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OF QUEENS' GARDENS.BY JOHN RUSKIN

t

-BE THOU GLAD, OH THIRSTINGDESERT j LET THE DESERT BEMADE CHEERFUL, AND BLOOMAS THE LILY > AND THE BAR-REN PLACES OF JORDAN SHALLRUN WILD WITH WOOD.'-ISAIAHXXXV. 1 (SEPTUAGINT) V

OF QUEENS^GARDENSfT will, perhaps, bewell, as this Lec^j

ture is the sequeh

of one previouslygiven, that I should

shortly state to youj

my general inten*ition in both. Thequestions specially

j

proposed to you in^fthe first, namely, How and What to Read,rose out of a far deeper one, which it was myl^endeavour to make you propose earnestly toyourselves, namely, WHY to Read* I wantyou to feel, with me, that whatever advan*tages we possess in the present day in theldiffusion of education and of literature, can*only be rightly used by any of us when wehave apprehended clearly what education is'to lead to, and literature to teach. I wish youl

to see that both well-directed moral training'

land well'chosen reading lead to the posses*

Ision of a power over the ilkguided and illiter*

|)|/ate, which is, according to the measure of it,!in the truest sense, KINGLY; conferring in<

^/deed the purest kingship that can exist amongi

m

men: too many other kingships (however \mr/Vfi\]]idistinguished by visible insignia or material Wmj Willpower) being either spectral, or tyrannous ;— \vt/^spectral—that is to say, aspects and shadowsf^C^only of royalty, hollow as death, and whichonly the "likeness of a kingly crown haveon " : or else—tyrannous—that is to say, sub-stituting their own will for the law of justiceand love by which all true kings rule*

HERE is, then, I repeat—andas I want to leave this ideawith you, I begin with it, and/

shall end with it— only one'pure kind of kingship; aninevitable and eternal kind,^

crowned or not ; the kingship, namely, which[consists in a stronger moral state, and a truer

thoughtful state, than that of others ; enabling

you, therefore, to guide, or to raise them.

Observe that word 44 State "; we have gotk

into a loose way of using it. It means liter(ally the standing and stability of a thing ; and

you have the full force of it in the derived

word " statue "

—

44the immovable thing." A

king's majesty or44state," then, and the right

'of his kingdom to be called a state, dependson the movelessness of both :—without tre^.mor, without quiver of balance; established^

m

MM

and enthroned upon a foundation of eternal|

law which nothing can alter, nor overthrow,ELIEVING that all literatureand all education are only use^jful so far as they tend to con*

firm this calm, beneficent, andTHEREFORE kingly, power,—first, over ourselves, and,

through ourselves, over all around us,—I aminow going to ask you to consider with me far*ther, what special portion or kind of this royaLauthority, arising out of noble education, may,

rightly be possessed by women ; and how farthey also are called to a true queenly power,(

not in their households merely, but over all

within their sphere. And in what sense, ifthey rightly understood & exercised this royal]or gracious influence, the order and beauty in*duced by such benignant power would justify^us in speaking of the territories over whichach of them reigned, as " Queens' Gardens/

ND here, in the very outset, welare met bya far deeper question/which— strange though thismay seem— remains among]many of us yet quite undeci*ded in spite of its infinite im>

portance. €EWe cannot determine what thei

mm

I

queenly power of women should be, until we Iare agreed what their ordinary power shouldbe. We cannot consider how education mayfit them for any widely extending duty, untill^sg:we are agreed what is their true constant v-S^duty. And there never was a time when wilderwords were spoken, or more vain imagina^tion permitted, respecting this question—quite'vital to all social happiness. The relationsof the womanly to the manly nature, their^different capacities of intellect or of virtue,

seem never to have been yet estimated withentire consent. We hear of the "mission"•and of the

44rights " of Woman, as if these

could ever be separate from the mission andthe rights of Man—as if she and her lord were[creatures of independent kind, and of irrecon*cilable claim. This, at least, is wrong. And'not less wrong—perhaps even more foolishlywrong (for I will anticipate thus far what I

k

hope to prove)—is the idea that woman is'only the shadow and attendant image of her JjjjjfrXt.lord, owing him a thoughtless and scrv^e

/^Pffj>obedience, and supported altogether in her™

weakness by the pre-eminence of his forti'

ftude. fCThis, I say, is the most foolish of

all errors respecting her who was made to beihe helpmate of man. As if he could be helped

m

effectively by a shadow, or worthily by a slave !j

ET us try, then, whether wecannot get at some clear andharmonious idea (it must belharmonious if it is true) oftwhatwomanlymind and virtueare in power and office, with

respect to man's; and how their relations,rightly accepted, aid and increase the vigour!and honour and authority of both. €EAndnow I must repeat one thing I said in the/last lecture : namely, that the first use of edu*

cation was to enable us to consult with thewisest and the greatest men on all points oiiearnest difficulty. That to use books rightly,was to go to them for help : to appeal to them,when our own knowledge& power of thought

j

failed : to be led by them into wider sight,-purer conception,—than our own, and receive 1from them the united sentence of the judgesand councils of all time, against our solitary

(

and unstable opinion. €C Let us do this now.Let us see whether the greatest, the wisest,'the purest'hearted of all ages are agreed in

any wise on this point : let us hear the tes*timony they have left respecting what theyiheld to be the true dignity of woman, and

^her mode of help to man.

iND first let us take Shake*speare* €E Note broadly in theoutset, Shakespeare has noheroes ;—he has only heroines*There is not one entirely heroicfigure in all his plays, except

the slight sketch of Henry the Fifth, exag*gerated for the purposes of the stage ; and the'still slighter Valentine in The Two Gentle*men of Verona* In his laboured and perfect.plays you have no hero* Othello would havebeen one, if his simplicity had not been sogreat as to leave him the prey of every base^practice round him ; but he is the only ex*ample even approximating to the heroic type*

Coriolanus—Caesar—Antony stand in flawed[Strength, and fall by their vanities ;—Hamletis indolent, and drowsily speculative ; Romeoan impatient boy; the Merchant of Venicelanguidly submissive to adverse fortune;

'Kent, in King Lear, is entirely noble at heart,'but too rough & unpolished to be of true useat the critical time, and he sinks into the office

of a servant only* Orlando, no less noble,is yet the despairing toy of chance, followed,

'comforted, saved by Rosalind. Whereasthere is hardly a play that has not a perfect

iwoman steadfast

errorless purpose : Cordelia, Desdemona, Isa*bella, Hermione, Imogen, Queen Catherine^Perdita, Sylvia, Viola, Rosalind, Helena, andlast, and perhaps loveliest, Virgilia, are alii

^faultless; conceived in the highest heroic^

type of humanity.

HEN observe, secondly, fEThejcatastrophe of every play is

caused always by the folly or|fault of a man ; the redemption,if there be any, is by the wis*dom and virtue of a woman,,

and, failing that, there is none. The catas*trophe of King Lear is owing to his own(iwant of judgment, his impatient vanity, his

misunderstanding of his children ; the virtue

of his one true daughter would have saved!'him from all the injuries of the others, unless!

