Noble Deeds of American Women. Various

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Название Noble Deeds of American Women
Автор произведения Various
Жанр Языкознание
Серия
Издательство Языкознание
Год выпуска 0
isbn 4064066219932



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WONDERFUL ENDURANCE AND PERSEVERANCE OF MRS. SCOTT.

       SUCCESS OF BOLDNESS.

       MARY KNIGHT.

       THE WIFE OF WILLIAM GRAY.

       ANECDOTE OF MRS. HUNTINGTON.

       HOSPITALITY OF MRS. BIDDLE.

       KINDNESS OF SOME CONVICTS

       MARGARET PRIOR.

       NOBLE ACTS OF KINDNESS.

       THE WIFE OF DR. RAMSAY.

       COURAGE AND PRESENCE OF MIND OF MARGARET SCHUYLER.

       NOBLE TREATMENT OF ENEMIES.

       HUMANITY REWARDED.

       MARGARET WINTHROP.

       A PIONEER SETTLER'S ADVENTURE.

       MRS. McKENNY.

       THE FISHERMAN'S HEROIC WIFE.

       MRS. JAMES K. POLK.

       THE WIDOW JENKINS.

       A FAITHFUL LITTLE GIRL.

       HOSPITALITY OF CALIFORNIA WOMEN.

       SARAH LANMAN SMITH.

       A BROTHER SAVED BY HIS SISTER.

       PATRIOTIC SACRIFICE OF MRS. BORDEN.

       MARGARET CORBIN.

       BRAVERY OF MRS. CHANNING.

       COMMENDABLE COURAGE.

       THE HEROINE OF SHELL'S BUSH.

       FATHER TAYLOR'S WIDOWED FRIEND.

       PICTURE OF A REVOLUTIONARY MOTHER.

       SUCCESSFUL DARING.

       WORTHY EXAMPLE OF FORGIVENESS

       CROOKSHANKS SAVED BY A FEMALE.

       A PATRIOTIC ARTIST.

       TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT AMONG MOHAWK WOMEN.

       A FEMALE IN THE REVOLUTIONARY ARMY.

       HOSPITALITY OF ELIZABETH BRANT.

       BRIEF ANECDOTES.

       PHILANTHROPY OF AMERICAN WOMEN: MISS DIX.

       Table of Contents

      The advantages of Biography are obvious and great. To the weight of precept, it adds the force and efficacy of example. It presents correct and beautiful models, and awakens the impulse to imitate what we admire. Other sciences strengthen the intellect, this influences and amends the heart. Other subjects interest the imagination, this modifies conduct and character. By the recorded actions of the great and good, we regulate our own course, and steer, star-guided, over life's trackless ocean.

      In remote ages, the department of Female Biography was almost a void. Here and there on the pages of the Sacred Volume, a lineament, or a form, is sketched with graphic power, either as a warning, or bright with the hues of heaven. Yet uninspired history, though she continued to utter "her dark sayings upon the harp," was wont to relapse into silence at the name of woman. Classic antiquity scarcely presents aught that might be cited as a sustained example. In the annals of ancient Greece, the wife of one of its philosophers has obtained a place, but only through the varied trials, by which she contributed to perfect his patience. Rome but slightly lifts the household veil from the mother of the Gracchi, as she exultingly exhibits her heart's jewels. Cleopatra, with her royal barge, casts a dazzling gleam over the Cydnus, but her fame is like the poison of the reptile that destroyed her. Boadicea rushes for a moment in her rude chariot over the battle field, but the fasces and the chains of Rome close the scene.

      Modern Paganism disclosed a still deeper abyss of degradation for woman. The aboriginal lord of the American forests lays the burden on the shoulder of his weaker companion, and stalks on in unbowed majesty, with his quiver and his tomahawk. Beneath the sultry skies of Africa, she crouches to drink the poison water before her judges, having no better test of her innocence than the deliverer, Death. In India, we see her plunging into the Ganges her female infants, that they may escape her lot of misery, or wrapped in the flames of the burning pile, turn into ashes with the corpse of her husband. Under the sway of the Moslem, her highest condition is a life-long incarceration, her best treatment, that of a gilded toy—a soulless slave. Throughout the whole heathen world, woman may be characterized, as Humanity, in Central Asia has been, by an elegant French writer, as "always remaining anonymous—indifferent to herself—not believing in her liberty, having none—and leaving no trace of her passage upon earth."

      Christianity has changed the scene. Wherever her pure and pitying spirit prevails, the sway of brute force is softened, and the "weaker vessel" upheld. Bearing in her hand