There is something in this graphic narrative which appears to tickle my young cavalier’s fancy immensely, for whenever he says “Mister Adam, he, Clum up a tree,” he opens his big blue eyes very widely, claps his tiny hands very loudly, and gives vent to ecstatic shrieks of laughter. It is quite evident that he entirely understands and appreciates Adam’s position. Young as he is, he has the instinctive knowledge within him that when the time comes, he will likewise adopt the “Clum up a tree” policy. For Adam is the same Adam still, and nothing will ever change him. And when things are getting rather “mixed” in his career, and the forbidden fruit he has so readily devoured turns out to be rather more sour and tasteless than he had anticipated,—when his Garden of Eden is being searched through and through for the causes of the folly and disobedience which have devastated its original fairness, the same old story may be said of him—“Mister Adam, he, Clum up a tree.” Perhaps if he only climbed a tree one might excuse him,—but unfortunately he talks while climbing,—talks as though he were an old babbling grandam instead of a lord of creation,—and grandam-like puts the blame on somebody else. He says—“The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat.” Coward Adam! Observe how he at once transfers the fault of his own lack of will and purpose to the weaker, more credulous, more loving and trusting partner;—how he leaves her defenceless to brave the wrath which he himself dreads,—and how he never for one half second dreams of admitting himself to be the least in the wrong! But there is always one great satisfaction to be derived from the perusal of the strange old Eden story, and this is that “Mister Sarpint” was of the male gender. Scripture leaves no room for doubt on this point. It says: “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman——” So that a “he” tempted a woman, before “she” ever tempted a “he.” Women should be duly thankful for the sex of “Mister Sarpint,” and should also bear in mind that this particular “he” was “more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.” On many an occasion it will be found a salutary and useful fact to remember.
Once upon a time, so we are told, there was an Age of Chivalry. The word “chivalry” is stated in the dictionary to be derived from the French “cheval” a horse, and “chivalrous” men were, in the literal meaning of the term, merely men who rode about on horseback. But chivalry has somehow come to imply respect, devotion, and reverence for women. The “chivalrous” knight is supposed to have gone all over the world, wearing the glove or the ribbon of his “ladye faire,” in his helmet, and challenging to single combat every other knight that dared to question the supremacy of her beauty and virtue. I confess at once that I do not believe in him. If he ever existed he must have been a most unnatural and abnormal product of humanity, as unlike his first progenitor Adam as he could well be. For even in the “Round Table” romances one finds an entire lack of chivalry in the so-called chivalrous knights of King Arthur. Their moral principles left much to be desired, and the conduct of Sir Meliagraunce who betrayed the loves of Lancelot and the Queen was merely that of a common sneak. Coward Adam spoke in him, as in many of the Arthurian heroes,—and that they were more “chivalrous” than the modern male gossips who jeer away a woman’s name and honour in their smoking and gaming rooms, is a legend which like that of the Tree of Good and Evil itself, requires stronger confirmation than history as yet witnesseth.
Coward Adam, taking him as he appears in the present day, has lately shown himself off in various odd phases and lamentable positions. During the South African War he came out strong in some of our generals, who put the blame of certain military mishaps on one another like quarrelsome children, thereby losing dignity and offering a most humiliating spectacle to the amazed British public. Coward Adam’s policy, after making a blunder, is to adopt any lie, rather than say frankly and boldly—“I did it!” He will eat dirt by the bushel in preference to the nobler starvation act of singly facing his foes. He is just now exhibiting himself to his usual advantage in the British Parliament, while the nation looks on, waiting for the inevitable finale of his various hesitations and inefficiencies—the “Mister Adam, he, Clum up a tree.” For in most matters of social, political, and moral progress, the great difficulty is to obtain an upright, downright, honest and impartial opinion from any leading public man. The nation may be drifting devilwards, but statesmen are judged to be more statesmanlike, if they hold their tongues and watch it go. They must not speak the truth. It would offend so many people. It would upset so many interests. It would create a panic on the Stock Exchange. It would throw Wall Street into hysterics. The world’s vast public, composed of thinking, working, and more or less educated and intelligent people, may and do crave for a bold utterance, a truth openly enunciated and bravely maintained, but to the weavers of political intrigue and the self-seeking schemers in Governmental departments, the public is considered merely as a Big Child, to be soothed with lollipop phrases and tickled by rattle promises. If the Big Child cries and screams because it is hungry, they chirp to it about Fair Trade,—if it complains that its ministers of religion are trying to make it say its prayers backwards, they promise a full “enquiry into recent abuses in the Church.” But fine words butter no parsnips. Coward Adam always climbs up a tree as quickly as he can when instead of fine words, fine deeds are demanded. Physical feats of skill, physical gymnastics of all kinds he excels in, but a moral difficulty always places him as it did in the Garden of Eden, in what he would conventionally term “an awkward position.”
“Never kiss and tell” is I believe an “unwritten law of chivalry.” This law, so I understand, Coward Adam does sometimes manage to obey, albeit reluctantly. Because he would like to tell,—he would very much like to tell,—if—if the story of the kiss did not involve himself in the telling! But at this juncture “the unwritten laws of chivalry” step in and he is saved. And chivalry is the tree up which he climbs, chattering to himself the usual formula—“The woman whom thou gavest to be with me,”—etcetera, etcetera. Alas, poor woman! She has heard him saying this ever since she, in an unselfish desire to share her food with him, gave him the forbidden apple. No doubt she offered him its rosiest and ripest side! She always does,—at first. Not afterwards! As soon as he turns traitor and runs up a tree, she takes to pelting him, metaphorically speaking, with cocoa-nuts. This is quite natural on her part. She had thought him a man,—and when he suddenly changes into a monkey, she doesn’t understand it. To this cause may possibly be attributed some of the ructions which occasionally jar the harmonious estate of matrimony.
