Page:Brandes - Poland, a Study of the Land, People, and Literature.djvu/45

Rh intellectual qualities, among the Poles, the most characteristic Slav race, woman is decidedly superior to man. If we set aside the power of invention or production, we must be struck with the truth of these words. The men in Poland are certainly not wanting in passion, in courage and in energy, in wit, in love of freedom, but it seems as if the women have more of these qualities. In Poland's great uprisings they have been known to enter into conspiracies, to do military duty, and frequently enough of their own free will to accompany their loved ones to Siberia. Mickiewicz's Gracyna, who led an army on horseback, has had successors in this century. Celebrated above all others is Emilia Plater, a young lady of one of the first families of Poland, who in 1830 induced a whole district to rise in rebellion, took part in several battles, and at last, having joined the detachments under Dembinski which refused to take refuge on Prussian soil, attempted to cut her way with her corps through the hostile army, but in December, 1831, died of want and over-exertion at the age of 26, in the hut of a forester. Mickiewicz's, beautiful poem, The Colonel's Death, celebrated her memory. During the rebellion of 1830-31 there was not a battalion nor a squadron of the Polish army in which there were not female combatants; after a battle or a march the soldiers always arranged a bivouac for the women, just as they took care that no word was spoken which could offend their ears. The time for such achievements is now past, but still the women are ever the most earnest patriots, because they feel the most warmly and criticise the least keenly. Nevertheless, the influence of woman has somewhat fallen off in the last twenty years. Once the women laboured as the chief supporters of the Catholic faith; but faith is vanishing where it has not vanished. Once the woman laboured in the same way as the priest, but the union between the women and C