on skirts of the same material, with absolutely no effect but additional weight on the body. Color is certainly of the first importance. The woman who looks patrician in black, may look plebeian in green; and she who is dull and sallow in pink, may be strikingly handsome in scarlet. Color is much, but fineness of fabric is little. A coarse blue flannel will bring out a fair complexion as fully as the richest velvet, supposing the tint as favorable; therefore the overplus in price of the velvet is money lost. And now, still admitting looks to be the first essential, we come to another serious consideration. We have decided that self-preservation (viz.: the preservation of appearances) demands from the most conservative some modifications of the reigning fashion. The short woman, we say, is not to flounce her dress to the waist, though Mrs. G. stand over her with the bias pieces. But suppose that stern matron exacts, as the price of a certificate of stylishness, habits of dress that shall withdraw the rose from your cheek, and the springing grace from your muscles, and reduce you to belladonna for the sparkle in your eyes? Suppose she gripes you in a murderous corset, and entails upon you a pound of backache for every pound of drag in your ill-hung skirts? I talk not of ethics, only of appearances. Will that certificate of stylishness compensate you for a cloudy skin and thinning hair and stooping shoulders and boniness of outline? And yet all these, not to speak of actual imprisoning disease, are the fruit of unhealthful dressing. And now comes question third, more serious still. In view of the fact that there is, after all, a remnant of woman's nature not judged by appearance, might it not be possible for us to become so wholly absorbed in the desire to please, that we should for that very reason fail to please? The average man's ideal of woman includes not much, it is true, beyond beauty and devotedness; and yet we all know girls who present to him minds too neglected, and characters too feeble, to satisfy even his moderate expectations. There is one sight so common upon our streets that we often fail to realize its sorrowfulness. It is a young woman dressed, as they phrase it, "to kill." Her whole make-up evinces so much anxious labor; her face is powdered; her rings are outside her gloves; her hair alone has probably taken nearly an hour to build. She jigs into the street-car all a-simper, and cannot sit still there, but must be incessantly arranging her bracelets, or fidgeting among her pleats and gathers. She is soaked through and through with the consciousness of herself; and her eyes go here and there to see if so she may have found favor in the sight of any present lord and master. I have had my whole soul cringe within me with shame at seeing a maiden so ungrade herself, and knowing that every man who looked upon her would understand the abjectness of her appeal. For see, she is mutely saying: "Look at me; do look at me first; I have so arranged my clothing as to give you the best possible idea of my contour; you can see through my thin net veil the brilliancy of my complexion; this bracelet calls attention to the roundness of my wrist; the edging that shows through my gauzy sleeve will direct you to the plumpness of my upper arm; and don't fail to notice the ruby ornament on my neck. Do, kind gentleman, take a look at my samples." Does this sound coarse? I mean it so to be, and I would that every innocent young girl who puts on these hateful ways in mere thoughtless imitation, could know in what spirit men examine and appraise them. How could it be otherwise? Such a girl offers nothing to the spectator's thought nor to his impulse for simple friendly intercourse; no look of purpose invests her face with interest; there is absolutely nothing to seize his notice, save her unmaidenly anxiety to attract. And if she offers herself for competition on this standard, why should we expect him to judge her by any other? And this brings us up to our question fourth, and last. Why is it that women appear to grow old so much earlier than men? Our natural term of life is the same, which would seem to imply that decay should not begin sooner. Yet if we meet for a half hour's conversation, say the lady of thirty-five who was a belle at twenty, we are very apt to be thinking: "She is fading; she is passee." Or of another: "She is well-preserved, but she will never see forty." While if we similarly encounter a gentleman, our memory recurs to him as having a keen face, a kind face, a humorous, or intellectual, or sarcastic countenance, but, as a rule, the last thing we shall think of reporting is his age. Inferior health has something to do with this difference; so has the general tendency to climax a woman's life at twenty; yet I cannot but think that the fault is partly in ourselves. We all have seen women of whom it was not so. I know a woman, a teacher, never pretty. While you talk and she listens, you are pondering: "What a sagacious face; she not only sees my whole thought, but shows me that it was higher than I supposed." You never think about her fifty years. I know a woman, a speaker. The thousands that hear her go away kindled, excited. Many things they say of her, sometimes in dissent; but it has never happened to me to hear a word of her age. I know a woman-we all know her*--every one of whose eighty years has added to her face a new significance of beauty. Youth and health have a charm apart from character. It is exquisite; it is precious. I would no more detract from it than from the springtime miracle of an apple orchard. I would only guard against mortgaging the rest of our years to it. For day by day these shrivel; and then? What then? Pretty much the whole tune of the average feminine ideal is set to the key of twenty; includes, say, the octave