of opinion exists. two sides of woman's character,-one the The many anomalies in the moral sense of active or positive, the other the passive or mankind have been often pointed out by psynegative. She both moulds, and is moulded chologists and philosophers. In the field of by, society. Beauty is the instrument by æsthetics there is even less unanimity. As which she makes her influence felt. Comme regards female beauty, no two nations, no two beaute, elle fait l'homme. The natural man generations of the same nation, think alike. admires force. He acquires this notion of Dutch beauty is one thing, and Italian anhimself. It is from woman that he derives other, and the English type differs from both. his first idea of the beautiful. In his chap- The difference between these is as nothing ter on human beauty, M. de Pompery traces compared with the difference which exists bethe origin and growth of the "culte du tween the European ideal and the Melanesian beau." The savage begins by an awkward or Andamancse. The notion of the beautiful attempt to beautify himself. He paints his in woman entertained by our early Пlanoveface and tattooes his skin. The result is a rian monarchs was as radically opposed to horrible caricature of the beautiful. But, as that of the bulk of their subjects as their nohe gains in enlightenment and civilization, tion of the delectable in oysters. Beauty, he recognizes his mistake in seeking the or rather its embodiment in woman, is emiadorninent of his own person. It is the con- nently an affair of fashion and circumstance; cern of woman to be beautiful, not his. She and as they change, it changes too. The is charm, while he is force. From the mo- type of beauty adopted by one generation bement that this grand discovery dawns upon comes a puzzle and stumbling-block to the him, a new life, as it were, takes possession succeeding. How often it happens, when of him. All his energies are henceforth di- the portrait of some historical beauty has rected into a new channel. A fresh impulse been disinterred, that the first sensation is is given to his exertions. He has an imme- one of wonder at the taste of her contempodiate object for his labor and ingenuity,-to raries. Different classes, again, of the same minister to the pleasure and beauty of the community have different standards of loveligraceful being at his side. The mainspring ness, and their different predilections. What of art and industry is female beauty. Ar- is the perfection of refinement to one class tists, poets, artisans, all set to work to pay homage to beauty, to extend its sphere of action, and illuminate the world with that splendid manifestation of life, the beautiful in the human species. There is something rather whimsical in this attempt to enroll the ladies among the earliest apostles of the Manchester school of ideas. We have read of woman in the capacity of teterrima causa, but M. de Pompery evidently considers her a chief instrument in the ultimate pacification of the world. If this happy consummation should ever be attained, it will probably be unphilosophical. by other influences than mere female beauty. But there is also a passive side to woman's Before attributing to the fair sex this grand character. If the charm of her presence regenerating power, we ought to know in and her instinctive desire to please are im becomes the perfection of insipidity to another. In short, female beauty is purely subjective. The association of certain outlines, or a certain expression, with the idea of the beautiful depends on the idiosyncrasy of the person who so associates them. Far be it from us to grudge the fair sex any of the pretty things which M. de Pompery says about them. But he would do well to confine himself to rhapsody. To represent mere physical beauty as the raison d'être of woman is as derogatory to her real dignity as it is portant agencies in the civilization of the up their husbands with gunpowder. One of human race, on the other hand her impres- the most curious passages in this work is the sionability lays her, as it were, at the mercy author's eloquent justification of a woman's of her immediate surroundings. For a being lie. If she lies nowadays, he says, it is so constituted, says M. de Pompery, there is because all around her is one great lie, and no good or evil, or false or true. All is relative she reflects her surroundings. She lies beto the circumstances in which she is placed, cause she is still under the dominion of force, and they are continually altering. With as and she has nothing to oppose it but craft. much variableness as a crowd or a child,- She lies because she is compelled to lie, and swayed, like them, by the impression of the because, by reason of her malleable nature, sho moment, she shatters the idol which she just has got accustomed to it, and regards falsehood now adored, and exalts what she had cast in the same light as a crinoline. It never seems down. By virtue of this impressionability, to occur to our author that in painting socishe reflects much more closely than man the ety in these dark colors he is, by implication, epoch in which she exists. Nor is it only blackening the character of the sex of which that the present mirrors itself in her. She he is so ardent an admirer. It is a common is not merely an ccho of the times. The trick with French writers to personify society society in which her lot is cast sets its mark as a sort of ogre, especially in its