If there were nothing else in these little histories, their perusal in
detail would well repay attention as affording proof of the boundless
devotion of woman’s love. No matter how badly the man may have treated
the woman, no matter how heartlessly or badly he may have behaved
towards her, her affection was proof against all. Indeed it makes
one believe that there is some subtle self-sustaining, self-ennobling
quality in womanhood which her initial self-surrender makes a constant
force towards good. Even a nature which took new strength from the
turmoil of battle, from the harrowing suspense of perpetual vigil, from
the strain of physical weakness bravely borne, from pain and want and
hunger, instead of hardening into obstinate indifference, seems to have
softened as to sentiment, and been made gentle as to memory, as though
the sense of wrong had been purged by the forces of affliction. All
this, though the stress of campaigning may have blunted some of the
conventional susceptibility of womanhood. For the after life of some of
these warlike heroines showed that they had lost none of the love of
admiration which marks their sex, none of their satisfaction in posing
as characters other than their own. Several of them found pleasure in a
new excitement different from that of battle, in the art of the stage.
Whenever any of them made any effort to settle down in life after their
excitement in the life of the camp or the sea, such did so at some
place, and in some way congenial to herself and consistent with the
life which she was leaving.
B. HANNAH SNELL
Hannah Snell is a good instance of how the life of a woman who was not
by nature averse from adventure was moulded by chance in the direction
which suited her individuality. Of course, liking for a militant life,
whether in conventional or exceptional form, presupposes a natural
boldness of spirit, resolution, and physical hardihood--all of which
this woman possessed in an eminent degree.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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