between seventeen and twenty-five. All below that is embryo; all beyond is decadence. Taught to look for her empire in her maidenly charms alone, the young girl sacrifices the joys of her childhood and pawns the resources of her prime. She flourishes like the false grape, the spendthrift vine that resolves all its wealth of sap into springtide fragrance, and then stands valueless, holding out no fruit to the thirsty wayfarer, storing no wine of life for any one's need. Then, as the surface beauty shrinks and cracks away, the poor starved soul that filled that pretty skin stares out in its nothingness, or the mean soul in its ugliness. For the human face is a history. Even through the obscuring glamor of color and outline are beginning the signs of character which by and by shall make two faces, equal in physical advantage, differ by all the degrees from beauty to deformity. Busy little spirits are forever working, bringing down the corners of the mouth with tiny weights of discontent, or making it easier for impatient brows to draw together, or loosening the lips of self-indulgence; telegraphing the inner motions to the outer form, until there is no secretest habit of the mind which has not its corresponding habit of the muscle. And still, as the rosy veiling mists of youth are withdrawn, the face which a rich soul informs reveals its deeper beauty. Cheerfulness shapes the features; kindliness lights the eyes; candor shines from the brow, and all sweet meanings play about the ever changing mouth. We heard her words but yesterday. And not the mere sweetness of an infant, or the resignation of a slave, or the mildness of a cow, is competent to perfect this later beauty. It must be sweetness and mildness reinforced by largeness of character and wealth of mind. Jean Ingelow's "Sweetest woman e'er drew breath" endowed with Camoen's "Sweetest eyes were ever seen' would find her empire brief if she chanced to be feeble-minded. Form and color make the human countenance beautiful; thought makes it almost divine. And if each mental motion of yonder charming Miss shall be making its imprint on her plastic face, to be read in her prime as we read the earth's secret of a rain shower ages ago, what a poor little meaningless record, alas, it will be! And when she is thirty-five, we shall say she is old, not because of her years, but because there was nothing of her but youth, and youth is gone. "He who drinks beer," says the adage, "thinks beer." More than that, he who thinks beer, looks beer; he who thinks kindness, looks kindness; he who thinks reason, looks reason; she who thinks tatting, looks tatting, and nothing more. O girls, young girls, the hope of our sex, nay, almost the hope of our race, it is not we who can be the true missionaries, but you. We may gather you suggestions from our larger experience, but it is you who must present the logic of illustration; you who can afford to stand forth in your strength and freshness, and try to show the world how far beyond any present ideal is the beauty born of health, the gracefulness that comes with untrammelled motion, the ever increasing charms of character, and that daily setting of the features, as if to music, to the tune of what is going on in the soul. 66 And it is not for you to hang back and say, “It will all come right; we shall move with the spirit of the age." But rather to say with George Eliot, IVe are the beginning of the ages." There is one fatal truism which has becalmed whole fleets of consciences. It is the maxim, "Whatever is, is right." The family, class, or nation, rooting its life in this, has begun its decay. "Society as it exist," they say, "is ordained of Providence. Let it alone." "Human nature as it exists," they add, "is ruled by Providence; its follies result from implanted instincts; who are we that we should interfere?" And all the while they forget that the same Creator implanted the master instinct of aspiration, that will never be content to let the other instincts alone until it has developed them from root to blossom; raised them to that ideal, also Godderived, without which the rudimentary instincts would drag us down to the brutes. All is as it should be. Nothing is as it shall be. For still the spiral, returning, rises, and we joy in believing that all human good is accomplished by our Lord, through us. WOMAN IN THE LEGAL PROFESSION. BY LAVINIA GOODELL. THE first woman versed in legal science, of whom we have any record, lived more than three thousand years ago, Deborah, the wife of Lapidath--Judge, prophet poet--who held her Court under the palm tree in Mount Ephraim, to whom the pcople of God came up for judgment, and who seems to have been revered and loved by all. None of the terrible results predicted by learned Judges of the present age, as inevitable in case women enter courts of justice appear to have followed the administration of this woman judge. We do not learn from that sacred record that either her knowledge of the Mosaic Law, or her practice as a judicial officer, in hearing and deciding the various cases which came before her "unsexed" her, destroyed her womanly delicacy and refinement, corrupted her integrity, sullied her purity, unfitted her for the duties of wifehood, or even injured her health! Neither does it appear that the standard of professional excellence was lowered, the dignity of the courts impaired, the public sense of decency and propriety relaxed, reverence for womanhood made to suffer, or the rising generation neglected. In an age when brute force ruled, when war was the normal condition of nations, when the physical ranked higher than the intellectual or moral, this woman judge held her place firmly; was consulted, deferred to, and unquestioningly obeyed, not only by the masses of the people, but by the bravest and ablest warriors of her nation. Thirty