in what pinches them. Several of them
are represented passing through the most ticklish and trying
situations in which it is possible for female modesty to be
placed,--disguised in male attire and sharing as men in the
conversations of men; yet so unassailable is their modesty, that they
give themselves, apparently, no trouble about it. And, framed as they
are, all this may well be so: for indeed such is their fear of God,
or, which comes to the same thing, their fear of doing wrong, that it
casts out all other fears; and so their "virtue gives herself light
through darkness for to wade." Nor do we wonder that, timid maidens as
they are, they should "put such boldness on"; for we see that with
them

"Mighty are the soul's commandments
To support, restrain, or raise:
Foes may hang upon their path, snakes rustle near,
But nothing from their inward selves have they to fear."

It is very noteworthy, withal, how some of them are so secure in the
spirit and substance of the moral law, that they do not scruple, in
certain circumstances, to overrule its letter and form. Thus Isabella
feigns to practise sin; and she does so as a simple act of
self-sacrifice, and because she sees that in this way a good and pious
deed may be done in aid of others: she shrinks not from the social
imputation of wrong in that case, so her conscience be clear; and she
can better brave the external finger of shame than the inward sense of
leaving a substantial good undone. Helena, also, puts herself through
a course of literal dishonours, and this too, with a perfect
understanding of what she is about; yet she yields to no misgivings;
not indeed on the ground that the end justifies the means, but because
she knows that the soul of a just and honorable purpose, such as hers,
will have power to redeem and even to sanctify the formal dishonours
of its body. Much the same principle holds, again, in the case of
Desdemona's falsehood, when, Emilia rushing into the room, and finding
her dying, and asking, "Who has done this?" she sighs out, "Nobody--I
myself: commend me to my kind lord." I believe no natural heart can
help thinking the better of Desdemona for this brave and tender
untruth, for it is plainly the unaffected utterance of a deeper truth;
and one must be blind indeed not to see that the dying woman's purpose
is to shield her husband, so far as she can, from the retribution
which she apprehends will befall him, and the