Woman in the Nineteenth Century Part 26

The poetry of which I have spoken shows itself even here, where they are separated from old romantic a.s.sociations, and begin the new life in the New World by doing all its drudgery. We know flights of poetry repeated to us by those present at their wakes,--pa.s.sages of natural eloquence, from the lamentations for the dead, more beautiful than those recorded in the annals of Brittany or Roumelia.

It is the same genius, so exquisitely mournful, tender, and glowing, too, with the finest enthusiasm, that makes their national music, in these respects, the finest in the world. It is the music of the harp; its tones are deep and thrilling. It is the harp so beautifully described in "The Harp of Tara's Halls," a song whose simple pathos is unsurpa.s.sed. A feeling was never more adequately embodied.

It is the genius which will enable Emmet's appeal to draw tears from the remotest generations, however much they may be strangers to the circ.u.mstances which called it forth, It is the genius which beamed in chivalrous loveliness through each act of Lord Edward Fitzgerald,--the genius which, ripened by English culture, favored by suitable occasions, has shed such glory on the land which has done all it could to quench it on the parent hearth.

When we consider all the fire which glows so untamably in Irish veins, the character of her people, considering the circ.u.mstances, almost miraculous in its goodness, we cannot forbear, notwithstanding all the temporary ills they aid in here, to give them a welcome to our sh.o.r.es.

Those ills we need not enumerate; they are known to all, and we rank among them, what others would not, that by their ready service to do all the hard work, they make it easier for the rest of the population to grow effeminate, and help the country to grow too fast. But that is her destiny, to grow too fast: there is no use talking against it.

Their extreme ignorance, their blind devotion to their priesthood, their pliancy in the hands of demagogues, threaten continuance of these ills; yet, on the other hand, we must regard them as most valuable elements in the new race. They are looked upon with contempt for their wont of apt.i.tude in learning new things; their ready and ingenious lying; their eye-service. These are the faults of an oppressed race, which must require the aid of better circ.u.mstances through two or three generations to eradicate. Their virtues are their own; they are many, genuine, and deeply-rooted. Can an impartial observer fail to admire their truth to domestic ties, their power of generous bounty, and more generous grat.i.tude, their indefatigable good-humor (for ages of wrong which have driven them to so many acts of desperation, could never sour their blood at its source), their ready wit, their elasticity of nature? They are fundamentally one of the best nations of the world. Would they were welcomed here, not to work merely, but to intelligent sympathy, and efforts, both patient and ardent, for the education of their children! No sympathy could be better deserved, no efforts wiselier timed. Future Burkes and Currans would know how to give thanks for them, and Fitzgeralds rise upon the soil--which boasts the magnolia with its kingly stature and majestical white blossoms,--to the same lofty and pure beauty. Will you not believe it, merely because that bog-bred youth you placed in the mud-hole tells you lies, and drinks to cheer himself in those endless diggings? You are short-sighted, my friend; you do not look to the future; you will not turn your head to see what may have been the influences of the past. You have not examined your own breast to see whether the monitor there has not commanded you to do your part to counteract these influences; and yet the Irishman appeals to you, eye to eye. He is very personal himself,--he expects a personal interest from you. Nothing has been able to destroy this hope, which was the fruit of his nature. We were much touched by O'Connell's direct appeal to the queen, as "Lady!" But she did not listen,--and we fear few ladies and gentlemen will till the progress of Destiny compels them.

THE IRISH CHARACTER.

Since the publication of a short notice under this head in the "_Tribune_," several persons have expressed to us that their feelings were awakened on the subject, especially as to their intercourse with the lower Irish. Most persons have an opportunity of becoming acquainted, if they will, with the lower cla.s.ses of Irish, as they are so much employed among us in domestic service, and other kinds of labor.

We feel, say these persons, the justice of what has been said as to the duty and importance of improving these people. We have sometimes tried; but the want of real grat.i.tude which, in them, is a.s.sociated with such warm and wordy expressions of regard, with their incorrigible habits of falsehood and evasion, have baffled and discouraged us. You say their children ought to be educated; but how can this be effected when the all but omnipotent sway of the Catholic religion and the example of parents are both opposed to the formation of such views and habits as we think desirable to the citizen of the New World?

We answer first with regard to those who have grown up in another land, and who, soon after arriving here, are engaged in our service.

First, as to ingrat.i.tude. We cannot but sadly smile on the remarks we hear so often on this subject.

