Of Ether and Colloidal Gold - Esoterica - Michigan State University

As a late nineteenth century writer said, “As long as a
woman refrains from unsexing herself, let her dabble in anything.
The woman of genius does not exist; when she does she is a
man.” 34 This was precisely the diagnosis given to explain the work
of George Eliot. Her old friend Herbert Spencer was puzzled by
her brilliance and could only conclude it was pathological. As he
says,
I can tell you of no woman save George Eliot in whom there has been
this union of high philosophical capacity with extensive acquisition. . .
. While I say this, however, I cannot let pass the occasion for remarking
that, in her case as in other cases, mental powers so highly developed in
women are in some measure abnormal and involve a physiological cost
which feminine organization will not bear without injury more or less
profound. 35
In other words, for Spencer, Eliot lived her life on the verge of
hysteria because her brilliance and talent were totally beyond
the norm for women and overtaxed her physique. Henry James
had no such problem understanding Eliot. He could not be
fooled. Although Eliot might assume a masculine pseudonym,
she remained for him a supremely and “a delightfully feminine
writer.” Why? because she was unable to attain that state of
transcendent objectivity that marked the best male thinking.
As James condescendingly says: “[Her books were filled with]
microscopic observation, not a myriad of whose keen notations are
worth a single one of those great synthetic guesses with which a
real master attacks the truth.” 36 Let me add here that James’ novel
The Bostonians took on the issue of female trance speakers and
concluded that what they really needed was a strong, resolute man
and marriage.
There was virtually nothing a woman could do to enter the
brotherhood of artists, writers, and intellectuals. If she painted,
wrote, or thought differently, her work was by definition inferior
because it reflected supposedly feminine characteristics and
consequently did not fit the parameters of excellence set up by
males. If, on the other hand, she had even modest success, playing
28