Amelia Gere Mason

“ She has been given the purity of Diana, the benevolence of Ceres, the wisdom and craft of Minerva. There are many busts and statues of her, but they vary, and it is not possible to know which best represents the real woman. We see her in marble as Ceres—a commanding figure, with strength in every line. The passion that lies in the delicate, half-sensuous curve of the lips is overshadowed by the will that shows itself in the firm poise of the head, and the intellect that sits in the ample forehead and looks out of the serene eyes. ”

“ We should like to believe that the woman who had been blessed with the love of a Pericles could never console herself with a lesser man.
Of versatile gifts and endless shades of temperament, teacher, thinker, artist in words and life, critic, musician, friend of women and inspirer of men, but before all things a harmony uniting the grace and sensibility of her sex with a masculine strength of intellect, this gracious Ionian stands with Sappho on the pinnacle of Hellenic culture, each in her own field the highest feminine representative of an esthetic race. ”

“ When the poets began to analyze, the glamour of this witching goddess was lost, and she became a sinning, soul-destroying woman, a human Circe that lured men to ruin. But the Greeks did not like to see their idols slandered or broken, so in later times they gave her a shadowy existence on the banks of the Nile, where we catch a last glimpse of her, sitting unruffled among the palms, in all the splendor of her radiant beauty, twining wreaths of lotus-flowers for her golden hair, and learning rare secrets of Eastern looms, while men fought and died across the sea for a phantom. ”

“ The social life of the eighteenth century reads like a page of our own, with its whirl of conversazioni, its talks on science, its experiments in chemistry, physiology, psychology, its mania for discussing literature, art, and philosophy. The literary salons had blossomed into great centers of intellectual brilliancy, of which all this life was the natural pendant. It was the fashion then, as now, for women to concern themselves with affairs of state; to talk of the rights of man, though they had less to say than we have about the rights of woman ”

“ If the spirited women of Sparta had been born in conservative Athens the world might never have known that they were capable of so much strength and heroism. The sparks hidden in their cramped souls would have gone out for lack of air. If the secluded Athenian woman had been born in Sparta, who can say that she might not have been as clever as Gorgo, as brave as Cratesiclea, and as independent as Lampito? It is possible that the genius of Sappho would have been smothered in the social atmosphere of either place. ”

“ The Roman Church, which had always frowned upon any exercise of a woman’s mental gifts in a worldly sphere, was glad to avail itself of them in its own interest, and there were a few women more or less distinguished both as leaders of religious organizations and counselors of ecclesiastics, who kept alive the prestige of their sex through centuries of darkness. It was one of the strange paradoxes of that age, as of many others, that a woman is an irrational being, too fragile to bear distinction of any sort, except when her talents make for the glory of men or the church. ”

“ She combined the tenderness of a woman with the mental vigor of a man. Fair, witty, gracious, and a noted beauty, she was equally at home discussing art and literature with the masters, and grave political problems with popes and kings, arranging fêtes, ordering a picture, selecting a brocade, or playing with a child.
The old and imposing palace of Mantua to this day shows traces of the taste and generosity of its most distinguished mistress. She filled it with rare books, exquisite tapestries, and curios of all sorts, chosen with the discrimination of a connoisseur. ”

“ It is easy enough for cynics to say that Beatrice, the apotheosis of spiritual love, died early, and was worshiped, not as [Pg 320] a woman, but as a star shining from inaccessible heights; that Laura, the ideal of the high priest of Platonism, was simply a dream, intangible as the moonlight and cold as the everlasting snows; that it is not good for every-day men and women to see such visions, even if it were possible, nor to dream such dreams, nor to live at such an altitude—all of which no doubt has its side of truth. ”

“ Cordelia, true and loyal as she is, and tender at heart, does not approach her in strength and dignity. But the duty of the Greek heroine does not end with her father’s death. She lays down her life at last that the false-hearted brother, who has given her no gentle consideration in her days of helplessness and despair, may not lie unburied on the plains of Thebes, and so wander without rest in Hades. She laments the lost pleasures of living. No husband or children are to be hers. Yet no enthusiasm of passion or romance tempers this “cold statue’s fine-wrought grace.” ”

