“She’s got sweet ways and kind words for everybody, and it’s as good
as a psalm to look at her.”
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Woman’s life within.]
No man—especially one that is living a rough, busy, out-of-doors
life—can form the slightest conception of that veiled and secluded
life which exists in the heart of a sensitive woman, whose sphere is
narrow, whose external diversions are few, and whose mind, therefore,
acts by a continual introversion upon itself. They know nothing how
their careless words and actions are pondered and turned again in
weary, quiet hours of fruitless questioning. What did he mean by
this? and what did he mean by that?—while he, the careless buffalo,
meant nothing, or has forgotten what it was, if he did.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Girls’ confidences.]
“Come, now, can’t you jest tramp over to Pennel’s and tell Sallie I
want her?”
“Not I, mother. There ain’t but two gals in two miles square here,
an’ I ain’t a-goin’ to be the feller to shoo ’em apart. What’s the
use o’ bein’ gals, an’ young, an’ pretty, if they can’t get together
an’ talk about their new gowns an’ the fellers? That ar’s what gals
is for.”
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Maternal element in woman’s love.]
Her love for Moses had always had in it a large admixture of that
maternal and care-taking element, which, in some shape or other,
qualifies the affection of woman to man.
LITTLE FOXES.
[Sidenote: Tact.]
Some women are endowed with a tact for understanding human nature and
guiding it. They give a sense of largeness and freedom; they find a
place for every one, see at once what every one is good for, and are
inspired by nature with the happy wisdom of not wishing or asking of
any human being more than that human being was made to give. They
have the portion in due season for all: a bone for the dog; catnip
for the cat; cuttle-fish and hemp-seed for the bird; a book or review
for their bashful literary visitor; lively gossip for thoughtless
Miss Seventeen; knitting for grandmamma; fishing-rods, boats, and
gunpowder for Young Restless, whose beard is just beginning to
grow;—and they never fall into pets, because the canary-bird won’t
relish the dog’s bone, or the dog eat canary-seed, or young Miss
Seventeen read old Mr. Sixty’s review, or young Master Restless take
delight in knitting-work, or old grandmamma feel complacency in guns
and gunpowder.
Again, there are others who lay the foundations of family life so
narrow, straight, and strict, that there is room in them only for
themselves and people exactly like themselves; and hence comes much
misery.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Modern saints.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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