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COVENTRY PATMORE / 158 5
In order to ascertain what kind of education is most effective in making woman what she ought to be, the best method is to inquire into the character, station, and peculiar duties of woman throughout the largest portion of her earthly career; and then ask, for what she is most valued, admired, and beloved?
In answer to this, I have little hesitation in saying?for her disinterested2 kindness. Look at all the heroines, whether of romance or reality?at all the female characters that are held up to universal admiration?at all who have gone down to honored graves, amongst the tears and lamentations of their survivors. Have these been the learned, the accomplished women; the women who could solve problems, and elucidate systems of philosophy? No: or if they have, they have also been women who were dignified with the majesty of moral greatness.
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Let us single out from any particular seminary3 a child who has been there from the years of ten to fifteen, and reckon, if it can be reckoned, the pains that have been spent in making that child proficient in Latin. Have the same pains been spent in making her disinterestedly kind? And yet what man is there in existence who would not rather his wife should be free from selfishness, than be able to read Virgil without the use of a dictionary?
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I still cling fondly to the hope that some system of female instruction will be discovered, by which the young women of England may be sent from school to the homes of their parents, habituated to be on the watch for every opportunity of doing good to others; making it the first and the last inquiry of every day, 'What can I do to make my parents, my brothers, or my sisters, more happy? I am but a feeble instrument in the hands of Providence, but as He will give me strength, I hope to pursue the plan to which I have been accustomed, of seeking my own happiness only in the happiness of others.'
1839
2. I.e., independent, impartial. 3. School (in the early 19th century, often specifically a private school for girls). COVENTRY PATMORE
Originally published between 1854 and 1862, The Angel in the House, a long poem about courtship and marriage by Coventry Patmore (1823?1896), became a best seller in the United States and later in Britain. Dedicated to the author's first wife, Emily Augusta Andrews, the poem celebrates their fifteen years of married life. (She died in 1862, and Patmore, who lived another three decades, remarried twice.) The poem, popular among Patmore's contemporaries (including Gerard Manley Hopkins and John Ruskin), fell out of favor in later years. Feminist critics such as Virginia Woolf criticized The Angel in the House both for the sentimentality of its ideal of woman and for the oppressive effect of this ideal on women's lives. Since Woolf, the phrase 'the angel in the house' has often been used to encapsulate a patronizing Victorian attitude toward women, for which the poem is cited as prime evidence.
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1 582 / THE 'WOMAN QUESTION'
From The Angel in the House The Paragon When I behold the skies aloft Passing the pageantry of dreams, The cloud whose bosom, cygnet-soft, A couch for nuptial Juno1 seems, 5 The ocean broad, the mountains bright, The shadowy vales with feeding herds, I from my lyre the music smite, Nor want for justly matching words. All forces of the sea and air, 10 All interests of hill and plain, I so can sing, in seasons fair, That who hath felt may feel again. Elated oft by such free songs, I think with utterance free to raise 15 That hymn for which the whole world longs, A worthy hymn in woman's praise; A hymn bright-noted like a bird's, Arousing these song-sleepy times With rhapsodies of perfect words, 20 Ruled by returning kiss of rhymes. But when I look on her and hope To tell with joy what I admire, My thoughts lie cramp'd in narrow scope, Or in the feeble birth expire; 25 No mystery of well-woven speech, No simplest phrase of tenderest fall, No liken'd excellence can reach Her, the most excellent of all, The best half of creation's best, 30 Its heart to feel, its eye to see, The crown and complex of the rest, Its aim and its epitome. Nay, might I utter my conceit,0'Twere after all a vulgar song, fancy, idea 35 For she's so simply, subtly sweet, My deepest rapture does her wrong. Yet is it now my chosen task To sing her worth as Maid and Wife; Nor happier post than this I ask, 40 To live her laureate2 all my life. On wings of love uplifted free, And by her gentleness made great, I'll teach how noble man should be To match with such a lovely mate; 45 And then in her may move the more The woman's wish to be desired,
1. In Roman mythology the wife of the chief god the married life of women. (Jupiter) and a goddess presiding especially over 2. I.e., to be the one who celebrates her in poetry.
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RUSKIN: OF QUEENS' GARDENS / 1587
(By praise increased,) till both shall soar, With blissful emulations fired. And, as geranium, pink,? or rose type of flcnver 50
Is thrice itself through power of art, So may my happy skill disclose New fairness even in her fair heart; Until that churl shall nowhere be Who bends not, awed, before the throne 55 Of her affecting majesty, So meek, so far unlike our own; Until (for who may hope too much From her who wields the powers of love?) Our lifted lives at last shall touch 60 That happy goal to which they move; Until we find, as darkness rolls Away, and evil mists dissolve, The nuptial contrasts are the poles On which the heavenly spheres revolve.
1854-62
JOHN RUSKIN
Ruskin (1819-1900) began his career writing about art but eventually became one of England's fiercest social critics. In 1864 he delivered two lectures in the industrial city of Manchester?the first, 'Of Kings' Treasuries,' supporting the development of public libraries in the name of 'noble education' and the second, 'Of Queens' Gardens,' on the special powers and duties of women. Published together the following year as Sesame and Ldies, the essays were considered ideal reading matter for middle- class young women and enjoyed exceptional sales for the remainder of the nineteenth century. In recent years 'Of Queens' Gardens,' with its assertions about the distinct differences between men and women, and their respective roles in the two separate spheres of public and private life, has become a classic text for the examination of Victorian ideology.
From Of Queens' Gardens
Now their separate characters are briefly these. The man's power is active, progressive, defensive. He is eminently the doer, the creator, the discoverer, the defender. His intellect is for speculation and invention; his