Coward Adam does very well in America. He sees his position there quite plainly. He knows that if he climbs his tree too often, hundreds of feminine hands will pull him down. So he resigns himself to the inevitable. He is not slow to repeat the customary whine—“The woman whom thou gavest me”—but he says it quietly to himself between whiles. Because he knows that she knows all his share in the mischief! So he digs and delves, and finds gold and silver and limitless oil wherewith to turn into millions of dollars for her pleasure; he packs pork, lays railway tracks, starts companies, organizes “combines”—and strains every nerve and sinew to “do” every other Adam save himself in his own particular line of business, so that “the woman” (or may we say the women?) “whom thou gavest” may be clothed in Paris model gowns, and wear jewels out-rivalling in size and lustre those of all the kings and queens that ever made their sad and stately progress through history. Indeed, Coward Adam, in the position he occupies as a free citizen of that mighty Republic over which the wild eagle screams exultingly, looks a little bit like a beaten animal. But he bears his beating well, and is quite pleasant about it. In regard to “the woman whom thou gavest me” he is nearer the imaginary code of “chivalry” than his European brother. If the original Adam had learned the ways of a modern American gentleman of good education and fine manners, one can quite imagine him saying—“The woman whom thou gavest to be with me generously offered me a share of the apple, and I did eat. But the Serpent whom thou didst permit to tell lies to my amiable partner concerning this special kind of fruit, was chiefly to blame.”
Coward Adam, as he is seen and known among the lower classes, crops up every day in newspapers, which duly chronicle his various acts, such as promising marriage to poor working girls and robbing them of all their little savings, as well as of their good names,—kicking his wife, starving his children, and spending every penny he earns in the public-house. But he is just as frequently met with in the houses of the Upper Ten. He will wear the garb of a lord with ease, and, entering the house of another lord, will cozen his host’s wife away from loyalty to her husband in quite the manner “friendly.” He is likewise to be found occasionally in the walks of literature, and where a woman is concerned in matters artistic will “down” her if he can. He has always done his best to hinder woman from receiving any acknowledgment for superior intellectual ability. Notably one may quote the case of Madame Curie, the discoverer of radium. Coward Adam says she discovered it by “a fluke”—that is to say, by chance. Most great discoveries occur, even to men, in the same way. In the present instance the “chance” came to a woman. Why should she not therefore have all the honour due to her?—the same honour precisely as would fall to the lot of a man in her place? Columns upon columns of praise would be bestowed upon her were she of Adam’s sex, and all the academies of science would contend with each other as to which should offer her the best and most distinctive award. But Coward Adam cannot abide the thought that “the woman whom thou gavest” should take an occasionally higher rank than his own among the geniuses of his age. He must have everything or nothing. He tries to ignore the fact that woman is winning equal honours with himself in University degrees; he would fain forget that the two greatest monarchs Great Britain ever had were women—Elizabeth and Victoria. There is a brave Adam, of course—a civilized creature who owns and admits the brilliant achievements of woman with pride and tenderness,—I am only just now speaking of the coward specimen. The brave Adam does not turn tail or climb trees, and he appears to have had nothing to do with the Garden of Eden. Very likely he was born somewhere else. For he says—“The woman whom thou gavest to be with me is the joy of my life,—the companion of my thoughts. To her my soul turns,—for her my heart beats—in her I rejoice,—her triumphs are my pride,—her success is my delight! If danger threatens her, I will be her defender, not her accuser,—should she be blamed for aught, I will take her fault upon myself, and will serve as a strong shield between her and calumny. This is the least I can do to prove my love towards her—for without her I should be the worst of creatures,—a lonely soul in an empty world!”
So says, or may say brave Adam! But his coward brother does not understand such high-flown sentiments. Coward Adam’s main object in life is to “avoid a scene” with either the Lord Almighty, Mister Sarpint or Missis Eve. He likes to wriggle out of difficulties, both public and private, in a quiet way. He does not understand the “methods” of plain blunt people who tell him frankly what a sneak he is. He is very ubiquitous, and much more frequently to be met with than his braver twin. And if he should chance to read what I have here set down concerning him, he will probably say as usual: “The woman whom thou gavest” in various forms of anonymous vituperation. But his active policy will remain the same as it ever was—“Mister Adam, he, Clum up a tree!”
When the masculine Serpent, “who was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord had made,” tempted the mother of mankind to eat of the forbidden fruit, the Voice in the Garden said to her—“I will greatly multiply thy sorrow!” It can scarcely be denied that this curse has been fulfilled. So manifold and incessant have been the sorrows of Woman since the legendary account of the creation of the world, that one cannot help thinking the whole business somewhat unfair, if,—for merely being “beguiled” by a beast of the field who was known to be more “subtil” than any other, and afterwards being “given away” by Coward Adam,—Eve and all the descendants of her sex should be compelled to suffer centuries of torture. The injustice is manifestly cruel and arbitrary,—yet it would seem to have followed poor Accursëd Eve from then till now. “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow!” And sorrow has been multiplied to such an aggravated and barbarous extent upon her unfortunate head, that in the Jewish ritual to this very day there is a part of the service wherein the men, standing in the presence of women, individually say: “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast not made me a woman!” thus deliberately insulting, in their very house of worship, the sex of their mothers!
But from the earliest times, if we are to accept historical testimony, the Jews of the ancient world appear to have treated women in the majority as “Something worser than their dog, a little lower than their horse.” Save and except those rare cases where the Jewish woman suddenly found out her latent powers and employed them to advantage, the Jewish man made her fetch and carry for him like a veritable beast of burden. He yoked her to his plough with oxen,—he sold and exchanged her with his friends as freely as any other article of commerce,—his “base uses” of her were various, and seldom to his credit,—while, such as they were, they only lasted so long as they satisfied his immediate humour. When done with, she was “cast out.” The kind of “casting out” to which she was subjected is not always explained. But it may be taken for granted that in many instances she was either killed immediately, or turned adrift to die of starvation and weariness. The Jews in their Biblical days were evidently not much affected by her griefs. They were God’s “chosen” people,—and the fact that women were the mothers of the whole “chosen” race, appeared to call for no claim on their chivalrous tenderness or consideration.
