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EXILE IN SIBERIA. Jfy Exile in Siberia. ...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Margaret Fuxxer And Mary Vvollstonecraft...
smallest offices of domestic care or kindliness . But Margaret Fuller , with all her passionate sensibility , is more of the literary woman , who would not have been satisfied without intellectual production ; Mary Wollstonecraft , we imagine , wrote not at all for writing ' s sake , but from the pressure of other motives ! So far as the difference of date allows , there is a striking coincidence in their trains of thought ; indeed , every important idea in the Rights of Woman ., except the combination of home education with a common dayschool for boys and girls , reappears in Margaret Fuller's essay . One point on which they both write forcibly is the fact that , while men have a horror of such faculty or culture in the other sex as tends to place it on a level with their own , they are really in a state of subjection to ignorant and feeble-minded women . Margaret Fuller says : —
Wherever mail is sufficiently raised above extreme poverty or brutal stupidity , to care for the comforts of the fireside , or the bloom and ornament of life , woman has always power enough , if site choose to exert it , and is usually disposed to do so , in proportion to her ignorance and childish vanity . Unacquainted with the importance of life and its purposes , traiued to a selfish coquetry and love of petty power , she does not look beyond the pleasure of making herself felt at the moment , and governments are shaken and commerce broken up to gratify the pique of a female favourite . The English shopkeeper ' s wife docs not vote , but it is for her interest that the politician canvasses by the coarsest ( lattery . Again : — All wives , bad or good , loved or unloved , inevitably influence their husbands from the power their position not merely gives , but necessitates of colouring evidence and infusing feelings in hours when the—patient , shall I call him?—is off his guard . Hear now what Mary "Wollstonecraft says on the same subject : —
Women have been allowed to remain in ignorance and slavish dependence many , very many 3 'ears , and still we bear of nothing but their fondness of pleasure and sway , their preference of rakes and soldiers , their childish attachment to toys , and the vanity that makes them value accemplishments more than virtues . History brings forward a fearful catalogue of the crimes which their cunning has produced , when the weak slaves have had sufficient address to overreach their masters When , therefore , I call women slaves , I mean in a political and civil sense ; for indirectly thev obtain too much power , and are debased by their exertions to obtain illicit sway . . " . . . The libertinism , and even the virtues of superior men , will always give women of some description great power over them ; and these weak women , under the
influence of childish passions and selfish vanity , iciil throw a false light ovtr the objects which the very men view tcith their eyes tcho ought to enlighten their judgment . Men of fancy , and those sanguine characters who mostly hold the helm of human affairs in general , relax in the society of women ; and surely I need not cite to the most superficial reader of history the numerous examples of vice and oppression which the private intriguer of female favourites have produced ; not to dwell on the mischief that naturally arises from the blundering interposition of well-meaning folly . For in the transactions of business it is mucJt batter to have to deal with a knacc than a fool , because a knave adheres to some plan-, and any plan of reason may be seen through sooner than a sudden jiight of folly . The power which vile and foolish women have had over wis « men who possessed sensibility is notorious .
There is a notion commonly entertained among men that an instructed woman , capable of having opinions , is likely to prove an impracticable yokefellow , always pulling one way when her husband wants to 30 the other , oracular in tone , and prone to give curtain lectures on . metaphysics * . But surely , so far as obstinacy is concerned , your unreasoning animal is the most unmanageable of creatures , where you are not allowed to settle the question by a cudgel , a whip and bridle , or even a string to the leg . For our own parts , wo sec no consistent or commodious medium between the old plan of corporal discipline and tlmt thorough education of women which will make them rational beings in the highest sense of the word . "Wherever weakness is not harshly controlled it must t / orcrtt , as you may see when a strong man liolls a little child by the hand , how he is pulled hither and thither , and wearied in his wnlk l > v his . submission to the whims and feeble movements
of his companion . A really cultured woman , like a really cultured man , ivill be ready to yield in trifles . So far as we see , there is no indissoluble connexion between infirmity of logic and infirmity of will , and a , woman quite innocent of an opinion in philosophy , is as likely as not to have an indomitable opinion about the kitchen . As to airs of superiority , no woman ever hud them in consequence of true culture , but only because her culture was shallow or unreal , only as a result of what Airs . Malaprop well calls " the ineffectual qualities in a woman "—mere acquisitions carried about , and not knowledge thoroughly assimilated so as to enter into the growth of the character .