,he had cast her away from him ; as it is, she!all but saves him. €E Of Othello I need notrtrace the tale ;—nor the one weakness of his'so mighty love; nor the inferiority of his!perceptive intellect to that even of the second

1

nwoman character in the play, the Emilia who,[dies in wild testimony against his error :

—

II/" Oh, murderous coxcomb ! what should

such a foolDo with so good a wife ? 99

|€E In Romeo and Juliet , the wise and bravestratagem of the wife is brought to ruinous

issue by the reckless impatience of her hus^|band. In Winter's Tale, and in Cymbeline,>the happiness and existence of two princelyhouseholds, lost through long years, andimperilled to the death by the folly and obsti*Inacy of the husbands, are redeemed at last

'by the queenly patience and wisdom of thewives* In Measure for Measure, the foul hvjustice of the judge, and the foul cowardice,of the brother, are opposed to the victorious

truth and adamantine purity of a woman. Inloriolanus, the mother's counsel, acted upon

in time, would have saved her son from allevil ; his momentary forgetfulness of it is hisiruin ; her prayer, at last granted, saves him

-not, indeed, from death, but from the curse

W living as the destroyer of his country.fEAnd what shall I say of Julia, constantagainst the fickleness of a lover who is a(mere wicked child ?—of Helena, against thepetulance and insult of a careless youth ?—ofthe patience of Hero, the passion of Beatrice,

and the calmly devoted wisdom of the "un^'lessoned girl/' who appears among the help<lessness, the blindness, and the vindictive

passions of men, as a gentle angel, bringing

courage and safety by her presence, and de<

feating the worst malignities of crime by whatwomen are fancied most to fail in,—precision

r^^/and accuracy of thoughtfurther, among aft

the principal figures in Shaken

speare's plays, there is onlyi

one weak woman— Ophelia;and it is because she fails'

Hamlet at the critical moment,and is not, and cannot in her nature be,(

a guide to him when he needs her most,jthat all the bitter catastrophe follows* Fin*

ally, though there are three wicked women'among the principal figures—Lady Macbeth,Regan, and Goneril—they are felt at once tobe frightful exceptions to the ordinary laws]

of life; fatal in their influence also, in pro*

portion to the power for good which they^have abandoned. €E Such, in broad light, is

{

Shakespeare's testimony to the position and,

character of women in human life. He re^;presents them as infallibly faithful and wisecounsellors,— incorruptibly just and pure,examples—strong always to sanctify, even|

|/when they cannot save.

OT as in any wise comparablein knowledge of the nature of vuman,—still less in his under^\Wy*standing of the causes and(p^f^courses of fate,—but only as^^the writer who has given us

the broadest view of the conditions and modes

|

of ordinary thought in modern society, I askyou next to receive the witness of WalterScott €E I put aside his merely romantic prose

(Writings as of no value, and though the earlyromantic poetry is very beautiful, its testis

mony is of no weight, other than that of aboy's ideal. But his true works, studied fromScottish life, bear a true witness ; and in thewhole range of these, there are but three menwho reach the heroic type, See Appendix,Note A. J* —Dandie Dinmont, Rob Roy,and Claverhouse; of these, one is a border

farmer; another a freebooter; the third a

soldier in a bad cause. And these touch the'ideal of heroism only in their courage andfaith, together with a strong, but uncultivated, ll/ffifikor mistakenly applied, intellectual power;

while his younger men are the gentlemanly[playthings of fantastic fortune, and only byaid (or accident) of that fortune, survive, not

vanquish, the trials they involuntarily sustain.

Of any disciplined, or consistent character,!» earnest in a purpose wisely conceived, or

*\sxy

EXT take,though more briefly,graver testimony—that of thegreat Italians andGreeks* Youknow well the plan of Dante's l^^Ssgreat poem—that it is a love^^poem to his dead lady ; a song

[of praise for her watch over his soul. Stoop*ing only to pity, never to love, she yet saves

him from destruction—saves him from hell*He is going eternally astray in despair ; she(comes down from heaven to his help, and^throughout the ascents of Paradise is hisi

teacher, interpreting for him the most diffi^'cult truths, divine and human ; and leadinghim, with rebuke upon rebuke, from star to^star* €E I do not insist upon Dante's conceptition; if I began I could not cease: besides,!

you might think this a wild imagination ofone poet's heart. So I will rather read to<you a few verses of the deliberate writing ofa knight of Pisa to his living lady, wholly[characteristic of the feeling of all the noblest rmmen of the thirteenth, or early fourteenth, Un^^century, preserved among many other suchirecords of knightly honour and love, which!'Dante Rossetti has gathered for us from

among the early Italian poets.\3&- \9&- 3&

44 For lo ! thy law is passedThat this my love should manifestly be

To serve and honour thee

:

And so I do ; and my delight is full,Accepted for the servant of thy rule*

Without almost, I am all rapturous,Since thus my will was set

To serve, thou flower of joy, thine excel*lence

:

Nor ever seems it anything could rouseA pain or a regret*

But on thee dwells my every thought and 1sense

;

Considering that from thee all virtues spread

,

As from a fountain head,

—

THAT IN THY GIFT IS WISDOM'SBEST AVAIL

AND HONOUR WITHOUT FAIL,iWith whom each sovereign good dwells

|

separate,

Fulfilling the perfection of thy state*

" Lady, since I conceivedThy pleasurable aspect in my heart,

MY LIFE HAS BEEN APARTIN SHINING BRIGHTNESS AND

THE PLACE OF TRUTH

;

Which till that time, good sooth,Groped among shadows in a darkened place,

Where many hours and days

It hardly ever had remembered good*But now my servitude

Is thine, and I am full of joy and restA man from a wild beast

Thou madest me, since for thy love I lived/'

[OU may think perhaps a Greekknight would have had a lowerestimate of women than thisChristian lover. His spiritualsubjection to them was indeed

i not so absolute ; but as regards

^their own personal character, it was only be*cause you could not have followed me so^easily, that I did not take the Greek womeninstead of Shakespeare's; and instance, fori

chief ideal types of human beauty and faith,j

[the simple mother's and wife's heart of Andro*

mache; the divine, yet rejected wisdom of 1

Cassandra; the playful kindness and simple"

princesS'life of happy Nausicaa; the house*wifely calm of that of Penelope, with its watch 1

'upon the sea ; the ever patient, fearless, hope' /Mlessly devoted piety of the sister, and daughter, Ijfj^^in Antigone; the bowing down of Iphigenia,f '

lamb4ike and silent ; and finally, the expecta^l

ftion of the resurrection, made clear to the soulof the Greeks in the return from her grave of.

[that Alcestis, who, to save her husband, hadl^

8p

passed calmly through the bitterness of death,

OW I could multiply witness 1upon witness of this kind uponyou if I had time, I wouldjtake Chaucer, and show you<why he wrote a Legend ofGood Women ; but no Legend

of Good Men* I would take Spenser, and]show you how all his fairy knights are some*times deceived and sometimes vanquished

;

but the soul of Una is never darkened, and<the spear of Britomart is never broken. Nay,I could go back into the mythical teaching oJthe most ancient times, and show you howlthe great people,—by one of whose princessesit was appointed that the Lawgiver of allthe earth should be educated, rather than byj

his own kindred ;—how that great Egyptianpeople, wisest then of nations, gave to their

Spirit of Wisdom the form of a Woman ; andinto her hand, for a symbol, the weaver's'

shuttle ; and how the name and the form of!that spirit, adopted, believed, and obeyed by'the Greeks, became that Athena of the olive*helm, and cloudy shield, to faith in whomjyou owe, down to this date, whatever youjhold most precious in art, in literature, or intypes of national virtue.

)UT I will not wander into thisdistant and mythical element;I will only ask you to give itslegitimate value to the testis

mony of these great poets andmen of the world,—consistent,

as you see it is, on this head, I will ask youwhether it can be supposed that these men, in'the main work of their lives, are amusingthemselves with a fictitious and idle view of[the relations between man and woman ;—nay,Iworse than fictitious or idle ; for a thing maybe imaginary, yet desirable, if it were possible ?