Looking back through the vista of time to that fabled Eden, when she listened to the tempting of the “subtil” one, the wrongs and injustices endured by Accursëd Eve at the hand of Coward Adam make up a calendar of appalling, almost superhuman crime. Man has taken the full licence allowed him by the old Genesis story (which, by the way, was evidently invented by man himself for his own convenience). “Thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee.” And among all tribes, and in all nations he has ruled with a rod of iron! The Christian dispensation has interfered somewhat with his former reign of tyranny, for with the birth of Christ came, to a certain extent, the idealization and beatification of womanhood. The Greeks and Romans, however, had a latent glimmering idea of what Woman in all her glory should be, and of what she might possibly attain to in the future,—for all their grandest symbols of life, such as Truth, Beauty, Justice, Fortune, Fame, Wisdom, are always represented by their sculptors clothed in the female form divine. It is a curious fact, that in those early periods of civilization, when Literature and Art were just dawning upon the world, man, though aggregating to his own Ego nearly everything in the universe, paused before representing himself as a figure of Justice, Mercy or Wisdom. He evidently realized his unfitness to stand, even in marble, before the world as a symbol of moral virtue. He therefore, with a grace which well became him in those “pagan” days, bent the knee to all noble attributes of humanity as represented in Woman. Her fair face, her beauteous figure, greeted him in all his temples of worship;—as Venus and Diana she smiled upon him; as the goddess of Fortune or Chance, she accepted his votive wreaths,—as Fame or Victory, she gave him blessing whenever he went to war, or returned in triumph from the field;—and all this was but the embryo or shadowing-forth of woman’s higher future and better possibilities, when the days of her long and cruel probation should be accomplished, and her “curse” in part be lifted. There are signs and tokens that this happy end is in sight. Accursëd Eve is beginning to have a good time. And the only fear now is, lest she should overstep the mark of her well-deserved liberty and run headlong into licence. For Eve,—with or without curse,—is naturally impulsive and credulous; and being too often forgetful of the little incident which occurred to her in the matter of the Tree of Good and Evil, is still far too prone to listen to the beguiling of “subtil” personages worse “than any beast of the field which the Lord hath made.”
Accursëd Eve, having broken several of her old-time fetters, and beginning to feel her feet as well as her wings, just now wants a word in politics. As one of her cursëd daughters, I confess I wonder that she should wish to put herself to so much unnecessary trouble, seeing that she has the whole game in her hands. Politics are generally hustled along by Coward Adam,—unless, by rarest chance, Brave Adam, his twin brother, suddenly steps forth unexpectedly, when there ensues what is called a “collapse of the Government.” In any question, small or great, Accursëd Eve has only to offer Coward Adam the apple, and he will eat it. Which metaphor implies that even in politics, if she only moves him round gradually to her own views in that essentially womanly way which, while persuading, seems not to persuade, he is bound to yield. Personally speaking, I do not know any man who is not absolutely under the thumb of at least one woman. And I will not believe that there is any woman so feeble, so stupid, so lost to the power and charm of her own individuality, as not to be able to influence quite half a dozen men. This being the case, what does Accursëd Eve want with a vote? If she is so unhappy, so ugly, so repulsive, so deformed in mind and manners as to have no influence at all on any creature of the male sex whatever, neither father, nor brother, nor uncle, nor cousin, nor lover, nor husband, nor friend,—would the opinion of such an one be of any consequence, or her vote of any value? I assert nothing,—I only ask the question.
Speaking personally as a woman, I have no politics, and want none. I only want the British Empire to be first and foremost in everything, and I tender my sincerest homage to all the men of every party who will honestly work towards that end. These being my sentiments, I deprecate any strong separate parliamentary attitude on the part of Accursëd Eve. I say that she has much better, wider work to do than take part in tow-rows with the rather undignified personages who often make somewhat of a bear-garden of the British House of Commons. That she would prove a good M.P. were she a man, I am quite sure; but as a woman I know she “goes one better,” in becoming the wife of an M.P.
Accursëd Eve! Mother of the world! What higher thing does she seek? Mother of Christianity itself, she stands before us, a figure symbolic of all good, her Holy Child in her arms, her sweet, musing, prayerful face bending over it in gravely tender devotion. From her soft breast humanity springs renewed,—she represents the youth, the hope, the love of all mankind. Wronged as she has been, and as she still is, her patience never fails. Deceived, she “mends her broken shell with pearl,” and still trusts on. Her sweet credulousness is the same as ever it was;—the “subtil” one can always over-reach her through her too ready confidence in the idea that “all things work together for good.” Her “curse” is the crime of loving too well,—believing too much. Should a “subtil” one say he loves her, she honestly thinks he does. When he turns out, as often happens, to be looking after her money rather than herself, she can scarcely force her mind to realize that he is not so much hero as cad. When she has to earn her own living in any of the artistic professions, she will frequently tell all her plans, hopes and ambitions to “subtil” ones with the most engaging frankness. The “subtil” ones naturally take every advantage of her, and some of them put a stopgap on her efforts if they can.
How many times men have tried to steal away the honour of a woman’s name and fame in literature need not here be chronicled. Of how many books, bearing a woman’s name on the title-page it is said—“Her husband helped her,”—or “She got Mr. So-and-So to write the descriptive part!” “George Eliot” has often been accused of being assisted in her novels by Mr. Lewes. A little incident,—touching enough to my mind,—is related in the memoirs of Charlotte Brontë. After her marriage, and when she was expecting the birth of her child, she was reading some of the first chapters of an intended new novel to her husband,—who, as he listened, said in that peculiarly encouraging way which is common to men who have gifted women to deal with—“You seem to be repeating yourself. You must take care not to repeat yourself.” Poor little soul! She never “repeated” herself,—she just died. No one can tell how her husband’s thoughtless phrase may have teazed or perplexed her sensitive mind in a critical condition of health, and helped to hasten the fatal end.
Edward Fitzgerald’s celebrity as a scholar is not, and never will be wide enough to blot out from remembrance his brutal phrase on hearing of the death of Elizabeth Barrett Browning—
“Mrs. Browning is dead. Thank God we shall have no more Aurora Leighs!”
While, far more creditable to Algernon Charles Swinburne than his own praise of himself now unfortunately affixed to the newly collected edition of his works, is the praise he bestows on this noble woman-genius in his preface to her great poem. I quote one line of it here—
“No English contemporary poet by profession has left us work so full of living fire.”
For once, and in this particular instance, Accursëd Eve in literature has, in such a verdict, won her merited literary honours.
