THE secret of Thackeray's failure in the delineation of female character is embodied in the following sentences, from one of 'Mr. Brown's Letters to a Young Man about Town:' 'A set has been made against clever women from all time. Take all Shakspeare's heroines: they all seem to me pretty much the same-affectionate, motherly, tender-that sort of thing. Take Scott's ladies, and other writers; each man seems to draw from one model. An exquisite slave is what we want; for the most part an humble, flattering, smiling, child-loving, tea-making, piano-forte-playing being; who laughs at our jokes, however old they may be; coaxes and wheedles us in our humors, and 'fondly lies to us through life.'

Now, in the spirit and strain of the above sentences one might only see the vein of sarcastic raillery intended to characterize these burlesque letters to a young kinsman; but take them in connection with Thackeray's writings, and you will perceive that they are the real spirit, the actual embodiment, of his positive and veracious views of women, their sphere, condition, and duties. These ideas and opinions regarding women are what he has been regularly trained and bred up to in his heart of hearts. There is a sentiment of real devotion to and chivalrous admiration of woman as she ought to be, and oftentimes is, notwithstanding these conventionalities, that every true man must feel, and to which Thackeray can, upon occasion, give utterance in dulcet tones and beautifullyrounded periods; but he has been so trained and reared amid women of this tame order, this low stamp, and tutored by men holding these lowering views of women, that he cannot bring his imagination to the point of conceiving, or his pen of delineating, a fine and elevated woman-a clever one, as he terms her-though his man-heart does justice to her claims. In his novels, he has portrayed, with his caustic powers, femininic personages, neither flesh-and-blood women -for they have not a redeeming trait of humanity, nor a touch of nature-nor demons; heartless, soulless figures, that glitter and amaze us, thrust into animation and seeming action by his fine strokes of satire, brilliant and sarcastic thrusts and dashes at errors and frailties, that have not even power to fill us with horror or disgust as a really bad woman would. What is Beckey Sharp! Is she a living, breathing woman? Rather a concentration of all the vices, follies, and degrading efforts of an age, draped about a senseless block, as they show off the fashions on a wooden shape in a shop. And yet his attempted portrayal of the good and lovely ones, the heroines of his books, is a faithful carrying out and depicting of the sentiments above quoted. So insipid and tame are they in their 'humble, smiling, flattering, child-loving, tea-making' excellence, as to be dull enough in the mere perusal, not only to excuse a lover like George (if he had not been so insipid himself) for lighting his cigars with her billet-doux, but also to make every girl who fain would become a heroine, almost rush into Beckey Sharp-ishness, or any other kind of sprite-like mischief, rather than be one of those same good, sweet, gentle Amelias, even with the prospect of such an undying, never-failing attachment as that of a

Major Sugarplums. Men must still nature's impulses, urging their admiration of the real woman, in obedience to the received and accredited spirit, laws, and opinions of society and the age; and if authors write down to the level that has compelled Thackeray, in spite of his better nature, to make his heroines the heartless, insipid beings they are, yet it is the adoption and carrying out of such views and principles in regard to women by men, whom they are born to serve, to please, to love, and to endeavor to delight, that makes so many of them seemingly what they are, 'humble, flattering, tea-making, piano-playing deceivers ;' and more talent, more time, art, ingenuity, and patience are necessary to pervert nature's master-pieces of love and tenderness into this senseless, silly, deceptive mother and slave, than, with open manliness, enlightened views, and a free and generous insight into her capacities and position, man her brother-probationist, ere he becomes her lord-might have expended to form an open, upright, candid, truth-loving, fervent, devoted woman, wife, friend; forbearing to faults, tender to frailties, forgiving to errors; devoted with keener, and livelier, and humbler, because more expansive, love to his welfare, his honor, and his interest.

Oh! cannot men see and feel wherein this error lies, and conquer it, for the sake of their own hearts, homes, and of their unborn sons? When standing together on the home-hearth in the holy twilight's deepening gloom, drawing nearer to each other tenderly as the night-shades deepen and the day declines, ere the candle-light flares on them, would it lessen the softness, derogate from the sweetness and gentleness of this hour of love, if each-that young husband, that up-looking, confiding wife - had, in that shadowy hour unseen, except to the answering heart that consciously knew it- a brow clear, unclouded, serene with truth, earnest truth, loving truth, human truth, stamped on it, so that in after-coming years neither might quail or blanch beneath the down-cast, averted glance of the other, for the breach of any of the commandments, lesser or greater, sacred to both?

