THE REVOLT OF MAN
[Illustration: 'The breaking of fetters, the sudden rush of light.'
R.M.
_Page_ 143.]
[Illustration: _The
Revolt
of
Man_
_Walter Besant_
_Collins' Clear-Type Press_
_London & Glasgow_]
PREFACE
It is now fourteen years since this book appeared anonymously. At first
the story stood cold and shivering, disregarded by the world. Six weeks,
however, after its production a highly appreciative review in one of the
most important journals caused people to inquire after it. Since then it
has gone through many editions.
Every one who has written stories knows the unaccountable difference
there is between the ease and delight of writing some and the
difficulties and troubles which attend the writing of others. The
_Revolt of Man_ was written during a certain summer holiday; day by day
chapter by chapter, was read out, as it was finished, to two ladies. It
is needless to say that their comments on the progress of events were
often most valuable. Above all I may now acknowledge their advice as to
the conclusion of the story. At first it ended in a real battle. 'Let
the _Revolt of Man_ be bloodless,' said my advisers. It _is_ bloodless.
The advice was excellent, and I followed it; and now, after fourteen
years, I take this opportunity of thanking them.
W. B.
UNITED UNIVERSITY CLUB;
_December 1896_.
CONTENTS
CHAP PAGE
I. IN PARK LANE 11
II. THE EARL OF CHESTER 33
III. THE CHANCELLOR 48
IV. THE GREAT DUCHESS 62
V. IN THE SEASON 75
VI. WOMAN'S ENGLAND 92
VII. ON THE TRUMPINGTON ROAD 119
VIII. THE BISHOP 135
IX. THE GREAT CONSPIRACY 150
X. THE FIRST SPARK 160
XI. A MARRIAGE MARRED 179
XII. IN THE CAMP AT CHESTER TOWERS 191
XIII. THE NIGHT BEFORE THE BATTLE 215
XIV. THE ARMY OF AVENGERS 228
CONCLUSION 241
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WITH FRONTISPIECE AND DESIGNED TITLE PAGE
EACH VOLUME HAS AN ATTRACTIVE COLOURED WRAPPER
1 The Great Refusal MAXWELL GRAY
3 The Brown Eyes of Mary MADAME ALBANESI
4 The Golden Butterfly BESANT AND RICE
6 A Weaver of Webs JOHN OXENHAM
7 Saints in Society MRS. BAILLIE-SAUNDERS
8 The Wreck of the Grosvenor W. CLARK RUSSELL
9 Comin' Thro' the Rye HELEN MATHERS
10 The Deemster HALL CAINE
11 The Happy Valley B. M. CROKER
13 New Arabian Nights R. L. STEVENSON
15 American Wives and English Husbands GERTRUDE ATHERTON
18 The Tempestuous Petticoat ROBERT BARR
19 A Ward of the Golden Gate BRET HARTE
21 Under the Greenwood Tree THOMAS HARDY
23 The Firm of Girdlestone A. CONAN DOYLE
25 The School for Saints JOHN OLIVER HOBBES
26 Ready-Money Mortiboy BESANT AND RICE
27 Nature's Comedian W. E. NORRIS
28 The Luck of the Fairfaxes KATHERINE TYNAN
29 Comethup TOM GALLON
30 A Sack of Shakings FRANK T. BULLEN
31 Red Spider S. BARING-GOULD
32 Pretty Polly Pennington MADAME ALBANESI
33 Genevra C. MARRIOTT
35 The Locum Tenens VICTOR L. WHITECHURCH
36 A Princess of Thule WILLIAM BLACK
37 Daireen F. FRANKFORT MOORE
39 A Waif of the Plains BRET HARTE
40 Terence B. M. CROKER
41 The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton WILLIAM BLACK
42 Brendle MARMADUKE PICKTHALL
43 Eve S. BARING-GOULD
44 How to be Happy though Married REV. E. J. HARDY
45 Macleod of Dare WILLIAM BLACK
46 Loaves and Fishes BERNARD CAPES
47 My Little Girl BESANT AND RICE
48 The Light of Scarthey EGERTON CASTLE
49 The Amazing Duke SIR WM. MAGNAY, BART.
50 Diana Harrington. B. M. CROKER
51 Sister Anne MADAME ALBANESI
52 A Gentleman of London MORICE GERARD
53 An English Girl in Paris CONSTANCE E. MAUD
54 Despair's Last Journey D. C. MURRAY
55 Running Water A. E. W. MASON
56 John Holdsworth--Chief Mate W. CLARK RUSSELL
57 The Ivory Gate SIR WALTER BESANT
58 The Tempting of Paul Chester ALICE AND CLAUDE ASKEW
59 A Royal Indiscretion RICHARD MARSH
60 The Cattle-Baron's Daughter HAROLD BINDLOSS
61 A Breach of Promise LADY TROUBRIDGE
62 Harum Scarum ESME STUART
63 The Journal of a Jealous Woman PERCY WHITE
64 The Fowler BEATRICE HARRADEN
65 Count Bunker J. STORER CLOUSTON
