Ideala

* * * * *

Lorrimer wrote to her at last. He had been obliged to acquiesce; and I took Ideala his letter; but she, womanlike, though nothing would have altered her decision, was not at first satisfied with his compliance. It seemed to her too ready; and that made her doubt if she might not have been to blame after all. They wrote to each other once again, and when she received his last letter, she spoke to me about it.

"He must have seen it as you do from the first, for he has said no word to alter my determination—rather the contrary," she told me. "We are not to meet again, nor to correspond; and doubtless it is a relief to him to have the matter settled in this way; but one thing puzzles me. In my last letter I bade him good-bye, adding 'since that is what you wish,' and he has replied: 'I never said I wished it; will you remember that?' I do remember it, and it comforts me; but why?"

I knew that Lorrimer had said little in order to make her sacrifice as easy for her as possible; and I was silent, too, for the same reason. I thought if she felt herself to blame, her pride would come to the rescue, and make her loss appear rather inevitable than voluntary. For, say what we will, we reconcile ourselves to the inevitable sooner than to those sorrows which we might have saved ourselves had we deemed it right.

"You insinuated once that it was all my fault," she said. "Perhaps it was—if fault there be. But if I tempted him, it must have been generosity that made him yield to the temptation. He pitied me, and was ready to make me happy by devoting himself to me, since that was what I seemed to require. And I agree with you now. I don't think we should, either of us, have found any real happiness in that way. But, oh, how I long for him! for his friendship! for his companionship! for his love! It is hard, hard, hard, if he does not miss me as I do him."

Then I told her: "But he does. And he did not yield to your decision until I had convinced him that he could never make you happy in such a position."

A great sigh of relief escaped her. And then I saw that I ought to have been frank with her from the first. It strengthened her to know that they still had something left to them in common, though that something was only their grief.

I tried to comfort her by speaking of the many ways in which she might still find happiness. She listened patiently until I was obliged to stop for want of words, then she said:

"This is all very well, but you know you are talking nonsense. What is the use of offering people everything but the one thing needful? What I say to myself is:

  Well, I have had my turn, have been
    Raised from the darkness of the clod,
  And for a glorious moment seen
    The brightness of the skirts of God.

And I try to think I have no right to complain, but still I am not better satisfied than the child that has eaten its cake and wants to have it too. And I suppose there are many who would call me wretched, and say that my life, with my sorrowful marriage—which was no marriage, but a desecration of that holy state, and a sin—and my hopeless love, is a broken life. Certainly I feel it so. And yet I don't know. With his nature it seems to me that some wrong-doing was inevitable. Do you think my suffering might be taken as expiation for his sins? Do you think we are allowed the happiness of bearing each other's burdens in that way if we will? If I were sure of that I should not fancy, as I used to, that I had a work to do in the world; I should know that my work is done, and that now I may rest. Ah, the blessing of rest!"

Not long after this a cruel rumour reached us, on good authority, that Lorrimer was engaged to be married. I confess that my feeling about it was one of unmitigated contempt for the man, and I trembled for the effect of the news upon Ideala. She made no sign, however, when first she heard it. I was surprised, and fear I showed that I was, in spite of myself, for she spoke about it.

"You do not understand," she said. "One event in his career is not of more consequence to me than another, because all are of the greatest consequence. But I have none of the dog-in-the-manger spirit. I think there must be something almost maternal in my feeling for him, which is why it does not change. Were I less constant it would prove that my affection is of a lower kind, less enduring because less pure. I do not care to talk about him, but I think of him always. I think of him as I saw him last with the sun on him. Do you know his hair is like light gold with the sun on it. Sometimes the memory of him fades a little, and I cannot recall his features, and then I am tormented; but of course he comes back to me—so vividly that I have started often when I looked up and found myself alone, The desire to be with him never lessens; it burns in me always, and is both a pain and a pleasure. But my love is too great to be selfish. His wishes for himself are my wishes, and what is best for him is happiest for me. Am I never jealous? Jealous! No! Do you not know that he is mine, mine through every change? Neither time nor distance separates us really. No common tie can keep him from me. Let him be bound as and to whomsoever he pleases, his soul is mine, and must return to me sooner or later. I like him to be happy in any way that is right, for I know that what he gives to others is not himself. I was not fit for the dear earthly love, but perhaps, if I keep myself pure, body and soul, for him, I shall be made worthy at last, and of something better. And my love is so great it would draw him in spite of himself; but it will not be in spite of himself, for he will find by-and-by that he cannot live with a smaller soul, and then he will come to me. Do you not understand what I want? His soul—purified, strengthened, ennobled—nothing less will satisfy me; and his mother might ask as much. If I might be made the means of saving it—" Then after a little pause, she added: "Ah, how beautiful death is! He will be glad, as I should be now, to meet it— and yet more glad! for then the end will have come for him, but I should have still to wait."

The rumour of Lorrimer's engagement, however, proved to be false. It was another Lorrimer, a cousin of his.

"Lorrimer is restored to your good graces now, I suppose," Claudia said, in her half sarcastic way, when the mistake was explained. I had not told her what was in my mind; she had read my thoughts. "You think that a man whom Ideala has loved should consider himself sacred," she added.

I did not answer. But I hold that all men who have felt or inspired great love will be sanctified by it if there be any true nobility in their nature; and I knew that one man, whom Ideala did not love, had been so sanctified by love for her, and held himself sacred always.