But as a rule honours are withheld from her, and the laurel is filched from her brows by Coward Adam ere she has time to wear it. One flagrant case is well known, of a man who having lived entirely on a woman’s literary earnings for years, went about in the clothes her pen had paid for, among the persons to whom, through her influence, he had been introduced, boasting that he assisted her to write the greater part of her books. To their shame be it said, a great many people believed him; and not till he was dead, and the woman went on writing her books as before, did they even begin to see the wrong they had done her. They would not have dared to calumniate the false boaster as they calumniated the innocent hard worker. The boaster was a man,—the worker was a woman;—therefore the dishonour of passing off literary work not one’s own, must, so they imagined, naturally belong to Accursëd Eve,—not to Coward Adam! Of their humiliation when the real truth was known, history sayeth nothing.
Yet with all the weight of her curse more or less upon her, and with all her sorrows, shattered ideals, wrecked hopes, and lost loves, Accursëd Eve is still the most beautiful, the most perfect figure in creation. Her failings, her vanities, her weaknesses, her sins, arise in the first place from love—even if afterwards, through Coward Adam’s ready encouragement, they degenerate into vice and animalism. Her first impulse in earliest youth is a desire to please Adam,—the same impulse precisely which led her to offer him the forbidden apple in the first days of their mutual acquaintance. She wishes to charm him,—to win his heart,—to endear herself to him in a thousand tender ways,—to wind herself irretrievably round his life. If she succeeds in this aim, she is invariably happy and virtuous. But if she is made to feel that she cannot hold him on whom her thoughts are centred,—if his professed love for her only proves weak and false when put to trial,—if he finds it easy to forget both sentiment and courtesy, and is quick to add insult to injury, then all the finer and more delicate emotions of her nature become warped and unstrung,—and though she endures her suffering because she must, she resents it and takes vengeance when she can. Of resentfulness against wrong and revenge for injustice, come what are called “bad women.” Yet I would humbly venture to maintain that even these “bad” were not bad in the first instance. They were born in the usual way, with the usual Eve impulse,—the desire to please, not themselves, but the opposite sex. If their instinctive efforts have been met with cruelty, oppression, neglect, desertion and sometimes the most heartless and cowardly betrayal, they can scarcely be blamed if they play the same tricks on the unloving, disloyal churls for whom they have perhaps sacrificed the best part of their lives. For innocent faith and trusting love are the best part of every woman’s life; and when these are destroyed by the brutalizing touch of some Coward Adam, the woman may well claim compensation for her soul’s murder.
Accursëd Eve! Still she loves,—to find herself fooled and cheated; still she hopes, even while hope eludes her,—still she waits, for what she may never win,—still she prays prayers that may never be answered,—still she bears and rears the men of the future, wondering perchance whether any of them will ever help to do her justice,—will ever place her where she should be, as the acknowledged queenly “help-meet” of her stronger, but less enduring partner! Beautiful, frail, trusting, loving, Accursëd Eve! She bends beneath the curse,—but the clouds are lifting!—there is light in the sky of her future dawn! And it may be that a worse malediction than the one pronounced in Eden, will fall on those who make her burden of life heavier to bear!
There is perhaps no emotion more elevating or more deceptive than that sudden uplifting of the heart and yearning of the senses which may be called “imaginary” Love. It resembles the stirring of the sap in the roots of flowers, thrilling the very ground with hints and promises of spring,—it is the unspeakable outcoming of human emotion and sympathy too great to be contained within itself,—the tremulous desire,—half vague and wholly innocent,—of the human soul for its mate. The lower grades of passion have not as yet ruffled the quivering white wings of this divinely sweet emotion, and the being who is happy enough to experience it in all its intensity, is, for the time, the most enviable on earth. Youth or maiden, whichever it be, the world is a fairyland for this chosen dreamer. Nothing appears base or mean,—God’s smile is reflected in every ray of sunshine, and Nature offers no prospect that is not pleasing. It is the season of glamour and grammarye,—a look over the distant hills is sufficient to engage the mind of the dreaming girl with brilliant fancies of gallant knights riding from far-off countries, with their lady’s colours pinned to their breasts “to do or die” for the sake of love and glory,—and the young boy, half in love with a pretty face he has seen on his way home from school or college, begins to think with all the poets, of eyes blue as skies, of loves and doves, and hearts and darts, in happy unconsciousness that his thoughts are not in the least original. Yet with all its ethereal beauty and gossamer-sense of pleasure, this “imaginary” love is often the most pathetic experience we have or ever shall have in life. It is answerable for numberless griefs,—for bitter disillusions,—occasionally, too, for broken hearts. It glitters before us, a brilliant chimera, during our very young days,—and on our entrance into society it vanishes, leaving us to pursue it through many phases of existence, and always in vain. The poet is perhaps the happiest of all who join in this persistent chase after the impossible,—for he frequently continues to imagine “imaginary” love with ecstasy and fervour to the very end of his days. Next in order comes the musician, who in the composition of a melancholy nocturne or tender ballad, or in the still greater work of a romantic opera, imagines “imaginary” love in strains of perfect sound, which waken in the hearts of his hearers all the old feverish longings, all the dear youthful dreams, all the delicious romances which accompanied the lovely white-winged Sentiment in days past and dead for ever. Strange to say, it often happens that the musician, while thus appeasing his own insatiable thirst for “imaginary” love, is frequently aware that he is arousing it in others; and could he probe to the very fibres of his thinking soul, he would confess to a certain keen satisfaction in the fact of his being able to revivify the old restless yearning of a pain which is sweeter to the lonely soul than pleasure.
