But it is more just and profitable to recognise what there is
sterling and human underneath all his theoretical
affectations of superiority. Women, he has said in his
"First Blast," are, "weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and
foolish;" and yet it does not appear that he was himself any
less dependent than other men upon the sympathy and affection
of these weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish
creatures; it seems even as if he had been rather more
dependent than most.
Of those who are to act influentially on their fellows, we
should expect always something large and public in their way
of life, something more or less urbane and comprehensive in
their sentiment for others. We should not expect to see them
spend their sympathy in idyls, however beautiful. We should
not seek them among those who, if they have but a wife to
their bosom, ask no more of womankind, just as they ask no
more of their own sex, if they can find a friend or two for
their immediate need. They will be quick to feel all the
pleasures of our association - not the great ones alone, but
all. They will know not love only, but all those other ways
in which man and woman mutually make each other happy - by
sympathy, by admiration, by the atmosphere they bear about
them - down to the mere impersonal pleasure of passing happy
faces in the street.
Pages:
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362