Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On The Character And Virtues Of The Fair Sex.
reinstated in his government . Cleombrotus then sought refuge at the altar of Minerva , where he sat perplexed and silent . Chelonis , who- had thought it her duty to console her distressed father , IIOAV deemed it incumbent on her to share in the misery of her degraded husband . Shelled to him in the habit of sorrow , " seated herself by him , threw her arm round him , had one of her children on each sideand thus suppliantly implored her father to pardon her husband .
, The king did indeed spare the . life of his son-in-laAv , but condemned _ iim to banishment . He requested , however , his daughter still to continue with her father : this she refused to do ; aiid , putting one child into the arms of her husband , and faking the other herself , she accompanied him into exile . The historian adds , with his usual goodness of heart , ' if Cleombrotus had not been entirely corrupted
by vain-glory , he would have deemed banishment Avith tlie company of his wife a greater happiness than a kingdom without her . ' Pint . Franchf . ed . /> . S 03 , / . A . vol . I . To the same author Ave are indebted for a treatise on ' The virtuous . Deeds of "Women ; ' in Avhich he sets forth , first , the public exploits atchieved by AA'omen associatedand then the actions of a
, more piaVate nature performed by several individuals . ' With respect to the virtue of-women ( says Plutarch ) , I am not of the same opinion as Thucydides : for he declares that woman to be most excellent , of whom least mention is made by those abroad , either to her reproach or commendation : as if he thought that the name , as Avell as the personof a good womanought to be confinedand not
, , , suffered to go out . Gorgias appears more nice and happy in prescribing , that a woman ' s renown , but not her person , should be known to all . And admirable is the law of the Romans , which allows the due praises of women , no less than of men , to be publicly rehearsed after their death . '
In the Cyropjedia are introduced two very striking and beautiful characters ; the Avife of Tigranes , whose eyes Avere fixed , and whose thoughts were intent , on him only , who had said he would g ive even his life as a ransom that she should not be a slave ( b . iii . p . 18 7 & 190 , Hutch , ed . ); and Panthea , the faithful and affectionate Avife of Abradates . Though the Cyropa _ dia be a work of imagination , yet the author evidently had in his mind some real personagesas
Age-, silaus , Cyrus the younger , and Socrates : it is not , theref re , improbable , that the characters of these Avomen are drawn from life , and that the circumstances related of them had actuall y happened . In any point of vie \ v , they reflect honour on , the sex , and prove Xenophon to be among the asserters of female excellence . In the fifth book of his RepublicPlato maintains the propriety of
, admitting Avomen to participate in the guardianship of a citv . He argues upon the principle , that genius is indiscriminately diffused through both sexes , though the Avomen , be in all things Aveaker than the men . That Avomen , by education , may be rendered capable of discharging all civil employments equally with men , cannot be doubted : but whether society ' Avould , upon the whole , derive advan-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On The Character And Virtues Of The Fair Sex.
reinstated in his government . Cleombrotus then sought refuge at the altar of Minerva , where he sat perplexed and silent . Chelonis , who- had thought it her duty to console her distressed father , IIOAV deemed it incumbent on her to share in the misery of her degraded husband . Shelled to him in the habit of sorrow , " seated herself by him , threw her arm round him , had one of her children on each sideand thus suppliantly implored her father to pardon her husband .
, The king did indeed spare the . life of his son-in-laAv , but condemned _ iim to banishment . He requested , however , his daughter still to continue with her father : this she refused to do ; aiid , putting one child into the arms of her husband , and faking the other herself , she accompanied him into exile . The historian adds , with his usual goodness of heart , ' if Cleombrotus had not been entirely corrupted
by vain-glory , he would have deemed banishment Avith tlie company of his wife a greater happiness than a kingdom without her . ' Pint . Franchf . ed . /> . S 03 , / . A . vol . I . To the same author Ave are indebted for a treatise on ' The virtuous . Deeds of "Women ; ' in Avhich he sets forth , first , the public exploits atchieved by AA'omen associatedand then the actions of a
, more piaVate nature performed by several individuals . ' With respect to the virtue of-women ( says Plutarch ) , I am not of the same opinion as Thucydides : for he declares that woman to be most excellent , of whom least mention is made by those abroad , either to her reproach or commendation : as if he thought that the name , as Avell as the personof a good womanought to be confinedand not
, , , suffered to go out . Gorgias appears more nice and happy in prescribing , that a woman ' s renown , but not her person , should be known to all . And admirable is the law of the Romans , which allows the due praises of women , no less than of men , to be publicly rehearsed after their death . '
In the Cyropjedia are introduced two very striking and beautiful characters ; the Avife of Tigranes , whose eyes Avere fixed , and whose thoughts were intent , on him only , who had said he would g ive even his life as a ransom that she should not be a slave ( b . iii . p . 18 7 & 190 , Hutch , ed . ); and Panthea , the faithful and affectionate Avife of Abradates . Though the Cyropa _ dia be a work of imagination , yet the author evidently had in his mind some real personagesas
Age-, silaus , Cyrus the younger , and Socrates : it is not , theref re , improbable , that the characters of these Avomen are drawn from life , and that the circumstances related of them had actuall y happened . In any point of vie \ v , they reflect honour on , the sex , and prove Xenophon to be among the asserters of female excellence . In the fifth book of his RepublicPlato maintains the propriety of
, admitting Avomen to participate in the guardianship of a citv . He argues upon the principle , that genius is indiscriminately diffused through both sexes , though the Avomen , be in all things Aveaker than the men . That Avomen , by education , may be rendered capable of discharging all civil employments equally with men , cannot be doubted : but whether society ' Avould , upon the whole , derive advan-