WOMAN’S INFLUENCE.

Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 20, 11 August 1894, Page 7

WOMAN’S INFLUENCE.

Dbab Linda, —I wonder i£ you can find a corner in the Horae Circle for a quotation from Ruskin on the Power and Influence whi«h women possess. At first sight his words may appear

rather harsh, but it is only the candidness of a sincere admirer, who wishes us to realize our power and use it aright. I should like to give you some quotations from Lady Henry Somerset, and Mark Guy Pearse on the same subject, but fear it would make the communication too lengthy. —Yours, &c., Mater. POWER. Ruskin says : the innermost life of the heart of man and of the heart of woman, God set it there, and God keeps it there—vainly as falsely you blame or rebuke the desire of power! For heaven’s sake, and for man’s sake, desire it all you can. But tvhat power ? That is the question. Power to destroy P Power of the lion’s limb and the dragon’s breath ? Not so. But power to heal, to redeem, to guide and to guard. Power of the sceptre and shield; the power of the royal hand that heals in touching; that binds the fiend, and loses the captive ; the throne that is founded on justice, and descended from only by steps of mercy. Will you not covet such power as this, and be no more housewives but queens?' But alas! you are too often idle queens grasping at majesty in the least things, while you abdicate it in the greatest, and leaving misrule and violence to work their will among men. There is not a war in the world, nor an injustice, but you women are answerable for it; not that you have provoked, but in that you have not hindered. Men will fight for any cause or none ; it is for you to choose their cause for them. There is no suffering, no injustice, no misery, in the earth, but the guilt of it lies with you. Men can bear the sight of it, but you should not be able to bear it. Men may tread it down without sympathy in their own struggle ; but men are

feebler in sympathy and contracted in hope. It is you only who can feel the depths of pain and conceive the way of its healing. Instead of trying to do this you turn away from it, you shut yourselves within your park walls and garden gates ; and you are content to know that there is beyond them aw r hole world in wildnerness—a world of secrets which you dare not penetrate, and suffering which you dare not conceive. I tell you it is to me the most amazing among the phenomena of humanity. I am surprised at no depths to which, when once warped from its honour, humanity can be degraded. Ido not wonder at the miser’s death, with his hands as they relax, dropping gold. I do not wonder at the sensualist’s life, with the shroud wrapped about his feet. Ido not wonder at the singlehanded murder of a single victim, done by the assassin in the darkness of the railway. I do not even wonder at the myriad-handed murder of the multitude, done boastfully in the daylight by the frenzy of nations. Bnt this is wonderful to me—oh ! how wonderful!—- to see the tender and delicate woman among you with, her child at her breast, and a power if she would wield it over it, and over its father, purer than the air of heaven and stronger than the seas of earth. To see her abdicate this majesty to play precedence with her next door neighbour! and this is wonderful —oh ! wonderful, to see her with every innocent feeling fresh within her go out in the morning into the garden to play with the fringes of its guarded flowers and lift their heads when they are drooping with her happy smile upon her face and no cloud upon her brow, because there is a little wall about her place of peace, and yet she knows in her heart, if she would only look for its knowledge, that outside of that little rose-covered wall, the wild grass to the horizon is torn up by the agony of men, and beat level by the drift of their life-blood.