66 Robert Orange JOHN OLIVER HOBBES
67 The Parish Nurse MARY E. MANN
68 Eve and the Law ALICE AND CLAUDE ASKEW
69 The Path of a Star MRS EVERARD COTES
(Sara Jeannette Duncan)
70 The Shadow of a Crime HALL CAINE
71 George V., Our Sailor King ROBERT HUDSON
72 My French Friends CONSTANCE E. MAUD
73 Pretty Miss Neville B. M. CROKER
74 Sicilian Lovers DOUGLAS SLADEN
75 Christine of the Hills MAX PEMBERTON
76 Grand Babylon Hotel ARNOLD BENNETT
77 A Prince of Lovers SIR WM. MAGNAY, BART.
78 The Whip Hand KEBLE HOWARD
79 The Suspicions of Ermengarde MAXWELL GRAY
80 The Column CHARLES MARRIOTT
81 Cynthia LEONARD MERRICK
82 Jennifer Pontefracte ALICE AND CLAUDE ASKEW
83 Molly Bawn MRS HUNGERFORD
84 A Sower of Wheat HAROLD BINDLOSS
85 2835 Mayfair FRANK RICHARDSON
86 Two Little Wooden Shoes OUIDA
87 A Bride from the Bush ERNEST W. HORNUNG
_Further Volumes in Preparation_
London and Glasgow: Collins' Clear-Type Press.
CHAPTER I
IN PARK LANE
Breakfast was laid for two in the smallest room--a jewel of a room--of
perhaps the largest house in Park Lane. It was already half-past ten,
but as yet there was only one occupant of the room, an elderly lady of
striking appearance. Her face, a long oval face, was wrinkled and
crow-footed in a thousand lines; her capacious forehead was contracted
as if with thought; her white eyebrows were thick and firmly drawn; her
deep-set eyes were curiously keen and bright; her features were strongly
marked,--it was a handsome face which could never, even in early
girlhood, have been a pretty face; her abundant hair was of a rich
creamy white, the kind of white which in age compensates its owner for
the years of her youth when it was inclined to redness; her mouth was
full, the lower lip slightly projecting, as is often found with those
who speak much and in large rooms; her fingers were restless; her figure
was withered by time. When she laid aside the paper she had been
reading, and walked across the room to the open window, you might have
noticed how frail and thin she seemed, yet how firmly she walked and
stood.
This wrinkled face, this frail form, belonged to the foremost intellect
of England; the lady was none other than Dorothy Ingleby, Professor of
Ancient and Modern History in the University of Cambridge.
It would be difficult, without going into great detail, and telling many
anecdotes, to account for her great reputation and the weight of her
authority. She had written little; her lectures were certainly not
popular with undergraduates, partly because undergraduates will never
attend Professors' lectures, and partly because the University would not
allow her to lecture at all on the history of the past, and the story of
the present was certainly neither interesting nor enlivening.
As girls at school, everybody had learned about the Great Transition,
and the way in which the transfer of Power, which marked the last and
greatest step of civilisation, had been brought about: the gradual
substitution of women for men in the great offices; the spread of the
new religion; the abolition of the monarchy; the introduction of pure
theocracy, in which the ideal Perfect Woman took the place of a personal
sovereign; the wise measures by which man's rough and rude strength was
disciplined into obedience,--all these things were mere commonplaces of
education. Even men, who learned little enough, were taught that in the
old days strength was regarded more than mind, while the father actually
ruled in the place which should have been occupied by the mother; these
things belonged to constitutional history--nobody cared much about
them; while, on the other hand, they would have liked to know--the more
curious among them--what was the kind of world which existed before the
development of culture gave the reins to the higher sex; and it was well
known that the only person at all capable of presenting a faithful
restoration of the old world was Professor Ingleby.
