Page:The Spirit of the Chinese People.djvu/121

 trust in her. She rises also while it is yet night and giveth meat to her household and a portion to her maidens. She layeth her hands to the spindle and her fingers hold the distaff. She is not afraid of snow for her household; for all her household are clothed in scarlet. She openeth her mouth with wisdom and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed, her husband also and he praiseth her."

This, I think, is not such a horrid, not such a bad ideal after all,—this feminine ideal of the Semitic race. It is of course not so etherial as the Madonna and the Muses, the feminine ideal of the Indo-European race. However, one must, I think, admit,—the Madonna and the Muses are very well to hang up as pictures in one's room, but if you put a broom into the hands of the Muses or send your Madonna into the kitchen, you will be sure to have your rooms in a mess and you will probably get in the morning no breakfast at all. Confucius says, "The ideal is not away from the actuality of human life. When men take something away from the actuality of human life as the ideal,—that is not the true ideal." But if the Hebrew feminine ideal cannot be compared with the Madonna and the Muses, it can very well, I think, compare with the modern European feminine ideal, the feminine ideal of the Indo-European race in Europe