In this series of detached essays I have tried to gather and group the most salient and essential facts relating to the character, position, and intellectual attainments of women in the great ages of the world. It is not an easy matter to trace with any exactness the lives of women of classic times, as they were largely ignored by men who chronicled events. If the historians gave them any place at all, it was an insignificant one, concerning only their relations to men, and they were more inclined to sing the praises of those who ministered to masculine caprices than of those distinguished for any merit whatever. There were exceptions in the cases of a few women of very remarkable gifts; but even these were subject to the worst aspersions, for the simple reason that they had the courage of their talents and convictions. This fashion of considering women only as convenient appendages of men may account largely for the space given to those of more beauty and sensuous charm than decorum—a fact which has doubtless misled after-ages. It accounts also for the reckless flings of satirists and comedians, who were even less to be trusted in early times than they are to-day. Truth compels me to recall more or less the contemptuous attitude of men, as it was too large a factor in determining the position of women to be omitted. But in no case has it been exaggerated, or set down in a spirit of antagonism.
The most striking points in the lives of world-famous women are sufficiently familiar. True or false, they are often quoted in proof of one theory or another. But a few isolated facts gathered at random count for little. It is only in the grouping of many facts of many ages that the real quality of the old types of womanhood can be clearly discerned. One is constantly confronted, however, with discrepancies in the records. This may be readily understood when we consider the impossibility of getting a correct version of things that happen next door to us. Reports of events and estimates of character are about as various as the people who offer them. One can only accept those which have the most inherent probability, or are given by the chronicler who has the best reputation for veracity. So far as possible, I have relied upon contemporary writers for the facts of their own age; but I am also indebted largely to the research of the great modern historians. In the few classic or Italian translations, I have usually availed myself of those nearest at hand, if they had the stamp of authority, though they might not always be the latest, perhaps not even the best.
These essays are limited mainly to the golden ages of Greece, Rome, and the Renaissance, with a brief interlude that serves as a transition from pagan to medieval times. The mantle of the great Italians fell upon the women of the golden age of France, who reached the summit of the power and influence of their sex in the past. The personality and intellectual influence of these women I have considered at length in “The Women of the French Salons.”
The inevitable “woman question” is not touched except as it may appear in the effort to show, in a small degree, the intellectual quality and influence of some of the representative women of the past, and to vindicate them from charges which are often as untrue as unjust. Without any pretension to profound learning or philosophic criticism, I have simply presented the most significant facts available, with their various settings, and a few plain conclusions which may be insufficient, but which are at least sincere and carefully considered. In estimates of people I have taken the most charitable view possible without sacrificing truth to imagination. It is the safer side in which to err, as the world has always been much more active in the spread of calumny than of praise, especially where women are concerned.
There is no pretense to historical continuity, or to a serious study of present conditions, in the single modern essay. It simply considers one phase of our own age, which we doubtless claim to be altogether golden.
The work has been a labor of love. If I have succeeded in throwing any fresh light upon the women of long ago, many of whom are already half mythical, or in giving a clear impression of what we owe them, my long and pleasant hours among old chronicles and forgotten records will not have been in vain.
AMELIA GERE MASON.
August, 1901.