THE CANARY TO THE SWALLOW.Will this letter ever reach you, my child? It is impossible to say, as I am ignorant of the direction of your last flight. I scarcely venture to hope that one day your eyes will fall on these words of maternal solicitude. Yet should fortune favour me, you will find that my affection is still unchanged, although it manifests itself in grumbling fears for the safety of a spirit so adventurous.I grieved to see you set out on your journey, nor could I conceal my apprehension for your safety. Unfortunately the union of our hearts does not extend to our ideas, accordingly I did not succeed in changing your plans. Far from regarding myself as infallible, I own my mistake in wishing only for the things attainable in my sphere of life. If this be an error, yours is surely a greater one—the ambition which aspires to everything beyond your reach. The false inspiration derived from books has led you into a dark road, along which your tutors, believe me, will never follow you. Your life has become an illusion, and the more complete the illusion, the more terrible will the disenchantment prove. When the hour of awakening does come, as come it will, I tremble for the result.I know that I am a mere dotard, and you are right to complain of my persistency in heaping sermons upon your head. Complain if you will, but allow me still to preach.I have been told that many of our sex use their feathers for writing, and I perceive with regret that you are yielding to the popular mania with which they are possessed. For myself I seek nothing but knowledge, and I should like to know what good end is served by soiling snow-white paper. Let us handle this subject freely. Either you have great talent, small talent, or no talent at all. I do not see it can be otherwise. If by fatality you are favoured with great talent, as are the males, who make laws for others and reputations for themselves, these very males, by reason of constitutional jealousy, will not permit you to rise superior to themselves. The highest fame has always been, and must always be, male-fame, ill begotten as it is at times. That being so, females are by law, and, as males say, by nature, unfitted to fill the loftiest posts of honour. They are essentially the potter’s clay fashioned into humble vessels suited to adorn or to become useful in the household, whereas the males are the marble of which monuments are made.Apart from the public life in which you are the slave of fame, you may wish to have a private domestic life hidden away from the world, to which you may betake yourself when weary of triumph and tinsel. But where will you find a partner vain or humble enough to share your lot, to joyfully wear the ridiculous livery inflicted on him by your success? Who would be the husband of a great female? Certainly no one you could respect and look up to for counsel and advice. You will remain, then, powerful and solitary. This is all very fine, but the position is trying, and high intelligence can better serve its God by dutifully lifting a small but compact circle to its own level of happiness than by striving to move the world. Fame brings many little cares of which I have not spoken; it has to bear hatred, envy, calumny—troubles these which seldom invade the quiet nest. On a column in sight of all, and in the full blaze of noonday light, the flaws and defects of the finest marbles are all observed and attacked by the critics. Let us descend from the column and come to the nicely-poised mind that would be so charming in some obscurer spots if only it could be schooled to perform its great feats in the shady nooks of the world. Here I lay my finger on the root of your malady. One makes a very good show among a circle of indulgent friends, but the public ought not to bedisappointed, for they did not complain of the want of your special talent, and did not invite you to become their idol in the temple of fame. One must walk upwards to this shrine with timid step, for there are more thorns than roses by the way. When the foot grows bolder, one becomes used to the compliments that are lavished, as well as to the curses that are heaped, on one’s head by those over whose prostrate forms one tramples. At last life loses its lustre, and you become the slave of a cold, cruel, callous mind, possessed by aspiring to a glory it can never attain. Critics, at first silent, grow tired and bite; they rudely signify to your astonished friends that after all you are no Eagle, but only a Swallow.This dawn of opposition irritates you, and self-love seeks consolation in the rapid flatteries of supporters whose pride prompts them to sustain you at all hazards, and the clever head, which might have been a reasonable one, is turned and lost!I will, with your leave, now pass on to the third point in my observations, glancing for a moment at the picture of a daughter, wife, or mother who, in addition to all the other virtues, cultivates literature. She must indeed be an amiable authoress who with one hand rocks the babe to sleep, while with the other she wields the pen that is to wake the world.During periods of inspiration the children tear her manuscripts, and add to her finest pages a sort of illumination on which she had not reckoned. Here you have a faithful description of this fantastic being whose infants are reared on a mixture of milk and ink. It is not, however, into the ridiculous that I fear to see you fall. I know your tastes too well, and hope they will shield you from such depths of depravity.What I dread most is the vanity which has led you to adopt a course so ridiculous as advocating the right of females. It may lead you into many grievous mistakes unless common sense comes to the rescue.I have spoken thus freely in order that my advice may be of service to you. Had I loved you less, my letter would have been milder and more pleasant to read. You may find it a bitter pill to swallow, but it will cure your malady!
