If that causes hurt, she is not slow to express her sympathy and
show her sorrow. She does not do things for effect, nor to arouse unjust
indignation.
If we were to study the points of character that have made women
celebrated, we should find them within the power of any earnest girl
to obtain through great strength of womanhood. I mean those women who
have been the bravest, truest, tenderest, most loved by the world.
Philippa pleading with bended knee before Edward III. to spare the
lives of the men of Calais, Catherine urging her suit before Henry
VIII., Madame de Stael supplicating Bonaparte for her father's liberty,
Marie Antoinette ascending the steps of the scaffold, are but few of
the women of history who furnish us examples of highest womanhood.
Literature supplies as great illustrations: Antigone going to bury
her brother's ashes in spite of the king's threat to take her life;
Zenobia in chains in the midst of a great Roman triumph,--a woman still,
with firm though downcast eyes; Rebecca, in "Ivanhoe," standing on
the tower ready to give the fatal spring the moment Bois Guilbert should
approach with dishonorable purpose,--all furnish vivid pictures of
what strength of womanliness can accomplish. Simple traits caused their
noblest actions,--love, sympathy, tenderness, purity, bravery,
resolution, endurance; but these qualities, grown almost to their
utmost, make these women dear to us.
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