Edward William Johnston (aka Il Secretario): "American Letters," Part IV

Edward William Johnston under the pen name IL SECRETARIO, "American Letters -- Their Character and Advancement." The American Review: A Whig Journal of Politics, Literature, Art and Science. Volume I, Issue 6 (June 1845): pages 575-581.

[Continued, p. 580:] One final class remains to be spoken of -- that of our poets distinguished from the rest by their sex . . . [Johnston then runs through "Action" and "Passion," "Genius" and "Heroism"].  In a word, Poetry, in all its nobler forms, is of things the most strenuous and manly. The habits, the very organization of the softer sex forbid excellence in it. Women, accordingly, have never written poetry of the higher order. Indeed, they have scarcely ever written at all, except in that universal rage for Literature, which almost always attends its decline, when all turn authors, and so many write that none are left to read but those who cannot spell. At such times, women write -- less because they can, than because the men cannot. . .

. . . the woman who writes with vehemence must have unqueened, have unsexed herself, have known stormier and more various passions than her softer side can bear without the forfeiture of things in her diviner than any glory of the intellect. Nature -- happily careful of her fairest work -- has fenced her within the crystal sphere of domestic life, from the stir, the thrill, the athletic contest of the outer world. Bright creature as she is of the affections only, the gracious inhabitant of a fairy land of the heart, which men visit but by permission and for repose, what has she to do with heroism? Is it not enough that she prompts it in men? She has beauty: must she have strength, too? She has grace: would she unite with it its opposite, the strenuous gift of labor? Will she be at once gentle and fierce, timid and brave? Or, shall she, without renouncing her peerless crown of Modesty -- a charm of her sex, more powerful than sovereign beauty itself -- enter the naked area of manly rivalry and aspire to Modesty's opposite, Fame?

Should she, however, attempt it, the examples are not encouraging. Among the many glories of classic song and eloquence [here page 580 gives way to page "577*" apparently due to layout overrun], we have two odes and some fragments of Sappho, to weigh against her shame; while of Aspasia nothing remains but the reputation of her debaucheries. In the modern world, Eloisa is surely no enviable instance. The compositions that made the fair Mantuan, Julia Gonzaga, the wonder of her times, are utterly forgotten. Madame de Sévigné, the most charming name of all, wrote only letters, and without a thought of their ever being published. Lady Mary Wortley Montague died with no reputation left but that of an authoress. The learned Dacier is said to have been a slattern and a scold. Madame de Genlis is thought to have preached not amiss, but to have practiced a little less well. Mrs. Hannah More and Miss Edgeworth were worthy people, but drew out a much longer thread of ancient spinstership than most fair ones would like to twist. Miss Joanna Baillie's domestic fate was the same. Wise, however, were these three not to marry, if they must write; for Hymen turns not, with much household comfort, into a pen that useful torch of his -- the symbol of soups and roasts and fricasees [i.e. fricassees] -- that maketh the pot to boil.

 

[Continued].

References in last paragraph are to:

Sappho (circa 625-570 B.C.)

Aspasia (circa 470-400 B.C.)

Eloisa -- Héloïse d'Argenteuil  (circa 1100-1164 A.D.) via Alexander Pope's Eloisa to Abelard (1717)

Julia Gonzaga -- Giulia Gonzaga (circa 1513-1566)

Madame de Sévigné -- Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné (1626-1696)

Lady Mary Wortley Montague -- aka Montagu (1689-1762) 

Dacier -- Anne Le Fèvre Dacier (1654-1720)

Madame de Genlis -- aka Madame Brûlart: Stéphanie Félicité Ducrest de St-Aubin, comtesse de Genlis (1746-1830)  

Mrs. Hannah More (1745-1833)

Miss Edgeworth -- Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849)

Miss Joanna Baillie (1762-1853)

Hymen -- King of marriage, God of weddings, holding torch  

It's worth noting here some intellectual overlap with Alexis de Tocqueville's De la démocratie en Amérique / On Democracy in America (1835, 1840), particularly via the second volume, such as Chapter X "THE YOUNG WOMAN IN THE CHARACTER OF A WIFE." See also Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990).