Bishop Newton thought that, in drawing Eve, Milton had in mind his
third wife, because she had hair of the colour of Eve's "golden
tresses." But Milton had never seen Elizabeth Minshull. If reality
suggested any trait, physical or mental, of the Eve, it would
certainly have been some woman seen in earlier years.
But wherever Milton may have met with an incarnation of female
divinity such as he has drawn, it was not in his own family. We cannot
but ask, how is it that one, whose type of woman is the loftiest known
to English literature, should have brought up his own daughters on so
different a model? Milton is not one of the false prophets, who turn
round and laugh at their own enthusiasms, who say one thing in their
verses, and another thing over their cups. What he writes in his
poetry is what he thinks, what he means, and what he will do. But in
directing the bringing up of his daughters, he put his own typical
woman entirely on one side. His practice is framed on the principle
that
Nothing lovelier can be found
In woman, than to study household good.
_Paradise Lost_, ix.
Pages:
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219