Just Heaven!--and to us how liberal! which has given those who speak thus an unfettered existence, free from religious or political oppression; which has given them the education of intellectual and refined intercourse with men to develop those talents which make them rich in thoughts and enjoyment, perhaps in money, too, certainly rich in comparison with the poor immigrants they employ,--what is thought in thy clear light of those who expect in exchange for a few s.h.i.+llings spent in presents or medicines, a few kind words, a little casual thought or care, such a mighty payment of grat.i.tude? Grat.i.tude! Under the weight of old feudalism their minds were padlocked by habit against the light; they might be grateful then, for they thought their lords were as G.o.ds, of another frame and spirit than theirs, and that they had no right to have the same hopes and wants, scarcely to suffer from the same maladies, with those creatures of silk, and velvet, and cloth of gold. Then, the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table might be received with grat.i.tude, and, if any but the dogs came to tend the beggar's sores, such might be received as angels. But the inst.i.tutions which sustained such ideas have fallen to pieces. It is understood, even In Europe, that

"The rank is but the guinea's stamp, The man's the gowd for a' that, A man's a man for a' that."

And being such, has a claim on this earth for something better than the nettles of which the French peasantry made their soup, and with which the persecuted Irish, "under hiding," turned to green the lips white before with famine.

And if this begins to be understood in Europe, can you suppose it is not by those who, hearing that America opens a mother's arms with the cry, "All men are born free and equal," rush to her bosom to be consoled for centuries of woe, for their ignorance, their hereditary degradation, their long memories of black bread and stripes? However little else they may understand, believe they understand well _this much_. Such inequalities of privilege, among men all born of one blood, should not exist. They darkly feel that those to whom much has been given owe to the Master an account of stewards.h.i.+p. They know now that your gift is but a small portion of their right.

And you, O giver! how did you give? With religious joy, as one who knows that he who loves G.o.d cannot fail to love his neighbor as himself? with joy and freedom, as one who feels that it is the highest happiness of gift to us that we have something to give again? Didst thou put thyself into the position of the poor man, and do for him what thou wouldst have had one who was able to do for thee? Or, with affability and condescending sweetness, made easy by internal delight at thine own wondrous virtue, didst thou give five dollars to balance five hundred spent on thyself? Did you say, "James, I shall expect you to do right in everything, and to attend to my concerns as I should myself; and, at the end of the quarter, I will give you my old clothes and a new pocket-handkerchief, besides seeing that your mother is provided with fuel against Christmas?"

Line upon line, and precept upon precept, the tender parent expects from the teacher to whom he confides his child; vigilance unwearied, day and night, through long years. But he expects the raw Irish girl or boy to correct, at a single exhortation, the habit of deceiving those above them, which the expectation of being tyrannized over has rooted in their race for ages. If we look fairly into the history of their people, and the circ.u.mstances under which their own youth was trained, we cannot expect that anything short of the most steadfast patience and love can enlighten them as to the beauty and value of implicit truth, and, having done so, fortify and refine them in the practice of it.

This we admit at the outset: First, You must be prepared for a religious and patient treatment of these people, not merely _un_educated, but _ill_-educated; a treatment far more religious and patient than is demanded by your own children, if they were born and bred under circ.u.mstances at all favorable.

Second, Dismiss from your minds all thought of grat.i.tude. Do what you do for them for G.o.d's sake, and as a debt to humanity--interest to the common creditor upon princ.i.p.al left in your care. Then insensibility, forgetfulness, or relapse, will not discourage you, and you will welcome proofs of genuine attachment to yourself chiefly as tokens that your charge has risen into a higher state of thought and feeling, so as to be enabled to value the benefits conferred through you. Could we begin so, there would be hope of our really becoming the instructors and guardians of this swarm of souls which come from their regions of torment to us, hoping, at least, the benefits of purgatory.

The influence of the Catholic priesthood must continue very great till there is a complete transfusion of character in the minds of their charge. But as the Irishman, or any other foreigner, becomes Americanized, he will demand a new form of religion to suit his new wants. The priest, too, will have to learn the duties of an American citizen; he will live less and less for the church, and more for the people, till at last, if there be Catholicism still, it will be under Protestant influences, as begins to be the case in Germany. It will be, not Roman, but American Catholicism; a form of wors.h.i.+p which relies much, perhaps, on external means and the authority of the clergy,--for such will always be the case with religion while there are crowds of men still living an external life, and who have not learned to make full use of their own faculties,--but where a belief in the benefits of confession and the power of the church, as church, to bind and loose, atone for or decide upon sin, with similar corruptions, must vanish in the free and searching air of a new era.