“ She applied her intelligence and her talents not only to the advancement of the fine arts, to the cultivation of the best in literature, to the interests of her people, but to the art of living with due regard for one’s duties and responsibilities to the future as well as to the present. If Vittoria Colonna represents the highest thought of her age as applied to things spiritual and literary, Isabella d’Este is a living example of its finest mundane side. No one better illustrates the power and the penetrating fragrance of a strong and vivid personality. ”

“ But there was a multitude of women, both clever and learned, who added life and piquancy to the coteries of the Renaissance. Men were proud of the versatile wives and daughters who made their courts centers of light and learning; if they were without lettered tastes themselves, they were glad of the reflected glory. So, naturally, it was the ambition of every well-born girl to fit herself to shine in these brilliant circles, and every father who had a daughter of talent was conscious of possessing a treasure of great value upon which too much care could not be lavished. ”

“ Catherine, the patron saint of science, philosophy, education, and eloquence, who lived not long before,—if at all,—was brought up on Plato and taught by pagan masters. So clear was the intellect of this prodigy of wisdom and knowledge that she was called upon to dispute with fifty of the most learned pagans, and, if the legends are to be trusted, vanquished them all on their own ground. The philosopher and the saint were trained in the same schools, and they were alike martyrs to their own learning and talents, though one was a partizan of the old order of things, the other of the new. ”

“ It is difficult to believe the younger Faustina as wicked as men have painted her. One of the most beautiful women of her time, as brilliant and sweet as she was beautiful, the idol of her household, the object of affectionate care on the part of her husband, this gracious woman has been a mystery to successive generations. What if the lightly spoken word of a malicious rival, or a dark insinuation from some impertinent admirer whose vanity she may have wounded, kindled a fire which the ages cannot put out? ”

“ Between a life of the senses and a life of the intellect, it gravitated from a wild orgy to a passionless philosophy that held its own pulse and counted its own heart-beats as it drifted curiously and mockingly into the unknown.
But women do not carry easily the burden of a cold skepticism, and philosophy failed to satisfy them. When the age became hopelessly corrupt, and men scoffed at morals, sending one another to death for inconvenient virtues, they had been swept along with the current, and many plunged into a life of the senses with the recklessness of an ardent, virile temperament. ”

“ It is needless to ask what this high-souled woman thought of sordid motives that were by no means confined to the Italian decadence; but she managed the vain and vindictive man, who held reputations in the hollow of his hand, with graceful dignity and infinite tact. Living at a time when the great poets were passing, and literature was fast becoming the trade of artisans who appealed to the lowest passions of a sense-intoxicated people, or the tool of cynics and courtiers, she held her own way serenely, superior to worldly motives and worldly entanglements. ”

“ Yet one woman shines across twenty-five centuries as a star of the first magnitude, and we have fading glimpses of others who received honors due only to genius, or to talent of the first order. They were not [Pg 49] judged apart as women, for they have come down to us as peers of great men. The divine gift of genius was rare then, as now and always, but even in women it did not lack recognition. To prove the gift and exact the homage, perhaps in any age, we have simply to show the fruit, except in a decadence, when the finest fruit loses its savor for corrupted tastes. ”

“ This blending of chivalry and mysticism made fine poetry but not very substantial women.
Boccaccio paid a generous tribute to the heroic qualities of the women of the past, but he evidently preferred them at a distance or in books. Personally he seems to have had no more taste for savantes than for saints. He belonged to the new age, which glorified the joys of life and liked to sing love-songs—not of the choicest—to frail beauties. Fiammetta was, no doubt, a clever woman and a beautiful one, but she was no divine Egeria to inspire him with high thoughts. ”

“ I am sorry to say that the typical Frenchwoman of a hundred years ago did not always take so exalted a view of her duties; but even as a matter of taste she had too delicate a sense of proportion to merge the woman in the intellect. She scattered about her the flavor of knowledge rather than the knowledge itself; which is not so easy, as one does not have the real flavor of knowledge without the essence of it, and something more. ”