Now this expression of the “lonely soul” is used advisedly, because, in sad truth, every human soul is lonely. Lonely at birth,—still more lonely at death. During its progress through life it gathers around it what it can in the way of crumbs of love, grains of affection, taking them tenderly and with tears of gratefulness. But it is always conscious of solitude,—an awful yet Divine solitude over which the Infinite broods, watchful yet silent. Why it is brought into conscious being, to live within a material frame and there perform certain duties and labours, and from thence depart again, it cannot tell. All is a mystery,—a strange Necessity, in which it cannot truly recognize its part or place. Yet it is,—and one of the strongest proofs of its separate identity from the body is this “imaginary” love for which it yearns, and which it never obtains. “Imaginary” love is not earthly,—neither is it heavenly,—it is something between both, a vague and inchoate feeling, which, though incapable of being reduced to any sort of reason or logic, is the foundation of perhaps all the greatest art, music and poetry in the world. If we had to do merely with men as they are, and women as they are, Art would perish utterly from the face of the earth. It is because we make for ourselves “ideal” men, “ideal” women, and endow these fair creations with the sentiment of “imaginary” love, that we still are able to communicate with the gods. Not yet have we lowered ourselves to the level of the beasts,—nor shall we do so, though things sometimes seem tending that way. Realism and Atheism have darkened the world, as they darken it now, long before the present time, and as defacements on the grandeur of the Universe they have not been permitted to remain. Nor will they be permitted now,—the reaction will, and must inevitably set in. The repulsive materialism of Zola, and others of his school,—the loose theories of the “smart” set, and the moral degradation of those who have no greater God than self,—these things are the merest ephemera, destined to leave no more mark on human history than the trail of a slug on one leaf of an oak. The Ideal must always be triumphant,—the soul can only hope to make way by climbing towards it. Thus it is with “imaginary” Love,—it must hold fast to its ideal, or be content to perish on the plane of sensual passion, which exhausts itself rapidly, and once dead, is dead for ever and aye.
With all its folly, sweetness, piteousness and pathos, “imaginary” love is the keynote of Art,—its fool-musings take shape in exquisite verse, in tales of romance and adventure, in pictures that bring the nations together to stand and marvel, in music that makes the strong man weep. It is the most supersensual of all delicate sensations,—as fine as a hair, as easily destroyed as a gnat’s wing!—a rough touch will wound it,—a coarse word will kill it,—the sneer of the Realist shuts it in a coffin of lead and sinks it fathoms deep in the waters of despair. Strange and cruel as the fact may seem, Marriage appears to put an end to it altogether.
inquires Byron. He certainly would not. The “imaginary” love of Petrarch was the source of his poetic inspiration; if he had ever dragged it down to the level of the commonplace Actual, he would have killed his Muse. In a similar way the love of Dante for Beatrice was of the “imaginary” quality. Those who read the “Vita Nuova” will scarcely fail to see how the great poet hugs his love-fancies and feeds himself with delicious extravagances in the way of idealized and sublimated soul-passion. He dissects every fine hair of a stray emotion, and writes a sonnet on every passing heart-beat. Dante’s wife never became so transfigured in her husband’s love. Why? Alas, who can say! No reason can be given save that perchance “familiarity breeds contempt,” and that the Unattainable seems always more beautiful than the Attained. The delight of possession would appear to be as brief as the flowering of a rose. Lovers are in haste to wed,—but when the knot is once irrevocably tied, in nine cases out of ten they wish it could be untied again. They no longer imagine “imaginary” love! The glamour is gone. Illusions are all over. The woman is no longer the removed, the fair, the chaste, the unreachable,—the man ceases to be the proud, the strong hero endowed with the attributes of the gods. “Imaginary” love then resolves itself into one of two things,—a firm, every-day, close and tender friendship, or else a sick disappointment, often ending in utter disgust. But the divine emotion of “imaginary” love has died,—the Soul is no longer enamoured of its Ideal—and the delicate psychic passion which inspires the poet, the painter, the musician, turns at once to fresh objects of admiration and pursuit. For it is never exhausted,—unlike any purely earthly sense it knows no satiety. Deceived in one direction, it dies in another. Dissatisfied with worldly things, it extends its longing heavenwards,—there at least it shall find what it seeks,—not now, but hereafter! Age does not blunt this fine emotion, for, as may often be remarked with some beautiful souls in the decline of bodily life, the resigning of earthly enjoyments gives them no pain,—and the sweet placidity of expectation, rather than the dull apathy of regret, is their chief characteristic. “Imaginary” love still beckons them on;—what has not been found Here will be found There!
Happy, and always to be envied, are those who treasure this aerial sentiment of the spiritual brain! It is the dearest possession of every true artist. In every thought, in every creative work or plan, “imaginary” love goes before, pointing out wonders unseen by less enlightened eyes,—hiding things unsightly, disclosing things lovely, and making the world fair to the mind in all seasons, whether of storm or calm. Intensifying every enjoyment, adding a double thrill to the notes of a sweet song, lending an extra glow to the sunshine, an added radiance to the witchery of the moonlight, a more varied and exquisite colouring to the trees and flowers, a charm to every book, a delight to every new scene, “imaginary” love, a very sprite of enchantment, helps us to believe persistently in good, when those who love not at all, neither in reality nor in idealization, are drowning in the black waters of suicidal despair.
So it is well for us—those who can—to imagine “imaginary” love! We shall never grasp the Dream in this world—nevertheless let us fly after it as though it were a Reality! Its path is one of sweetness more than pain,—its ways are devious, yet even in sadness still entrancing. Better than rank, better than wealth is this talisman, which with a touch brings us into close communication with the Higher worlds. Let us “imagine” our friends are true; let us “imagine” we are loved for our own sakes alone,—let us “imagine,” as we welcome our acquaintances into our homes, that their smiles and greetings are sincere—let us imagine “imaginary” love as the poets do,—a passion tender, strong and changeless—and pursue it always, even if the objects, which for a moment its passing wings have brushed, crumble into dust beneath that touch of fire! So shall our lives retain the charm of constant Youth and Hope,—so shall the world seem always beautiful to us,—so shall the Unimaginable glory of the future Real-in-Love shine nearer every day in our faithful, fond pursuit of its flying Shadow!
