The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 9, May, 1835Various
History
The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 9, May, 1835
Various
American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals
by the temper under all the manifold aggravations of social injury,
she is decidedly the best judge, and knows best how to administer the
proper remedies. Under the influence of sorrow and pain, we may often
wear a countenance that will deceive man,--rarely one that will impose
on woman, when she is interested in our fate. Every man will have
observed occasionally how quickly a woman discerns the wound which she
has involuntarily inflicted upon his feelings, and how soon and how
tenderly she will repair the mischief; making him by the manner of
reparation, not only forgive the injury, but admire her more than
ever. With man it is but too often very different, and he must be
asked for explanation before he is aware of the injury.
Woman, in all conditions, is a better comforter and a better nurse
than man. She reads in the countenance with more facility all our
little wants, and is ever ready to administer to them. Her sympathy is
more alive, and her familiarity with the distresses around, make her
more humane and compassionate than man. Mercy and mildness have always
been her attributes; and the horrors and barbarities of war were never
moderated, until chivalry and religion brought forward the mighty
influence of woman to suppress them.
The following most beautiful and just eulogy of one of the most
distinguished travellers which the world has ever produced, written
without any view to publication, is so apposite to the views which
have just been presented, that I will give it entire from Sparks's
Life of Ledyard, with the exception of portions already quoted. "I
have observed among all nations (says Ledyard,) that wherever found,
they (women,) are the same kind, civil, obliging, humane, tender
beings. They do not hesitate like man to perform a hospitable or
generous action; not haughty, nor arrogant, nor supercilious, but full
of courtesy, and fond of society; industrious, economical, ingenious,
more liable to err than man, but in general, also more virtuous, and
performing more good actions than he. I never addressed myself in the
language of decency and friendship to a woman, whether civilized or
savage, without receiving a decent and friendly answer. With man, it
has often been otherwise. In wandering over the barren plains of
inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden, frozen Lapland, rude and
churlish Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the wide spread regions of
the wandering Tartar, if hungry, dry, cold, wet or sick, woman has
ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so; and to add to this virtue
so worthy of the appellation of benevolence, these actions have been
performed in so free and so kind a manner, that if I was dry, I drank
the sweet draught, and if hungry, ate the coarse morsel with a double
relish."[7]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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