He may

But to return to Thackeray's sentiments on this subject. unchallenged assert that Scott's ladies are many of them as he describes and believes; for it was the error, the want, in Scott's brilliant depictings of life's pageantries, that these low views of women scarcely ever allowed him to do justice to himself or to his heroines, the actual love-heroines of his novels. Those who, at the conclusion of his tales, are led to the altar, and, in the true Prince-and-Cinderella style, are united to the heroes in all due form, in the holy bands of matrimony, are rarely, in any of his works, the women of heart, soul, character, and, withal, true womanliness, who, as a delineator of human nature, under a necessity to make his book interesting, he was forced to describe as they are, and around whom entwine every interest and warm affection of the reader. Yet, as a man reared and tutored by custom and the force of received opinions he dared not brave, with the usual clap-trap necessary for stage-effect, after rousing our sympathies for, entwining our minds by, and enchaining our hearts to one of those noble exhibitions of woman as she might, ought to be, and oftentimes is, he leads us gradually down from the height of this well-placed admiration and noble aspiration, causing glowing feelings, by slowly-winding descent to the woridly termination of necessity-for

the hero to marry the tame piece of smiling propriety, capable of becoming all that Thackeray describes, and who has for this purpose, through these pages, in a shadowy, impalpable manner, only made us aware of another presence beside the real woman, to be ready at the close for the approved and expected consummation.

Who what man even - has not felt indignant that, despite the strong prejudices of the age against her name and nation, and the prestige of Rowena's royal Saxon descent, the noble, queenly Rebecca should be calmly put aside for the fair-haired Saxon lady-Flora MacIvor for Rose Bradwardine? Even little Fenella seems wronged, and oh! how many others! Die Vernon alone, of all his lady-heroines, acts out her part, and shines throughout the book, from first to last, the sole, sole charm; and why? Because, forsooth, her fine abilities are permitted to be more than half obscured by her physical powers and abilities, horsemanship, etc. Jeanie Deans, of course, is below the mark. Scott could allow that a true woman, in her grade of life, might be as clever as she could; but even here the wilful, wayward, spoiled beauty is the loveheroine. Though Scott's manly and chivalric heart allows the existence of the most beautiful and glowing specimens of woman, and though his imagination and pencil depict such, yet his worldly self, the educated man and calculating Scotsman, withdraws prudently from all such the crowning point of woman's glory — love, and the devotion of the heart, leading to marriage. And why? Because they were not capable of carrying out into daily life and practice, with firm and gentle devotion, their duty as women? No; but because men have for ages allowed themselves so low a standard of moral excellence, that even in those instances of rare intellectual endowments they dare not put themselves on a level in daily contact with a clear-sighted woman of pure and elevated views. It is not that men are so mean or narrow in their range of vision, or do not acknowledge the beauty of high excellence, that they will not allow a rival near the throne of mental supremacy. Nature has so distinctly marked their supremacy in points essential for duty in their different spheres, that few men, even of limited capacity, but must be conscious of a difference of powers. Allowing their superiority in many respects over women of fine intellects, they never can interfere with each other, their powers and the needs for their exercise are so diverse. The whole error exists and has arisen from defective moral training in men for untold ages; lowering the standard of excellence at which they are to aim, and lessening their responsibility, and the force of moral perceptions of right. Here lies the evil. Let but a Decalogue be acknowledged for men as well as women; let but both sexes be trained to clear and earnest views of right, truth, and duty, and there need be no clashing or collision of interests, or jealous claims for superiority. Men will have manliness enough to see, to feel, to admire, to allow and acknowledge the beauty, purity, refining and beneficial influence of clear, high-minded, right-principled women; will know that bread and puddings can be as well concocted, and buttons and braids as neatly put on, by a woman of such qualifications, as by one who has striven earnestly to be a wheedling, fondling, lying one through life; and woman will look up with delighted reverence and proper homage to her lord, her governor,

her king, in the broad place of rightful head and superior, where GOD and nature placed him. It is the false basis upon which each is placed by the accumulated defective training of ages, that renders it necessary for men to ignore, despise, and contemn or endeavor to do so all intellectual women; and necessary for intellectual women to hide their light under a bushel, more than half afraid or ashamed to show it, and consequently, as Thackeray says, 'fondly lie' through life.

