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Page 74
For all other intellectual efforts, however, either of the understanding
or the fancy, and requiring a thorough knowledge either of man's
strength or his weakness, we apprehend them to be, in all respects, as
well qualified as their perceptions of grace, propriety, ridicule--their
power of detecting artifice, hypocrisy, and affectation--the force and
promptitude of their sympathy, and their capacity of noble and devoted
attachment, and of the efforts and sacrifices it may require, they are,
beyond all doubt, our superiors.
Their business being, as we have said, with actual or social life, and
the colours it receives from the conduct and dispositions of
individuals, they unconsciously acquire, at a very early age, the
finest perception of character and manners, and are almost as soon
instinctively schooled in the deep and more dangerous learning of
feeling and emotion; while the very minuteness with which they make and
meditate on these interesting observations, and the finer shades and
variations of sentiment which are thus treasured and recorded, train
their whole faculties to a nicety and precision of operation, which
often discloses itself to advantage in their application to studies of a
different character. When women, accordingly, have turned their
minds--as they have done but too seldom--to the exposition or
arrangement of any branch of knowledge, they have commonly exhibited, we
think, a more beautiful accuracy, and a more uniform and complete
justness of thinking, than their less discriminating brethren. There is
a finish and completeness, in short, about every thing they put out of
their hands, which indicates not only an inherent taste for elegance and
neatness, but a habit of nice observation, and singular exactness of
judgement.
It has been so little the fashion, at any time, to encourage women to
write for publication, that it is more difficult than it should be, to
prove these truths by examples. Yet there are enough, within the reach
of a very careless and superficial glance over the open field of
literature, to enable us to explain, at least, and illustrate, if not
entirely to verify, our assertions. No _man_, we will venture to say,
could have written the Letters of Madame de Sevign�, or the Novels of
Miss Austin, or the Hymns and Early Lessons of Mrs. Barbauld, or the
Conversations of Mrs. Marcet. Those performance, too, are not only
essentially and intensely feminine; but they are, in our judgment,
decidedly more perfect than any masculine productions with which they
can be brought into comparison. They accomplish more completely all the
ends at which they aim; and are worked out with a gracefulness and
felicity of execution which excludes all idea of failure, and entirely
satisfies the expectations they may have raised. We might easily have
added to these instances. There are many parts of Miss Edgeworth's
earlier stories, and of Miss Mitford's sketches and descriptions, and
not a little of Mrs. Opie's, that exhibit the same fine and penetrating
spirit of observations, the same softness and delicacy of hand, and
unerring truth of delineation, to which we have alluded as
characterizing the purer specimens of female art. The same
distinguishing traits of woman's spirit are visible through the grief
and piety of Lady Russel, and the gayety, the spite, and the
venturesomeness of Lady Mary Wortley. We have not as yet much female
poetry; but there is a truly feminine tenderness, purity, and elegance
in the Psyche of Mrs. Tighe, and in some of the smaller pieces of Lady
Craven. On some of the works of Madame de Sta�l--her Corinne
especially--there is a still deeper stamp of the genius of her sex. Her
pictures of its boundless devotedness--its depth and capacity of
suffering--its high aspirations--its painful irritability, and
inextinguishable thirst for emotion, are powerful specimens of that
morbid anatomy of the heart, which no hand but that of a woman's was
fine enough to have laid open, or skilful enough to have recommended to
our sympathy and love. There is the same exquisite and inimitable
delicacy, if not the same power, in many of the happier passages of
Madame de Souza and Madame Cottin--to say nothing of the more lively and
yet melancholy records of Madame de Sta�l, during her long penance in
the court of the Duchesse de Maine.
We think the poetry of Mrs. Hemans a fine exemplification of Female
Poetry--and we think it has much of the perfection which we have
ventured to ascribe to the happier productions of female genius.
It may not be the best imaginable poetry, and may not indicate the very
highest or most commanding genius; but it embraces a great deal of that
which gives the very best poetry its chief power of pleasing; and would
strike us, perhaps, as more impassioned and exalted, if it were not
regulated and harmonized by the most beautiful taste. It is singularly
sweet, elegant, and tender--touching, perhaps, and contemplative, rather
than vehement and overpowering; and not only finished throughout with an
exquisite delicacy, and even severity of execution, but infused with a
purity and loftiness of feeling, and a certain sober and humble tone of
indulgence and piety, which must satisfy all judgments, and allay the
apprehensions of those who are most afraid of the passionate
exaggerations of poetry. The diction is always beautiful, harmonious,
and free--and the themes, though of great variety, uniformly treated
with a grace, originality, and judgment, which mark the same master
hand. These themes she has occasionally borrowed, with the peculiar
imagery that belongs to them, from the legends of different nations, and
the most opposite states of society; and has contrived to retain much
of what is interesting and peculiar in each of them, without adopting,
along with it, any of the revolting or extravagant excesses which may
characterize the taste or manners of the people or the age from which it
has been derived. She has transfused into her German or Scandinavian
legends the imaginative and daring tone of the originals, without the
mystical exaggerations of the one, or the painful fierceness and
coarseness of the other--she has preserved the clearness and elegance of
the French, without their coldness or affectation--and the tenderness
and simplicity of the early Italians, without their diffuseness or
languor. Though occasionally expatiating, somewhat fondly and at large,
among the sweets of her own planting, there is, on the whole, a great
condensation and brevity in most of her pieces, and, almost without
exception, a most judicious and vigorous conclusion. The great merit,
however, of her poetry, is undoubtedly in its tenderness and its
beautiful imagery. The first requires no explanation; but we must be
allowed to add a word as to the peculiar charm and character of the
latter.
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