Though Cobbett was regarded by many in his lifetime as a coarse, hard, practical man, full of prejudices, there was yet a strong undercurrent of poetry in his nature; and, while he declaimed against sentiment, there were few men more thoroughly imbued with sentiment of the best kind. He had the tenderest regard for the character of woman. He respected her purity and her virtue, and in his 'Advice to Young Men,' he has painted the true womanly woman--the helpful, cheerful, affectionate wife--with a vividness and brightness, and, at the same time, a force of good sense, that has never been surpassed by any English writer.
Cobbett was anything but refined, in the conventional sense of the word; but he was pure, temperate, self-denying, industrious, vigorous, and energetic, in an eminent degree. Many of his views were, no doubt, wrong, but they were his own, for he insisted on thinking for himself in everything. Though few men took a firmer grasp of the real than he did, perhaps still fewer were more swayed by the ideal. In word-pictures of his own emotions, he is unsurpassed. Indeed, Cobbett might almost be regarded as one of the greatest prose poets of English real life.
NOTES
(1) Mungo Park declared that he was more affected by this incident than by any other that befel him in the course of his travels. As he lay down to sleep on the mat spread for him on the floor of the hut, his benefactress called to the female part of the family to resume their task of spinning cotton, in which they continued employed far into the night. "They lightened their labour with songs," says the traveller, "one of which was composed extempore, for I was myself the subject of it; it was sung by one of the young women, the rest joining in a chorus. The air was sweet and plaintive, and the words, literally translated, were these: 'The winds roared, and the rains fell. The poor white man, faint and weary, came and sat under our tree. He has no mother to bring him milk, no wife to grind his corn.' Chorus--'Let us pity the white man, no mother has he!' Trifling as this recital may appear, to a person in my situation the circumstance was affecting in the highest degree. I was so oppressed by such unexpected kindness, that sleep fled before my eyes."(2)'Transformation, or Monte Beni.'
(3) 'Portraits Contemporains,' iii. 519.
(4) Mr. Arthur Helps, in one of his Essays, has wisely said: "You observe a man becoming day by day richer, or advancing in station, or increasing in professional reputation, and you set him down as a successful man in life. But if his home is an ill-regulated one, where no links of affection extend throughout the family--whose former domestics (and he has had more of them than he can well remember) look back upon their sojourn with him as one unblessed by kind words or deeds--I contend that that man has not been successful. Whatever good fortune he may have in the world, it is to be remembered that he has always left one important fortress untaken behind him. That man's life does not surely read well whose benevolence has found no central home. It may have sent forth rays in various directions, but there should have been a warm focus of love--that home-nest which is formed round a good mans heart."--CLAIMS OF LABOUR.
(5) "The red heart sends all its instincts up to the white brain, to be analysed, chilled, blanched, and so become pure reason--which is just exactly what we do NOT want of women as women. The current should run the other way. The nice, calm, cold thought, which, in women, shapes itself so rapidly that they hardly know it as thought, should always travel to the lips VIA the heart.
It does so in those women whom all love and admire....
The brain-women never interest us like the heart-women;white roses please less than red."--THE PROFESSOR AT THEBREAKFAST TABLE, by Oliver Wendell Holmes.
(6) 'The War and General Culture,' 1871.
(7) "Depend upon it, men set more value on the cultivated minds than on the accomplishments of women, which they are rarely able to appreciate. It is a common error, but it is an error, that literature unfits women for the everyday business of life. It is not so with men. You see those of the most cultivated minds constantly devoting their time and attention to the most homely objects. Literature gives women a real and proper weight in society, but then they must use it with discretion."--THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH.
(8) 'The Statesman,' pp. 73-75.
(9) Fuller, the Church historian, with his usual homely mother-wit, speaking of the choice of a wife, said briefly, "Take the daughter of a good mother."(10) She was an Englishwoman--a Miss Motley. It maybe mentioned that amongst other distinguished Frenchmen who have married English wives, were Sismondi, Alfred de Vigny, and Lamartine.
(11) "Plus je roule dans ce monde, et plus je suis amene a penser qu'il n'y a que le bonheur domestique qui signifie quelque chose."--OEUVRES ET CORRESPONDENCE.
(12) De Tocqueville's 'Memoir and Remains,' vol. i. p. 408.
(13) De Tocqueville's 'Memoir and Remains,' vol. ii. p. 48.