Again, there was a mystery about her: although in holy orders, she had
always refused to preach; it was whispered that she was not orthodox.
She had been twice called upon to sign the hundred and forty-four
Articles, a request with which, on both occasions, she cheerfully
complied, to the discomfiture of her enemies. Yet her silence in matters
of religion provoked curiosity and surmise--a grave, woman, a woman with
all the learning of the University Library in her head, a woman who,
alone among women, held her tongue, and who, when she did speak, spoke
slowly, and weighed her words, and seemed to have written out her
conversation beforehand, so pointed and polished it was. In religion and
politics, however, the Professor generally maintained silence absolute.
Now, if a woman is always silent on those subjects upon which other
women talk oftenest and feel most deeply, it is not wonderful if she
becomes suspected of heterodoxy. It was known positively, and she had
publicly declared, that she wished the introduction--she once said,
mysteriously, the return--of a more exact and scientific training than
could be gained from the political, social, and moral economy which
formed the sole studies of Cambridge. Now, the Heads of Houses, the
other professors, the college lecturers, and the fellows, all held the
orthodox doctrine that there is no other learning requisite or desirable
than that contained in the aforesaid subjects. For these, they
maintained, embrace all the branches of study which are concerned with
the conduct of life.
* * * * *
The Professor threw aside the _Gazette_, which contained as full a
statement as was permitted of last night's debate, with an angry
gesture, and walked to the open window.
'Another defeat!' she murmured. 'Poor Constance! This time, I suppose,
they must resign. These continual changes of ministry bring contempt as
well as disaster upon the country. Six months ago, all the Talents!
Three months ago, all the Beauties! Now, all the First-classes! And what
a mess--what a mess--they make between them! Why do they not come to me
and make me lecture on ancient history, and learn how affairs were
conducted a hundred years ago, when man was in his own place, and'--here
she laughed and looked around her with a certain suspicion--'and woman
was in hers?'
Then she turned her eyes out to the park below her. It was a most
charming morning in June; the trees were at their freshest and their
most beautiful: the flowers were at their brightest, with great masses
of rhododendron, purple lilac, and the golden rain of the laburnum. The
Row was well filled: young men were there, riding bravely and gallantly
with their sisters, their mothers, or their wives; girls and ladies were
taking their morning canter before the official day began; and along the
gravel-walks girls were hastening quickly to their offices or their
lecture-rooms; older ladies sat in the shade, talking politics; idlers
of both sexes were strolling and sitting, watching the horses or talking
to each other.
'Youth and hope!' murmured the Professor. 'Every lad hopes for a young
wife; every girl trusts that success will come to her while she is still
young enough to be loved. Age looks on with her young husband at her
side, and prides herself in having no illusions left. Poor creatures!
You destroyed love--love the consoler, love the leveller--when you, who
were born to receive, undertook to give. Blind! blind!'
She turned from the window and began to examine the pictures hanging on
the walls. These consisted entirely of small portraits copied from
larger pictures. They were arranged in chronological order, and were in
fact family portraits. The older pictures were mostly the heads of men,
taken in the fall of life, gray-bearded, with strong, steadfast eyes,
and the look of authority. Among them were portraits of ladies, chiefly
taken in the first fresh bloom of youth.
'They knew,' said the Professor, 'how to paint a face in those days.'
Among the modern pictures a very remarkable change was apparent. The men
were painted in early manhood, the women at a more mature age; the
style was altered for the worse, a gaudy conventional mannerism
prevailed; there was weakness in the drawing and a blind following in
the colour: as for the details, they were in some cases neglected
altogether, and in others elaborated so as to swamp and destroy the
subject of the picture. The faces of the men were remarkable for a
self-conscious beauty of the lower type: there was little intellectual
expression; the hair was always curly, and while some showed a bull-like
repose of strength, others wore an expression of meek and gentle
submissiveness. As for the women, they were represented with all the
emblems of authority--tables, thrones, papers, deeds, and pens.
'As if,' said the Professor, 'the peeresses' right divine to rule was in
their hearts! But, in these days, the painter's art is a rule of thumb.'
