Beyond this lies the fact that womanliness
is opposed to mannishness, and that unwomanliness grows faster than
its virtuous opposite. "Ill weeds grow apace," says a German proverb.
One plantain in a garden will eat out not only the flowers in the plats,
but the very grass in the borders. Any thing that takes away from
modesty, refinement, gentleness, takes away from womanliness. Says
Beaconsfield, "The girl of the period,--she sets up to be natural, and
is only rude; mistakes insolence for innocence; says every thing that
comes first to her lips, and thinks she is gay when she is only giddy."
I sometimes think, girls, it is the motherliness in some of you that
often makes you womanly; not altogether the quality that makes little
folks hug their dolls,--not altogether that,--though, in their gentle
cares, their tender caresses and assumed anxieties, they are little
women in themselves; but I mean, too, the motherliness that makes girls
careful of others. It is an all-sheltering fondness; it is a delicate
superintendence over the comforts of another; it is a brooding thought
about the nestlings of one's heart, hearth, or associations; it is
a cultivated instinct that smooths out difficulties, and steps right
along beside purity and loveliness.
This characteristic of womanliness is not that weak, unsubstantial
quality which we sometimes associate with effeminacy.
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