But it was a relief to my mind to know that Lorrimer was not unworthy. He was a distinguished man then, and I felt sure that he would become still more distinguished eventually. He was not one of the many who come and go, and are forgotten; but one of those destined to live for ever

In minds made better by their presence.

The good in his nature was certainly as far above the average as were his splendid abilities, and Ideala was right when she declared that she could answer for his principles. It is impulse that is beyond calculation, and for his own or another's impulses no wise man will answer.

Ideala continued to droop.

"She will never get over it;" I said to Claudia one day, when we were alone together.

"Indeed she will," Claudia answered, confidently. "Out of the depth of your profound ignorance of natural history do you speak, my brother. I dread the reaction, though. When it comes she will be overwhelmed with shame; but it will come. All this is only a phase. She is in a state of transition now. It is her pride that makes her nurse her grief, and will not let her give him up. She cannot bear to think that she, of all women in the world, should have been the victim of anything so trivial as a passing fancy. Not that it would have been a passing fancy if they had not been separated; but as it is—why, no fire can burn without fuel."

Claudia had evidently changed her mind, and she might be right; but my own fear was that her first impression would be justified, and that Ideala would never be able to take a healthy interest in anything again.

"I cannot care," was her constant complaint. "Nothing ever touches me either painfully or pleasurably. Nothing will ever make me glad again."

She said this one evening when she was sitting alone with Claudia and myself, and there was a long silence after she had finished speaking, during which she sat in a dejected attitude, her face buried in her hands.

All at once she looked up.

"It is very strange," she said, "but half that feeling seems to have gone with the expression of it."

"I think," Claudia decided, in her common-sense tone, "that you are nursing this unholy passion, Ideala. You are afraid to give it up lest there should be nothing left to you. Can you not free your mind from the trammels of it, and grasp something higher, better, and nobler? Can you not become mistress of yourself again, and enter on a larger life which shall be full of love—not the narrow, selfish passion you are cherishing for one, but that pure and holy love which only the best— and such women as you may always be of the best—can feel for all? If you could but get the fumes of this evil feeling out of yourself, you would see, as we see, what a common thing it is, and you would recognise, as we recognise, that your very expression of it is just such as is given to it by every hysterical man or woman that has ever experienced it. It is a physical condition caused by contact, and kept up by your own perverse pleasure in it—nothing more. Every one grows out of it in time, and any one with proper self-control could conquer it. You are wavering yourself. You see, now that you have crystallised the feeling into words, that it is a pitiful thing after all, that the object is not worth such an expenditure of strength—certainly not worth the sacrifice of your power to enjoy anything else. Such devotion to the memory of a dead husband has been thought grand by some, although for my part I can see nothing grand in any form of self- indulgence, whether it be the indulgence of sorrow or joy, which narrows our sphere of usefulness, and causes us to neglect the claims of those who love us upon our affection, and the claims of our fellow- creatures generally upon our consideration; but in your case it is simply——" Claudia paused for want of a word.

"You would say it is simply degrading," Ideala interposed. "I do not feel it so. I glory in it."

"I know," said Claudia, pitilessly. "You all do." And then she got up, and laid her hand on Ideala's shoulder. "It is time," she said, earnestly,

  "It is time, O passionate heart and morbid eye,
  That old hysterical mock-disease should die."

CHAPTER XXVIII.

I hoped Claudia's plain speaking had made an impression, but for a long time after that it seemed as if Ideala's interest in life had really ended, that her sphere of usefulness had contracted, and that she herself would become like the rest—a doer of unconnected trifles that have meaning only as the straws have meaning which show which way the current sets. One cannot help thinking how many of these significant straws must go down to the ocean and be lost, their little use unrecognised, their little labour unavailing: because it does so little good merely to know which way the stream is setting, or what ocean will receive it at last, if we have no power to profit by the knowledge. At this time Ideala's own life was not unlike one of these hapless straws, and it seemed a wretched failure of its early promise, that ending as a straw on the common stream, when so little might have made her influence in her own sphere like the river itself, strong and beautiful. Those who loved her watched her in her trouble with eager hope that some good might yet come of it; but the hope diminished always as the days wore on. At first her mind had raged and stormed; one could see it, though she said so little. Her renunciation was perfect, but nevertheless she could not reconcile herself to it. She would not go back, but she could not go on, and so she remained midway between the past, which was hateful to her, and the future, which was a blank, raging at both. But gradually the storm subsided; and then came a period of calm, but whether it was the calm of apathy or the calm of resignation it was hard to say—and meantime she lost her health again, and became so fragile that my sister only expressed what I felt when she was speaking of her one day, and said, sadly:

  "Her cheek is so waxenly thin,
  As if deathward 'twere whitening in,
  And the cloud of her flesh, still more white,
  Were clearing till soul is in sight.

* * * * *

  Her large eyes too liquidly glister!
  Her mouth is too red.
    Have they kissed her—-
  The angels that bend down to pull
  Our buds of the Beautiful,
  And whispered their own little Sister?"