Between employer and employed there is not sufficient pains taken on the part of the former to establish a mutual understanding. People meet, in the relations of master and servant, who have lived in two different worlds. In this respect we are much worse situated than the same parties have been in Europe. There is less previous acquaintance between the upper and lower cla.s.ses. (We must, though unwillingly, use these terms to designate the state of things as at present existing.) Meals are taken separately; work is seldom shared; there is very little to bring the parties together, except sometimes the farmer works with his hired Irish laborer in the fields, or the mother keeps the nurse-maid of her baby in the room with her.

In this state of things the chances for instruction, which come every day of themselves where parties share a common life instead of its results merely, do not occur. Neither is there opportunity to administer instruction in the best manner, nor to understand when and where it is needed.

The farmer who works with his men in the field, the farmer's wife who attends with her women to the churn and the oven, may, with ease, be true father and mother to all who are in their employ, and enjoy health of conscience in the relation, secure that, if they find cause for blame, it is not from faults induced by their own negligence. The merchant who is from home all day, the lady receiving visitors or working slippers in her nicely-furnished parlor, cannot be quite so sure that their demands, or the duties involved in them, are clearly understood, nor estimate the temptations to prevarication.

It is shocking to think to what falsehoods human beings like ourselves will resort, to excuse a love of amus.e.m.e.nt, to hide ill-health, while they see us indulging freely in the one, yielding lightly to the other; and yet we have, or ought to have, far more resources in either temptation than they. For us it is hard to resist, to give up going to the places where we should meet our most interesting companions, or do our work with an aching brow. But we have not people over us whose careless, hasty anger drives us to seek excuses for our failures; if so, perhaps,--perhaps; who knows?--we, the better-educated, rigidly, immaculately true as we are at present, _might_ tell falsehoods.

Perhaps we might, if things were given us to do which we had never seen done, if we were surrounded by new arrangements in the nature of which no one instructed us. All this we must think of before we can be of much use.

We have spoken of the nursery-maid as _the_ hired domestic with whom her mistress, or even the master, is likely to become acquainted.

But, only a day or two since, we saw, what we see so often, a nursery-maid with the family to which she belonged, in a public conveyance. They were having a pleasant time; but in it she had no part, except to hold a hot, heavy baby, and receive frequent admonitions to keep _it_ comfortable. No inquiry was made as to _her_ comfort; no entertaining remark, no information of interest as to the places we pa.s.sed, was addressed to her. Had she been in that way with that family ten years she might have known _them_ well enough, for their characters lay only too bare to a careless scrutiny; but her joys, her sorrows, her few thoughts, her almost buried capacities, would have been as unknown to them, and they as little likely to benefit her, as the Emperor of China.

Let the employer place the employed first in good physical circ.u.mstances, so as to promote the formation of different habits from those of the Irish hovel, or illicit still-house. Having thus induced feelings of self-respect, he has opened the door for a new set of notions. Then let him become acquainted with the family circ.u.mstances and history of his new pupil. He has now got some ground on which to stand for intercourse. Let instruction follow for the mind, not merely by having the youngest daughter set, now and then, copies in the writing-book, or by hearing read aloud a few verses in the Bible, but by putting good books in their way, if able to read, and by intelligent conversation when there is a chance,--the master with the man who is driving him, the lady with the woman who is making her bed.

Explain to them the relations of objects around them; teach them to compare the old with the new life. If you show a better way than theirs of doing work, teach them, too, _why_ it is better. Thus will the mind be prepared by development for a moral reformation; there will be some soil fitted to receive the seed.

When the time is come,--and will you think a poor, uneducated person, in whose mind the sense of right and wrong is confused, the sense of honor blunted, easier of access than one refined and thoughtful?

Surely you will not, if you yourself are refined and thoughtful, but rather that the case requires far more care in the choice of a favorable opportunity,--when, then, the good time is come, perhaps it will be best to do what you do in a way that will make a permanent impression. Show the Irishman that a vice not indigenous to his nation--for the rich and n.o.ble who are not so tempted are chivalrous to an uncommon degree in their openness, bold sincerity, and adherence to their word--has crept over and become deeply rooted in the poorer people from the long oppressions they have undergone. Show them what efforts and care will be needed to wash out the taint. Offer your aid, as a faithful friend, to watch their lapses, and refine their sense of truth. You will not speak in vain. If they never mend, if habit is too powerful, still, their n.o.bler nature will not have been addressed in vain. They will not forget the counsels they have not strength to follow, and the benefits will be seen in their children or children's children.

