What Great Men Have Said About Women Part 12

_Andrea Del Sarto._

All women love great men If young or old; it is in all the tales; Young beauties love old poets who can love-- * * * * *

Who was a queen and loved a poet once Humpbacked, a dwarf? ah, women can do that!

_In a Balcony._

For women There is no good of life but love--but love!

What else looks good, is some shade flung from love; Love gilds it, gives it worth. Be warned by me.

Never you cheat yourself one instant! Love, Give love, ask only love, and leave the rest!

_In a Balcony._

Oh, the beautiful girl ...

... Her flesh was the soft seraphic screen Of a soul that is meant ...

To just see earth, and hardly be seen, And blossom in heaven instead.

Yet earth saw one thing, one how fair?

One grace that grew to its full ...

... She had her great gold hair.

Hair, such a wonder of flix and floss, Freshness and fragrance--floods of it, too!

Gold, did I say? Nay, gold's mere dross!

_Gold Hair._

She had A heart--how shall I say?--too soon made glad, Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

'Twas all one! My favour at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her,--all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech, Or blush at least ...

... Who'd stoop to blame This sort of trifling?

_My Last d.u.c.h.ess._

W. M. THACKERAY.

To be doing good for some one else, is the life of most good women.

They are exuberant of kindness, as it were, and must impart it to some one.--_Henry Esmond._

Who ever accused women of being just? They are always sacrificing themselves or somebody for somebody else's sake.--_Pendennis._

I think it is not national prejudice which makes me believe that a high-bred English lady is the most complete of all Heaven's subjects in this world. In whom else do you see so much grace, and so much virtue; so much faith, and so much tenderness; with such a perfect refinement and chast.i.ty? And by high-bred ladies I don't mean d.u.c.h.esses and countesses. Be they ever so high in station, they can be but ladies, and no more. But almost every man who lives in the world has the happiness, let us hope, of counting a few such persons amongst his circle of acquaintance,--women, in whose angelical natures there is something awful, as well as beautiful, to contemplate; at whose feet the wildest and fiercest of us must fall down and humble ourselves, in admiration of that adorable purity which never seems to do or to think wrong.--_Pendennis._

What kind-hearted woman, young or old, does not love match-making?--_The Newcomes._

Who does not know how ruthlessly women will tyrannize when they are let to domineer? And who does not know how useless advice is?... A man gets his own experience about women, and will take n.o.body's hearsay; nor, indeed, is the young fellow worth a fig that would.--_Henry Esmond._

Stupid! Why not? Some women ought to be stupid. What you call dullness I call repose. Give me a calm woman, a slow woman,--a lazy, majestic woman. Show me a gracious virgin bearing a lily; not a leering giggler frisking a rattle. A lively woman would be the death of me.... Why shouldn't the Sherrick be stupid, I say?

About great beauty there should always reign a silence. As you look at the great stars, the great ocean, any great scene of nature, you hush, sir. You laugh at a pantomime, but you are still in a temple.

When I saw the great Venus of the Louvre, I thought,--Wert thou alive, O G.o.ddess, thou shouldst never open those lovely lips but to speak lowly, slowly; thou shouldst never descend from that pedestal but to walk stately to some near couch, and a.s.sume another att.i.tude of beautiful calm. To be beautiful is enough. If a woman can do that well; who shall demand more from her? You don't want a rose to sing. And I think wit is as out of place where there's great beauty; as I wouldn't have a queen to cut jokes on her throne.--_The Newcomes._

And so it is,--a pair of bright eyes with a dozen glances suffice to subdue a man; to enslave him, and inflame him; to make him even forget; they dazzle him so that the past becomes straightway dim to him; and he would give all his life to possess 'em.--_Henry Esmond._

She is as good a little creature as can be. She is never out of temper; I don't think she is very wise; but she is uncommonly pretty, and her beauty grows on you.... I look at her like a little wild-flower in a field,--like a little child at play, sir. Pretty little tender nursling. If I see her pa.s.sing in the street I feel as if I would like some fellow to be rude to her that I might have the pleasure of knocking him down. She is like a little songbird, sir,--a tremulous, fluttering little linnet that you would take into your hand, and smooth its little plumes, and let it perch on your finger and sing.--_The Newcomes._

That fine blush which is her pretty symbol of youth, modesty, and beauty.... I never saw such a beautiful violet as that of her eyes.