There was a small stand full of books, chiefly of a lighter kind,
prettily bound and profusely gilt. Some were novels, with such titles as
_The Hero of the Cricket Field_, _The Long Jump_, _The Silver Racket_,
and so on. Some were apparently poems, among them being Lady Longspin's
_Vision of the Perfect Knight_, with a frontispiece, showing the Last
Lap of the Seven-Mile Race; Julia Durdle's poems of the _Young Man's
Crown of Glory_, and Aunt Agatha's _Songs for Girls at School or
College_. There were others of a miscellaneous character, such as _Guide
to the Young Politician_, being a series of letters to a peeress at
Oxford; _Meditations in the University Church_; _Hymns for Men_; the
_Sacrifice of the Faithful Heart_; _The Womanhood of Heaven; or, the
Light and Hope of Men_, with many others whose title proclaimed the
nature of their contents. The appearance of the books, however, did not
seem to show that they were much read.
'I should have thought,' said the Professor, 'that Constance would have
turned all this rubbish out of her breakfast-room. After all, though,
what could she put in its place here?'
As the clock struck eleven, the door opened, and the young lady whom the
Professor spoke of as Constance appeared.
She was a girl of twenty, singularly beautiful, her face was one of
those very rare faces which seem as if nature, after working steadily in
one mould for a good many generations, has at last succeeded in
perfecting her idea. Most of our faces, somehow, look as if the mould
had not quite reached the conception of the sculptor. Unfortunately,
while such faces as that of Constance, Countess of Carlyon, are rare,
they are seldom reproduced in children. Nature, in fact, smashes her
mould when it is quite perfect, and begins again upon another. The hair
was of that best and rarest brown, in which there is a touch of gold
when the sun shines upon it. Her eyes were of a dark, deep blue; her
face was a beautiful and delicate oval; her chin was pointed; her cheek
perhaps a little too pale, and rather thin; and there was a broad edging
of black under her eyes, which spoke of fatigue, anxiety, or
disappointment. But she smiled when she saw her guest.
'Good morning, Professor,' she said, kissing the wrinkled cheek. 'It
was good indeed of you to come. I only heard you were in town last
night.'
'You are well this morning, Constance?' asked the Professor.
'Oh, yes!' replied the girl wearily. 'I am well enough. Let us have
breakfast. I have been at work since eight with my secretary. You know
that we resign to-day.'
'I gathered so much,' said the Professor, 'from the rag they call the
_Official Gazette_. They do not report fully, of course, but it is clear
that you had an exciting debate, and that you were defeated.'
The Countess sighed. Then she reddened and clenched her hands.
'I cannot bear to think of it,' she cried. 'We had a _disgraceful_
night. I shall never forget it--or forgive it. It was not a debate at
all; it was the exchange of unrestrained insults, rude personalities,
humiliating recrimination.'
'Take some breakfast first, my dear,' said the Professor, 'and then you
shall tell me as much as you please.'
Most of the breakfast was eaten by the Professor herself. Long before
she had finished, Constance sprang from the table and began to pace the
room in uncontrollable agitation.
'It is hard--oh! it is very hard--to preserve even common dignity, when
such attacks are made. One noble peeress taunted me with my youth. It is
two years since I came of age--I am twenty,--but never mind that.
Another threw in my teeth my--my--my cousin Chester,'--she blushed
violently; 'to think that the British House of Peeresses should have
fallen so low! Another charged me with trying to be thought the
loveliest woman in London; can we even listen to such things without
shame? And the Duchesse de la Vieille Roche'--here she laughed
bitterly--'actually had the audacity to attack my Political
Economy--mine; and I was Senior in the Tripos! When they were tired of
abusing me, they began upon each other. No reporters were present. The
Chancellor, poor lady! tried in vain to maintain order; the scene--with
the whole House, as it seemed, screeching, crying, demanding to be
heard, throwing accusations, innuendoes, insinuations, at each
other--made one inclined to ask if this was really the House of
Peeresses, the Parliament of Great Britain, the place where one would
expect to find the noblest representatives in the whole world of culture
and gentlehood.'
Constance paused, exhausted but not satisfied. She had a good deal more
to say, but for the moment she stood by the window, with flashing eyes
and trembling lips.
'The last mixed Parliament,' said the Professor, thoughtfully--'that in
which the few men who were members seceded in a body--presented similar
characteristics. The abuse of the liberty of speech led to the abolition
of the Lower House. _Absit omen!_'
'Thank Heaven,' replied the Countess, 'that it was abolished! Since then
we have had--at least we have generally had--decorum and dignity of
debate.'