Many say, "Well, suppose we do all this; what then? They are so fond of change, they will leave us." What then? Why, let them go and carry the good seed elsewhere. Will you be as selfish and short-sighted as those who never plant trees to shade a hired house, lest some one else should be blest by their shade?

It is a simple duty we ask you to engage in; it is, also, a great patriotic work. You are asked to engage in the great work of mutual education, which must be for this country the system of mutual insurance.

We have some hints upon this subject, drawn from the experience of the wise and good, some encouragement to offer from that experience, that the fruits of a wise planting sometimes ripen sooner than we could dare to expect. But this must be for another day.

One word as to this love of change. We hear people blaming it in their servants, who can and do go to Niagara, to the South, to the Springs, to Europe, to the seaside; in short, who are always on the move whenever they feel the need of variety to reanimate mind, health, or spirits. Change of place, as to family employment, is the only way domestics have of "seeing life"--the only way immigrants have of getting thoroughly acquainted with the new society into which they have entered. How natural that they should incline to it! Once more; put yourself in their places, and then judge them gently from your own, if you would be just to them, if you would be of any use.

EDUCATE MEN AND WOMEN AS SOULS.

Had Christendom but been true to its standard, while accommodating its modes of operation to the calls of successive times, Woman would now have not only equal _power_ with Man,--for of that omnipotent nature will never suffer her to be defrauded,--but a _chartered_ power, too fully recognized to be abused. Indeed, all that is wanting is, that Man should prove his own freedom by making her free. Let him abandon conventional restriction, as a vestige of that Oriental barbarity which confined Woman to a seraglio. Let him trust her entirely, and give her every privilege already acquired for himself,--elective franchise, tenure of property, liberty to speak in public a.s.semblies, &c.

Nature has pointed out her ordinary sphere by the circ.u.mstances of her physical existence. She cannot wander far. If here and there the G.o.ds send their missives through women as through men, let them speak without remonstrance. In no age have men been able wholly to hinder them. A Deborah must always be a spiritual mother in Israel. A Corinna may be excluded from the Olympic games, yet all men will hear her song, and a Pindar sit at her feet. It is Man's fault that there ever were Aspasias and Ninons. These exquisite forms were intended for the shrines of virtue.

Neither need men fear to lose their domestic deities. Woman is born for love, and it is impossible to turn her from seeking it. Men should deserve her love as an inheritance, rather than seize and guard it like a prey. Were they n.o.ble, they would strive rather not to be loved too much, and to turn her from idolatry to the true, the only Love.

Then, children of one Father, they could not err nor misconceive one another.

Society is now so complex, that it is no longer possible to educate Woman merely as Woman; the tasks which come to her hand are so various, and so large a proportion of women are thrown entirely upon their own resources. I admit that this is not their state of perfect development; but it seems as if Heaven, having so long issued its edict in poetry and religion without securing intelligent obedience, now commanded the world in prose to take a high and rational view. The lesson reads to me thus:--

s.e.x, like rank, wealth, beauty, or talent, is but an accident of birth. As you would not educate a soul to be an aristocrat, so do not to be a woman. A general regard to her usual sphere is dictated in the economy of nature. You need never enforce these provisions rigorously.

Achilles had long plied the distaff as a princess; yet, at first sight of a sword, he seized it. So with Woman; one hour of love would teach her more of her proper relations than all your formulas and conventions. Express your views, men, of what you _seek_ in women; thus best do you give them laws. Learn, women, what you should _demand_ of men; thus only can they become themselves. Turn both from the contemplation of what is merely phenomenal in your existence, to your permanent life as souls. Man, do not prescribe how the Divine shall display itself in Woman. Woman, do not expect to see all of G.o.d in Man. Fellow-pilgrims and helpmeets are ye, Apollo and Diana, twins of one heavenly birth, both beneficent, and both armed. Man, fear not to yield to Woman's hand both the quiver and the lyre; for if her urn be filled with light, she will use both to the glory of G.o.d. There is but one doctrine for ye both, and that is the doctrine of the SOUL.

PART III.

EXTRACTS FROM JOURNALS AND LETTERS.