Her complexion is of the pink of the blush-rose.--_The Newcomes._

He thought and wondered at the way in which women play with men, and coax them and win them and drop them.--_Pendennis._

It was this lady's disposition to think kindnesses, and devise silent bounties and to scheme benevolence, for those about her. We take such goodness, for the most part, as if it were our due; the Marys who bring ointment for our feet get but little thanks. Some of us never feel this devotion at all, or are moved by it to grat.i.tude or acknowledgment; others only recall it years after, when the days are past in which those sweet kindnesses were spent on us, and we offer back our return for the debt by a poor tardy payment of tears. The forgotten tones of love recur to us, and kind glances s.h.i.+ne out of the past--O so bright and clear!--O so longed after! because they are out of reach; as holiday music from with-inside a prison wall--or suns.h.i.+ne seen through the bars; more prized because unattainable, more bright because of the contrast of present darkness and solitude, whence there is no escape.--_Henry Esmond._

In houses where, in place of that sacred, inmost flame of love, there is discord at the centre, the whole household becomes hypocritical, and each lies to his neighbor.... Alas that youthful love and truth should end in bitterness and bankruptcy.... 'Tis a hard task for women in life, that mask which the world bids them wear. But there is no greater crime than for a woman who is ill used and unhappy to show that she is so. The world is quite relentless about bidding her to keep a cheerful face.--_Henry Esmond._

O, what a mercy it is that these women do not exercise their powers oftener. We can't resist them if they do. Let them show ever so little inclination and men go down on their knees at once; old or ugly it is all the same, and this I set down as a positive truth. A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry whom she likes. Only let us be thankful that the darlings are like the beasts of the field and don't know their own powers. They would overcome us entirely if they did.--_The Newcomes._

As for women--O my dear friends and brethren in this vale of tears--did you ever see anything so curious and monstrous and annoying as the way in which women court Princekin when he is marriageable!--_The Newcomes._

She was as gentle and amenable to reason, as good-natured a girl as could be; a little vacant and silly, but some men like dolls for wives.--_The Newcomes._

She had been bred to measure her actions by a standard which the world may nominally admit, but which it leaves for the most part unheeded. Wors.h.i.+p, love, duty, as taught her by the devout study of the sacred law which interprets and defines it--if these formed the outward practice of her life, they were also its constant and secret endeavor and occupation. She spoke but very seldom of her religion, though it filled her heart and influenced all her behavior. What must the world appear to such a person?--_The Newcomes._

There are ladies, who may be called men's women, being welcomed entirely by all the gentlemen, and cut or slighted by all their wives.... But while simple folks who are out of the world, or country people with a taste for the genteel, behold these ladies in their seeming glory in public places, or envy them from afar off, persons who are better instructed could inform them that these envied ladies have no more chance of establis.h.i.+ng themselves in "Society," than the benighted squire's wife in Somersets.h.i.+re, who reads of their doings in the _Morning Post_. Men living about town are aware of these awful truths. You hear how pitilessly many ladies of seeming rank and wealth are excluded from this "Society."

The frantic efforts which they make to enter this circle, the meannesses to which they submit, the insults which they undergo, are matters of wonder to those who take human or woman kind for a study; and the pursuit of fas.h.i.+on under difficulties would be a fine theme for any very great person who had the wit, the leisure, and the knowledge of the English language necessary for the compiling of such a history.--_Vanity Fair._

I can fancy nothing more cruel than to have to sit day after day with a dull handsome woman opposite; to answer her speeches about the weather, housekeeping, and what not.... Women go through this simpering and smiling life and bear it quite easily. Theirs is a life of hypocrisy. What good woman does not laugh at her husband's or father's jokes and stories time after time and would not laugh at breakfast, lunch, and dinner if he told them? Flattery is their nature,--to coax, flatter, and sweetly befool some one is every woman's business. She is none, if she declines this office.--_The Newcomes._