e right way of Christian virtue is
when a man's good deeds are so much a matter of course with him, that
he thinks not of himself for having done them. As bees when they have
made their honey; as birds when they have carolled their hymn; as the
vine when it has produced its clusters; so it is with the truly good
man when he has done a good act: it suffices him that he has borne his
proper fruit; and, instead of calling on others or even himself to
note what he has done, he goes right on and does other good acts, just
as if nothing had happened.

But if all this be true of the Poet's men, it is true in a still
higher degree of his women. Here it is that the moral element of the
Beautiful has its fullest and fairest expression. And I am bold to say
that, next to the Christian religion, humanity has no other so
precious inheritance as Shakespeare's divine gallery of Womanhood.
Helena, Portia of Belmont, Rosalind, Viola, Portia of Rome, Isabella,
Ophelia, Cordelia, Miranda, Hermione, Perdita, Desdemona, Imogen,
Catharine of Arragon,--what a wealth and assemblage of moral beauty
have we here! All the other poetry and art of the world put together
cannot show such a varied and surpassing treasure of womanly
excellence. And how perfectly free their goodness is from any thing
like stress! How true it is in respect of their virtues, that "love is
an unerring light, and joy its own security!" They are wise, witty,
playful, humorous, grave, earnest, impassioned, practical,
imaginative; the most profound and beautiful thoughts drop from them
as things too common and familiar to be spoken with the least
emphasis: they are strong, tender, and sweet, yet never without a
sufficient infusion of brisk natural acid and piquancy to keep their
sweetness from palling on the taste: they are full of fresh, healthy
sentiment, but never at all touched with sentimentality: the soul of
romance works mightily within them, yet never betrays them into any
lapses from good sense, or any substitutions of feeling for duty.

Then too how nobly and serenely indifferent the glorious creatures are
to the fashions and opinions and criticisms of the world! How
composedly some of them walk amidst the sharpest perils and
adversities, as "having the spirit to do any thing that is not foul in
the truth of their spirit." Full of bitterness their cup sometimes is
indeed; yet they do not mind it,--not they!--save as the welfare and
happiness of others are involved