'Until last night, dear Constance, and a few similar last nights. Take
care.'
'They cannot abolish us,' said Constance, 'because they would have
nothing to fall back upon.'
The Professor coughed dryly, and took another piece of toast.
The Countess threw herself into a chair.
'At least,' she said, 'we have changed mob-government for divine right.'
'Ye--yes.' The Professor leaned back in her chair. 'James II., in the
old time, said much the same thing; yet they abolished him. To be sure,
in his days, divine right went through the male line.'
'Men said so,' said the Countess, 'to serve their selfish ends. How can
any line be continued except through the mother? Absurd!'
Then there was silence for a little, the Professor calmly eating an egg,
and the Home Secretary playing with her tea-spoon.
'We hardly expected success,' she continued, after a while; 'it was only
in the desperate condition of the Party that the Cabinet gave way to my
proposal. Yet I did hope that the nature of the Bill would have awakened
the sympathy of a House which has brothers, fathers, nephews, and male
relations of all kinds, and does not consist entirely of orphaned only
daughters.'
'That is bitter, Constance,' sighed the Professor. 'I hope you did not
begin by saying so.'
'No, I did not. I explained that we were about to ask for a Commission
into the general condition of the men of this country. I set forth, in
mild and conciliating language, a few of my facts. You know them all; I
learned them from you. I showed that the whole of the educational
endowments of this country have been seized upon for the advantage of
women. I suggested that a small proportion might be diverted for the
assistance of men. Married men with property, I showed, have no
protection from the prodigality of their wives. I pointed out that the
law of evidence, as regards violence towards wives, presses heavily on
the man. I showed that single men's wages are barely sufficient to
purchase necessary clothing. I complained of the long hours during which
men have to toil in solitude or in silence, of the many cases in which
they have to do housework and attend to the babies, as well as do their
long day's work. And I ventured to hint at the onerous nature of the
Married Mother's Tax--that five per cent. on all men's earnings.'
'My dear Constance,' interrupted the Professor, 'was it judicious to
show your whole hand at once? Surely step by step would have been
safer.'
'Perhaps. I ventured next to call the serious attention of the House to
the grave discontent among the younger women of the middle classes who,
by reason of the crowded state of the professions, are unable to think
of marriage, as a rule, before forty, and often have to wait later. This
was received with cold disapprobation: the House is always touchy on the
subject of marriage. But when I went on to hint that there was danger
to the State in the reluctance with which the young men entered the
married state under these conditions, there was such a clamour that I
sat down.'
The Professor nodded.
'Just what one would have expected. Talk the conventional commonplace,
and the House will listen; tell the truth, and the House will rise with
one consent and shriek you down. Poor child! what did you expect?'
'A dozen rose together. Lady Cloistertown caught the Chancellor's eye. I
suppose you know her extraordinary command of commonplaces. She asked
whether the House was prepared to place man on an equality with woman;
she supposed we should like to see him sitting with ourselves, voting
with the rudeness of his intellect, even speaking with the bluntness of
the masculine manner. And then she burst into a scream. "Irreligion,"
she cried, "was rampant; was this a moment for bringing forward such a
motion? Not only women, but even men, had begun to doubt the Perfect
Woman; the rule of the higher intellect was threatened; the new
civilisation was tottering; we might even expect an attempt to bring
about a return of the reign of brute force-" Heavens! and that was only
a beginning. Then followed the weary platitudes that we know so well.
Can no one place truth before us in words of freshness?'
'If you insist upon every kind of truth being naked,' said the
Professor, 'you ought not to grumble if her limbs sometimes look
unlovely.'
'Then let us for a while agree to accept truth in silence.'