'but this, their ideal of woman, is, accordingto our common idea of the marriage relation,wholly undesirable* The woman, we say, is[not to guide, nor even to think for herself*

The man is always to be the wiser ; he is tobe the thinker, the ruler, the superior in know*ledge and discretion, as in power*

~~*>S it not somewhat importantto make up our minds on thismatter? Are all these greatmen mistaken, or are we ?Are Shakespeare and ^schy*lus, Dante and Homer, merely

dressing dolls for us ; or, worse than dolls,unnatural visions, {he realization of which,

'were it possible, would bring anarchy into all)households and ruin into all affections? Nay,if you can suppose this, take lastly the evi*

ydence of facts, given by the human heart itself,

yIn all Christian ages which have been remark*able for their purity or progress, there has been

absolute yielding of obedient devotion, by the

lover, to his mistress* I say OBEDIENT

;

—not merely enthusiastic and worshippingin imagination, but entirely subject, receiving

from the beloved woman, however young,not only the encouragement, the praise, and

the reward of all toil, but, so far as any choiceis open, or any question difficult of decision,the DIRECTION of all toil That chivalry,to the abuse and dishonour of which are attri*butable primarily whatever is cruel in war,

unjust in peace, or corrupt and ignoble inj

domestic relations ; and to the original purityand power of which we owe the defence alikeof faith, of law, and of love ; that chivalry, Isay, in its very first conception of honour*able life, assumes the subjection of the youngknight to the command—should it even bethe command in caprice—of his lady. It as-sumes this, because its masters knew thatthe first and necessary impulse of every trulytaught and knightly heart is this of blind

Iservice to its lady: that where that true faith'and captivity are not, all wayward and wickedpassion must be ; and that in this rapturous(obedience to the single love of his youth, is^|^|>the sanctification of all man's strength, and

*

the continuance of all his purposes* And this,inot because such obedience would be safe, or[honourable, were it ever rendered to the un*L'worthy ; but because it ought to be impossible^

for every noble youth—it IS impossible for|every one rightly trained—to love any onei

whose gentle counsel he cannot trust,or whosejprayerful command he can hesitate to obey*

DO not insist by any fartherargument on this, for I think it

4

should commend itself at oncelto your knowledge of what has]been and to your feeling ofwhat should be* You cannot"

think that the buckling on of the knight'sarmour by his lady's hand was a mere caprio'of romantic fashion* It is the type of an eternal

truth—that the soul's armour is never well setto the heart unless a woman's hand has bracedit ; and it is only when she braces it loosely'that the honour of manhood fails* Know younot those lovely lines—I would they werelearned by all youthful ladies of England:— vs

m

[Iffrri^ffll " Ah, wasteful woman !—she who mayHjjll

JjjjyOn her sweet self set her own price,Knowing he cannot choose but pay

—

^kjgjj How has she cheapened Paradise

!

Vlif How given for nought her priceless gift,How spoiled the bread and spill'd the wine,Which, spent with due respective thrift,Had made brutes men, and men divine

!

99

See Appendix, Note B. j+\

|HUS much, then, respecting therelations of lovers I believe you|

will accept. But what we too,often doubt is the fitness of the

continuance of such a relation'

throughout thewhole of humanllife. We think it right in the lover and mis*-[tress, not in the husband and wife. That is tojsay, we think that a reverent and tender duty4s due to one whose affection we still doubt,and whose char icter we as yet do but partially

kand distantly discern ; and that this reverencei

and duty are to be withdrawn when the affec-tion has become wholly and limitlessly ourown, and the character has been so sifted and,tried that we fear not to entrust it with thehappiness of our lives. Do you not see how!.ignoble this is, as well as how unreasonable ?

^yy^Do you not feel that marriage,—

w

hen it is

(marriage at all,—is only the seal which marksthe vowed transition of temporary into un*tiring service, and of fitful into eternal love ?^^^^j^^^jUT how, you will ask, is the

idea of this guiding function of

the woman reconcilable with atrue wifely subjection ? Simplyin that it is a GUIDING, nota determining, function. Let me

try to show you briefly how these powersi

seem to be rightly distinguishable* €EWe arefoolish, and without excuse foolish, in speaksing of the "superiority" of one sex to theMother, as if they could be compared in similarthings* Each has what the other has not:each completes the other, and is completed byithe other : they are in nothing alike, and thehappiness and perfection of both depends oneach asking and receiving from the other whatthe other only can give*

|OW their separate charactersare briefly these. The man'spower is active, progressive,defensive* He is eminently the idoer,the creator, the discoverer, i

the defender. His intellect is

for speculation and invention ; his energy for

i

adventure, for war, and for conquest, wherever

war is just, wherever conquest necessary.But the woman's power is for rule, not forbattle,—and her intellect is not for inventionor creation, but for sweet ordering, arrange-

ment, and decision. She sees the qualities*

of things, their claims, and their places. Hergreat function is Praise; she enters into no,

contest, but infallibly adjudges the crown of

j

contest. By her office, and place, she is pro-tected from all danger and temptation. Theman, in his rough work in open world, must-encounter all peril and trial ;—tohim, therefore,^must be the failure, the offence, the inevitableerror : often he must be wounded, or subdued ;!

often misled ; and ALWAYS hardened. Buthe guards the woman from all this ; withinhis house, as ruled by her, unless she herself]has sought it, need enter no danger, no temp*tation, no cause of error or offence. This^is the true nature of home—it is the place of

i

Peace ; the shelter, not only from all injury,but from all terror, doubt, and division. In!so far as it is not this, it is not home ; so far'as the anxieties of the outer life penetrate into

it, and the inconsistently-minded, unknown,unloved, or hostile society of the outer world'

is allowed by either husband or wife to crossthe threshold, it ceases to be home ; it is then/

only a part of that outer world which YOu\w/?j

must be enduringly, incorruptibly good; in-stinctively, infallibly wise—wise, not for self*development, but for self-renunciation : wise,

not that she may set herself above her hus-band, but that she may never fail from hisiside : wise, not with the narrowness of inso*

[lent and loveless pride, but with the pas*

sionate gentleness of an infinitely variable,!

(because infinitely applicable, modesty of ser*vice—the true changefulness of woman. Inthat great sense

—" La donna e mobile," not

(

i" Qual pidm' al vento " ; no, nor yet " Vari^able as the shade, by the light quiveringaspen made"; but variable as the LIGHT,!^anifold in fair and serene division, that itimay take the colour of all that it falls upon,

land exalt it.

HAVE been trying, thus far, tolshow you what should be the'place, and what the power ofwoman. Now, secondly, weask, What kind of education'is to fit her for these? IE And

|

if you indeed think this a true conceptionlof her office and dignity, it will not be diffi-jcult to trace the course of education which'

would fit her for the one, and raise her to the'other. 9L The first of our duties to her—no.

[thoughtful persons now doubt this,—is tosecure for her such physical training and ex-ercise as may confirm her health, and perfect|her beauty; the highest refinement of that

'beauty being unattainable without splendour

of activity and of delicate strength* To per-fect her beauty, I say, and increase its power

;

tt cannot be too powerful, nor shed its sacred

'light too far : only remember that all physi-cal freedom is vain to produce beauty with-

out a corresponding freedom of heart. There

t

are two passages of that poet who is dis-tinguished, it seems to me, from all othersnot by power, but by exquisite RIGHT-

NESS—which point you to the source, anddescribe to you, in a few syllables, the com-pletion of womanly beauty. I will read theintroductory stanzas, but the last is the one I

'wish you specially to notice :

—

44 Three years she grew in sun and showerThen Nature said, 4 A lovelier flower

4 On earth was never sown

;

4 This child I to myself will take

;

4 She shall be mine, and I will make4A lady of my own.

44 4 Myself will to my darling be4 Both law and impulse ; and with me

4 The girl, in rock and plain,

4 In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,4 Shall feel an overseeing power

4To kindle, or restrain.

^^^) 444 The floating clouds their state shall lend

)J%1%^(4 To her, for her the willow bend

;

4 Nor shall she fail to see,' Even in the motions of the storm,4 Grace that shall mould the maiden's form]

4 By silent sympathy." 4 And VITAL FEELINGS OF DELIGHT

4 Shall rear her form to stately height,

—

4 Her virgin bosom swell.4 Such thoughts to Lucy I will give,4 While she and I together live,

4 Here in this happy dell/ 99

is* See Appendix, Note C.

