SIX MODERN WOMEN
SIX
MODERN WOMEN
Psychological Sketches
BY
LAURA MARHOLM HANSSON
Translated from the German
BY
HERMIONE RAMSDEN
BOSTON
ROBERTS BROTHERS
1896
Copyright, 1896,
By Roberts Brothers.
All rights reserved.
University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.
PREFACE
It is not my purpose to contribute to the studyof woman’s intellectual life, or to discuss hercapacity for artistic production, although these sixwomen are in a manner representative of woman’sintellect and woman’s creative faculty. I havelittle to do with Marie Bashkirtseff’s pictures inthe Luxembourg, Sonia Kovalevsky’s doctor’s degreeand Prix Bordin, Anne Charlotte Edgren-Leffler’sstories and social dramas, Eleonora Duse’ssuccess as a tragedian in both worlds, and with allthat has made their names famous and is publiclyknown about them. There is only one point whichI should like to emphasize in these six types ofmodern womanhood, and that is the manifestationof their womanly feelings. I want to show howit asserts itself in spite of everything,—in spite ofthe theories on which they built up their lives,in spite of the opinions of which they were the[vi]teachers, and in spite of the success which crownedtheir efforts, and bound them by stronger chainsthan might have been the case had their lives beenpassed in obscurity. They were out of harmonywith themselves, suffering from a conflict whichmade its first appearance in the world when the“woman question” came to the fore, causing anunnatural breach between the needs of the intellectand the requirements of their womanly nature.Most of them succumbed in the struggle.
A woman who seeks freedom by means of themodern method of independence is generally onewho desires to escape from a woman’s sufferings.She is anxious to avoid subjection, also motherhood,and the dependence and impersonality ofan ordinary woman’s life; but in doing so she unconsciouslydeprives herself of her womanliness.For them all—for Marie Bashkirtseff as much asSonia Kovalevsky and A. C. Edgren-Leffler—theday came when they found themselves standingat the door of the heart’s innermost sanctuary,and realized that they were excluded. Some ofthem burst open the door, entered, and becameman’s once more. Others remained outside anddied there. They were all individualistic, these[vii]six women. It was this fact that moulded theirdestiny; but Eleonora Duse was the only one ofthem who was individualistic enough. None ofthem were able to stand alone, as more than onehad believed that she could. The women of ourday are difficult in the choice of a husband, andthe men are slow and mistrustful in their searchfor a wife.
There are some hidden peculiarities in woman’ssoul which I have traced in the lives of thesesix representative women, and I have writtenthem down for the benefit of those who