General Bounce; Or, The Lady and the LocustsWhyte-Melville, G. J. (George John)
General
General Bounce; Or, The Lady and the Locusts
Whyte-Melville, G. J. (George John)
England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
accuracy of a chemical professor. Where man with all his boasted nerve
turns sick and pale, and shows himself worse than useless, woman
vindicates the courage of her sex, that unselfish heroism, that
passive devotion, which is ever ready to bear and be still. They seem
to have a positive pleasure in alleviating the pangs of the sufferer,
and taking care of the helpless. Look at a bustling matron, blessed
with a large family of children, and whatever may be the opinion of
the “paterfamilias,” however much he may grunt and grumble (so like a
_man_!) at having the quiver as full as it will hold, she, in her
heart of hearts, welcomes every fresh arrival with the hospitable
sentiment of “the more the merrier”; and much as she loves them all,
lavishes her warmest affections on the last little uninteresting
morsel of underdone humanity, which, on its first appearance, is the
most helpless, as it is the least attractive, of Nature’s germinating
efforts; unless, indeed, she should own a dwarf, a cripple, or an
idiot amongst her thriving progeny--then will that poor creature be
the mother’s chiefest treasure, then will woman’s love and woman’s
tenderness hover with beautiful instinct round the head which Nature
itself seems to have scouted, and the mother will press to her heart
of hearts the wretched being that all else are prone to ridicule and
despise. So in the sick-room, when “pain and anguish wring the brow,”
woman wipes the foaming lip and props the sinking head. Woman’s care
speeds the long doubtful recovery, and woman’s prayers soothe the
dying hour, when hope has spread her wings and fled away. In works
like these she vindicates her angel-nature, in scenes like these she
perfects that humble piety of which it appears to us she has a greater
share than the stronger sex. The proud Moslem boasts there will be no
women in his material paradise; let us look to ourselves, that the
exclusion for us be not all the other way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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