C 44 VITAL feelings of delight/' observe.There are deadly feelings of delight ; but th(natural ones are vital, necessary to very life,

€E And they must be feelings of delight, ifithey are to be vital. Do not think you can,make a girl lovely, if you do not make herf

jii^^SX happy. There is not one restraint you put'on a good girl's nature—there is not one,check you give to her instincts of affectioior of effort—which will not be indelibly written on her features, with a hardness which

^jis all the more painful because it takes awayi

i,

I the brightness from the eyes of innocence, andthe charm from the brow of virtue.

HIS for the means: now notethe end. Take from the samepoet, in two lines, a perfect de*scription of womanly beauty

—

44 A countenance in which didmeet

Sweet records, promises as sweet"

€E The perfect loveliness of a woman's coun*tenance can only consist in that majestic peace,which is founded in the memory of happyand useful years,—full of sweet records ; andfrom the joining of this with that yet moremajestic childishness, which is still full of,change & promise ;—opening always—mod'est at once, and bright, with hope of better(things to be won, and to be bestowed. Thereis no old age where there is still that promise.

HUS, then, you have first tomould her physical frame, andthen, as the strength she gains

will permit you, to fill and tenvper her mind with all know*ledge and thoughts which tend

'to confirm its natural instincts of justice, andl|(|refine its natural tact of love. €EA11 such,

.knowledge should be given her as may enable

her to understand, and even to aid, the workof men : and yet it should be given, not asknowledge,—not as if it were, or could be, for

OE^^jher an object to know ; but only to feel, and|)i^l^C to judge. It is of no moment, as a mattei

of pride or perfectness in herself, whether she

knows many languages or one; but it is of jthe utmost, that she should be able to showkindness to a stranger, and to understand the'

sweetness of a stranger's tongue. It is of nomoment to her own worth or dignity that shejshould be acquainted with this science or that

but it is of the highest that she should be

trained in habits of accurate thought; that!

she should understand the meaning, the inevi-

tableness, and the loveliness of natural laws

;

and follow at least some one path of scientific]attainment, as far as to the threshold of that

bitter Valley of Humiliation, into which only'the wisest and bravest of men can descend,wning themselves for ever children, gathering

,

pebbles on a boundless shore. It is of little!consequence how many positions of cities she'knows, or how many dates of events, or names

,

of celebrated persons—it is not the object oleducation to turn the woman into a dictionary;!but it is deeply necessary that she should be

^/taught to enter with her whole personality into/

[the history she reads ; to picture the passages 1

of it vitally in her own bright imagination ; toapprehend, with her fine instincts, the pathetic

circumstances and dramatic relations, whichk^^arthe historian too often only eclipses by hisreasoning, and disconnects by his arrange*ment : it is for her to trace the hidden equities

Iof divine reward, and catch sight, throughthe darkness, of the fateful threads of wovenfire that connect error with retribution* But,

jChiefly of all, she is to be taught to extend

the limits of her sympathy with respect tothat history which is being for ever determinedfas the moments pass in which she draws herpeaceful breath; and to the contemporarycalamity, which, were it but rightly mournedby her, would recur no more hereafter. Sheis to exercise herself in imagining what wouldbe the effects upon her mind and conduct, ifshe were daily brought into the presence of

'the suffering which is not the less real because'shut from her sight* She is to be taughtsomewhat to understand the nothingness ofthe proportion which that little world in which

jshe lives & loves, bears to the world in whichiGod lives and loves;—and solemnly she isto be taught to strive that her thoughts of

.piety may not be feeble in proportion to the^

which they must indeed beware how they pro*fanely touch—that of theology. Strange, and

k

miserably strange, that while they are modest

enough to doubt their powers, and pause atthe threshold of sciences where every step is

demonstrable and sure, they will plunge head*

long, and without one thought of incom-petency, into that science in which the great-est men have trembled, and the wisest erred.Strange, that they will complacently and pride-fully bind up whatever vice or folly there is in

to recommend themselves to their Master, by'crawling up the steps of His judgmentohroneto divide it with Him, Strangest of all that

i

they should think they were led by the Spiritl^sS'of the Comforter into habits of mind whichhave become in them the unmixed elementsof home discomfort; and that they dare toturn the Household Gods of Christianity into'ugly idols of their own ;—spiritual dolls, forthem to dress according to their caprice ; and(from which their husbands must turn away^in grieved contempt, lest they should be

shrieked at for breaking them,

BELIEVE, then, with this ex-ception, that a girl's education

.should be nearly, in its course

and material of study, the sameas a boy's ; but quite differently

directed. A woman, in anyrank of life, ought to know whatever her'husband is likely to know, but to know it in'a different way. His command of it should mbe foundational & progressive ; hers, generaland accomplished for daily and helpful use.

Not but that it would often be wiser in men to'learn things in a womanly sort of way, for pre*sent use, and to seek for the discipline& train-ing of their mental powers in such branches

m

[of study as will be afterwards fittest for social|

service ; but, speaking broadly, a man oughtto know any language or science he learns,

g£g?Jthoroughly—while a woman ought to knowthe same language, or science, only so far as<may enable her to sympathise in her husband'spleasures, and in those of his best friends.

ET, observe, with exquisite ac-curacy as far as she reachesJ

There is a wide difference be*tween elementary knowledge|and superficial knowledge—be-tween a firm beginning, and an

infirm attempt at compassing. A woman'may always help her husband by what sheknows, however little; by what she half-knows, or mis'knows, she will only teaseihim. €E And indeed, if there were to be anydifference between a girl's education and a

boy's, I should say that of the two the girlshould be earlier led, as her intellect ripens

4

faster, into deep and serious subjects : and that'her range of literature should be, not more, but

less frivolous ; calculated to add the qualitiesof patience and seriousness to her natural!poignancy of thought and quickness of wit ;land also to keep her in a lofty and pure ele*

^jment of thought. I enter not now into any!

I

question of choice of books ; only let us besure that her books are not heaped up in herlap as they fall out of the package of the cfrv

(culating library, wet with the last and lightesti^^firspray of the fountain of folly.

R even of the fountain of wit

;

for with respect to the sore

temptation of novel reading, it

is not the badness of a novel

that we should dread, so muchas its overwrought interest.

The weakest romance is not so stupefyingas the lower forms of religious exciting lite*

Mature, and the worst romance is not so cor*rupting as false history, false philosophy, or

false political essays. But the best romanceibecomes dangerous, if, by its excitement, itrenders the ordinary course of life uninterest'

ing, and increases the morbid thirst for uselessacquaintance with scenes in which we shallnever be called upon to act.

SPEAK therefore of goodnovels only; and our modernliterature is particularly rich in

i

types of such. Well read, in*

deed, these books have serious

use, being nothing less than

,treatises on moral anatomy and chemistry;^

studies of human nature in the elements of it.|But I attach little weight to this function : theyare hardly ever read with earnestness enough

j^gjto permit them to fulfil it. The utmost theyjusually do is to enlarge somewhat the charityiof a kind reader, or the bitterness of a mali'

cious one ; for each will gather,from the novel,vjfood for her own disposition. Those whoare naturally proud and envious will learn!from Thackeray to despise humanity ; thosewho are naturally gentle, to pity it ; those whojare naturally shallow, to laugh at it. So, also,,

there might be a serviceable power in novelsto bring before us, in vividness, a human!truth which we had before dimly conceived

;

but the temptation to picturesqueness of state*

ment is so great, that often the best writerslof fiction cannot resist it ; and our views arerendered so violent and one-sided, that theirvitality is rather a harm than good.