We were anxious to take her abroad, but she would not accompany us. She talked of going alone, but she did not go, and after a time we gave up thinking about it. Then one day, quite suddenly, she said: "It is time this old hysterical mock-disease should die," and she told us that she had at last decided to travel—somewhere; nothing more definite than that, for she said she had no fixed plans. We concluded, however, that she meant to be away some time, for she said something about perils of the deep, and the uncertainty of life generally, and she confided her private papers to my care, telling me to look at them if they would interest me, and make what use of them I pleased; and that was how those from which I have gathered much of her story came into my possession. And then she left us, and for a whole year we heard nothing of her—not one word. Claudia chafed a little, and complained, as women will when things do not arrange themselves exactly as they would have ordered them; but I was content to wait, and, because I expected nothing, the time did not seem so long as perhaps it might have done. We lived our usual life—part of the year in one of the eastern counties, and part in London, and then we came north again. It was winter weather, frosty and clear and bright, and I was tempted out a great deal, taking long rides, begun before sunset and ending by moonlight, and generally alone. And always when the world seemed most beautiful I thought of Ideala, and how she had loved its beauty— mountain and plain, flood and field, forest and flower, the snow and the sunshine, and all the alternations of light and shade; the wonders of form, and the depth and harmony of colour; the blue sky by day, with its glories of sunrise and sunset; the dark sky by night, with its moonlight and starlight—the sky always! that cloudland to which, when we are wearied by the more monotonous earth, we had only to lift our eyes and there the scene is changing for ever—the sky—and the sea:

In all its vague immensity!

Would she ever see it again in the old way? When she left us one might have said of her mental state:

  O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon—
  Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse
  Without all hope of day!

And where was she now? and was she learning to see again? I own I sometimes had the presumption to think that if she had stayed with us I might have helped her. It seemed hardly credible that she should be able to stand alone at such a time, not to speak of the strength required to take her out of herself. And was not the loneliness itself an added misery? She never could bear to be alone, and I always thought the worst trial of her married life was the mental solitude to which it had reduced her by making her feel the necessity for reserve, even with her best friends. Of course she had chosen to go alone; it was quite her own doing; but I could not help thinking, uneasily at times, that she would not have gone at all if she had not noticed how anxious we were about her, and fancied she could relieve us of our trouble by relieving us of her presence. That would have been so like Ideala! And then my thoughts would wander off, recalling her numberless little deeds of love, her perfect selflessness, and all the depth and beauty of her great and tender nature, as we do recall such things of one who has gone and will nevermore return, as in the old days, to make us glad. There was the day I had seen her from the club window stoop to pick up a little ragged barefooted child that was crying in the street, and wrap her furs about it and carry it off, smiling and happy, in her arms, with no more thought of the attention such an action would attract than if she had been alone with her waif in the desert. But many and many a time, and in many a way, she had made glad hearts by deeds like that; and now where was she? And was there never a one in the whole wide world to help her to bear her own sorrow and ease her pain?

One evening in particular I had been more than usually tormented by such thoughts. I had been blaming myself bitterly for having allowed her to go away alone, and when I rode up to my own door I was conscious of a half-formed resolution to follow her without delay and bring her back.

Claudia was standing on the steps in the crisp, fresh evening air, apparently watching for me. She put her arms round my neck when I alighted, and kissed me.

"Has she written?" I exclaimed, for Claudia was not demonstrative, and this meant something.

"She is here," was the answer.

My heart gave a great leap, but I could not ask if it were well with her. I could only look at Claudia, and wonder if it were the moonlight that made the expression of her face so singularly content and sweet. I went into the lighted house, and being somewhat dazed and altogether too eager to see her at once, I dressed for the evening, leisurely, and then I went to find her. There was a change in the house already. It was lighted from top to bottom as befits a time of rejoicing, and our other guests, whom I passed in my search, seemed gayer—or I fancied so. She was not among them, but I took the liberty of going to her rooms and knocked at the sitting-room door, and entered. She rose to receive me, stretching out her hands, and my first impression was that she had grown; afterwards I understood that it was a change in the fashion of her dress that made it appear so. She wore a long robe, exquisitely draped, which was loose, but yet clung to her, and fell in rich folds about her with a grace that satisfied. I cannot describe the fashion of this robe, or the form, but I have seen one like it somewhere—it must have been in a picture, or on a statue of a grand heroic woman or a saint; and it suggested something womanly and strong, but not to be defined.

It was Ideala, herself—not as she had been, but as I always hoped she would be, and felt she might. She showed the change in every gesture, but most of all in her clear and steady eyes, which made you feel she had a purpose now, and a future yet before her. She looked as women look when they know themselves entrusted with a work, and have the courage and resolution to be true and worthy of their trust. She was very gracious, but somehow in the first moment of our meeting I felt abashed—abashed before this woman who had gone down to the verge of dishonour, but whose goodness, with the vitality of all goodness, had raised her again above the best; whose trouble had been to her, because of this goodness, as is a painful operation which must be gone through if the patient would ever be strong.

I fancy she thought me cold because my great respect made me shy, and I hesitated to show her all the joy I felt.

"Won't you kiss me once after my long, long voyage?" she said, holding up her face like a child to be kissed. And it made me inexpressibly glad, to perceive that, while gaining in dignity and purpose, her character had lost none of the childlike faith and affection which had been one of the greatest charms of the old Ideala. I could not help examining her curiously, looking for traces of a conflict, for those lines of suffering which are generally left by fierce mental troubles like scars after a battle, showing that the fight has been no child's play, but a struggle for life or death. Such a conflict there must have been, but all trace of it was swept away by the wonderful peace that had succeeded it. Ideala looked younger, certainly, but the change showed itself most in her perfect serenity, and in the steadfast earnestness of her wonderful eyes.