attitude towupon her, moulds her character, makes her ard the weaker sex. Every reader of " Les what she is. There have been many believ- Miserables" will remember how constantly M. ers in fatalism, but M. de Pompery is the Victor Hugo harps on this string. The fact is first writer whom we remember to have lim- purposely kept out of sight, that society ited the necessitarian theory to the fair sex. merely means the aggregate of individual It does his gallantry great credit to have hit men and women who compose it. As they on so ingenious a way of relieving them from are, so will it be. M. de Pompery draws an the odium of any little moral obliquities that absurd distinction when he says that woman might possibly be laid to their charge. The acts upon man, but man upon society. Each incessant action of society shapes woman sex has its share in making society what it is. after its own image. She cannot escape from And if the function of woman is merely to influences that press from every side on her simper and look pretty, as is set forth in this variable and plastic nature. As society is, volume, it is no wonder that her influence so will woman be. This is either a truism, has hitherto been so little felt, and that socior a fallacy of the most dangerous kind. In ety remains in the unsatisfactory condition the mouth of M. de Pompery, it must be depicted by M. de Pompery. regarded as the latter. His doctrine strikes at the root of individual responsibility, for it comes very much to this,—that woman has no free will of her own, or cannot exercise it against the overwhelming pressure of the social atmosphere which surrounds her. In referring, for instance, to Mary Stuart, M. de Pompery observes that one forgives her, not only on account of her beauty, but because all that was ignoble in her conduct belonged to the horrible age in which she lived. Her beauty was her own, her vices those of her century. It has been the fashion for the apologists of the unhappy queen to maintain her innocence of the murder of her husband. M. de Pompery assumes her guilt, but coolly attributes it to the state of contemporary society. We cannot guess at the results of his historical research, but we certainly never heard that it was a common occurrence for royal ladies in the sixteenth century to blow Happily she has a very different mission, as his fair compatriots would be the first to admit. Nowhere, perhaps, has the principle that it is the duty and right of woman to employ her faculties for her own and the common good made more way than in France. The relations of wife and mother remain, of course, of paramount importance. Her first duty lies in the domestic sphere; but there are other spheres in which she is as free to employ her powers of mind and body as man is. M. de Pompery touches very slightly on the subject of woman's employment. He thinks that it is premature to moot it in the present wicked state of society, unaware, apparently, of the many hundreds and thousands of his countrywomen who are gaining their daily bread by the work of their hands and brains. His dream of fair women includes nothing so prosaic as a housemaid, or a scamstress, or a shopwoman, or a school We are not at all sure that the humoring of this impatient temper does not quicken and keep in vigor certain forms of cleverness, At any rate, we find it where we see readiness of repartee, and what are called sallies mistress. Even with an " imperfect civiliza- | annoy us on our own account becomes a bugtion" these are callings which are safely bear if it is the sort of thing to try our followed by women, and with great advan- friend's patience. We are disturbed and ill tage to the public interests. With regard to at ease, we don't know why, even before his the future of woman, M. de Pompery indulges characteristic declares itself. in a great many glowing generalities; but we look in vain for a single practical suggestion in his pages. As the world grows purer and better, as knowledge advances, as the reign of force is gradually superseded by the reign of peaceful industry and art and science, wo-of pleasantry. These volatile spirits find it man will participate in the general improve- very hard work to tolerate any state of affairs ment. But, so far as she is concerned, the at all against the grain, and dulness especialprogress of civilization will be signalized not ly is so opposed to their nature that exposure so much by extended usefulness as by in- to it becomes a haunting fear, and restraint creased beauty. The author of this volume of any sort is unendurable. In the same even anticipates a day when her personal at- way, they will not stand anything that grates tractions will be positively dangerous. "Il upon taste, any exhibition of character uny aurait là de quoi trembler pour le sexe fort, congenial to their own temper; so that a qui ayant le sens du beau à un plus haut hundred traits which are not without interdegré, sera plus accessible au rayonnement est to minds possessing patience to enter into de la femme." There may be some among them are to them simply irritating, if they the fair sex whose vanity may be flattered by run counter to their own humor. This sort such a prospect, but it is hardly likely to of interest, and the habits induced by it, imcommend itself to any thoughtful or sensible patient people are strangers to. Such things as can be taken in at a glance they often see with exceptional penetration, with the rapidity