The Art of Needle-work, from the Earliest Ages, 3rd ed

The Art of Needle-work, from the Earliest Ages, 3rd ed. - Including Some Notices of the Ancient Historical Tapestries

In all ages woman may lament the ungallant silence of the historian. His pen is the record of sterner actions than are usually the vocation of the gentler sex, and it is only when fair individuals have been by extraneous circumstances thrown out, as it were, on the canvas of human affairswhen they [Pg 2] have been forced into a publicity little consistent with their natural spherethat they have become his theme. Consequently those domestic virtues which are womans greatest pride, those retiring characteristics which are her most becoming ornament, those gentle occupations which are her best employment, find no record on pages whose chief aim and end is the blazoning of manly heroism, of royal disputations, or of trumpet-stirring records. And if this is the case even with historians of enlightened times, who have the gallantry to allow woman to be a component part of creation, we can hardly wonder that in darker days she should be utterly and entirely overlooked. Mohammed asserted that women had no souls; and moreover, that, setting aside the diviner part, there had only existed four of whom the mundane qualifications entitled them to any degree of approbation. Before him, Aristotle had asserted that Nature only formed women when and because she found that the imperfection of matter did not permit her to carry on the world without them. This complimentary doctrine has not wanted supporters. Des hommes trs sages ont crit que la Nature, dont lintention et le dessein est toujours de tendre la perfection, ne produirait sil tait possible, jamais que des hommes, et que quand il nat une femme cest un monstre dans lordre de ses productions, n expressment contre sa volont: ils ajoutent, que, comme on voit natre un homme aveugle, boiteux, ou avec quelquautre dfaut nature; et comme on voit certains arbres des fruits qui ne mrissent jamais; ainsi lon peut dire que la [Pg 3] femme est un animal produit par accident et par le hasard.[1] ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 31714
Author: Menzies, Sutherland
Release Date: Mar 20, 2010
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Editor: Wilton, Mary Margaret Stanley Egerton, Countess of, 1801-1858