But I had no time to talk to her, for Claudia, in diamonds and velvet and lace—her donning of which is her one way of expressing a satisfaction too deep for words—blazed in upon us. If it had occurred so her, she would certainly have had the bells of the parish rung— provided my authority as lay Rector could have accomplished such an extravagance. She took us away with her now to join our other guests, and when dinner was announced I offered Ideala my arm. She was silent as we went, but looked about her with a grave little smile on her lips, renewing her acquaintance with familiar objects, and noting every change. And so busy was she with her own reflections, so thoroughly absorbed, that, when we were seated at table, she put her serviette beside her plate and her bread on her lap mechanically, and took up her knife and fork to eat her soup. She seemed puzzled for a moment when she found that the implements did not answer, and then she laughed! Such a fresh, girlish laugh! It did one's heart good to hear her! Yes, verily! Ideala was herself again, absent-mindedness and all.

And before dinner was over a wonderful thing had happened. For whereas we had hitherto been the most commonplace and prosaic party imaginable, getting along smoothly, taking no particular interest in each other, or in anything else, and only remarkable for a degree of dulness which would have astonished us by its bulk could it have been weighed and measured—to-night, for no apparent reason, we suddenly woke up and astounded ourselves by more originality than we had been accustomed to believe was left in the world altogether—while something put into our conversation just the right amount of polite friction to act as a counter-irritant, so that, when we left the table, each felt that he had been at his best—had been brilliant, in fact, and shone with lustre enough to make any man happy.

Once in a London theatre I saw an actress walk across the stage. She did not utter a word, she never looked at the audience, she was apparently unconscious of everything but what she had in her own mind; yet before she was half across the stage the people rose to their feet with a roar. Ideala's coming amongst us had produced some such startling effect; but her power was altogether occult. The audience knew what the actress meant, but we did not understand Ideala, and yet we applauded by laying our best before her, and acknowledged the charm of her presence in every word. She spoke very little, however. Indeed, I remember nothing she said until we went to the drawing-room. On the way thither Claudia had picked up a crumpled paper, and, glancing at it, had exclaimed—"Why, Ideala, here are some of your verses! Do you still write verses?"

It was curious that we all spoke as if she had been away for years.

"Yes," she answered, tranquilly; and Claudia coolly proceeded to read the verses aloud, a difficult task, as they were scribbled in pencil on half a sheet of note-paper, and were scarcely decipherable. Ideala, meanwhile, listened, with calm eyes fixed on vacancy, like one trying to be polite, but finding it hard for lack of interest.

  "By Arno, when the tale was o'er,
  At sunset, as in days of yore,
    I wandered forth and dreamed.
  The sky above, the town below.
  The solemn river's silent flow,
  The ancient story-haunts I know,
    In varied colours gleamed.

  By Arno calm my steps I stayed,
  Just where the river's bank displayed
    A tangled growth of weeds;
  Tall houses near, and on the right
  An arched bridge upreared its height,
  And boats drew near, and passed from sight—
    I heard the tramp of steeds.

  I heard, and saw, but heeded not;
  My feet were rooted to the spot,
    A fancy checked my breath.
  'Twas here that Tito lay, I knew.
  His fair face upward to the blue,
  His velvet tunic soaking through,
    Most beautiful in death.

  But Baldassarre was not there,
  'Twas I that stooped to kiss the hair,
    Besprent with ooze and dew.
  Ah, God! light gold the locks caressed—
  I saw no Greek in velvet dressed—
  But wildly to my bosom pressed—
    Not Tito, love, but you!

  The massive, godlike head and throat
  Belonged not to those days remote,
    The fine grey eye—the limb;
  It was the soul I know so well,
  So full of earth, and heaven, and hell,
  That came from out that time to dwell
    In you and make you him.

  And I, the victim of your smiles,
  And I, the victim of your wiles,
  My vengeance shall prevail.
  The river Time shall float you nigh,
  And earth and hell your soul shall fly.
  And only heaven remain when I
    The deed triumphant hail!"

It surprised me to find that Claudia could read those verses to the end, their import—to me, at least—was so obvious. But Ideala continued unmoved; and when the little buzz of friendly criticism had subsided, she remarked, with unimpassioned directness:

"I am quite sure that all my verses are rubbish; but nevertheless they delight me. I should feel dumb without the power to make verses; it is a means of expression that satisfies when nothing else will. I always carry my last about in my pocket. I know them by heart, of course, but still it is a pleasure to read them; and so it continues until I write some more; and then I immediately perceive that the old ones are bad, and I destroy them—when I remember. Those were condemned ages ago, so please oblige me, Claudia, by putting them into the fire."

Claudia was about to obey, but I interposed. I had a fancy for keeping those verses. They are rubbishy if you will; but the sentiment which struggles to find expression in them is far from despicable.

No one smoked that evening; no one played billiards; no one cared for music; we just sat round the fire in a circle, and talked.

"And where have you come from, Ideala?" was the first question.

"From China," she answered.

There was a general exclamation. "I have been with the missionaries in
China," she added.

