Charwoman

“ As he looked at her he seemed to see a vast army of women like herself, fine, splendid and fiercely virginal; strong, too, capable of gripping life and holding it against odds—the women of the future. ”

“ You creep with the feeling that every one of these men once was builded with such exquisite art and such infinite labour and such toilsome pain and anguish by God and a woman! It is a stupendous task of creation to be done over again when the armies shall have finished their work. Bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh, God and woman must rebuild the race. ”

“ I soon slept again—and when I awoke the very Angel of Strength and Peace had descended and abode with me. I resolved to prove to myself that if I was called to be a great woman, I could be a great woman. ”

“ Were women drawn to them by the certainty that the secret of their passions would be buried on the field of battle? or may we find the reason of this gentle fanaticism in the noble charm that courage has for a woman? ”

“ And what woman ever listened unmoved to such appeals? "The brave deserve the fair," and the history of the race shows that when the heart is enlisted, when the tender bloom of love sheds its perfume around her, woman is careless of the world's opinion, and brave in daring its frowns. ”

“ It was the influence of women which brought about the outgrowths of civilisation in the dawn of Christianity that have survived until now. It was the influence, if not the actual activity, of women that was responsible for the birth of chivalry and the rise of the spirit of purity. It was the influence of women that made possible such characters as those of Bayard and Sir Philip Sydney. It was the influence of women that softened the roughness and licentiousness of a past day into the refinement and virtue which are the possessions of the present age. ”

“ But she was fighting the deepest and strongest instinct of woman's nature, and the fight went hard.
She fancied the scene, the court, the grey-haired nobles, the fair and honourable women, the brave young soldiers, the thoughtless courtiers, the whole throng she was about to face, for she meant to speak before them all, and to her own shame. She was as white as marble, but when she thought of what was coming the blood sprang to her face and tingled in her forehead, and she felt her eyes fall and her proud head bend, as the storm of humiliation descended upon her. ”

“ Do you think I cannot bear the weight of mail, or sit a horse, or handle a sword as well as many a boy of twenty who will be there in the thick of battle? And if I and my court ladies can bear the weariness as well as even the weakest man in the King's army, and risk a life as bravely, and perhaps strike a clean blow or drive a straight thrust for the Holy Sepulchre, shall our souls have no good of it, because we are women? ”

“ Life and death were there in frightful reality before her eyes, so to the round-shouldered, gray-headed woman these great facts became the motive power of her life. She became the willing, compassionate servant of this army of cripples. ”

“ The woman who smote you with the rock almost made a thorough job of it. But, it seems, it was intended that we be taken as captives and not as corpses. The woman we first saw, the one commanding the party, told me so; nothing else, though–for a female she has a very strained tongue! The woman who comes thrice a day to minister to your wounds and the other who guards the corridor without—and is probably listening to our conversation——"
"Women! Women!" ”

“ The heroine, for instance, glides into life full-charged with rank, virtues, a name three-syllabled, and a white dress that never needs washing, ready to sail through dangers dire into a triumphant haven of matrimony;—all the aristocrats have high foreheads and cold blue eyes; all the peasants are old women, miraculously grateful, in neat check aprons, or sullen-browed insurgents planning revolts in caves. ”

“ The enchantment of many a feminine hand is easily felt. The surrender, the softness, the concession, the refinement and honesty of many a woman is so clear and open that it streams out, so to speak, and is perceivable by the senses. ”

“ God bless all women, say I! My life has been a long one, and my experience of them bids me say they are almost all angels. I have found them true, tender and earnest. I could tell stories of women's quiet heroism that would move any one's heart. God bless them, one and all—they are the chief comfort in life! ”

“ In these women of the Revolution were blended at once the heroine and the "Ministering Angel." To defend their homes they were men in courage and resolution, and when the battle was over they showed all a woman's tenderness and devotion. ”

“ How could one contemplate a woman, who was known to be a woman, living her life, waking and sleeping, in such a situation? The more devotedly her bodyguard shielded and protected her, the more venomously determined would the others be to annoy, insult and injure her in a thousand different ways. ”

“ In a swift vision she saw the shot-away face with the brave scornful smile on it, and longed to hold it to her breast and kiss its broken bloody lips. Oh, if men knew how women consecrate those brave, quiet acts done in lone places with none to pity or to praise! ”

“ They have all overlooked the eternal wildness, the untamed primitive savage temperament that lurks in the mildest, best woman. Deep in through ages of [67] convention this primeval trait burns, an untamable quantity that may be concealed, but is never eradicated by culture,—the keynote of woman’s witchcraft and woman’s strength. ”

“ It must be understood that such positions as those just remarked are not secured without a struggle, but all told they indicate that the race through its womanhood is more and more taking part in the general life of the country. ”

“ If we cast our eyes back over the vast procession of actors and events which have composed the migrations of our race across the continent, from ocean to ocean, we are first struck by the bolder features of the march. We see the battles, the feats of courage and daring, the deeds of high enterprise in which woman is the heroine, standing shoulder to shoulder beside her hero-mate. Again we look and see the wife and mother worn with toils and hardships, and wasted with suffering which she endures with unshaken heart—a miracle of fortitude and patience. ”

“ And yet those women—the sweet and gracious ornaments of a self-respecting society—were full of spirit, of modest pride in their position, were familiar with much good literature, could converse with piquancy and understanding on subjects of general interest, were trained in the subtleties of a solid theology, and bore themselves in any company with that traditional breeding which we associate with the name of lady. ”

“ Every good quality, every virtue which we regard as distinctively feminine, will, under conditions of greater freedom, develop more freely, like plants brought out into the light from a cellar in which they languished, dwarfed and blanched, without sun or air. The woman is strong in almost every woman ”

