Mr. Hayward, in his notes to his translation of Faust, remarks on the strong prejudice against female authorship, which still exists in Germany; but he has hopes that it will not endure, and that something may be done "to unlock the stores of fancy and feeling which the Ottilies and the Adèles have hived up." Tell me--did you find this prejudice entertained by the women themselves, or existing chiefly on the part of the men?
It was expressed most strongly by the women, but it must have originated with the men. All your prejudices you instil into us; and then we are not satisfied with adopting them, we exaggerate them--we mix them up with our fancies and affections, and transmit them to your children. You are "the mirrors in which we dress ourselves."
Psha!--I mean that your minds and opinions are the mirrors in which we form our own. You legislate for us, mould us, form us as you will. If you prefer slaves and playthings to companions and helpmates, is that our fault? In Germany I met with some men who, perhaps out of compliment, descanted with enthusiasm on female talent, and in behalf of female authorship; but the women almost uniformly spoke of the latter with dread, as something formidable, or with contempt, as of something beneath them: what is an unworthy prejudice in your sex, becomes, when transplanted into ours, a _feeling_;--a mistaken, but a genuine, and even a generous feeling. Many women, who have sufficient sense and simplicity of mind to rise above the mere _prejudice_, would not contend with the _feeling_: they would not scruple to encounter the public judgment in a cause approved by their own hearts, but they have not courage to brave or to oppose the opinions of friends and kindred--
Or risk the loss of a lover. You remember the axiom of that clever Frenchman,[26] who certainly spoke the existing opinions of his country only a few years ago, when he said--"Imprimer, pour une femme de moins de cinquante ans c'est mettre son bonheur à la plus terrible des lotteries; si elle a un amant elle commencera par le perdre."
I really believe that in Germany the latter catastrophe would be in most cases inevitable; and where is the woman who knowingly would risk it?