The open air and the fields, the street and public chambers, are the places where Man executes his will; let him yield or divide the sceptre at the door of the house. Woman, with her instinct of behavior, instantly detects in man a love of trifles, any coldness or imbecility, or, in short, any want of that large, flowing, and magnanimous deportment, which is indispensable as an exterior in the hall. Our American institutions have been friendly to her, and at this moment, I esteem it a chief felicity of this country, that it excels in women. A certain awkward consciousness of inferiority in the men, may give rise to the new chivalry in behalf of Woman's Rights. Certainly, let her be as much better placed in the laws and in social forms, as the most zealous reformer can ask, but I confide so entirely in her inspiring and musical nature, that I believe only herself can show us how she shall be served. The wonderful generosity of her sentiments raises her at times into heroical and godlike regions, and verifies the pictures of Minerva, Juno, or Polymnia; and, by the firmness with which she treads her upward path, she convinces the coarsest calculators that another road exists, than that which their feet know. But besides those who make good in our imagination the place of muses and of Delphic Sibyls, are there not women who fill our vase with wine and roses to the brim, so that the wine runs over and fills the house with perfume; who inspire us with courtesy; who unloose our tongues, and we speak; who anoint our eyes, and we see? We say things we never thought to have said; for once, our walls of habitual reserve vanished, and left us at large; we were children playing with children in a wide field of flowers. Steep us, we cried, in these influences, for days, for weeks, and we shall be sunny poets, and will write out in many-colored words the romance that you are. Was it Hafiz or Firdousi that said of his Persian Lilla, She was an elemental force, and astonished me by her amount of life, when I saw her day after day radiating, every instant, redundant joy and grace on all around her. She was a solvent powerful to reconcile all heterogeneous persons into one society: like air or water, an element of such a great range of affinities, that it combines readily with a thousand substances. Where she is present, all others will be more than they are wont. She was a unit and whole, so that whatsoever she did, became her. She had too much sympathy and desire to please, than that you could say, her manners were marked with dignity, yet no princess could surpass her clear and erect demeanor on each occasion. She did not study the Persian grammar, nor the books of the seven poets, but all the poems of the seven seemed to be written upon her. For, though the bias of her nature was not to thought, but to sympathy, yet was she so perfect in her own nature, as to meet intellectual persons by the fulness of her heart, warming them by her sentiments; believing, as she did, that by dealing nobly with all, all would show themselves noble.
同类推荐
热门推荐
绿色牧羊人动物收容所
在大规模的清理运动后,宠物几乎在城市中消失,只要少数幸运儿存活在动物收容所和动物园里。一家动物收容所的负责人赵晨夕为了动物们,想尽各种办法,努力维持着园里的运营。动物收容所却先后发生了明星捐款门、科技公司系统故障、现场表演事件、动物安乐死事件等等一系列意想不到的困局,多次被推上了风口浪尖。赵晨夕多方求援,他能否和动物们共渡难关,请听我细细道来。贼行无忌
2004年5月5日,伦敦索斯比拍卖行——毕加索的名画《拿烟斗的男孩》以5500万美元的底价开拍,最终,拍卖槌敲定的价格是——1.04亿美元。只是……索斯比拍卖行并没有透露这位神秘买主的任何个人信息,甚至连其国籍也不肯有丝毫的暗示。……15年后,富可敌国的罗斯柴尔德家族突然宣布:毕加索那幅被称为“世界上最昂贵的画”,在戒备森严的拉菲古堡离奇被盗。直到这时才有人记起,这个煊赫家族的第六代掌门人,大卫·罗斯柴尔德曾经说过这样一句话,“葡萄酒,艺术,和银行业一直是我们的三大传统投资领域。”整个世界都喧哗了。而此刻,从游戏世界里走出来的小毛贼陈峰,正背着一幅不起眼的卷轴,走在光华市的一条碎石小路上。只有低调的奢华,才是贼行无忌……