"Oh, isn't it very strange, the life in China?" some one asked.

"It looks different," she said, "but its feels like our own. To begin with, one is struck by the strange appearance of the people, and the quaint humour of their art; but when the first effect wears off, and you learn to know them, you find after all that theirs is the same human nature, only in another garb; the familiar old tune, as it were, with a new set of variations. The like in unlikeness is common enough, but still the finding of a remarkable similarity in things apparently unlike continues to surprise us."

"But, Ideala, you cannot compare the Chinese to ourselves! Think of the state of degradation the people are in! Every crime is rife among them —infanticide is quite common!"

"Yes," said Ideala, as, if it were the most natural thing in the world. "Yes, doubtless, the lower classes in China kill their children; here, in certain districts, they insure them," Ideala concluded gravely.

"But then," said Claudia—"Oh! Ideala, I don't think you can establish your parallel. We all know the sort of a life a Chinese lady leads."

"When the lady is not at the head of her house it is certainly vacuous," Ideala agreed, "like the lives of our own ladies when they are not forced to do anything. Why, at Scarborough this year they had to take to changing their dresses four times a day; so you can imagine how they languish for want of occupation."

"Well, at all events, English girls are not sold into a hateful form of slavery," some one observed contentedly.

"Are they not?" Ideala rejoined with a flash. "I can assure you that both women and men, fathers, husbands, and brothers, of the same class in England, do sell their young girls—and I can prove it."

"We have the pull over them in the matter of marriage, then. We don't give our daughters away against their will as they do."

"That is not a fair way of putting it. A Chinese girl expects to be so disposed of, and accepts the arrangement as a matter of course. And the system has its advantages. The girl has no illusions to be shattered, she expects no new happiness in her married life, so that any that comes to her is clear gain. As to our daughters' inclinations not being forced, I suppose they are not, exactly. But have you never been conscious of the tender pressure that is brought to bear when a desirable suitor offers? Have you never seen a girl who won't marry when she is wanted to, wincing from covert stabs, mourning over cold looks, and made to feel outside everything—suffering a small martyrdom under the general displeasure of all for whom she cares, her world, without whose love life is a burden to her; whom she believes to know best about everything? As Mrs. Bread said about Madame de Cintre: 'She is a delicate creature, and they make her feel wicked'—and she ends by thinking any sacrifice light at the moment, if only it wins her back the affection and esteem of her friends."

Ideala had been carried away by her earnestness, and now she stopped abruptly, somewhat disconcerted to find every one listening to her. The ladies sat with their eyes on the floor, the gentlemen exchanged glances, but no one spoke for some time.

At last my sister made a move, and the spell was broken. We separated for the night, and many were the lady-like whispers that reached my ears, all ending in: "So like Ideala!"

But, as Ideala herself remarked on another occasion, "You can't sweep a room that requires it without raising a dust; the thing is to let the dust settle again, and then remove it."

CHAPTER XXIX.

Claudia did not see the change in Ideala all at once. She said: "She is looking her best, and is our own Ideala again—faults and all! How she talked last night!"

"Just in the old way," I agreed, "but with a difference; for in the old days she talked at random, but now I feel sure she has a plan and a purpose, and all that she says is part of it."

This suggested new possibilities to Claudia, and when Ideala joined us presently, she asked, abruptly: "Are you going back to China?"

Ideala answered deliberately: "I did think of becoming a missionary—that was why I went out there. But I know all radical reforms take time, and when I saw what the Chinese women were doing for themselves, and compared their state with our own, it seemed to me that there was work in plenty to be done at home, and so I returned. Certainly, the Chinese women of the day bind their feet. When a girl is seven or eight years old, her mother binds them for her, and everybody approves, If the mother did otherwise, the girl herself would be the first to reproach her when she grew up. It is wonderful how they endure the torture; but public opinion has sanctioned the custom for centuries, and made it as much a duty for a Chinese woman to have small feet as it is for us to wear clothes! And yet they do a wonderful thing. When they are taught how wrong the practice is, how it cripples them, and weakens them, and renders them unfit for their work in the world, they take off their bandages! Think of that! and remember that they are timid and sensitive in a womanly way to a degree that is painful. When I learnt that, and when I remembered that my countrywomen bind every organ in their bodies, though they know the harm of it, and public opinion is against it, I did not feel that I had time to stay and teach the heathen. It seemed to me that there was work enough left yet to do at home."

"But, Ideala," Claudia protested, "what is the use of drawing degrading comparisons between ourselves and other nations? You gave great offence last night."