ITHOUT, however, venturing'here on any attempt at deci*sion how much novel reading'should be allowed, let me atleast clearly assert this,—thatjwhether novels, or poetry, or|

history be read, they should be chosen, not

for their freedom from evil, but for their]

Ipossession of good The chance and scatteredevil that may here and there haunt, or hideitself in, a powerful book, never does any harm(to a noble girl ; but the emptiness of an author'oppresses her, and his amiable folly degradesher* And if she can have access to a goodlibrary of old and classical books, there need|be no choosing at all* Keep the modernmagazine and novel out of your girl's way

:

turn her loose into the old library every wet|day, and let her alone* She will find what

Lis good for her ; you cannot : for there is justthis difference between the making of a girl'sCharacter and a boy's—you may chisel a boyinto shape, as you would a rock, or hammerhim into it, if he be of a better kind, as you[would a piece of bronze* But you cannothammer a girl into anything* She grows asa flower does,—she will wither without sun

;

she will decay in her sheath, as a narcissus

[will, if you do not give her air enough ; she'may fall, and defile her head in dust, if youleave her without help at some moments of.her life ; but you cannot fetter her ; she mustItake her own fair form and way, if she take[any, &, in mind as in body, must have always

44 Her household motions light and freeAnd steps of virgin liberty*"

m

Let her loose in the library, I say, as you dela fawn in a field. It knows the bad weedstwenty times better than you ; and the good

K^j^ones too, and will eat some bitter and prickly^^ones, good for it, which you had not the slight-

est thought would have been so.EN, in art, keep the finest!

models before her, and let her

practice in all accomplishments^

be accurate and thorough, soas to enable her to understand)

more than she accomplishes.say the finest models—that is to say, the truest,simplest, usefullest. Note those epithets : the]will range through all the arts. Try them inmusic, where you might think them the leastapplicable. I say the truest, that in which]

the notes most closely and faithfully express!the meaning of the words, or the character ovintended emotion ; again, the simplest, that

in which the meaning and melody are at'tained with the fewest and most significant'notes possible ; and, finally, the usefullest/

that music which makes the best words mostbeautiful, which enchants them in our memo-ries each with its own glory of sound, and!which applies them closest to the heart at the

^moment we need them.

ND not only in the material!and in the course, but yet moreearnestly in the spirit of it,

let a girl's education be as seri'ljs^Sj

ous as a boy's* You bringV»up your girls as if they werej

meant for sideboard ornaments, and thencomplain of their frivolity. Give them thesame advantages that you give their brothers—appeal to the same grand instincts of vir*tue in them ; teach THEM, also, that cour-age and truth are the pillars of their being

:j

—do you think that they would not answer'that appeal, brave and true as they are even

now, when you know that there is hardly a*girls' school in this Christian kingdom wherethe children's courage or sincerity would bethought of half so much importance as theirway of coming in at a door ; and when the<whole system of society, as respects the modeof establishing them in life, is one rotten*plague of cowardice and imposture—cow-* mardice, in not daring to let them live, or ///^^love, except as their neighbours choose; andrimposture, in bringing, for the purposes of

|

our own pride, the full glow of the world'sworst vanity upon a girl's eyes, at the

very period when the whole happiness of!

m.

her future existence depends upon her re*maining undazzled?

ND give them, lastly, not only-noble teachings, but noble

teachers. You consider some-what before you send your boyto school, what kind of a manthe master is ;—whatsoever

kind of a man he is, you at least give himfull authority over your son, and show somerespect to him yourself ;—if he comes to dinewith you, you do not put him at a side table

:

you know also that, at college, your child'simmediate tutor will be under the direction of

some still higher tutor, for whom you haveabsolute reverence. You do not treat the Deanof Christ Church or the Master of Trinity asyour inferiors. IE But what teachers do yougive your girls, and what reverence do youshow to the teachers you have chosen ? Isa girl likely to think her own conduct, or herown intellect, of much importance, when youtrust the entire formation of her character,

moral and intellectual, to a person whom youlet your servants treat with less respect thanthey do your housekeeper (as if the soul oyour child were a less charge than jams andgroceries), and whom you yourself think you

(confer an honour upon by letting her some^iK^rjjjijjtimes sit in the drawing-room in the evening ? W[| will

[^^^JgHUS, then, of literature as her »|i

help, and thus of art. There is^^^one more helpwhich she cannotdo without—one which, alone,has sometimes done more than

Jail other influences besides,

—

the help of wild and fair nature. Hear thisof the education of Joan of Arc :— €E 44 Theeducation of this poor girl was mean, accord'ing to the present standard ; was ineffably,grand, according to a purer philosophic stand

ard ; & only not good for our age, because forus it would be unattainable. * * * €E Nextafter her spiritual advantages, she owed mostto the advantages of her situation. The foun^tain of Domr^my was on the brink of a bound'less forest ; and it was haunted to that degreeby fairies, that the parish priest (cur£) wasobliged to read mass there once a year, imorder to keep them in decent bounds. ^CBut the forests of Domr^my—those werc

/j/*P^the glories of the land; for in them abode™mysterious powers and ancient secrets that

towered into tragic strength. Abbeys therewere, and abbey windows,—Mike Moorishtemples of the Hindoos/ that exercised even^

princely power both in Touraine and in theGerman Diets, These had their sweet bellsthat pierced the forests for many a league at

^matins or vespers, and each its own dreamy!legend. Few enough, and scattered enough/were these abbeys, so as in no degree to dis-turb the deep solitude of the region ; yet many

1

enough to spread a network or awning ofChristian sanctity over what else might have'seemed a heathen wilderness." ^ See Ap<pendix, Note D. J* €E Now, you cannot, in*deed, have here in England, woods eighteen^miles deep to the centre ; but you can, perhaps,,keep a fairy or two for your children yet, ilyou wish to keep them. But DO you wishit ? Suppose you had each, at the back ofyour houses, a garden, large enough for your]children to play in, with just as much lawnlas would give them room to run,—no more

—

and that you could not change your abode

;

but that, if you chose, you could double yourincome, or quadruple it, by digging a coal shaft]in the middle of the lawn, and turning theflower-beds into heaps of coke. Would you

j

do it ? I hope not. I can tell you, you wouldbe wrong if you did, though it gave you in-'come sixty-fold instead of four-fold.

tMP1 i&

m

ET this is what you are doingwith all England. The wholecountry is but a little garden,

not more than enough for yourchildren to run on the lawns

^ of, if you would let them ALLrun there* And this little garden you willturn into furnace ground, and fill with heapsof cinders, if you can ; and those children ofyours, not you, will suffer for it. For thefairies will not be all banished ; there are fairies

of the furnace as of the wood, and their firstgifts seem to be 44 sharp arrows of the mighty 99 ;but their last gifts are

44coals of juniper/'

ND yet I cannot—though thereis no part of my subject thatI feel more—press this uponyou ; for we made so little useof the power of nature whilewe had it that we shall hardly

feel what we have lost. Just on the otherside of the Mersey you have your Snowdon,and your Menai Straits,& that mighty graniterock beyond the moors of Anglesea, splendidn its heathery crest, and foot planted in the

eep sea, once thought of as sacred—a divinepromontory, looking westward; the HolyHead or Headland, still not without awe when

its red light glares first through storm* Thesel

are the hills, and these the bays and blue in*lets, which, among the Greeks, would have

. been always loved, always fateful in influencej

on the national mind. That Snowdon is youiParnassus ; but where are its Muses ? ThatHolyhead mountain is your Island of JEgina;but where is its Temple to Minerva ?

HALL I read you what the!ChristianMinerva hadachievedunder the shadow of our Par^nassus up to the year 1848 ?

