He was not shy, and so far as awkwardness proceeds from a struggle with
shyness, he was not awkward; grave, attentive, submissive, often silent,
he was simply swimming in a sort of rapture of respect. This emotion was
not at all theoretic, it was not even in a high degree sentimental; he
had thought very little about the "position" of women, and he was
not familiar either sympathetically or otherwise, with the image of
a President in petticoats. His attitude was simply the flower of
his general good-nature, and a part of his instinctive and genuinely
democratic assumption of every one's right to lead an easy life. If a
shaggy pauper had a right to bed and board and wages and a vote, women,
of course, who were weaker than paupers, and whose physical tissue was
in itself an appeal, should be maintained, sentimentally, at the public
expense. Newman was willing to be taxed for this purpose, largely, in
proportion to his means. Moreover, many of the common traditions with
regard to women were with him fresh personal impressions; he had never
read a novel! He had been struck with their acuteness, their subtlety,
their tact, their felicity of judgment. They seemed to him exquisitely
organized. If it is true that one must always have in one's work here
below a religion, or at least an ideal, of some sort, Newman found his
metaphysical inspiration in a vague acceptance of final responsibility
to some illumined feminine brow.
Pages:
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51