But Shakspeare-Shakspeare to be put in the same category with writers who are not beyond or above their age!-Shakspeare! he who wrote for the whole world, for all ages- of all men, for him to be accused of having drawn 'affectionate, motherly, that sort-of-thing women!' Shakspeare! we do indeed view all things through the coloring of the glasses that necessity, education, or habit induce us to wear. Shakspeare! what play of his is there in which the women the clever, really clever, brilliant, noble, gifted, talented women, right women—are not the main spring of the plot; the more than half essential charm of the whole, which removed, the play would seem stale, flat, and unprofitable? Change them, and try the effect. Replace Portia, in the Merchant of Venice,' by one of those tame, motherly, deceiving dames, and where is the play-the interest, power, force? Even Nerissa and Jessica remove them and insert in their places insipid Amelias, and see the effect, and how every other character would fail in interest!

Where can a specimen of more noble womanhood, in the whole range of literature, be shown than Portia, with her wit, her brilliant sallies, her intellectual riches, her clear, cool judgment, keen perception? And did Shakspeare allow the possession of these qualities to lessen her attractiveness as a woman; her gentle, fervent, earnest, tender devotion and submission to her bosom's lord, to whom she gave herself so freely and so beautifully? No! but Bassanio was a man worthy to be loved by such a woman as Portia; and therefore he gloried in her glory. He feared not her rivalry; he knew still that, as in every true woman's heart and character, the brightest light, the clearest radiance, was that derived from him who was to love and cherish her― her husband; and that the beams of his excellence and glory must, as the sun's rays do, illuminate and display, in softened splendor, the mountains, hills, vales, and waters of the moon, which, without the possession of these inherent qualities, would not by half so well reflect it from arid moor or desert sand. Look through the whole range of his plays: is one woman made capable of interesting our sympathies or winning our admiration, in whatever circumstances placed, without the charms of intellect and cultivated mental faculties? Where is Isabella, in her holy beauty and her far-searching glance of fearless rectitude? Rosalind, with her powers of wit and winning brightness? Beatrice, even, in her sparkling, diamond-jewelled robe of raillery and talent, shows through its folds and brilliancy freshglowing gleams of real woman's heart as well as will.

And thus will it ever be: a clever woman beneath the protecting ægis of a noble man, if not seemingly so brilliant as herself, yet feels that the power is there, the strength; and beneath the over-shadowing ægis of his beaming, fostering love, such a woman will live and breathe only

gently to bless, soften, and purify; and man - yes, men, the world - will yet see these enshrouding mists of pollution vanish away, and prove that the error is not in women, or in their being being trained to false views of life, duty, and self.

clever women,' but in men

Erie, Pa.

LINE S

TO ONE WHO WILL

VOL. XLII.

UNDERSTAND THEM.

THE silver tongue strikes one,
And softly hums the smitten bell,
As 't were a bee within a flower,
A hidden brook within a dell.

And like a snowy sail that 's bound
For pleasant isles beyond the sea,
My brain drops down the tide of dreams,
Freighted with golden thoughts of thee.

The rustling of an airy wing,

The touch of hand I cannot see,

By these sweet tokens think I still
Thy spirit hovers over me.

'My eyes make pictures when they're shut;'
I see a landscape broad and green,

With hills that in the sun-set glow,
And waving groves and dells between.

I see the cot where I would live;
It stands within a leafy nook
That's haunted by the wild-bird's song,
The ripple of a babbling brook.

It hath a quaint and ancient air;
The lichen hangs upon the eaves,
And up the walls the ivy creeps,
With all its wealth of shady leaves.

And there the yellow-girdled bee
Goes humming gaily to her toil;

It is a blessed realm of peace,

Far from earth's discord and turmoil.

Beside the open window sits,

Half hidden by the trailing vine,

The guardian-angel of that home;

And oh, that face! those saint-like eyes are thine!

G. V. MAXHAM.

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