“ The unalterable chastity of centuries of gentle womanhood reasserted itself and claimed her—pure of soul, pure of body—claimed her and made her proud and strong as it had the English women of an earlier day who threw themselves rejoicing upon the horns of the Roman cattle rather than yield themselves—English women—to the lust of the Roman legionaries. ”

“ Of women, however, there is no general statement which is true. The one is brave to heroism, the next cowardly in a degree fantastically comic. The one is honest, the other faithless; the one contemptible in her narrowness of soul, the next supremely noble in broad truth as the angels in heaven; the one trustful, the other suspicious; this one gentle as a dove, that one grasping and venomous as a strong serpent. The hearts of women are as the streets of a great town—some broad and straight and clean ”

“ The all-powerful, impersonal "they," of whom we only know what "they say," what "they wear," and what "they pretend," are feminine and plural; they rule all that region of the world within which women do not work with their hands, and are therefore at full liberty to exercise those gifts of intelligence which it has pleased Providence to bestow upon them so plentifully. ”

“ The facts of this life of usefulness are very strong evidence of the very remarkable ability of this noble woman. She was a woman in the field when it cost something to be a woman, and when only such brave and invincible characters as she could stay in the field. ”

“ Her voice was trembling, her hands were twitching with the overmastering desire to do away, once for all, with this absurd barrier between them. A woman, shorn of her powers, mulcted of her charm, handicapped, at the very moment when she needed the full arsenal of her feminine armoury! ”

“ Once only she bursts forth with, "In truth I am not a little annoyed at being a woman. I ought either to have had another sex, another soul, or another country. I ought to have been a Spartan or a Roman woman, or at least a Frenchman. ”

“ They were women of the world, with a value enhanced by an often (according to Suetonius) supposititious virginity; women who, clad in the white linen garments of a blameless life, their hair arranged in the six braids which symbolised chastity, were the chief figures at all public functions, the leaders of feeling at the games and gladiatorial shows, and the arbiters of public opinion in all that touched religion and morals, at a time when religion and morals meant courage, bravery, patriotism, and hardihood. ”

“ Thus, in a land in which, from the earliest ages, women have been regarded as little else but slaves, did a self-possessed and wise young girl triumph over all difficulties, and rule over her many millions of subjects "in a manner becoming a great prince." ”

“ How many different types of female character in different spheres of action it would show—the self-sacrificing mother, the tender and devoted wife, the benevolent matron, the heroine who blenched not in battle! Unnumbered thousands have passed beautiful, strenuous and brave lives far from the scenes of civilization, and gone down to their graves leaving only local, feeble voices, if any, to celebrate their praises and to-day we know not the place of their sepulcher. ”

“ I had thought of women first, as a chivalrous boy thinks, later, as a disillusioned man. But of a woman like a young and ardent soldier, on fire to fight the winning battles of the world—of such a woman I had never dreamed. ”

“ You, for instance, are a Widow: your air should be sedate, your dress grave, your deportment matronly, and in all things an example to the young women growing up about you!—instead of which, you are dress'd for conquest, think of nothing but ensnaring hearts ”

“ Can it be possible that they are braver than we? That our bravery is of the vaunting kind that telleth of itself? My answer, made up from a long life of observation, is: "Yes! Given the motive, and women are the bravest creatures on earth." Yet how foolishly timid they are at times!
I admitted the girls, and when the door was shut Mary unclasped the brooch at her throat and the great cloak fell to her heels. Out she stepped, with [248] a little laugh of delight, clothed in doublet, hose and confusion, the prettiest picture mortal eyes ever rested on. ”

“ One is tempted to linger in these temples of a goddess half-dethroned. One would like to study these women who added to the social gifts of their race a character that had risen superior to many storms, hearts that were mellowed and purified by premature sorrow, and intellects that had taken a deeper and more serious tone from long brooding over the great problems of their time. ”

“ As she stood there before me in her dark worsted dress and coarse shawl, with her locks simply braided and her whole person undignified by art and ungraced by ornament, she seemed just by the power of her expression and the witchery of her manner, the loveliest woman I had ever beheld. ”

“ The elements which enter into the composition of true womanhood are not restricted, and when we point with pardonable pride to the achievements of our race in comparatively few years we also feel that the noble women of the race have done their full share of this magnificent work. ”

“ Yet this was no gathering of the sorrowing. Upon each breast rested, in gentle embrace, the fulfillment of womanhood. Their pledge to the perpetuation of their kind, their duty to the responsibilities and opportunities of dawning centuries. ”

“ But believe me, these duties performed as well as I am able to perform them, promotions, honors—afterward they will be as nothing compared with what is dear to me as a woman. Through all this violence and carnage and misery I know that I shall have gained in all that becomes a woman—in faithfulness, tenderness, pity for the poor and unfortunate, and in charity. ”

“ Meanwhile you will perhaps admit that a little charity greases the wheels."
"You must, because you are a woman; and women are made for charity—and aristocracy."
"Do you suppose you know so much about women?" she asked him, rather hotly. "I notice it is always the assumption of the people who make most mistakes." ”

“ What effect then must it have on those who have no feminine fear to combat, and are free from the incumbrance of female dress. These men," she added, "are yours; they have devoted themselves to your service, they bring you hearts as well as hands. ”

“ It was not the pioneer woman of a new continent who stood upon those ramparts and made their own breasts the shields of their enemies, but the delicately reared and nurtured woman of a pampered class. ”

“ The chivalry of all ages has not only proved feal to her and acknowledged its dependence upon her smile and frown, boldly fighting for her right or wrong, then, in the foretime, just as now; but has taken especial pains to celebrate individual women and the universal sex ”