If what mothers mean by a
_good_ match, is the alliance of a man of position and means--or let
them throw intellect, manners, and personal advantages into the same
scale--if this be all, then we grant the daughter of cultivated
imagination may not be manageable, will probably be obstinate. "We hope
she will be obstinate enough. [Footnote: Let women who feel the wrongs
of their kind teach women to be high-minded in their relation to men,
and they will do more for the social elevation of women, and the
establishment of their rights, whatever those rights may be, than by any
amount of intellectual development or assertion of equality. Nor, if
they are other than mere partisans, will they refuse the attempt because
in its success men will, after all, be equal, if not greater gainers, if
only thereby they should be "feelingly persuaded" what they are.] But
will the girl be less likely to marry a _gentleman_, in the grand old
meaning of the sixteenth century? when it was no irreverence to call our
Lord
"The first true gentleman that ever breathed;"
or in that of the fourteenth?--when Chaucer teaching "whom is worthy to
be called gentill," writes thus:--
"The first stocke was full of rightwisnes,
Trewe of his worde, sober, pitous and free,
Clene of his goste, and loved besinesse,
Against the vice of slouth in honeste;
And but his heire love vertue as did he,
He is not gentill though he rich seme,
All weare he miter, crowne, or diademe.
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