WOMAN'S IMPERFECTIONS. Ferdinand. Full many a lady With so full soul, but some defect in her Tempest. Act iii. Scene 1. Viola. How easy is it, for the proper-false * In women's waxen hearts to set their forms! Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we; For such as we are made of, such we be. Angelo. Twelfth Night. Act ii. Scene 2. Nay, women are frail too. Isabella. Aye, as the glasses where they view themselves; Which are as easy broke as they make forms. Women! help Heaven! men their creation mar In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail; And credulous to false prints. Measure for Measure. Act ii. Scene 4, "Proper-false," may mean here "a fair exterior with specious demeanour." Rosalind. Do you not know I am a woman? When I think, I must speak. As you like it. Act iii. Scene 2. Cressida. Ah! poor our sex! this fault in us I find, The error of our eye directs our mind. Troilus and Cressida. Act v. Scene 2. Portia. Oh, constancy, be strong upon my side! Set a huge mountain 'tween my heart and tongue! I have a man's mind, but a woman's might. How hard it is for women to keep counsel! Julius Cæsar. Act ii. Scene 4. Too well what love women to men may owe: Duke. And what's her history? Viola. A blank, my lord. She never told her love, Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought; She sat like patience on a monument, Twelfth Night. Act ii Scene 4. OFTEN WON BY VALOUR. Sir Toby. Why then, build me thy fortunes upon the basis of valour. Challenge me the Count's youth to fight with him; hurt him in eleven places; my niece shall take note of it; and assure thyself, there is no love-broker in the world can more prevail in man's commendation with woman, than report of valour. Ibid. Act iii. Scene 2. BROOKS NOT CONTRADICTION. Julia. Didst thou but know the inly touch of love, Till the last step have brought me to my love; A blessed soul doth in Elysium. Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act ii. Scene 7. WOMAN'S LOVE SUPERIOR TO AFFLICTION. Camillo. You know, Prosperity's the very bond of love: Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together Affliction alters. Perdita. One of these is true: I think, affliction may subdue the cheek, Winter's Tale. Act iv. Scene 3. WOMAN'S STATION IN SOCIETY. Luciana. There's nothing situate under heaven's eye, But hath its bound, in earth, in sea, in sky: The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls, Are their males' subject, and at their controls: Men, more divine, the masters of all these, Lords of the wide world, and wild wat'ry seas, Indued with intellectual sense and souls, Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls, Are masters to their females, and their lords: Then let your will attend on their accords. Comedy of Errors. Act ii. Scene 1. TIME was when this subject would have been smiled at, and dismissed with a joke; but the temper of the times is changing, and great truths are now-a-days treated with more attention than the bestowing on them of a curl of the lip, or a repartee; and assuredly, if any topic be worth probing to its utmost depths, the happiness of half human existence is one. After the writings of such women as Miss Martineau, Lady Morgan, Mrs. Jameson, Miss Sedgewick, and the authoress of "Woman's Mission," the question is not likely to be dropped until it shall be determined on principles of reason and justice. What those principles are, it is my present purpose slightly to glance at. A |