Daughters of genius : a series of sketches of authors, artists, reformers, and heroines, queens, princesses, and women of society, women eccentric and peculiar ; from the most recent and authentic sources (1887)
Sally Bush -- The Brontë sisters -- Queen Victoria -- Elizabeth Barrett Browning -- Mrs. Stowe and Uncle Tom's cabin -- Miss Alcott -- George Eliot -- Princess Louise -- Fanny Mendelssohn -- Angelica Kaufmann -- Baroness Burdett-Coutts -- Girlhood of Queen Elizabeth -- The wife of Thomas Carlyle -- The wife of Benedict Arnold -- Adelaide Procter -- Lady Bloomfield -- The mother of Victor Hugo -- Laura Bridgman -- The wife of George Washington in her workroom at Mount Vernon -- Madame de Staël and Napoleon Bonaparte -- The wife of Frederick the Great -- The flight of Eugénie -- Caroline Herschel -- Charlotte Cushman -- Maria Mitchell -- Mrs. Trollope -- Adelaide Phillips -- Two queens; the daughters of James II of England -- An evening with Rachel -- Josephine and Bonaparte -- Lady Morgan -- Maria Theresa -- Lady Franklin -- Madame de Miramion -- Peg O'Neal -- Mrs. L.M. Monmouth, and how she lived on forty dollars a year -- Trial of Jeanne Darc, commonly called Joan of Arc -- Harriet Martineau -- The wife of Lafayette -- Betsy Patterson, otherwise Madame Jerome Bonaparte of Baltimore -- Some ladies of the old school -- Toru Dutt -- George Sand
THE most important result of the better civilization
of our time is the increased power of women. We
know that in limited spheres their influence was always
incalculably great ; but now, without losing their ascend-
ancy at home, they find a career in many of the trades,
most of the professions, and all the arts. In those of the
arts which give the most lively pleasure and reach the
greatest number of persons, namely, fiction and the drama,
women, in our day, have attained the first rank, and have
made the first rank higher. As reformers and world-im-
provers, what men have surpassed the single-eyed and cour-
ageous devotion of such women as Miss Marti neau ?
We can set no limit to their future achievements except
those which nature herself has established. So long as
the chief business of every state was to defend itself
against armed encroachment, all gifts and all character
were of necessity subordinate to masculine force. Women
were " the subject sex." The peace and safety resulting
from the union of many states, and to become universal
through federation and arbitration, will still further reduce
the importance of muscle and brawn. The time is not
very distant when the ballot will have rendered the bullet,
not monstrous merely, but ridiculous, and when there
will be no " campaigns " except those of the blest Ameri-
can pattern, fought out in the pleasant autumn days with
speeches, processions, fireworks, and bands of music.
Sally Bush -- The Brontë sisters -- Queen Victoria -- Elizabeth Barrett Browning -- Mrs. Stowe and Uncle Tom's cabin -- Miss Alcott -- George Eliot -- Princess Louise -- Fanny Mendelssohn -- Angelica Kaufmann -- Baroness Burdett-Coutts -- Girlhood of Queen Elizabeth -- The wife of Thomas Carlyle -- The wife of Benedict Arnold -- Adelaide Procter -- Lady Bloomfield -- The mother of Victor Hugo -- Laura Bridgman -- The wife of George Washington in her workroom at Mount Vernon -- Madame de Staël and Napoleon Bonaparte -- The wife of Frederick the Great -- The flight of Eugénie -- Caroline Herschel -- Charlotte Cushman -- Maria Mitchell -- Mrs. Trollope -- Adelaide Phillips -- Two queens; the daughters of James II of England -- An evening with Rachel -- Josephine and Bonaparte -- Lady Morgan -- Maria Theresa -- Lady Franklin -- Madame de Miramion -- Peg O'Neal -- Mrs. L.M. Monmouth, and how she lived on forty dollars a year -- Trial of Jeanne Darc, commonly called Joan of Arc -- Harriet Martineau -- The wife of Lafayette -- Betsy Patterson, otherwise Madame Jerome Bonaparte of Baltimore -- Some ladies of the old school -- Toru Dutt -- George Sand
THE most important result of the better civilization
of our time is the increased power of women. We
know that in limited spheres their influence was always
incalculably great ; but now, without losing their ascend-
ancy at home, they find a career in many of the trades,
most of the professions, and all the arts. In those of the
arts which give the most lively pleasure and reach the
greatest number of persons, namely, fiction and the drama,
women, in our day, have attained the first rank, and have
made the first rank higher. As reformers and world-im-
provers, what men have surpassed the single-eyed and cour-
ageous devotion of such women as Miss Marti neau ?
We can set no limit to their future achievements except
those which nature herself has established. So long as
the chief business of every state was to defend itself
against armed encroachment, all gifts and all character
were of necessity subordinate to masculine force. Women
were " the subject sex." The peace and safety resulting
from the union of many states, and to become universal
through federation and arbitration, will still further reduce
the importance of muscle and brawn. The time is not
very distant when the ballot will have rendered the bullet,
not monstrous merely, but ridiculous, and when there
will be no " campaigns " except those of the blest Ameri-
can pattern, fought out in the pleasant autumn days with
speeches, processions, fireworks, and bands of music.