To return to Margaret Fuller , some of the best things she snys are on the folly of absolute definitions of woman ' s nature and absolute demarcations of woman's mission . " Nature , " she says , " seems to delight in varying the arrangements , as if to show that she will be fettered by no rule ; and we must admit the same varieties that she admits . " Again : u If nature is never bound down , nor the voice of inspiration stifled , that is enough . We are pleased that women should writ * and speak , if they feel need of . it , from having something to tell ; but silence , for ages would be no misfortune , if that silence be from divine command , and nut from man ' s tradition . '' And here is n passage , the beginning of which hn . s been often quoted : —
If you aak mo what olliecs they ( women ) may fill , I reply—any . 1 do not care what coso you put ; let them be soa-eaptuius if you will . I do not doubt there nro women well fitted for such nn oHiee , and , if ho , I Should bo as glad as to welcome the Maid of Saragassa , or the Maid of Missolonghi , or tho Suliotc heroine , or Kmily X'lutor . I think women need , especially at this juncture , a much greater range of occupation than they have , to rou * e thoir latent power * . ... In families that I know , some little girls like to . saw wood , other * to use carpontor ' s tool .- * . Where those tastea arc indulged , cheerfulness and good-humour aro promoted . Where they are forbidden , because " such tiring * are not propor for girls , " thev grow sullen and
mischievous . Fourier hud olmorvcd these wants of women , an no one can fail to do who watches tho denircs of littlo girls , or Knows the cmitii that haunts grown women , except where they make to themselves a . serene little world by art of some kind . He , therefore , in proposing a {{ rent variety of employments , in manufactures or the care of plants and animals , allowH far one-third of woman as likely to have a tsi ^ to for mnsculltto purHuits , one-third of men for f «> minim-. . . . " l have no doubt , however , that a largo proportion of women would givo themselves to tho same employments aa now , because there are circumstance * tlmt mutt lead them . Mothers will delight to make the neat soft and warm . Nutury would take earo of that : no ueed to clip tho
wings of any bird that wants to soar and sing , or finds in itself the strength of pinion for a migratory flight unusual to its kind . Tie difference would be that all need not be constrained to employments for which some are unfit . A propos of the same subject , we find Mary Wollstonecraft offering a suggestion which the women , of the United States have already begun to carry out . She says : — Women , in particular , all want to be ladies . Which is simply to have nothing to do , but listlessly to go they scarcely care where , for they cannot tell what . Bat what have women to do in society ? I may be asked , but to loiter with easy grace ; surely you would not condemn them all to suckle fools and chronicle small beer * No . Women might certainly study the art of healing , and be physicians as well as nurses . . . . . Business of various kinds they might likewise pursue , if they were educated in a more orderly manner . . . . Women would not then marry for a support , as men accept of places under government , and neglect the implied duties . *
Men pay a heavy price for their reluctance to encourage self-help and independent resources in women . The precious meridian years of many a man of genius have to be spent in the toil of routine , that an " establishment " may be kept up for a woman who can understand none of his secret yearnings , who is fit for nothing but to sit in her drawing-room like a doll-Madonna in her shrine . Xo matter . Anything is more endurable than to change our established formulae about women , or to run the risk of looking up to our wives instead of looking down on them . Sit dtvus , dummodo non sit vicus ( let him . be a god , provided he be not living ) , said the Roman magnates of Romulus ; and so men say of women , let them be idols , useless absorbents of precious things , provided we are not obliged to admit them to be strictly fellow-beings , to be treated , one and all , with justice and sober
