How different this from the modern chivalry which in face of womanhood
makes a gentleman even out of a rough California miner. Joaquin Miller
relates how the presence of even an Indian girl--"a bud that in
another summer would unfold itself wide to the sun," affected the men
in one of the camps. Though she seldom spoke with the miners, yet the
men who lived near her hut dressed more neatly than others, kept their
beards in shape, and shirt-bosoms buttoned up when she passed by:
"On her face, through the tint of brown, lay the blush
and flush of maidenhood, the indescribable sacred
something that makes a maiden holy to every man of a
manly and chivalrous nature; that makes a man utterly
unselfish and perfectly content to love and be silent,
to worship at a distance, as turning to the holy
shrines of Mecca, to be still and bide his time; caring
not to possess in the low, coarse way that
characterizes your common love of to-day, but choosing
rather to go to battle for her--bearing her in his
heart through many lands, through storms and death,
with only a word of hope, a smile, a wave of the hand
from a wall, a kiss, blown far, as he mounts his steed
below and plunges into the night. That is love to live
for. I say the knights of Spain, bloody as they were,
were a noble and a splendid type of men in their
day."[34]
While the knights of Spain and other parts of mediaeval Europe
doubtless professed sentiments of chivalry like those uttered by
Joaquin Miller, there was as a rule nearly as much sham in their
pretensions as in Ovid's rules for gallant conduct. In the days of
militant chivalry, in the midst of deeds of extravagant homage to
individual ladies, women in general were as much despised and
maltreated as at any other time. "The chivalrous spirit is above all
things a class spirit," as Freeman wrote (V., 482):
"The good knight is bound to endless fantastic courtesies
toward men, and still more toward women, of a certain rank;
he may treat all below that rank with any degree of scorn
and cruelty."
This is still very far removed from the modern ideal; the knight may
be considered to stand half-way between the boor and the gentleman: he
is polite, at least, to some women, while the gentleman is polite to
all, kind, gentle, sympathetic, without being any the less manly.
Nevertheless there was an advantage in having some conception of
gallantry, a determination and vow to protect widows and orphans, to
respect and honor ladies. Though it was at first only a fashion, with
all the extravagances and follies usual to fashions, it did much good
by creating an ideal for later generations to live up to. From this
point of view even the quixotic pranks of the knights who fought duels
in support of their challenge that no other lady equalled theirs in
beauty, were not without a use. They helped to enforce the fashion of
paying deference to women, and made it a point of honor, thus forcing
many a boor to assume at least the outward semblance and conduct of a
gentleman. The seed sown in this rough and stony soil has slowly
grown, until it has developed into true civilization--a word of which
the last and highest import is civility or disinterested devotion to
the weak and unprotected, especially to women.
In our days chivalry includes compassion for animals too. I have never
read of a more gallant soldier than that colonel who, as related in
_Our Animal Friends_ (May, 1899), while riding in a Western desert at
the head of five hundred horsemen, suddenly made a slight
detour--which all the men had to follow--because in the direct path a
meadow lark was sitting on her nest, her soft brown eyes turned
upward, watching, wondering, fearing. It was a nobler deed than many
of the most gallant actions in battle, for these are often done from
selfish motives--ambition, the hope of promotion--while this deed was
the outcome of pure unselfish sympathy.
"Five hundred horses had been turned aside, and five hundred
men, as they bent over the defenceless mother and her brood,
received a lesson in that broad humanity which is the
essence of higher life."
To this day there are plenty of ruffians--many of them in fine
clothes--who are strangers to chivalrous feelings toward defenceless
women or animals--men who behave as gentlemen only under compulsion of
public opinion. The encouraging thing is that public opinion has taken
so strong a stand in favor of women; that it has written _Place aux
Dames_ on its shield in such large letters. While the red American
squaw shared with the dogs the bones left by her contemptuous
ungallant husband, the white American woman is served first at table
and gets the choicest morsels; she receives the window-seat in the
cars, the lower berth in the sleeper; she has precedence in society
and wherever she is in her proper place; and when a ship is about to
sink, the captain, if necessary (which is seldom the case), stands
with drawn revolver prepared to shoot any man who would ungallantly
get into a boat before all the women are saved.
"AN INSULT TO WOMAN"
This change from the primitive selfishness described in the preceding
pages, this voluntary yielding by man of the place of honor and of the
right of the strongest, is little less than a miracle; it is the
grandest triumph of civilization. Yet there are viragoes who have had
the indecency to call gallantry an "insult to woman." There is indeed
a kind of gallantry--the Ovidian--which is an insult to women; but
true masculine gallantry is woman's chief glory and conquest,
indicating the transformation of the savage's scorn for woman's
physical weakness into courteous deference to her as the nobler, more
virtuous and refined sex. There are some selfish, sour, disappointed
old maids, who, because of their lack of feminine traits, repel men
and receive less than their share of gallant courtesy. But that is
their own fault. Ninety-nine per cent. of all women have a happier lot
to-day than at any previous time in history, and this change is due to
the growth of the disinterested courtesy and sympathy known as
gallantry. At the same time the change is strikingly illustrated in
the status of old maids themselves. No one now despises an unselfish
woman simply because she prefers to remain single; but formerly old
maids were looked on nearly everywhere with a contempt that reached
its climax among the Southern Slavs, who, according to Krauss (Ploss,
II., 491), treated them no better than mangy dogs. No one associated
with them; they were not tolerated in the spinning-room or at the
dances; they were ridiculed and derided; were, in short, regarded as a
disgrace to the family.