Sixty years ago! To us of the present day it seems a very long time—a kind of “dark ages” period wherein we peer backward dubiously, wondering what everybody was like then. History, taking us by the hand, shows us, as in a magic glass, the Coronation of Victoria, one of the best Queens that the world has ever known, and tells us of the great men and masterly intellects of that past time, whose immortal works we still have with us, but whose mere mortal place knows them no more. Much may be seen in the backward glimpse that some of us may possibly regret and wish that we possessed again. Men of power and dominance, for example—great writers, great thinkers, great reformers—surely we lack these! Surely we need them sorely! But it seems to be a rule of Nature that if we gain in one direction we must lose in another, and whatever we have lost in that far-gone period, we have certainly gained much in the forward direction. One of the most remarkable changes, perhaps, that has taken place in the passing of the years is the different position assigned to Woman from that which she occupied when Dickens and Thackeray wrote their wonderful novels, and when Charlotte Brontë astonished the world by her woman’s genius, to be followed by the still more powerful and Scott-like display of brainpower in Mary Ann Evans (“George Eliot”). At that time men were still chivalrous. Woman was so rarely brilliant—or, shall we put it, she so rarely had the chance of asserting the brilliant qualities that are her natural endowment—that man was content to acknowledge any unusual talent on her part as an abnormal quality, infrequent enough to be safely admired. In this spirit, more or less, Sir Walter Scott paid tribute to Jane Austen, and Thackeray to Charlotte Brontë; but as time has progressed, and women have arisen one after another in the various departments of Art and Literature, men have begun to fall back and look askance, and somewhat threateningly, on the fair trespassers in their hitherto guarded domains. And the falling back and the looking askance continue in exact proportion to the swift and steady onward march of the white-robed Amazons into the Battle of Life. Braced with the golden shield of Courage, helmeted with Patience, and armed with the sword of Faith, the women-warriors are taking the field, and are to be seen now in massed ranks, daily marshalling themselves in more compact order, firm-footed and fearless, prepared to fight for intellectual freedom, and die rather than yield. They, too, will earn the right to live; they, too, will be something greater than the mere vessels of man’s desire—whether maids, wives, or mothers, they will prove themselves worthy to be all these three, and more than these, to the very utmost extent of their moral and intellectual being!
Perhaps there is nothing more entertaining to the wit of a cultured and intelligent woman than the recurrent piping wail of man’s assertion that “woman has no creative power.” Her place, says the didactic male, is the kitchen, the nursery, and beside the cradle. Certes, she can manage these three departments infinitely better than he can, especially the cradle part of it, wherein his fractious disposition is generally well displayed the moment he starts in life. But, as a matter of fact, there is hardly any vocation in which she cannot, if she puts her mind to it, distinguish herself just as easily and successfully as he can if he will only kindly stand out of her way. He makes himself ludicrous by persistently “crying her down” when all the world en masse beholds her taking the highest University honours over his head, and beating him intellectually on his own ground. In physical force he certainly outstrips her. Item,—he can kick her as heartily and skilfully as he can kick a football, vide the daily police reports. Item,—he can eat and drink much more than she can, because he devotes a great deal more time and attention to the study of gastronomy. Item,—he can smoke more. Item,—he can indulge freely in unbridled licentiousness, and amply prove his original savage right to be considered a polygamous animal, without being banned from “good society,” or anything being said against his moral character. This a woman cannot do. If she has many lovers, her conduct is severely criticized. But if she has none, she is still more bitterly condemned, especially if she happens to be in the least good-looking. And why? Simply because her indifference “reflects” on the male sex generally. The ugliest of masculine creatures experiences a vague sense of offence when he meets a charming woman who neither seeks his advice nor his company. And here we have the gist of the whole matter: man is a vain animal and wants to be admired. Like the peacock, he struts forward and spreads out his glittering tail. The central feature of the landscape, as he considers himself, he waits for the pea-hen to worship him. If, instead of the humble pea-hen, he finds another sort of bird entirely—with not only a tail as brilliant as his own, but wings which will carry it over his head, he is mightily incensed, and his shrill cry of rage echoes through that particular part of the universe where he is no longer “monarch of all he surveys.” His “other world” must be pea-hens or none!
And yet Man’s delightful and utter want of the commonest logic is never more flagrantly exhibited than in this vital matter of his estimate of Woman, taking it all round in a broad sense. Daily, hourly, in the household and in the market-place, he may be heard cheapening her abilities, sneering at such triumphs as she attains, cracking stale jests at her “love of gossip,” “love of dress” (for he is seldom original even in a joke), and her “incessant tongue,” blissfully ignoring the fact that his own is wagging all the time; and yet no one can twist him so limply and helplessly round the littlest of her little fingers as she can. Moreover, throughout all the ages, so far as the keenest explorer or historical student can discover, his highest ideals of life have been depicted in the Feminine form. Fortune, Fame, Justice, the Arts and Sciences, are all represented by female figures lovingly designed by male hands. Evidently conscious in himself that a woman’s purity, honesty, fidelity, and courage are nobler types of these virtues than his own, Man apparently is never weary of idealizing them as Woman womanly. Thoroughly aware of the supreme sovereignty Woman can exercise whenever he gives her the chance, he, while endeavouring to bind and hold her intellectual forces by his various edicts and customs, takes ever an incongruous satisfaction in doing her full justice by the magnitude of his feminine ideals. The divine spirit of Nature itself, called “Egeria,” is always depicted by man as a woman. Faith, Hope and Charity, are represented as female spirits, as are the Three Graces. The Muses are women; so are the Fates. Hence, as all the virtues, morals, arts, and sciences are shown by the highest masculine skill as wearing woman’s form and possessing woman’s attributes, it is easy to see that man has always been perfectly aware in his inward intelligence of Woman’s true worth and right place in creation, though, by such laws as he has made for his own better convenience, he has put up whatever barriers he can in the way of the too swift advancement of so superior and victorious a creature. Now that she is beginning to take an important share in the world’s work and progress, he is becoming vaguely alarmed. In each art, in each profession he sees her gaining step by step to higher intellectual dominance. He watches her move from plane to plane of study, learning, as she goes, that the mere animalism of unthinking subservience to his passions is not her only heritage. And straightway the long-spoilt child begins to whimper. “A woman has no creative power!” he cries. “No imagination!—no originality!—no force of character! What she does in the Arts is so very little——!”