centuries later, Woman asks admission to our courts of justice, not as judge, but simply as advocate, to plead the causes of such as shall choose her to represent their interests. May she enter? It is a question not for judges or legislators only, but for "the jury of the people" to decide. Shall we vote yea, or nay? The question wears a three-fold aspect. How will the admission of Woman to the legal profession affect, first, Woman; second, the professson; third, society? For an enlightened consideration of these points we will consider first, briefly, what are the duties of an attorney and counsellor-at-law. * court. After giving a minute history of the origin of jurisprudence and its growth as civilization advanced, the lady says: An attorney-at-law, strictly speaking, is a person empowered and employed to act as the agent of another in the conduct of a suit at To define more specifically the duties of an attorney and counsellor-at-law, es they are performed to-day in America, they are to give information and advice, draft deeds, wills, contracts, and other legal papers, make collections, search titles, and prepare, conduct and argue suits in court. Is it desirable that women, as well as men, perform these duties? We will consider the question under the three heads above mentioned. First. How will the admission of Woman to the legal profession affect woman herself? This question resolves itself into two, viz.: How will it affect the individual woman who studies? and, how will it affect Woman in general? a. The result to the individual woman who studies: It The effect of the study of law is like the effect of any more liberal education. is a mental discipline, and it results in the acquisition of much valuable information. The study of law cultivates attention, close methodical thought, and careful reasoning. It is a study of history from a new standpoint, and gives a view of human progress, the advance of civilization, and of mental and moral development, not to be obtained elsewhere. The study of law is not only a study of history, but largely a study of ethics. To "execute justice between a man and his neighbor" is the whole of civil law. Simple, and yet complex. The foundation principles of right and wrong need to be thoroughly examined. Questions of human rights, rights of person, property, reputation, free thought, discussion, the reciprocal rights and duties of classes, the duties and limitations of government, are among the elementary principles of law. The nature and doctrines of such vast and important subjects as Contract, Coverture, Infancy, Guardianship, Corporations, Partnerships, Agency, and the whole system of Criminal law, rest upon these elementary principles. The study of law is invaluable to the practical philanthropist. The strongest thunderbolts ever hurled at the system of slavery were forged on the anvil of law. The most powerful weapons used against the liquor traffic are obtained from the same source. The arguments for the advancement of Woman all have their fountain head in the same elementary principles of justice and equality. The questions of crime, pauperism, foreign immigration, the social evil, are questions which can be correctly solved only by a thorough understanding and correct application of the principles which lie at the foundation of law. The study of law involves, to a certain extent, the study of theology. The study of justice is the study of a divine attribute, and the search for correct principles to human law sheds light on the principles of divine government. The continued and extensive practice of law involves some study of almost every other science, or branch of human industry. Medical science is largely involved. An action in damages for malpractice, or for injuries received; criminal cases involving poisoning, shooting, or stabbing, necessitate a careful study of medicine or surgery, so far as they bear on the case at hand, by the attorneys employed. Questions of theology less frequently occur; yet we occasionly hear, as in the recent case of Tilton and Beecher, that "the attorneys are stuffing in theology." Questions of insanity, or other abnormal mental conditions frequently recur, especially in criminal practice; and these involve not only medical but psychological research. Contested cases of patent rights frequently involve a study of the principles of natural philosophy, and their practical application. Suits to recover money on contract often necessitate a familiar knowledge of commercial customs. The action of a domestic to recover for her services, requires a knowledge of the extent and value of household labor. A similar action by a farm laborer, seamstress, mechanic, or working girl, necessitates some knowledge of the nature and value of such services as they may have rendered. The life of an attorney with a large court practice is a constant study, not alone of law, literature and eloquence, but of almost every other branch of human industry, This study is a constant and healthful intellectual stimulus; a constant discipline; a constant source of enlightenment and growth. It gives breadth of thought, carefulness and accuracy of statement, a logical habit of mind, practical common sense, and a tendency to generalize. The criticisms of Woman have ever been that she could not generalize, was illogical, narrow, impractical, weak, inaccurate, unable to take broad views, or work on a large scale. A criticism aptly put by Mrs. Browning, when she makes Romney Leigh say: "None of all these things Can women understand. You generalize On nothing!-not even grief! Your quick-breathed heart, So sympathetic to the personal pang, Close on each separate knife-stroke, yielding up A whole life at each wound; incapable Of deepening, widening a large lap of life To hold the world-full woe. The human race |