have to attend to, and so presently fall to tricking, and dressing, and practising all the little engaging arts peculiar to their sex. In these they place all their hopes, as they do all their happiness in the success of them. But it is fit they should be given to understand that there are other attractions much more powerful than these; that the respect we pay them is not due to their Beauty, so much as to their Modesty, and Innocence, and unaffected Virtue; and that these are the true, the irresistible charms, such as will make the surest and most lasting conquests. Addison. Her Amiability. She is of so free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition, she holds it a vice in her goodness not to do more than she is requested. Shakespeare. A Ministering Angel. When fortune changed, and love fled far, Thou wert the solitary star Which rose and set not to the last. Oh! blest be thine unbroken light! And when the cloud upon us came, And dash'd the darkness all away. Thou stood'st as stands a lovely tree, Still waves with fond fidelity Its boughs above a monument. Day unto day her dainty hands Make Life's soil'd temples clean, And there's a wake of glory, where At midnight through that shadow-land, The dying kiss her shadow, and The dead smile in their dream. Gerald Massey. To the honour, to the eternal honour of the sex, be it stated, that in the path of duty no sacrifice is to them too high or too dear. Nothing is with them impossible, but to shrink from love, honour, innocence, and religion. The voice of pleasure or of power may pass by unheeded; but the voice of affliction—never! The chamber of the sick-the pillow of the dying-the vigils of the dead-the altars of religion, never missed the presence or the sympathies of woman. Timid though she be, and so delicate that the "winds of heaven may not too roughly visit her," on such occasions she loses all sense of danger, and assumes a preternatural courage, which knows not, and fears not consequences. Then she displays that undaunted spirit which neither courts difficulties nor evades them; that resignation which utters neither murmurs nor regret; and that patience in suffering which seems victorious even over death itself. Balfour. With lofty song we love to cheer The trumpet's call again. But now we sing of lowly deeds Devoted to the brave, When she, who stems the wound that bleeds, A hero's life may save: And heroes saved exulting tell How well her voice they knew; Neglected, dying in despair, They lay till woman came To soothe them with her gentle care, And feed life's flickering flame. |