Stop, oh Man! You have had a very long, long innings, remember! From the time of Abraham, and ages before that worthy patriarch ever turned Hagar out into the wilderness, you have been setting Woman alongside your cattle, and curling your whip with a magnificent carelessness round both at your pleasure, yea! even offering both with indifferent readiness for sale and barter. You have enjoyed centuries of liberty; it is now woman’s turn to taste the sweets of freedom. She does very little in the Arts, you say? I grant you that in the first of them, Poetry, she does little indeed. I do not think we shall ever have a female Shakespeare, for instance. But, at the same time, I equally do not think we shall ever again have a male one! Yet it is to be admitted that none of the leading women poets can compare for an instant with the leading men in that most divine and primæval of Arts. But I should not like to assert that the great woman-Dante or woman-Shelley may not yet arise, for it is to be borne in mind that woman’s education and woman’s chances have only just begun. In Music, again, she is deemed deficient. Yet we are confronted at the present day by the fact that many of the most successful and charming of song writers are women. And the following appears in the Dresden Neueste Nachricten (October 18, 1902):—
“Up to the present date we have always entertained the opinion that the composition of music was a gift denied to the female sex, elegant trifles (as exceptions) only confirming our doubts. And now an English lady appears on the scene, amazing the musical world of Dresden. She was as a young girl already a distinguished artist, a virtuoso on the piano, and played—as ‘Miss Bright,’—under the direction of Dr. Wullner, a piano concerto of her own composition, with extraordinary success. Then marriage separated her from her art for several years. Now (after the death of her husband), the young widow, Mrs. Knatchbull, has composed an opera—text, music, and instrumentation all being her own work—and has brought it with her to Dresden. The music is so captivating, and above all, holds one so strongly that one exclaims in astonishment, ‘Can this be the work of a woman?’ It is more than probable that the opera will be produced at the Dresden Opera House.”
Here followeth an instructive story:—A recent opera performed with considerable success at Monte Carlo and other Continental resorts is the work of a woman, stolen by a man. The facts are well known, as are the names of the hero and heroine of the sordid tragedy. A little love-making on the part of the male composer, who could show nothing of ability save the composition of a few amorous drawing-room songs—a confiding trust on the part of the woman-genius, whose brain was full of God-given melody—these were the motives of the drama. She played the score of her opera through to him—he listened with admiration—with words of tender flattery, precious to her who was weak enough to care for such a rascal; and then he took it away to be “transcribed,” as he said, and set out for the orchestra. He loved her, so the poor credulous soul thought!—and she trusted him—such an old story! He copied her opera in his own manuscript—stole it, in short, and left for the Continent, where he had it produced as his own composition. Had she complained, the law would have gone against her. She had no proof save that of her love. Before a grinning, jesting court of law she would have had to publish the secret of her heart. People would have shaken their heads and said, “Poor thing! A case of self-delusion and hysteria!” He himself would have shaken his dirty pate and said, “Poor soul! Mad—quite mad! Many women have had their heads turned likewise for love of me!” So it chances that only those “in the know” are aware of the story, and the man-Fraud is left unmolested; but it is a curious and suggestive fact that he produces no more operas.
There is one thing that women generally, in the struggle for intellectual free life, should always remember—one that they are too often apt to forget—namely, that the Laws, as they at present exist, are made by men, for men. There are no really stringent laws for the protection of women’s interests except the Married Woman’s Property Act, which is a great and needful boon. But take the following instances of the eccentricities of English law, both of which have come under my own knowledge as having occurred to personal friends. A certain foreign nobleman residing in England made a will leaving all his fortune to his mistress. His legitimate children were advised to dispute the will, as under the law of his native country he could not dispossess his lawful heirs of their inheritance. He had not naturalized himself at any time as a British subject, and the plain proof of this was, that but a year before his death, he had applied to the Government of his own country for permission to wear a certain decoration, which permission was accorded him. The nature of his application proved that he still considered himself a subject of his own native land. The case came before an English judge, who had apparently eaten some very indigestible matter for his luncheon. With an apoplectic countenance and an injured demeanour, the learned gentleman declined to go into any of the details of the case, and administered “justice” by deciding the whole thing on “a question of domicile”—namely, that as the man had lived in England twenty-five years, he was, naturalized or unnaturalized, a British subject and could make his will as he liked. The fortune was, therefore, handed over to his mistress, and the legal wife and legitimately-born children were left out in the cold! Another case is that of a lady, well-born and well-educated, who married a man with a fortune of some twenty thousand a year. After the expiration of about fifteen years, when she had borne her husband three children, he suddenly took a fantastic dislike to her, and an equally fantastic liking for a chorus girl. He promptly sought a divorce. As there was no ground for divorce, he failed to obtain it. He, therefore, adopted a course of action emanating entirely from his own brilliant brain. Starting for a cruise on board his yacht, in company with the bewildering chorus girl, he left orders with his solicitor to have the whole of his house dismantled of its furniture and “cleared.” This was promptly done, the wife and children being left without so much as a bed to lie upon, or a chair to sit upon. The unfortunate lady told her story to a court, and applied for “maintenance.” This, of course, the recalcitrant husband was forced to pay, but the sum was cut down to the smallest possible amount, under the supervision of the blandly approving court, with the result that this man’s wife, accustomed from her girlhood to every home comfort and care, now lives with her children in a condition of genteel penury more degrading than absolute poverty. There is no remedy for these things. One welcomes heartily the idea of women lawyers, in the hope that when their keen, quick brains learn to grasp the huge, unwieldy, and complex machinery of the muddle called Legal Justice, they may, perhaps, be able to effect some reforms on behalf of their own sex. As matters at present stand, the unbridled and extravagant licentiousness of men, and the consequent degradation of women, are protected by law. Even a fraudulent financial concern is so guarded by “legal” advice that it would take the lifetime’s earning of an honest man to bring about any exposure. We want women-lawyers—Portias, with quick brains, to see the way out of a difficulty into which men plunge only to flounder more hopelessly. “Can the blind lead the blind? Shall they not both fall into the ditch?”
In Medicine, women have made more than a decided mark of triumph. It is almost impossible to over-estimate the priceless value of the work done by women doctors and women surgeons in the harems of India and Turkey, where the selfishness and jealousy of the Eastern sybarite would give his women over to cruel agonies of disease and death, rather than suffer them to be so much as looked upon by another of his own sex. Yet, though perfectly conscious that Woman’s work in this branch of science is day by day becoming more and more precious to suffering humanity, we have quite recently been confronted by the spectacle of a number of men deciding to resign their appointments at a certain hospital, rather than suffer a woman to be nominated house-surgeon. Her skill and efficiency were as great as theirs, and she had all the qualifications necessary for the post; but no! sooner than honour a woman’s ability, they preferred to resign. Comment on this incident is needless, but it is one of the straws that show which way the wind blows.
