Fourthly, there is your library woman, steeped in folios; steeped in languages, both living and dead; steeped in ologies, steeped in politics; who walks round a baby as if it were a rattle-snake, and if she was born with a heart, never has found it out.
Fifthly, there is your female viper--your cat--your hyena. All claws, nails and tongue. Wiry, bloodless, snappy, narrow, vindictive; lapping up your life-blood with her slanders, and clawing out your warm, palpitating heart. Out on her!
Sixthly, there is your woman--pretty or plain, it matters not; lady-like by nature; intelligent, but not pedantic; modest, yet not prudish; strong-hearted, but not "strong-minded" (as that term is at present perverted); no "scholar," and yet well read; no butterfly, and yet bright and gay. Merry without noise, silent without stupidity, religious without fanaticism, capable of an opinion, and yet able to hold her tongue. If married, not of necessity sinking into a mere machine; if unmarried, occupying herself with other things than husband-hunting. Liking books, yet not despising needles and brooms; genial, unaffected, good-natured; with an active brain, and a live heart under lock and key. God bless her! wherever she is, for she redeems all the rest.
Do you suppose that the woman ever lived who would _prefer_ single to married life had she ever met with a man whom she could really love? I have seen cold, intellectual women, _apparently_ self-poised and self-sustained, gliding like the moon on their solitary path alone, diffusing light, perhaps, but no warmth; to the superficial observer looking as carelessly down upon joy as upon sorrow; but no power on earth could persuade me, that beneath that smooth ice there smouldered no volcano; no reasoning persuade me that those fingers would not rather have been twisting a baby's soft curls, than turning the leaves of musty folios; no negative shake of the head, or forced laugh, prevent my eyes from following with sorrowful looks the woman who was trying to make herself believe such a lie. Let her pile her books shelf upon shelf, and scribble till her pen, ink, paper, thoughts, eyes and candle give out;--and then let her turn round and face her woman's heart if she dare! I defy her to stop long enough to listen one half hour to its pleadings. I defy her to sit down in the still moonlight and look on, while old memories in mournful procession defile before her soul's mirror, without a smothered cry of anguish. I defy her to listen to the brook's ripple, the whispered leaf-music, or to look at the soft clouds, the quiet stars, the blossoming flowers, the little pairing birds as they build their nests--and above all, upon a mother with her babe's arms about her neck--without turning soul-sick away. She is _not_ a woman if she can do otherwise. She is not a woman if she can be satisfied with clasping her own arms over a waist which belongs to nobody but herself. I declare her to be a machine--a stick--and carved in straight instead of undulating lines; she's an icicle--an ossification--a petrifaction--an abortion--a monster--let her keep her stony eyes and cold fingers off me; she has no place in this living, breathing, panting, loving world. Out upon her for a walking mummy--leave her to her hieroglyphics, which are beyond my understanding.