'I would we could!' echoed the elder lady. 'I know the weariness of the
commonplace. When we are every year invaded by gentlemen at
Commemoration, I have to go through the same dreary performance. The
phrases about the higher intellect, the sex which is created to carry on
the thought, while the other executes the work of this world; the
likeness and yet unlikeness between us due to that beautiful arrangement
of nature; the extraordinary success we are making of our power; the
loveliness of the new religion, revealed bit by bit, to one woman after
another, until we were able to reach unto the conception, the vision,
the realisation of the Perfect Woman----'
'Professor,' interrupted Constance, laying her hand on her friend's
shoulder, 'do not talk so. Strengthen my faith; do not destroy what is
left of religion by a sneer. Alas! everything seems falling away;
nothing satisfies; there is no support anywhere, nor any hope. I suppose
I am not strong enough for my work; at least I have failed. The whole
country is crying out with discontent. The Lancashire women cannot sell
their husband's work. I hear that they are taking to drink. Wife-beating
has broken out again in the Potteries. It is reported that secret
associations are again beginning to be formed among the men; and then
there are these county magistrates with their unjust sentences. A man at
Leicester has been sentenced to penal servitude for twenty years because
his wife says he swore at her and threatened her. I wrote for
information; the magistrate says she thought an example was needed. And,
innocent or guilty, the husband is not allowed to cross-examine his
wife. Then look at the recent case at Cambridge.'
'Yes,' said the Professor; 'that is bad indeed.'
'The husband--a man of hitherto blameless character,--young, well-born,
handsome, good at his trade, and with some pretensions to the higher
culture--sentenced to penal servitude for life for striking his wife,
one of the senior fellows of Trinity!'
The Professor's eyes flashed.
'As you are going out of office to-day, my Lady Home Secretary, and can
do no more justice for a while, I will tell you the truth of that case.
The wife was tired of her husband. It was a most unhappy match. She
wanted to marry another man, so she trumped up the charge; that is the
disgraceful truth. No fishwife of Billingsgate could have lied more
impudently. He, in accordance with our, no doubt most just and
well-intentioned, laws, becomes a convict for the rest of his days; she
marries again. Everybody knows the truth, but nobody ventures to state
it. She banged her own arm black and blue herself with the poker, and
showed it in open court as the effects of his violence. As for her
husband, I visited him in prison. He was calm and collected. He says
that he is glad there are no children to lament his disgrace, that
prison life is preferable to living any longer with such a woman, and
that, on the whole, death is better than life when an innocent man can
be so treated in a civilised country.'
'Poor man!' groaned Constance. 'Stay; I have a few hours yet of power.
His name? she sprang to her desk.
'John Phillips--no; Phillips is the wife's name. I forgot that the
sentence itself carries divorce with it. His bachelor name was Coryton.'
Constance wrote rapidly.
'John Coryton. He shall be released. A free pardon from the Home
Secretary cannot be appealed against. He is free.'
She sprang from the table and rang the bell. Her private secretary
appeared.
'This despatch to be forwarded at once,' she said. 'Not a moment's
delay.'
'Constance!' The Professor seized her hand. 'You will have the thanks of
every woman who knows the truth. All those who do not will curse the
weakness of the Home Secretary.'
'I care not,' she said. 'I have done one just action in my short term of
office. I--who looked to do so many good and just actions!'
'It is difficult, more difficult than one ever suspects, for a Minister
to do good. Alas! my dear, John Coryton's case is only one of many.'
'I know,' replied Constance sighing. 'Yet what can I do! Our greatest
enemies are--ourselves. Oh, Professor! when I think of the men working
at their looms from morning until night, cooking the dinners and looking
after the children, while the women sit about the village pump or in
their clubs, to talk unmeaning politics--Tell me, logician, why our
theories are all so logical, and our practice is so bad?'
'Everything,' said the Professor, 'in our system is rigorously logical
and just. If it could not be proved scientifically--if it were not
absolutely certain--the system could never be accepted by the exact
intellect of cultivated women. Have not Oxford and Cambridge proclaimed
this from a hundred pulpits and in a thousand text-books? My dear Lady
Carlyon, you yourself proved it when you took your degree in the most
brilliant essay ever written.'
The Countess winced.
'Must we, then,' she asked, 'cease to believe in logic?'
'Nay,' replied Professor Ingleby; 'I said not that. But every conclusion
depends upon the minor premiss. That, dear Countess, in the case of our
system, appears to me a little uncertain.'
'But where is the uncertainty? Surely you will allow me, my dear
Professor,'--Constance smiled,--'although I am only a graduate of two
years' standing, to know enough logic to examine a syllogism?'
'Surely, Constance. My dear, I do not presume to doubt your reasoning
powers. It was only an expression of perplexity. We are so right, and
things go so wrong.'
Both ladies were silent for a few moments, and Constance sighed.