"I said more than I intended," she answered; "I always do. It was Tourgenieff, was it not, who said that the age of talkers must precede the age of practical reformers? I seem to have been born in the age of talkers. But I shall not say much more. Last night I did not really intend to say anything. You led me on. But I do want to make their hearts burn within them, and if I succeed, then I shall not care about the offence. An English-woman is nothing if she is not patriotic. She will not bear the humiliation, if she is made to see that she is really no better, with all her opportunities, than a much- despised Chinese. She would not like the contempt the women of that nation feel for her if she were made to acknowledge the truth—that she deserved it. And so much depends on our women now. There are plenty of people, you know, who believe that no nation can get beyond a certain point of prosperity, and that when it reaches that point it cannot stay there, but must begin to go down again; and they say that the English nation has now reached its extreme point. They compare it with Rome in the days which immediately preceded her decline and fall—when men ceased to be brave and self-denying, and became idle, luxurious, and effeminate; and women traded on their weakness, and made light of their evil deeds. It is a question of the sanctity of marriage now, as it was in the days of the decline of Rome. De Quincey traces her fall to the loosening of the marriage tie. He says that few indeed, if any, were the obligations in a proper sense moral which pressed upon the Roman. The main fountains of moral obligation had in Rome, by law or custom, been thoroughly poisoned. Marriage had corrupted itself through the facility of divorce, and through the consequences of that facility (viz., levity in choosing, and fickleness in adhering to the choice), into so exquisite a traffic of selfishness, that it could not yield so much as a phantom model of sanctity. The relation of husband and wife had, for all moral impressions, perished amongst the Romans. And, although it is not quite so bad with ourselves at present, that is what it is coming to.

"But there are two sides to every question, and the one which we must by no means lose sight of just now is not that which shows the respects in which we resemble the Romans, so much as the one which shows the respects in which we differ from them. It is therein that our hope lies. And we differ from them in two important respects. We differ from them in the matter of experience, and in the use we are disposed to make of our experiences. We are beginning to know the rocks upon which they split, and we shall soon be making use of our knowledge to steer clear of them. But there is another respect in which we differ from all the older nations, not even excepting the Jewish. I mean morality. We have the grandest and purest ideal of morality that was ever preached upon earth, and, if we do but practise it, there is no doubt that the promise will be fulfilled, and our days as a nation will be prolonged with rejoicing.

"The future of the race has come to be a question of morality and a question of health. Perhaps I should reverse it, and say a question of health and morality, since the latter is so dependent on the former. We want grander minds, and we must have grander bodies to contain them. And it all rests with us women. To us is confided the care of the little ones—of the young bodies and the young minds yet unformed. Ours will be the joy of success or the shame of failure, and we should fit ourselves for the task both morally and physically by the practice of every virtue, and by every art known to the science and skill of man."

"Englishwomen could not sit still and know that their lovely homes will be wrecked eventually, and left desolate: that this country of theirs will become a wilderness of ruin, such as Egypt is, but rank and overgrown, its beauty of sweet grass and stately trees, and all its rich luxuriance of flowers and fruits and foliage plants, only accentuating the ruin—bearing witness to the neglect. No, our greatness shall not depart. The decay may have begun, but it shall be arrested. I am not afraid."

"But if it is the fate of nations, Ideala——"

"I propose to conquer fate," said Ideala. "Fate itself is no match for one woman with a will, let alone for thousands! When horrid war is threatened, men flock to fight for their country; and they volunteer for every other arduous duty to be done. Do you think women are less brave? No. When they realise the truth they will fight for it. They will fly to arms. They will use the weapons with which Nature has provided them; love, constancy, self-sacrifice, their intellectual strength, and will. And so they will save the nation."

Claudia, the unimaginative, sat silent and perplexed.

"I would join," she said at last, "if I were quite sure——Oh, Ideala! it is not a sort of Woman's Rights business, and all that, you are going in for, is it? A woman can do good in her own sphere only."

Ideala laughed. "But 'her own sphere' is such a very indefinite phrase," she observed. "It is nonsense, really. A woman may do anything which she can do in a womanly way. They say that our brains are lighter, and that therefore we must not be taught too much. But why not educate us to the limit of our capacity, and leave it there? Why, if we are inferior, should there be any fear of making us superior? We must stop when we cannot go any further, and all this old-womanish cackle on the subject, the everlasting trying to prove what is already said to be proved—the looking for the square in space after laying it down as a law that only the circle exists—is a curious way of showing us how to control the 'exuberance of our own verbosity.' They say we shall not be content when we get what we want, and there they are right, for as soon as our own 'higher education' is secure we shall begin to clamour for the higher education of men. For the prayer of every woman worth the name is not 'Make me superior to my husband,' but, 'Lord, make my husband superior to me!' Is there any more pitiful position in the world than that of a right-minded woman who is her husband's superior, and knows it! There is in every educated and refined woman an inborn desire to submit, and she must do violence to what is best in herself when she cannot. You know what the history of such marriages is. The girl has been taught to expect to find a guide, philosopher, and friend in her husband. He is to be head of the house and lord of her life and liberty, sole arbiter on all occasions. It is right and convenient to have him so; the world requires him to fill that position, and the wife prefers that he should. But the probabilities are about equal that he, being morally her inferior, will not be fit for it, and that, therefore, she will find herself in a false position. There will then be an interval of intense misery for the wife. Her education and prejudices will make her try to submit at first to what her sense knows to be impossible; but eventually she is forced out of her unnatural position by circumstances. To save her house and family she must rebel, take the reins of government into her own hands, and face life, a disappointed and lonely woman."

"Heaven help her!" said Claudia. "One knows that the future of a woman in that state of mind is only a question of circumstance and temperament; she may rise, but——"

Ideala looked up quickly. "But she may fall, you were going to say— yes. But you know if she does it is her own fault. She must know better."

"She may not be quite mistress of herself at the time—she may be fascinated; she may be led on!" I interposed, quickly. Claudia seemed to have forgotten. "But one thing is certain, if she has any real good in her she will always stop before it is too late."