—

i

Here is a little account of aWelsh school, from page 261

1

of the Report on Wales, published by theCommittee of Council on Education. Thisis a school close to a town containing 5,000]persons :— €E"I then called up a larger class,most of whom had recently come to the'school. Three girls repeatedly declared theyhad never heard of Christ, and two that'they had never heard of God. Two out oflsix thought Christ was on earth now " (they'might have had a worse thought perhaps)," three knew nothing about the Crucifixion.Four out of seven did not know the names!of the months nor the number of days in

g/a year. They had no notion of addition!

beyond two and two, or three and three;their minds were perfect blanks/' €E Ohwomen of England! from the Princessthat Wales to the simplest of you, do not{||^think your own children can be broughtinto their true fold of rest, while these are

scattered on the hills, as sheep having noshepherd. And do not think your daughterscan be trained to the truth of their own humanbeauty, while the pleasant places, which Godmade at once for their schoolroom and theirplayground, lie desolate and defiled. You can*not baptize them rightly in those inch^deepfonts of yours, unless you baptize them alsoin the sweet waters which the great Lawgiverstrikes forth for ever from the rocks of your

native land—waters which a Pagan wouldhave worshipped in their purity, and youworship only with pollution* You cannotlead your children faithfully to those narrowaxe'hewn church altars of yours, while the

dark azure altars in heaven—the mountains IMthat sustain your island throne,-—mountains

I

on which a Pagan would have seen the powers[of heaven rest in every wreathed cloud—re*

for you without inscription; altarsmambuilt, not to, but by an Unknown God.

HUS far, then, of the nature,!thus far of the teaching, of'

woman, and thus of her house*hold office, and queenliness.|We now come to our last,<our widest question.— What

is her queenly office with respect to the1

state ? •£ Generally, we are under an im<pression that a man's duties are public, and!

a woman's private. But this is not alto'gether so. A man has a personal work,or duty, relating to his own home, and a,

l

public work or duty, which is the expan-sion of the other, relating to the state. Sol

a woman has a personal work or duty, re

state* 9L What the man is at his own gat^W#7)fll]defending it, if need be, against insult and \MlwJjbspoil, that also, not in a less, but in a moredevoted measure, he is to be at the gate

'of his country, leaving his home, if needbe, even to the spoiler, to do his moreincumbent work there* €E And, in like man*iner, what the woman is to be within her'gates, as the centre of order, the balm of dis*tress, and the mirror of beauty : that she is

i

also to be without her gates, where orderis more difficult, distress more imminent,loveliness more rare* fEAnd as within the^human heart there is always set an instinctfor all its real duties,—an instinct which youcannot quench, but only warp and corrupt

I

if you withdraw it from its true purpose:-as there is the intense instinct of love,

fwhich, rightly disciplined, maintains all the

sanctities of life, and, misdirected, undermines

^them; and MUST do either the one or the[other;—so there is in the human heart an minextinguishable instinct, the love of Power'//||p|which* rightly directed* maintains all t^e(^^3smajesty of law and life, and, misdirected/'wrecks them.

EEP rooted in the innermost)life of the heart of man, and ofthe heart of woman, God setit there, and God keeps it therej—Vainly, as falsely, you blameior rebuke the desire of power

!

For Heaven's sake, and for Man's sake,desire it all you can. But WHAT power

?J

That is all the question. Power to destroy ?!the lion's limb, and the dragon's breath ? Notso. Power to heal, to redeem, to guide, and-to guard. Power of the sceptre and shield;,the power of the royal hand that heals intouching,—that binds the fiend, and looses the!captive; the throne that is founded on therock of Justice, and descended from only bysteps of Mercy. Will you not covet such]power as this, and seek such throne as this,|and be nojnore housewives, but queens ?

T is now long since the womenof England arrogated, univer*sally, a title which once be-!longed to nobility only; and,'

having once been in the habit ofacceptingthe simple title of gen*

tlewoman as correspondent to that of gentle-!man, insisted on the privilege of assuming the'title of

44 Lady," jt See Appendix, Note E.,

m.

which properly corresponds only to the title of44Lord/' CI do not blame them for this ; but

only for their narrow motive in this* I wouldhave them desire and claim the title of Lady,iw*provided they claim, not merely the title, ^ut^^^Xjthe office and duty signified by it. Lady means44bread'giver"or 44 loakgiver," andLord means^

44maintainer of laws/' & both titles have refer*

lence, not to the law which is maintained in thehouse, nor to the bread which is given to thehousehold ; but to law maintained for the mul*titude,& to bread broken among the multitude*So that a Lord has legal claim only to his titlefin so far as he is the maintainer of the justice of

the Lord of lords ; & a Lady has legal claim toher title only so far as she communicates thathelp to the poor representatives of her Master,

which women once, ministering to Him of'their substance, were permitted to extend to

that Master Himself ; and when she is known,'as He Himself once was, in breaking of bread.

1ND this beneficent and legaldominion, this power of theDominus, or House^Lord, and

of the Domina,or House^Lady,is great and venerable, not in

the number of those throughwhom it has lineally descended, but in the

m

[number of those whom it grasps within its)sway; it is always regarded with reverentworship wherever its dynasty is founded onlits duty, and its ambition correlative with its)

beneficence* Your fancy is pleased with th(,thought of being noble ladies, with a train of

Ivassals. Be it so ; you cannot be too noble, I^Jand your train cannot be too great ; but seeJiv/fto it that your train is of vassals whom you!

serve and feed, not merely of slaves who serveand feed YOU ; and that the multitude whichjlobeys you is of those whom you have conv'forted, not oppressed,—whom you have re*deemed, not led into captivity.

fD this, which is true of thelower or household dominion,

is equally true of the queenly]

dominion ; that highest dignityis open to you, if you will also'accept that highest duty. Rex

>et Regina—Roi et Reine—44 RIGHT-doers ";'

they differ but from the Lady and Lord, in!that their power is supreme over the mind aslover the person—that they not only feed and

I clothe, but direct and teach. And whetherconsciously or not, you must be, in many al,heart, enthroned : there is no putting by that

0crown; queens you must always be: queens

|to your lovers ; queens to your husbands andyour sons ; queens of higher mystery to theworld beyond, which bows itself, and will for(ever bow, before the myrtle crown and theijg^s^stainless sceptre of womanhood. But, alas!you are too often idle and careless queens,grasping at majesty in the least things, while

jyou abdicate it in the greatest; and leaving'misrule and violence to work their will amongmen, in defiance of the power which, holding(Straight in gift from the Prince of all Peace, the

iwicked among you betray, and the good forget.

IRINCE of Peace/' Note thatname. When kings rule inthat name, and nobles, and thejudges of the earth, they also,

in their narrow place, andmortal measure, receive the

'power of it. There are no other rulers than

they ; other rule than theirs is but MISrule

;

they who govern verily 44 Dei Gratia 99 are all'princes, yes, or princesses of Peace. There

'is not a war in the world, no, nor an injustice, /$|f^Lbut you women are answerable for it ; not in 1

that you have provoked, but in that you have

[not hindered. Men, by their nature, are prone

to fight ; they will fight for any cause, or for

^none. It is for you to choose their cause for\s

S3?-'

[them, and to forbid them when there is nojcause* There is no suffering, no injustice,'no misery, in the earth, but the guilt of it lies

gijwith you. Men can bear the sight of it, buti£z you should not be able to bear it. Men may<

tread it down without sympathy in their ownstruggle; but men are feeble in sympathy,and contracted in hope ; it is you only wholcan feel the depths of pain, and conceive thej

way of its healing. Instead of trying to dothis, you turn away from it ; you shut your-selves within your park walls and garden]gates; and you are content to know thatthere is beyond them a whole world in wiUderness—a world of secrets which you darenot penetrate; and of suffering which youdare not conceive.

