Even in those old days of long ago, when human characteristics were embodied and deified, we do not find that the white-armed large-limbed Hera, though queen by right of marriage, lorded it over her sister goddesses by any superior energy or force of nature. On the contrary, she was rather a heavy-going person, and, unless moved to anger by her husband's numerous infidelities, took her Olympian life placidly enough, and once or twice got cheated in a way that did no great credit to her sagacity. A little Frenchwoman would have sailed round her easily; and as it was, shrewish though she was in her speech when provoked, her husband not only deceived but chastised her, and reduced her to penitence and obedience as no little woman would have suffered herself to be reduced.
There is one celebrated race of women who were probably the powerfully-built, large-limbed creatures they are assumed to have been, and as brave and energetic as they were strong and big—the Norse women of the sagas, who, for good or evil, seem to have been a very influential element in the old Northern life. Prophetesses; physicians; dreamers of dreams and accredited interpreters as well; endowed with magic powers; admitted to a share in the councils of men; brave in war; active in peace; these fair-haired Scandinavian women were the fit comrades of their men, the fit wives and mothers of the Berserkers and the Vikings. They had no tame nor easy life of it, if all we hear of them be true. To defend the farm and the homestead during their husbands' absence, and to keep these and themselves intact against all bold rovers to whom the Tenth Commandment was an unknown law; to dazzle and bewilder by magic arts when they could not conquer by open strength; to unite craft and courage, deception and daring, loyalty and independence, demanded no small amount of opposing qualities. But the Steingerdas and Gudrunas were generally equal to any emergency of fate or fortune, and slashed their way through the history of their time more after the manner of men than of women; supplementing their downright blows by side thrusts of craftier cleverness when they had to meet power with skill and were fain to overthrow brutality by fraud. The Norse women were certainly as largely framed as they were mentally energetic, and as crafty as either; but we know of no other women who unite the same characteristics and are at once cunning, strong, brave and true.
On the whole, then, the little women have the best of it. More petted than their bigger sisters, and infinitely more powerful, they have their own way in part because it really does not seem worth while to contest a point with such little creatures. There is nothing that wounds a man's self-respect in any victory they may get or claim. Where there is absolute inequality of strength, there can be no humiliation in the self-imposed defeat of the stronger; and as it is always more pleasant to have peace than war, and as big men for the most part rather like than not to put their necks under the tread of tiny feet, the little woman goes on her way triumphant to the end; breaking all the laws she does not like and throwing down all the barriers which impede her progress; irresistible and irrepressible in all circumstances and under any conditions.
IDEAL WOMEN.
It is often objected against fault-finders, writers or others, that they destroy but do not build up; that while industriously blaming errors they take good care not to praise the counteracting virtues; that in their zeal against the vermin of which they are seeking to sweep the house clean they forget the nobler creatures which do the good work of keeping things sweet and wholesome. But it is impossible to be continually introducing the saving clause, 'all are not so bad as these.' The seven thousand righteous who have not bowed the knee to Baal are understood to exist in all communities; and, vicious as any special section may be, there must always be the hidden salt and savour of the virtuous to keep the whole from falling into utter corruption.
This is specially true of modern women. Certainly some of them are as unsatisfactory as any of their kind who have ever appeared on earth before; but it would be very queer logic to infer therefore that all are bad alike, and that our modern womanhood is as ill off as the Cities of the Plain, which could not be saved for want of the ten just men to save them. Happily, we have noble women among us yet; women who believe in something besides pleasure, and who do their work faithfully, wherever it may lie; women who can and do sacrifice themselves for love and duty, and who do not think they were sent into the world simply to run one mad life-long race for wealth, for dissipation, for distinction. But the life of such women is essentially in retirement; and though the lesson they teach is beautiful, yet its influence is necessarily confined, because of the narrow sphere of the teacher. When public occasions for devotedness occur, we in some sort measure the extent to which the self-sacrifice of women can be carried; but in general their noblest virtues come out only in the quiet sacredness of home, and the most heroic lives of patience and well-doing go on in seclusion, uncheered by sympathy and unrewarded by applause.
Still, it is impossible to write of one absolute womanly ideal—one single type that shall satisfy every man's fancy; for, naturally, what would be perfection to one is imperfection to another, according to the special bent of the individual mind. Thus one man's ideal of womanly perfection is in beauty, mere physical outside beauty; and not all the virtues under heaven could warm him into love with red hair or a snub nose. He is entirely happy if his wife be undeniably the handsomest woman of his acquaintance, and holds himself blessed when all men admire and all women envy. But he is blessed for his own sake rather than for hers. Pleasant as her loveliness is to look on, it is pleasanter to know that he is the possessor of it. The 'handsomest woman in the room' comes into the same category as the finest picture or the most thoroughbred horse within his sphere; and if the degree of pride in his possession be different, the kind is the same. And so in minor proportions—from the most beautiful woman of all, to simply beauty as a sine quâ non, whatever else may be wanting. One other thing only is as absolute as this beauty, and that is its undivided possession.
Another man's ideal is a good housekeeper and a careful mother; and he does not care a rush whether his wife, if she is these, be pretty or ugly. Provided she is active and industrious, minds the house well, brings up the children as they ought to be brought up, has good principles, is trustworthy and even-tempered, he is not particular as to colour or form, and can even be brought to tolerate a limp or a squint. Given the broad foundations of an honourable home, and he will forego the lath and plaster of personal appearance which will not bear the wear and tear of years and their troubles. The solid virtues stand. His balance at the banker's is a fact; his good name and credit with the tradespeople are facts; so is the comfort of his home; so are the health, the morals, the education of his children. All these are the true realities of life to him; but the beauty which changes to deformity by small-pox, which fades under dyspepsia, grows stale by habit, and is worn threadbare by the end of twenty years, is only a skin-deep grace which he does not value. Perhaps he is right. Certainly, some of the happiest marriages amongst one's acquaintances are those where the wife has not one perceptible physical charm, and where the whole force of her magnetic value lies in what she is, not in how she looks.
Another man wants a tender, adoring, fair-haired seraph, who will worship him as a demigod and accept him as her best revelation of strength and wisdom. The more dependent she is, the better he will love her; the less of conscious thought, of active will, of originative power she has, the greater will be his regard and tenderness. To be the one sole teacher and protector of such a gentle little creature seems to him the most delicious joy and the best condition of married life; and he holds Milton's famous lines to be expressive of the only fitting relations between men and women. The adoring seraph is his ideal; Griselda, Desdemona, Lucy Ashton, are his highest culminations of womanly grace; and the qualities which appeal the most powerfully to his generosity are the patience which will not complain, the gentleness that cannot resent, and the love which nothing can chill.
Another man wants a cultivated intelligence in his ideal. As an author, an artist, a student, a statesman, he would like his wife to be able to help him by the contact of bright wit and ready intellect. He believes in the sex of minds, and holds no work complete which has not been created by the one and perfected by the other. He sees how women have helped on the leaders in troublous times;