of intuition; but a man's whole nature is not to be apprehended by this quick method, and therefore no impatient person has any real knowledge of character. It is impossible that he should; for this knowledge comes with study, in the same way that men learn the habits and ways of every other animal,that is, by close observation. However, this is their affair, and it is not because impatient people have certain deficiencies that we com plain of them, but for the trepidation, uneasiness, and failure they often induce. To be closely associated with an impatient map, otherwise amiable, is to be deprived of a good share of our own individuality. For, on the one hand, impatience is such a power, we are so annoyed at awaking it in our own person, it wounds our sensitiveness so keenly, that it drives us back into ourselves; and, on the other, it imposes upon us an undue burden of civility, forbearance, and good manners, and thus puts us in a false position. woman. From The Saturday Review. Ir is quite possible that patience in the more trying positions of life may be compatible with impatience of manner and of conduct in little matters where the higher powers of the soul are not called in. "A great patience" is a thing of effort and principle, not of temperament. Our present concern, however, is mainly with that impatience which shows itself in the mode of meeting the little rubs of daily life: or rather which makes things rubs and trials to some people, which with others pass unnoticed, or which ordinary self-control renders endurable. It is a quality which very often interferes with the ease and pleasure of our intercourse with bright, quick-witted persons, whose society would otherwise be an unqualified refreshment; for we are not many of us patient But keen and ready wit is by no means the enough for two,-not patient enough to be commonest promoter of impatience. It needs perfectly serene and unruffled in the close only for a man to think unduly well of himneighborhood of perturbation and restless- self, and to be bent on self-display, to be imness, whether of movement or of mind. Our patient in the most tormenting form of the sympathy turns against us. What does not disease. People are often intolerant of the restraints of society because it is impossible from something intolerable, and will presentto practise the self-glorification which has be-ly-they care not how soon-find them income essential to happiness in a scene where tolerable in their turn. Not that these a man is obliged to seem one of a body met people are rendered unhappy by their restlessfor general purposes, and occupied with each ness. A thriving, well-indulged, normal imother's interests. Impatient men of this patience does not appear to disturb the comsort must be king of their company, secure fort of its possessor. He simply wonders at of holding the thread of conversation in their and despises the apathy of the people about own hands, or of being able to get away the him. The person who cannot stand things, instant they lose it. Again, all men of over- cannot endure things, and is amazed how active brain and overtasked energies are im- others can stand, tolerate, put up with the patient. This, to be sure, is partly a physi- life they lead, always feels the superior, and cal infirmity, but the fault is moral also, considers his disgust of sameness a mark of arising from another form of self-occupation. a higher organization. Impatience of this The effort which such people have to make sort seems to arise from an intolerance of to bridle their too visible impatience, where steps and processes. All people have it towescape is impossible, is sometimes quite pa-ard some things; the impatient man is one thetic; there is such an air of the martyr, who shows it toward everything. He rebels on occasions which, to the cooler observer, are against gradual, step-by-step advance,quite inadequate for so piteous a resignation. Yet we ought to be indulgent to every effort of self-restraint; for, if impatience implies no worse temper in its possessor than in others, it necessarily involves failures in good-nature. He eschews all the hard work of society. We are left in the lurch by our impatient friend on occasions where his co-operation might have lightened our load considerably, and where he knows this, but coolly pleads an idiosyncrasy. And impatience has more than passive ill-nature to answer for. No impatient man would like to see written down in black and white the ugly wishes he has bestowed by turns upon all near enough to cause him occasional inconvenience and perplexity. There are few of his best friends, we venture to assert, whom he has not at some time or other wished at the bottom of the sea, or anywhere in or out of space, so they were out of his way for good. And this from no innate hardness, but from abhorrence of a dilemma, and recoil from some pressing perplexity. There is an impatience that, as far as we can judge, does not go much beyond nerves, which leads to perpetual locomotion. Once indulged, it renders a person incapable of sitting quiet for half an hour at a time. On a large scale, where people have time and money at command, the demon drives them from place to place. They live in railways, are perpetually popping in upon their friends, who know their visitant to be rather flying from what he dreads than prompted by any love of their society. He has just escaped against the spaces that occur between the be- |