commanding, and held out protection and prosperity; one who did not
need the aid of a court-suit, but carried the holiday in his eye; who
exhilarated the fancy by flinging wide the doors of new modes of
existence; who shook off the captivity of etiquette, with happy,
spirited bearing, good-natured and free as Robin Hood;[440] yet with
the port of an emperor,--if need be, calm, serious, and fit to stand
the gaze of millions.

20. The open air and the fields, the street and public chambers, are
the places where Man executes his will; let him yield or divide the
scepter at the door of the house. Woman, with her instinct of
behavior, instantly detects in man a love of trifles, any coldness or
imbecility, or, in short, any want of that large, flowing, and
magnanimous deportment, which is indispensable as an exterior in the
hall. Our American institutions have been friendly to her, and at this
moment I esteem it a chief felicity of this country, that it excels in
women. A certain awkward consciousness of inferiority in the men, may
give rise to the new chivalry in behalf of Woman's Rights. Certainly,
let her be as much better placed in the laws and in social forms, as
the most zealous reformer can ask, but I confide so entirely in her
inspiring and musical nature, that I believe only herself can show us
how she shall be served. The wonderful generosity of her sentiments
raises her at times into heroical and godlike regions, and verifies
the pictures of Minerva,[441] Juno,[442] or Polymnia;[443] and, by the
firmness with which she treads her upward path, she convinces the
coarsest calculators that another road exists than that which their
feet know. But besides those who make good in our imagination the
place of muses and of Delphic Sibyls,[444] are there not women who
fill our vase with wine and roses to the brim, so that the wine runs
over and fills the house with perfume; who inspire us with courtesy;