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23. Selected image: page 17. Source: "Pocahontas." New-York Mirror: A Weekly Gazette of Literature and the Fine Arts 18.3 (July 11, 1840): 17. Illustration by W. D. Redfield. A passionate panegyric! On Pocahontas as woman. Accompanied by an engraving based on the 1616 van de Passe from life. "Welcome, sweet woman . . . rather would we see thee as thou wert arrayed when thy bare arm was interposed between the brow of Virginia's first hero and the uplifted arm of the smiter." Pocahontas was not beautiful (the picture shows that) nor wise (like Powhatan who foresaw Smith as "the destroyer of his race"). But she was a woman. She saw Smith a hero, a human being in distress, and she pitied him. "Her woman's heart melted." Smith's bravery would not have saved him for Powhatan, for "the safety of a nation was at stake." But he yielded to her. "He was a father." Pocahontas did not love Smith; he was "elderly"; and her actions were disinterested. "She saved the colony; and the motto of the armorial shield of Virginia ought to be -- 'Woman!' Fare thee well, sweet flower of the forest. When every quality that endears woman to man shall have fallen into contempt, then wilt thou be forgotten."
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