TELL you that this is to m«quite the most amazing among)the phenomena of humanity.I am surprised at no depths to,which, when once warped from!its honour, that humanity can

be degraded. I do not wonder at the miser's[death, with his hands, as they relax, droppinggold. I do not wonder at the sensualist's life,|with the shroud wrapped about his feet. I donot wonder at the single-handed murder of a-

single victim, done by the assassin in the darkness of the railway, or reed shadow of ^\((\(Jflimarsh. I do not even wonder at the myriad'handed murder of multitudes, done boastfully(^s^e'in the daylight, by the frenzy of nations, andthe immeasurable, unimaginable guilt, heaped

up from hell to heaven, of their priests,land kings. But this is wonderful to me—oh,'how wonderful !—to see the tender and deli-cate woman among you, with her child at her(breast, and a power, if she would wield it,over it, and over its father, purer than the airof heaven, and stronger than the seas of earth

•nay, a magnitude of blessing which her hus-band would not part with for all that earthitself, though it were made of one entire and[perfect chrysolite:—to see her abdicate thismajesty to play at precedence with her next-

'door neighbour! This is wonderful—oh,wonderful!—to see her, with every innocentReeling fresh within her, go out in the morn-ling into her garden to play with the fringes

of its guarded flowers, and lift their headswhen they are drooping, with her happy smileupon her face, and no cloud upon her brow,'because there is a little wall around her placeof peace: and yet she knows, in her heart,

k

if she would only look for its knowledge,^

that, outside of that little rose

OU think that only a lover'sfancy ;—false and vain ! Howif it could be true ? You thinkthis also, perhaps, only a poet'sfancy

—

" Even the light harebell raisedits head

Elastic from her airy tread/'

'But it is little to say of a woman, that sheonly does not destroy where she passes. Sheishould revive; the harebells should bloom,

,not stoop, as she passes. You think I amrushing into wild hyperbole ! Pardon me, not'a whit—I mean what I say in calm English,spoken in resolute truth. You have heard itsaid—(and I believe there is more than fancy[even in that saying, but let it pass for a fan*

ciful one)—that flowers only flourish rightlyin the garden of some one who loves them.I know you would like that to be true ; you.would think it a pleasant magic if you could'flush your flowers into brighter bloom by a /Mkind look upon them : nay, more, if your ^00^lfr^^M

k

had the power, not only to cheer, but to guard >J/Sp^f—if you could bid the black blight turn away,'and the knotted caterpillar spare—if you couldU|bid the dew fall upon them in the drought,JMiand say to the south wind, in frost

—"Come,l^

thou south, and breathe upon my garden, thatthe spices of it may flow out" This youwould think a great thing? And do you thinkit not a greater thing, that all this, (and howjmuch more than this I) you CAN do, for faireiflowers than these—flowers that could blessyou for having blessed them, and will loveyou for having loved them ; flowers that havejthoughts like yours, and lives like yours

and which, once saved, you save for ever?Is this only a little power ? Far among thejmoorlands and the rocks,—far in the darkness

i

of the terrible streets,—these feeble florets arelying, with all their fresh leaves torn, andl

their stems broken : will you never go downto them, nor set them in order in their littlefragrant beds, nor fence them in their trem^jbling, from the fierce wind ? Shall morningfollow morning, for you, but not for them;'

and the dawn rise to watch, far away, thosefrantic Dances of Death ; jt See 4 Of Kings''Treasuries/ Appendix, Note J. J* but no'dawn rise to breathe upon these living banksof wild violet, and woodbine, and rose ; norcall to you, through your casement—call (notgiving you the name of the English poet's!lady, but the name of Dante's great Matilda,who, on the edge of happy Lethe, stood,j

wreathing flowers with flowers), saying :

—

" Come into the garden, Maud,For the black bat, night, has flown,And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,And the musk of the roses blown 99 ?

CWill you not go down among them?

—

among those sweet living things, whose newcourage, sprung from the earth with the deepcolour of heaven upon it, is starting up instrength of goodly spire ; and whose purity,iwashed from the dust, is opening, bud by

tbud, into the flower of promise;—and stillthey turn to you, and for you, 44 The Lark*'spur listens—I hear, I hear ! And the Lilywhispers—I wait" ' : '

JID you notice that I missed twolines when I read you that firststanza; and think that I had

forgotten them? Hear themnow:

—

44 Come into the garden, Maud,For the black bat, night, has flown,Come into the garden, Maud,I am here at the gate, alone,"

|C Who is it, think you, who stands at the'gate of this sweeter garden alone, waiting for

you ? Did you ever hear, not of a Maud, but

ia Madeleine, who went down to her garden'

m,i

in the dawn, and found One waiting at th<gate, whom she supposed to be the gardener ?^Have you not sought Him often;—soughtHim in vain, all through the night ;—soughtHim in vain at the gate of that old gardeiwhere the fiery sword is set ? He is neverthere ; but at the gate of THIS garden He isjwaiting always—waiting to take your hand!—ready to go down to see the fruits of the!valley, to see whether the vine has flourished,

and thepomegranate budded. There you shallsee with Him the little tendrils of the vines that]His hand is guiding—there you shall see thepomegranate springing where His hand castthe sanguine seed ;—more : you shall see thetroops of the angel keepers that, with their

wings, wave away the hungry birds from the]path-sides where He has sown, and call t<each other between the vineyard rows, " Take^us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the

vines, for our vines have tender grapes*" Oh,—you queens—you queens ! among the hills'and happy greenwood of this land of yours,

I

shall the foxes have holes, and the birds ofjthe air have nests ; and in your cities, shall!the stones cry out against you, that they are'

the only pillows where the Son of Man can^lay His head ?

APPENDIXNOTE A, p. io. I ought, in order to make thisassertion fully understood, to have noted the variousweaknesses which lower the ideal of other greatcharacters of men in the Waverley novels—theselfishness and narrowness of thought in Red'gauntlet, the weak religious enthusiasm in EdwardGlendinning, and the like; and I ought to havenoticed that there are several quite perfect characters

sketched sometimes in the backgrounds ; three—letus accept joyously this courtesy to England andher soldiers—are English officers: Colonel Gardiner,Colonel Talbot, and Colonel Mannering.NOTE B, p. 19. Coventry Patmore. You cannotread him too often or too carefully ; as far as I knowhe is the only living poet who always strengthensand purifies; the others sometimes darken, andnearly always depress and discourage, the imagina*tion they deeply seize*NOTE C, p. 25. Observe, it is 44 Nature " who isspeaking throughout, and who says, 44 while sheand I together live."NOTE D, p. 39* "Joan of Arc: in reference toM. Michelet's ' History of France/ n De Quincey'sWorks. Vol. iii. p. 217.NOTE E, p. 45. I wish there were a true order ofchivalry instituted for our English youth of certainranks, in which both boy and girl should receive,at a given age, their knighthood and ladyhood bytrue title ; attainable only by certain probation andtrial both of character and accomplishment; and

57

to be forfeited, on conviction, by their peers, of any-dishonourable act* Such an institution would beentirely, and with all noble results, possible, in anation which loved honour* That it would notbe possible among us, is not to the discredit ofthe scheme.

J*

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58

INDEXAlcestis, character of, 14*

Andromache, as a conception of womanhood, 14*Anglesea, scenery of, 40.

Antigone, character of, 14*

Armour, buckled on by women, meaning of, 18*Art models, what the finest are, 35.Athena, queen of art, literature, and virtue, 15*Author, 99 Queen's Gardens,** title of, 3*

Beauty of body and heart must coexist, 24*Bible, the, Moses MYTHICAL, 15*

„ quoted passim, 54, 55*

„ quoted or referred to j

—

Exodus ii. On women, Moses educated byone, 15.

Ps. cxx. 4* Sharp arrows of the mighty, withcoals of juniper, 40*

Song of SoL i'u is* Take us the foxes . . . spoil ourgrapes, 55*

„ „ iv. 16* Come, thou south • flow out,52-53*

Isaiah xxxv* u Be thou glad, O thirsty desert(LXX* version), facing page 1«

John xx. IS And she, supposing him to be thegardener, 55.

Acts xvii* 23. Altar to unknown God, 42.Books, choice of, for the young, to be by the good in them,

not the absence of bad, 33-34.

„ good, to be gone to for advice, 5*

„ the right use of, 5*

Cassandra, 14.

Character, girls', hardened by restraint, 25*61

Chaucer's conception of women, 15*Chivalry, suggestion for a modern order of, Appendix,

Note E-

„ the principles of, and women, 17*Christ, still ** waiting in the garden " for noble women, 55*Coals, England made a furnace ground, 40.Cowardice, social, 36*

Dante, on women, 12*Dante's Beatrice, 12.