"I think," said Claudia, "it would be better, after all, if women were taught to expect to find themselves their husbands' equals—the disappointment would not be so great if the husband proved inferior; but when a woman has been led to look for so much, her imagination is full of dreams in which he figures as an infallible being; she expects him to be her refuge, support, and comfort at all times; and when a man has such a height to fall from in any one's estimation, there can be but little of him left if he does fall."

Ideala sighed, and after a short pause she said: "I have been wondering what makes it possible for a woman to love a man? Not the flesh that she sees and can touch, though that may attract her as the colour of the flower attracts. It must be the mind that is in him—the scent of the flower, as it were. If she finds eventually that his mind is corrupt, she must shrink from it as from any other form of corruption, and finally abandon him on account of it, as she would abandon the flower if she found its odour fetid—indeed, she has already abandoned her husband when she acknowledges that he is not what she thought him." She paused a moment, and then went on passionately: "I cannot tell you what it was—the battling day by day with a power that was irresistible because it had to put forth no strength to accomplish its work; it simply was itself, and by being itself it lowered me. I cannot tell you what it was to feel myself going down, and not to be able to help it, try as I would; to feel the gradual change in my mind as it grew to harbour thoughts which were reflections of his thoughts, low thoughts; and to be filled with ideas, recollections of his conversations, which had caused me infinite disgust at the time, but remained with me like the taste of a nauseous drug, until I almost acquired a morbid liking for them. Oh, if I could save other women from that!"

Claudia hastily interposed to divert her. "That is a good idea, the higher education of men," she said. "I don't know whether they have abandoned hope, or whether they think themselves already perfect, certain it is the idea of improving themselves does not seem to occur to them often. And we want good men in society. If the clergy and priests are good, it is only what is required of them, what everybody expects, and, therefore, their goodness is accepted as a matter of course, and is viewed as indifferently as other matters of course. One good man in society has more effect as an example than ten priests."

"But you have not told us what you propose to do, Ideala?" I said.

"I hope it is nothing unwomanly," Claudia interposed, anxiously.

Ideala looked at her and laughed, and Claudia laughed too, the moment after she had spoken. The fear of Ideala doing anything unwomanly was absurd, even to herself.

"An unwomanly woman is such a dreadful creature," Claudia added, apologetically.

"Yes," said Ideala, "but you should pity her. In nine cases out of ten there is a great wrong or a great grief at the bottom of all her unwomanliness—perhaps both; and if she shrieks you may be sure that she is suffering; ease her pain, and she will be quiet enough. The average woman who is happy in her marriage does not care to know more of the world than she can learn in her own nursery, nor to see more of it, as a rule, than she can see from her own garden gate. She is a great power; but, unfortunately, there is so very little of her!

"What I want to do is to make women discontented—you have heard of a noble spirit of discontent? I thought for a long time that everything had been done that could be done to make the world better; but now I see that there is still one thing more to be tried. Women have never yet united to use their influence steadily and all together against that of which they disapprove. They work too much for themselves, each trying to make their own life happier. They have yet to learn to take a wider view of things, and to be shown that the only way to gain their end is by working for everybody else, with intent to make the whole world better, which means happier. And in order to accomplish this they must be taught that they have only to will it—each in her own family and amongst her own friends; that, after having agreed with the rest about what they mean to put down, they have only to go home and use their influence to that end, quietly, consistently, and without wavering, and the thing will be done. Our influence is like those strong currents which run beneath the surface of the ocean without disturbing it, and yet with irresistible force, and at a rate that may be calculated. It is to help in the direction of that force that I am going to devote my life. Do not imagine," she went on hurriedly, "that I think myself fit for such a work. I have had conscientious scruples— been sorely troubled about my own unworthiness, which seemed to unfit me for any good work. But now I see things differently. One may be made an instrument for good without merit of one's own. So long as we do not deceive ourselves by thinking we are worthy, and so long as we are trying our best to become so, I think we may hope; I think we may even know that we shall eventually——" She stopped and looked at me.

"Be made worthy," said Claudia, kissing her; "and if it were not so, Ideala, if everybody had to begin by being as good themselves as they want others to be, there would be no good workers left in the world at all."

At this moment a noisy party burst in upon our grave debate and carried Ideala off for a ride. We saw them leave the house, and watched them ride away until the last glimpse of them was veiled by the misty brightness of the frosty air and the morning sunshine.

"How well she looks!" Claudia exclaimed; "better than any of them. She has quite recovered, and is none the worse."

"I do not know about recovery," I answered, dubiously. "She will never ——"

But Claudia interrupted hotly: "I know what you are going to say, and I do wish you would leave off speaking of Ideala in that way. Any one to hear you would suppose she had committed a sin, and you know quite well that that was not the case. If she acted without common prudence—and I will not deny that she did—it was entirely your own fault. She has never been intimate with any man but yourself, and you have made her believe that all men are like you. How could she harbour suspicion when she did not know what to suspect? Of course she saw everything wrongly and awry. The old life had become impossible to her, and she nearly made a mistake as to what the new one should be, that was all. I know she wavered for a moment, but the weakness was more physical than moral, I think. Her vision was clouded at the time, but as soon as she was restored to health she saw things clearly enough. She is a great and good woman, pure-hearted and full of charity. God bless her for all her tenderness, and for her wonderful power to love. He alone can count the number who have reason to wish her well."