Much excellent work is done, and remains yet to be done by women, as inspectors of schools. They alone are really fitted for the task of ascertaining the conditions under which children are made to study, and they are not likely, while examining infant classes, to make such ponderous statements as that passed by a certain male inspector, who, according to an amusing story told me by Sir John Gorst, found the babies (not above five years old) “deplorably deficient in mental arithmetic!” It takes a man to deplore “lack of mental arithmetic” in a baby. A woman would never be capable of such weighty stupidity. Perhaps it will be just as well to glance casually at the state of things in this country respecting the education of mere infants, as arranged by certain laws drawn up by men, laws in which women, who are the mothers of the race, are not allowed to have a voice.
1. The law allows them to enter at three years old, and compels them to enter at five years old.
2. Men inspectors constantly examine children of four years old in arithmetic, and the “mental arithmetic of the baby class,” is constantly mentioned in reports.
3. Needlework is taught before five years old; two to three hours form the staple instruction. Needlework injures the eyesight at such a tender age, and two or three hours are a cruelty and a waste of time for tiny children.
4. Desks, blackboards, slates and books are everywhere in excess of “Kindergarten” occupations, and the “development of the spontaneous activity in the child” is twisted into the development of uniformity. To differ from the usual is to be naughty; every one must do the same thing at the same time. Every one must build a like house, a like table, a like chair; each brick must be on the table at the same minute.
5. Despite male inspectors, the babies sleep. They fall off their seats and bump their foreheads against the desks, and their spines are twisted and crooked as they lie on their arms, heads forward, upon the hard supports. Curvature must be produced in many cases, solely from these causes.
6. To maintain order, corporal punishment is habitual, and “fear” the chief motive for right-doing. To quote from a letter of Sir John Gorst’s:—
“The reform of this system is not a matter of sentiment. These babies are the future scholars of our improved schools that the Education Act is intended to produce, and the future citizens by whom our Imperial position is to be maintained. If we prematurely addle their intellects by schooling—for which their tender years are unfit; if we cripple their bodies by cooping them up in deforming desks; if we destroy their sight by premature needlework, and confuse their senses by over-study of subjects which they are too young to understand, we shall neither have fit scholars for our future schools, nor fit citizens to uphold the Empire.”
Starting on these premises it will surely be acknowledged that women have an indisputable right to be inspectors of schools. They have the natural instinct to know what is best for the health and well-being of children, and they are also capable of correctly judging by that maternal sympathy which is their inherited gift, how a child’s mental abilities should best be encouraged and trained.
I have often been asked if I would like to see women in Parliament. I may say frankly, and at once, that I should detest it. I should not like to see the sex, pre-eminent for grace and beauty, degraded by having to witness or to take part in such “scenes” of heated and undignified disputation as have frequently lowered the prestige of the House of Commons. On the same lines I may say that I do not care to see women playing “hockey” or indulging in any purely “tom-boy” sports and pastimes. They lose “caste” and individuality. One of the many brilliant and original remarks of mankind concerning the female sex is that women should be cooks and housekeepers. So they should. No woman is a good housekeeper unless she understands cooking, nor can she be a good cook unless she be a good housekeeper. The two things are inseparable, and combine to make comfort with economy. A woman should know how to cook and keep house for herself, not only for man. Man says to her: “Be a cook,”—because of all things in the world he loves a good dinner; loves it better than his wife, inasmuch as he will often “bully” the wife if the dinner fails. But a woman must also eat, and she should learn to cook for her own comfort, quite apart from his. In the same way she should study housekeeping. If she lives a single life, she will find such knowledge eminently useful. But to devote all her energy and attention to cooking and housekeeping, as most men would have her do, would be a waste of power and intelligence. As well ask a great military hero to devote his entire time to the canteen.
In breaking her rusty fetters, and stepping out into the glorious liberty of the free, Woman has one great thing to remember and to strive for,—a thing that she is at present, in her newly emancipated condition, somewhat prone to forget. In claiming and securing intellectual equality with Man, she should ever bear in mind that such a position is only to be held by always maintaining and preserving as great an Unlikeness to him as possible in her life and surroundings. Let her imitate him in nothing but independence and individuality. Let her eschew his fashions in dress, his talk and his manners. A woman who wears “mannish” clothes, smokes cigars, rattles out slang, gambles at cards, and drinks brandy and soda on the slightest provocation, is lost altogether, both as woman and man, and becomes sexless. But the woman whose dress is always becoming and graceful, whose voice is equable and tender, who enhances whatever beauty she possesses by exquisite manner, unblemished reputation, and intellectual capacity combined, raises herself not only to an equality with man, but goes so far above him that she straightway becomes the Goddess and he the Worshipper. This is as it should be. Men adore what they cannot imitate. Therefore when men are drunken, let women be sober; when men are licentious, let women be chaste; when men are turf-hunters and card-players, let women absent themselves from both the race-course and the gambling-table; and while placing a gentle yet firm ban on laxity in morals and disregard of the binding sanctity of family life, let them silently work on and make progress in every art, every profession, every useful handicraft, that they may not be dependent for home or livelihood on man’s merely casual fancy or idle whim. The mistake of Woman’s progress up to the present, has been her slavish imitation of Man’s often unadmirable tastes, and a pathetic “going down” under his lofty disdain. Once grasp the fact that his disdain is not “lofty” but merely comic, and that his case is only that of the Distressful Peacock, hurt by indifference to his tail, things will right themselves. Nature has already endowed Woman with the contrasting elements of beauty, delicacy, and soft charm, as opposed to man’s frequent ugliness and roughness; let Woman herself continue to emphasize the difference by bringing out her original and individual qualities in all she does or attempts to do. Of course for a long time yet, Man will declare “feminine individuality” to be non-existent; but as we know the quality is as plain and patent as “masculine individuality,” we have only to insist upon it and assert it, and in due course it will be fully admitted and acknowledged. Meantime, while pressing on towards the desired goal, Woman must learn the chief lesson of successful progress, which is, not to copy Man, but to carefully preserve her beautiful Unlikeness to him in every possible way, so that, while asserting and gaining intellectual equality with him, she shall gradually arrive at such ascendancy as to prove herself ever the finer and the nobler Creature.