Now their separate characters are briefly
these. The man's power is active, progressive,
defensive. He is eminently the doer, the
creator, the discoverer, the defender. His
intellect is for speculation and invention;
his energy for adventure, for war, and for
conquest, wherever war is just, wherever
conquest necessary. But the woman's power
is for rule, not for battle, — and
her intellect is not for invention or creation,
but for sweet ordering, arrangement and decision.
She sees the qualities of things, their claims,
and their places. Her great function is Praise:
she enters into no contest, but infallibly
adjudges the crown of contest. By her office,
and place, she is protected from all danger
and temptation. The man, in his rough work
in open world, must encounter all peril and
trial: — to him, therefore, the failure,
the offense, the inevitable error: often
he must be wounded, or subdued, often misled,
and always hardened. But he guards the woman
from all this; within his house, as ruled
by her, unless she herself has sought it,
need enter no danger, no temptation, no cause
of error or offense. This is the true nature
of home — it is the place of Peace;
the shelter, not only from all injury, but
from all terror, doubt, and division. In
so far as it is not this, it is not home;
so far as the anxieties of the outer life
penetrate into it, and the inconsistently-minded,
unknown, unloved, or hostile society of the
outer world is allowed by either husband
or wife to cross the threshold, it ceases
to be home; it is then only a part of that
outer world which you have roofed over, and
lighted fire in. But so far as it is a sacred
place, a vestal temple, a temple of the hearth
watched over by Household Gods, before those
faces none may come but those whom they can
receive with love, — so far as it is
this, and roof and fire are types only of
a nobler shade and light, — shade as
of the rock in a weary land, and light as
of the Pharos
>> note 1 in
the stormy sea; — so far it vindicates the name, and fulfills the praise,
of home.
And wherever a true wife comes, this home
is always round her. The stars only may be
over her head; the glowworm in the night-cold
grass may be the only fire at her foot: but
home is yet wherever she is; and for a noble
woman it stretches far round her, better
than ceiled
>> note 2 with
cedar, or painted with vermilion, shedding
its quiet light far, for those who else
were homeless.
This, then, I believe to be, — will
you not admit it to be — the woman's
true place and power? But do you not see
that, to fulfill this, she must — as
far as one can use such terms of a human
creature — be incapable of error? So
far as she rules, all must be right, or nothing
is. She must be enduringly, incorruptibly
good; instinctively, infallibly wise — wise,
not for self-development, but for self-renunciation:
wise, not that she may set herself above
her husband, but that she may never fail
from his side: wise, not with the narrowness
of insolent and loveless pride, but with
the passionate gentleness of an infinitely
variable, because infinitely applicable,
modesty of service — the true changefulness
of woman.