“ We should be sorry to take as representative the heroines of the Decameron, who must have brought blushes, which the twilight could not hide, to the faces of the little coterie of friends that sat on the grass telling or listening to these tales during the long summer evenings at Florence, when men and women were dying all about them. But they give us one phase of the life of the time, and reflect the taste of an audience composed mainly of men who laughed at morals and deified art, regardless of its aim or its subject. ”

“ But even in this aspiring, much-knowing, self-gratulatory, woman-honoring twentieth century, whenever we are told that the feminine intellect is inherently weak and has never created anything worthy of immortality, we point with pride to Sappho, the one woman poet of the world whose claim to the first rank has never been disputed. If we wish to illustrate the social and political influence of woman, we cite Aspasia, the trusted confidante and adviser of the greatest statesmen and philosophers, as well as the presiding genius of the first salon of which we have any knowledge. ”

“ This generous quality was a part of her [Pg 334] rich temperament. With her intellectual tastes, and the many cares and responsibilities of her position, she was no grave and cold Minerva. We find her everywhere entering into the sports and gaieties of her age with the zest of a woman abounding in spirit, vitality, and the joy of life. When she went to see her sister at Milan, she rode, danced, hunted, made impromptu verses, dazzled her friends with flashes of wit, and fascinated old and young alike with her winning, lively ways. ”

“ Besides, there were the brilliant Oriental women who began to flock to Rome, bringing with them Hellenic tastes, with subtle fascinations that stole away the hearts of men and threatened a state of affairs similar to that which existed in Athens. This the spirited Roman women could not tolerate. To be thrust by strangers into a secondary place was not to be thought of by these proud patricians, who refused to put themselves in a position where such neglect was possible. They began to realize that the old virtues did not suffice to hold men’s wandering fancies. ”

“ Their note is strong and exultant, alive with the lofty enthusiasm of a religious race in which the passion for art and beauty was not yet born. Sappho had caught nothing from these singers of an earlier time. She does not live in the bracing air of great ideals, nor does she dwell upon any vexed moral problems, after the manner of later poets. She is simply human, and strikes a personal note, the charm of which is unfailing, and will be fresh as long as flowers bloom, or men and women live and love. ”

“ The details of Octavia’s life are few and meager. Fate gave her a prominent part to play on the world’s stage, and she played it well, but with an evident longing to fall back upon her affections. She was never a woman of initiative, but she was clearly one of moral force, framed to temper the friction of more powerful individualities, but to be herself crushed in their collisions. She stands for the purest and most gracious type of Roman womanhood. ”

“ But in the golden age of the Renaissance, women no longer stayed in the inner court, to gossip and listen to flute-players, while their husbands talked on themes high or low. The worship of the Madonna, if it had done little else, had idealized the pure affection of an exalted womanhood. Chivalry following in its train had made the cult of woman a fashion by giving her more or less of the homage already paid to her divine representative, though this sentiment was less active in Italy than in Provence or among the more romantic races. ”

“ But she was a woman of strong, vigorous intellect and firm character, as well as fine moral aims and religious fervor. Born to lead and not to follow, she was never the reflex of other minds. We find in all the known acts of her life the stamp of a distinct and well-poised individuality. If she started on a new path, it was through the reaction of a pure and conscientious nature from a society in which the virtues seemed dying, the need of an outlet for emotions suddenly turned upon themselves, and the going out toward humanity of the unsatisfied longing of motherhood. ”

“ We have only to note the bacchanalian revels of the poets, wits, and philosophers of Florence, the orgies of folly, vulgarity, and sin which the great Lorenzo led and the very wise Platonic Academy smiled upon, to learn the difference between a lettered society of men without the tempering influence of high-minded women, and the brilliant circles we have seen gathered about princesses of learning, refinement, and grace, who guided its amusements and restrained its license. No woman of conspicuous virtue and ability has left a permanent stamp on the social life of Florence. ”