Matilda, 53*Delight, "vital feelings of" (Wordsworth), 25.De Quincey, on Joan of Arc, 38-39,Desire of power, 45*Dolls, the spiritual, of theological women, 30*Duty, instinct for, in the human heart, 44*Education, its true end, must be recognized, u

,, girls and boys to learn same things in a differentway, 30-31*

„ nature's influence in, 38 seq*

, the use of, to help us to consult the wisest men (inbooks), s*

ft value of, in the kingly power it gives, !„ Council on, Report on Welsh school, 41-42*

Egyptian wisdom conceived as a woman, 15*England, to be garden or furnace ground ? 40*Gentlewoman, an older title than lady, 45-46*Girls, accomplishments of, to be of use to others, 26-27,

35-36.

„ not to be fettered, 25, 34*„ cannot be hammered into things, as boys can, 34*„ their education to be serious, 36*

„ intellect ripens quicker than boys', 31*Governesses, social position of, 37*

Greek deity, the greatest, a woman, Athena, 15*62

Greek poets, conception of women, 14.Hereditary honour, 46*

Heroes, Shakespeare has no, 6*

History, how written, how to be studied, 27-28*Holyhead, scenery of, 40*

Home, its true quality PEACE, 21.„ the duties of man and woman in regard to, 43-44*

Homer, women of, 14*„ e»g*, Nausicaa, 14*

Husband and wife, relations of, 19 seq.Iphigenia, character of, 14*

Italian poets, conception of women (passages translated byD* G* Rossetti), 12-14*

Joan of Arc, her education, De Quincey on, 38*Kings, how they should rule, doers of right (Rex), 47*

„ „ „ princes of peace (Dei Gratii), 48*

Kingships, spectral, tyrannous and true, 2*

„ true, based only on superior moral state, 2*Knighthood, modern, suggested, Appendix, Note E*Knowledge, accuracy before depth of, 31*

„ of women and men, 30 seq.Lady, and * gentlewoman," titles of, 45-46*Laws of nature, their beauty, 27,Lord = law'keeper, 46.Love, instinct of, 44.

„ sanctifying power of, 18*

„ trust and, go together in noble hearts, l8*

Lovers, the true relation of knight and lady, 17-18*Man and woman, different functions of, 20-21*„ duty to the state, the expansion of that to home,

43-44*

„ has less sympathy and hope than woman, 49.„ the world must harden every, 21.

Marriage, the seal of service, 19-20*

63

Menai straits, scenery of the, 40*Mersey, the, scenery of, 40*Michelet, " History of France," 38, and Appendix, Note D.Miser, the, 49*Models, the finest art, true, simple, useful, 35*Moses, educated by a woman, 15*Music, what kind the best is, 35*Nature, influence of, in education, 38 seq«

Novels, choice of, 32, 33.

» effect of, 33, 34*

„ good, are studies in moral anatomy, 32*

„ not to interest so much as to interfere with the realinterest of life, 32.

Pagan religion, peopled the fair earth with spirits, 42*Patmore, Coventry, to be carefully read, his power, Appendix,

Note B,

„ „ quoted, " Ah ! wasteful woman,** 19*Peace, the Prince of, the title enlarged on, 48*

Penelope, 14.

Position in life, education and a, 36*Power, our instinctive love of, 44.

,, what, to be coveted, 45*Praise, woman's great function, 21.Prayer-book,

Hfor all who are desolate and oppressed," 29*

" Queen's Gardens," title of, referred to, 3*Regina means right'doer, 47.Rex = right-doer, 47.Rossetti, D. G«, translation of Italian poetry quoted, 12-14*

Scenery, value of, by England and Greece, 40-41*School, account of a "Welsh (1848), 41*

Scott, Sir W.t has only three heroic men, la,, early romances of, io*

„ merit and truth of, io*

,, poetry of, 10*

64

Scott* Sir "W*, continued :

—

„ women of, noble (Alice Bridgenorth, Alice Lee,Lilias Redgauntlet, Diana Vernon, Catherine

Seyton, Rose Bradwardine, Ellen Douglas,

Flora Maclvor, Jeanie Deans), 11.

„ quoted or referred to:

—

Edward Glendinning, weakness of, Appendix,Note A*

Colonel Mannering, Talbot, Gardiner, Appen-

dix, Note A*Claverhouse, heroic, 10*

Rob Roy, heroic, 10.Dandie Dinmont, 10.

Redgauntlet, Appendix, Note A,Sensualist, the, 49.

Shakespeare, catastrophe of his plays, due to a man's fault,

redeemed by a woman's virtue, 7 seq*

„ has no heroes, only heroines, 6*

„ view of women, 9.their dignity, o seq«

his good women faultless, 6 seq*his wicked women,

Shakespeare, quoted or referred to, continued :

—

Hamlet, catastrophe of, 9.

„ Ophelia, the only weak woman in Shake*speare, 9*

Henry V*, 6*Julius Caesar, not a hero, 6*

Lear, his fall due to his bad judgment, 7«

„ Kent, not quite a hero, 6«

Measure for Measure, catastrophe of, 8*

Merchant of Venice, 6*

iii* 2,** unlessoned girl,'* 8*

Midsummer Night's Dream, Helena, 8*Much Ado, Beatrice, 8*

„ Hero, 8*

Othello, catastrophe of, 7*

„ not a hero, 6*

„ Emilia, 7*

Romeo and Juliet, 6*„ catastrophe of, 8*

„ Romeo, not a hero, 6.Two Gentlemen of Verona, 6«

„ „ Julia, 8.

Winter's Tale, catastrophe of, 8.

Snowdon, scenery, 40-41*

Society, falsity of, and girls' education, 36*Spenser's noble women, Una and Britomart, 15.State, duty of man and woman to the, 43.

„ full meaning of the word, 2*Teachers of the young, their social position, 37*Tennyson, Maud quoted, ** Come into the garden," 54*Thackeray, the lessons taught by, vary with the reader, 33*Theology, women not to study, 29*True, the, is harmonious, 5,

Tutors, social position of, 37*66

Vassals, our, to be fed by us, not to feed us, 47.Wales, Report on (1848), and school in, 41*"War, women responsible for, as they could hinder it, 48."Wife, should guide her husband, 20*

„ the true, is a home-maker, 22*"Women, beauty of, what, 24*

ft „ and on what depended, 26*

„ changefulness of noble, 23*

a deficient in accuracy and precision ? 8-9*

M dignity of, according to the great poets, 6 seq*

,, duties to the state, the expansion of that to their

homes, 43.

tt tt public as well as private, 44*

tt education of, 23 seq*

tt tt its end stated, the reading of history,

27 seq*

» tt (she is to learn that she may* feel andjudge, not that she may know), 27seq.

tt M to learn some one science, 27*

n t» but not theology, 29*

„ knowledge of, to be accurate, if not deep, 30 seq*

tt tt contrasted with that of men, 30 seq*

H men and, their relation, 4, 5, 16 seq*tt tt women to buckle on men's armour in every

sense, 18*

tt not inferior to men, but different from, 2a„ not the slaves of men, 4-5*

„ and men, their different functions, 20 seq*

tt obedience to, in noble times, 17*

tt position of, 4 seq*

„ praise, their great function, 21*

tt to be queens, 47 seq.

tt responsible for the misery of the world, 48-49*67

Women, continued ;

—

„ rights, and man's, not independent Of conflicting, 4*

„ sympathies of, not to be confined to their homes,

44.

„ worship and honour of, in all Christian times, 17*Wordsworth, his exquisite RIGHTNESS, 24.

„ quoted ;

—

" Three years she grew," 24*** A countenance in which did meet," 26*

Work, right amusement is found in right, 47*

68

Here ends OF QUEENS' GARDENSBy JOHN RUSKIN, Printed at theBallantyne Press, Edinburgh, and

Published by George Allen, London,

in the Year 1902 jt jt j* jt

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