same difficulty stated about the human race in general. There is a perpetual
action and reaction between individuals and institutions; we must try and
mend both by little and little?the only way in which human things can be
mended. Unfortunately, many over-zealous champions of women assert their
actual equality with men?nay, even their moral superiority to men?as a
ground for their release from oppressive laws and restrictions. They lose
strength immensely by this false position. If it were true, then there would be
a case in which slavery and ignorance nourished virtue, and so far we should
have an argument for the continuance of bondage. Rut we want freedom and
culture for woman, because subjection and ignorance have debased her, and
with her, Man; for? If she be small, slight-natured, miserable,
How shall men grow?2 Both Margaret Fuller and Mary Wollstonecraft have too much sagacity to
fall into this sentimental exaggeration. Their ardent hopes of what women may
become do not prevent them from seeing and painting women as they are. On
the relative moral excellence of men and women Mary Wollstonecraft speaks
with the most decision: Women are supposed to possess more sensibility, and even humanity,
than men, and their strong attachments and instantaneous emotions of
compassion are given as proofs; but the clinging affection of ignorance
has seldom anything noble in it, and may mostly be resolved into selfish
ness, as well as the affection of children and brutes. I have known many
weak women whose sensibility was entirely engrossed by their husbands;
and as for their humanity, it was very faint indeed, or rather it was only a
transient emotion of compassion. Humanity does not consist 'in a squea
mish ear,' says an eminent orator.3 'It belongs to the mind as well as to
the nerves.' But this kind of exclusive affection, though it degrades the
individual, should not be brought forward as a proof of the inferiority of
9. Cf. Eliot's fictional representation of such a sit-made on a proposal to have a man deified. Romuation in her account of Dr. Lvdgate's married life ulus: legendary founder of Rome; after his death in Middlemarch (1871-72). he was worshipped by the Romans as a god. 1. Cf. Historia Augusta (ca. 4th century C.E.), Life 2. Tennvson's The Princess 7.249?SO. of Geta 2, in which the same cynical comment is 3. Perhaps Edmund Burke (1729-1797).
.
1342 / GEORGE ELIOT
the sex, because it is the natural consequence of confined views; for even
women of superior sense, having their attention turned to little employ
ments and private plans, rarely rise to heroism, unless when spurred on
by love! and love, as an heroic passion, like genius, appears but once in
an age. I therefore agree with the moralist who asserts 'that women have
seldom so much generosity as men'; and that their narrow affections, to
which justice and humanity are often sacrificed, render the sex apparently
inferior, especially as they are commonly inspired by men; but I contend
that the heart would expand as the understanding gained strength, if
women were not depressed4 from their cradles. We had marked several other passages of Margaret Fuller's for extract, but
as we do not aim at an exhaustive treatment of our subject, and are only
touching a few of its points, we have, perhaps, already claimed as much of the
reader's attention as he will be willing to give to such desultory material.
1855
From Silly Novels by Lady Novelists1
Silly Novels by Lady Novelists are a genus with many species, determined
by the particular quality of silliness that predominates in them?the frothy,
the prosy, the pious, or the pedantic. But it is a mixture of all these?a com