reverence . On one side we hear that woman ' s position can never be improved until women themselves are better ; and , on the other , that women can never become better until their position is improved—until the laws are made more just , and a wider field opened to feminine activity . But we constantly hear the same difficulty stated about the human race in general . There is a perpetual action and reaction between individuals and institutions ; we must try and mend both by little and little—the only way in which human things can be mended . Unfortunately , many over-zealous champions of women assert their actual equality with men—nay , even their moral superiority to men—as a ground for their release from oppressive laws and restrictions . They lose strength immensely by this false position . If it were true , then there would be a case in which slavery and ignorance nourished virtue , and so far we should have an argument for the continuance of bondage . But we want freedom and culture for woman , because subjection and ignorance have debased her , and with her , Man ;
for—If she be small , slight-natured , miserable , How shall men grow ? Both Margaret Fuller and Mary Wollstonecraf t ^ have too nracb sagacity to fall into this sentimental exaggeration . Their ardent hopes of what women may become do not prevent them from seeing and painting women as they are . On the relative moral excellence of men and women Mary Wollstonecraft speaks with the most decision : — Women are supposed to possess more sensibility , and even humanity , than men , and their strong attachments and instantaneous emotions of compassion are given as proofs ; but the clinging affection of ignorance has seldom anything noble in it , and may mostly be resolved into selfishness , as well as the affection of children and brutes . I have known many weak women whose sensibility was entirely engrossed by their
husbands ; and as for their humanity , it was very faint indeed , or rather it was only a transient emotion of compassion . Humanity does not consist " in a squeamish ear , " says an eminent orator . " It belongs to the mind as well as to the nerves . " But this kind of exclusive affection , though it degrades the individual , should not be brought forward as a proof of the inferiority of the sex , because it ia the natural consequence of confined views ; for even -women of superior sense , having their attention turned to little employments and private plans , rarely rise to heroism , unless when spurred on by love ! aud love , as au heroic passion , like genius , appears but once in an age . I therefore agree with the moralist who asserts " that women have seldom so much generosity as men ; " and that their narrow affections , to which justice and humanity are often sacrificed , render the sex apparently inferior , especially as they are commonly inspired by men ; but I contend that the heart would expand as the understanding gained strength , if women were not depressed from their cradles .
We had marked several other passages of Margaret Fuller ' s for extract , but as we do not aim at an exhaustive treatment of our subject , and are only touching a few of its points , we have , perhaps , already claimed r . s much of the reader ' s attention as he will be willing to give to such desultory material .
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Exile In Siberia. Jfy Exile In Siberia. ...
EXILE IN SIBERIA . Jfy Exile in Siberia . By Alexander Herzen . 2 vols . Hurst and Blackett . The author of these Memoirs is one of the most distinguished writers of his nation . We claim him as a friend and collaborateur . A politician , an historian , a . romancist , he scarcely reached manhood before ^ the Emperor Nicholas feared and persecuted him as an enemy . His associations had betrayed his opinions ; ho was twice arrested , twice exiled , watched , thwarted , and long deprived of all but illicit fame ; for the Government forbids any person , once condemned for a political offence , from publishing , unless anonymously , or under a pseudonym . Thus , Alexander Herzen , forcing his ideas into circulation , was named and praised only in seditious circles of free speech—beyond the range of spies . Nevertheless , his reputation extended throughout * the empire ; his works , though now prohibited , roused the more intelligent classes from their apathy , and were so significantly popular , that to admire one of llerzon ' a books was to avow tho revolutionary spirit .
In a moment of incautious compliance the Emperor Nicholas ,, m i »•»/ , granted to Herzen a passport out of Russia . Ho emerged from time * usl fortiliod empire , in which every individual is under tho Autocra t a 11 . « ui , travelled in France , Germany , and Italy during the insurroctionnry er . ou acquired a facility of writing m the French and German languor s , « r cstern formed relation / with tl »« great fraternity of liberal uumU ^;«* Kurone . When a continuous process of reaction had affleJ option J « » JJ ££ J Continent , Herzeu niigratod to London , and established m Aie ^ nt s sj
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 13, 1855, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_13101855/page/17/
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