"That is true," I answered. "And I was merely going to remark, when you interrupted me, that she will never think herself 'none the worse'—"

"I don't see what difference that makes," Claudia again interposed. "She always did think herself least of the least when she thought of herself at all, and that was not often. You are dwelling too long on the past, really, and making too much of it. Men, when they are saints, are twice as bad as women."

I pointed out to my sister something confusing in her way of expressing the fact, but my kindness seemed to exasperate her.

"You know what I mean quite well," she said tartly.

"Yes, I know," I rejoined; "but I wanted to help you to make yourself intelligible to other people."

Claudia made a gesture of impatience, but laughed, and left me; and I remained for a long time thinking over all that Ideala had said, and also thinking of her as she looked at the time; and the subject was so inspiring that, although my strong point is landscape, in an ambitious mood I began to paint an allegorical picture of her as a mother nursing the Infant Goodness of the race. She saw it when it was nearly finished, but did not recognise herself, and exclaimed; "What a gaunt creature! and that baby weighs at least twelve stone!"

The picture was never finished.

CHAPTER XXX.

We soon found that Ideala, having at last put her hand to the plough, worked with a will, and although she was true to her principle that a woman's best work is done beneath the surface, I think her own labours will eventually make themselves felt with a good result in the world. But the life she has chosen for herself is martyrdom, and her womanly shrinking from the suffering she would alleviate is never lessened by use. Yet she does not waver. Other women admire her devotion, and follow in her footsteps; they do not doubt but that she has chosen the better part; but I fancy that most men who have seen her draw the little children about her and forget everything for a moment but her delight in them, have felt that there must be something wrong in the world when such a woman misses her vocation, and has to scatter her love to the four winds of heaven, for want of an object upon which to concentrate it in all its strength.

I do not know if her feeling for Lorrimer has changed. My sister declares in her positive way that of course it has, completely; but my sister is not always right. Ideala has never mentioned his name since she returned to us, nor given us any other clue by which we could judge. Only on one occasion, when some allusion was made to the course she had intended to pursue in the past, she exclaimed: "Oh, how could I!" and covered her face with her hands.

From where I sit just now I can see her walking up the avenue. She is as straight as an arrow, young-looking, and fresh. Her step is firm and light and elastic, and she moves with an easy grace only possible when every muscle is unconstrained. Her dress is a work of art, light in weight, but rich in colour and texture.

"What a beautiful woman!" I think involuntarily. I see her daily, and pay her that tribute every time we meet, for—

  Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
  Her infinite variety.

Her intellect and selflessness preserve her youth. She is changed, certainly. She has arisen, and can return no more to the lower walks, to the old purposeless life, and desultory ways; but yet she is the same Ideala, and holds you always expectant—you, who see beneath the surface. The world will call her cold and self-contained till the end, and so she is and will be—a snow-crowned volcano, with wonderful force of fire working within. And she will not stop where she is; there is something yet to come—some further development—something more— something beyond! and she makes you feel that there is. What she says of other women is true of herself. "Do not stand in their way," she begs; "do not hinder them—above all, do not stop them. They are running water; if you check them they stagnate, and you must suffer yourself from their noisome exhalations. For the moral nature is like water; it must have movement and air and sunshine to stay corruption and keep it sweet and wholesome; and its movement is good works; its air, faith in their efficiency; its sunshine, the evidence of this and hope."

Comparative anatomists have proved that the human brain, from its first appearance as a semi-fluid and shapeless mass, passes in succession through the several structures that constitute the permanent and perfect brains of fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammalia; but ultimately it passes beyond them all, and acquires a marvellous development of its own. And so it is with the human soul. It must rise through analogous stages, and add to its own strength and beauty by daily bread of love and thought, growing to greatness by help of these aliments only, and reaching ultimately to such perfection as we cannot divine, for the end is not here. But we might reach it sooner than we do were it not for our own impatience. Growth is so exquisitely minute, it bursts upon us an accomplished fact. We know this, and yet we would see the process; and not seeing it we lose faith, waver, hesitate, stop, and recoil—a going back pour mieux sauter it is with the choicer spirit; but we all are deficient in hope, all have our retrograde moments of despair. We do not look about us enough to see what is being done for others, how they are progressing, by what strange paths they are led. We keep our eyes on our own ground too much, and, because we will not compare cheerfully, we think our own way the roughest, our own journey the longest—if there be any end to it at all! Yet all the time we might see the end if only we would look up. And we need never despair and lag, need never be cold and comfortless, if we would but love and remember.

  For, while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
  Seem here no painful inch to gain,
  Far out, through creeks and inlets making,
  Comes silent, flooding in, the main!

Ideala raises her eyes to mine now, and smiles as she passes beneath my window.

Another woman—a woman whom Claudia had long refused to know—is leaning on her arm, talking to her earnestly. And that is Ideala's attitude always. She gathers the useless units of society about her, and makes them worthy women. There is no kind of sorrow for which she has not found comfort, no folly she has not been successful in checking, no vice she has not managed to cure, and no form of despair which she has not relieved with hope. Her own experiences have taught her to sympathise with every phase of feeling, and be lenient to every shortcoming and excess. Wherever she is you may be sure that another woman is there also—some one with a sorrowful history, probably; and you may be equally sure that she is leaning on Ideala. God bless her!