Will this letter ever reach you, my child? It is impossible to say, as I am ignorant of the direction of your last flight. I scarcely venture to hope that one day your eyes will fall on these words of maternal solicitude. Yet should fortune favour me, you will find that my affection is still unchanged, although it manifests itself in grumbling fears for the safety of a spirit so adventurous.
I grieved to see you set out on your journey, nor could I conceal my apprehension for your safety. Unfortunately the union of our hearts does not extend to our ideas, accordingly I did not succeed in changing your plans. Far from regarding myself as infallible, I own my mistake in wishing only for the things attainable in my sphere of life. If this be an error, yours is surely a greater one—the ambition which aspires to everything beyond your reach. The false inspiration derived from books has led you into a dark road, along which your tutors, believe me, will never follow you. Your life has become an illusion, and the more complete the illusion, the more terrible will the disenchantment prove. When the hour of awakening does come, as come it will, I tremble for the result.
I know that I am a mere dotard, and you are right to complain of my persistency in heaping sermons upon your head. Complain if you will, but allow me still to preach.
I have been told that many of our sex use their feathers for writing, and I perceive with regret that you are yielding to the popular mania with which they are possessed. For myself I seek nothing but knowledge, and I should like to know what good end is served by soiling snow-white paper. Let us handle this subject freely. Either you have great talent, small talent, or no talent at all. I do not see it can be otherwise. If by fatality you are favoured with great talent, as are the males, who make laws for others and reputations for themselves, these very males, by reason of constitutional jealousy, will not permit you to rise superior to themselves. The highest fame has always been, and must always be, male-fame, ill begotten as it is at times. That being so, females are by law, and, as males say, by nature, unfitted to fill the loftiest posts of honour. They are essentially the potter’s clay fashioned into humble vessels suited to adorn or to become useful in the household, whereas the males are the marble of which monuments are made.
Apart from the public life in which you are the slave of fame, you may wish to have a private domestic life hidden away from the world, to which you may betake yourself when weary of triumph and tinsel. But where will you find a partner vain or humble enough to share your lot, to joyfully wear the ridiculous livery inflicted on him by your success? Who would be the husband of a great female? Certainly no one you could respect and look up to for counsel and advice. You will remain, then, powerful and solitary. This is all very fine, but the position is trying, and high intelligence can better serve its God by dutifully lifting a small but compact circle to its own level of happiness than by striving to move the world. Fame brings many little cares of which I have not spoken; it has to bear hatred, envy, calumny—troubles these which seldom invade the quiet nest. On a column in sight of all, and in the full blaze of noonday light, the flaws and defects of the finest marbles are all observed and attacked by the critics. Let us descend from the column and come to the nicely-poised mind that would be so charming in some obscurer spots if only it could be schooled to perform its great feats in the shady nooks of the world. Here I lay my finger on the root of your malady. One makes a very good show among a circle of indulgent friends, but the public ought not to bedisappointed, for they did not complain of the want of your special talent, and did not invite you to become their idol in the temple of fame. One must walk upwards to this shrine with timid step, for there are more thorns than roses by the way. When the foot grows bolder, one becomes used to the compliments that are lavished, as well as to the curses that are heaped, on one’s head by those over whose prostrate forms one tramples. At last life loses its lustre, and you become the slave of a cold, cruel, callous mind, possessed by aspiring to a glory it can never attain. Critics, at first silent, grow tired and bite; they rudely signify to your astonished friends that after all you are no Eagle, but only a Swallow.
This dawn of opposition irritates you, and self-love seeks consolation in the rapid flatteries of supporters whose pride prompts them to sustain you at all hazards, and the clever head, which might have been a reasonable one, is turned and lost!
I will, with your leave, now pass on to the third point in my observations, glancing for a moment at the picture of a daughter, wife, or mother who, in addition to all the other virtues, cultivates literature. She must indeed be an amiable authoress who with one hand rocks the babe to sleep, while with the other she wields the pen that is to wake the world.
During periods of inspiration the children tear her manuscripts, and add to her finest pages a sort of illumination on which she had not reckoned. Here you have a faithful description of this fantastic being whose infants are reared on a mixture of milk and ink. It is not, however, into the ridiculous that I fear to see you fall. I know your tastes too well, and hope they will shield you from such depths of depravity.
What I dread most is the vanity which has led you to adopt a course so ridiculous as advocating the right of females. It may lead you into many grievous mistakes unless common sense comes to the rescue.
I have spoken thus freely in order that my advice may be of service to you. Had I loved you less, my letter would have been milder and more pleasant to read. You may find it a bitter pill to swallow, but it will cure your malady!