'For instance,' the Professor went on, 'we were logically right when we
suppressed the Sovereignty. In a perfect State, the head must also be
perfect. Whom, then, could we acknowledge as head but the Perfect
Woman? So we became a pure theocracy. Then, again, we were right when we
abolished the Lower House; for in a perfect State, the best rulers must
be those who are well-born, well-educated, and well-bred. All this
requires no demonstration. Yet----'
But the Countess shook her head impatiently, and sprang to her feet.
'Enough, Professor! I am tired of debates and the battles of phrase. The
House may get on without me. And I will inquire no more, even of you,
Professor, into the foundations of faith, constitution, and the rest of
it. I am brave, when I rise in my place, about the unalterable
principles of religious and political economy: brave words do not mean
brave heart. Like so many who are outspoken, which I cannot be--at least
yet--my faith is sapped, I doubt.'
'She who doubts,' said the Professor, 'is perhaps near the truth.'
'Nay; for I shall cease to investigate; I shall go down to the country
and talk with my tenants.'
'Do you learn much,' asked the Professor, 'of your country tenants?'
The Countess laughed.
'I teach a great deal, at least,' she replied. 'Three times a-week I
lecture the women on constitutional law, and twice on the best
management of husbands, sons, and farm-labourers, and so forth.'
'And you are so much occupied in teaching that you never learn? That is
a great pity, Constance. Do you observe?'
'I suppose I do. Why, Professor?'
'Old habits linger longest in country places. What do you find to remark
upon, most of all?'
'The strange and unnatural deference,' replied the girl, with a blush of
shame, 'paid by country women to the men. Yes, Professor, after all our
teaching, and in spite of all our laws, in the country districts the old
illogical supremacy of brute force still obtains, thinly disguised.'
'My dear, who manages the farm?'
'Why,' said the Countess, 'the wives are supposed to manage, but their
husbands really have the whole management in their own hands.'
'Who drives the cattle, sows the seed, reaps, ploughs?'
'The husband, of course. It is his duty.'
'It is,' said the Professor. 'Child, a few generations ago he did all
this as the acknowledged head of the house. _He does not forget._'
'What do you mean?'
'I mean, my dear Countess, that things are never so near their end as
when they appear the firmest. Now, if you please, tell me something more
of this great speech of yours, which so roused the wrath of assembled
and hereditary wisdom. What did you intend to say?'
Constance began, in a quick, agitated way, nervously pacing the room, to
run through the main points of the speech which she had prepared but had
not been allowed to deliver. It was a plea for the intellectual
elevation of the other sex. She pointed out that, although there was
legislation in plenty for their subjection,--although the greatest care
was taken to prevent men from working together, conspiring, and meeting,
so that most work was done in solitude or at home--and when that was not
the case, a woman was always present to enforce silence--although laws
had been passed to stamp out violence, and to direct the use of brute
strength into useful channels,--little or nothing had been done, even by
private enterprise, for the education of men. She showed that the
prisons were crammed with cases of young men who had 'broken out'; that
very soon they would have no more room to hold their prisoners; that the
impatience of men under the severe restrictions of the law was growing
greater every day, and more dangerous to order; and that, unless some
remedy were found, she trembled for the consequences.
Here the Professor raised her eyes, and laughed gently.
The Countess went on with her speech. 'I am not advocating, before this
august assembly, the adoption of unconstitutional and revolutionary
measures,--I claim only for men such an education of their reasoning
faculties as will make them reasoning creatures. I would teach them
something of what we ourselves learn, so that they may reason as we
reason, and obey the law because they cannot but own that the law is
just. I know that we must first encourage the young men to follow a
healthy instinct which bids them be strong; yet there is more in life
for a man to do than to work, to dig, to carry out orders, to be a good
athlete, an obedient husband, and a conscientious father.'
Here the Professor laughed again.
'Why do you laugh, Professor?'
'Because, my dear, you are already in the way that leads to
understanding.'
'You speak in parables.'
'You are yet in twilight, dear Constance.' The Professor rose and laid
her hand on the young Countess's arm. 'Child, your generous heart has
divined what your logic would have made it impossible for you to
perceive--a great truth, perhaps the greatest of truths. Go on.'
'Have I? The House would not allow me to say it, then; my own friends
deserted me; a vote of want of confidence was hurriedly passed by a
majority of 235 to 22; and'--the young Minister laughed bitterly--'there
is an end of my great schemes.'
'For a time--yes,' said the Professor. 'But, Constance, there is a
greater work before you than you suspect or dream. Greatest of the women
of all time, my child, shall you be--if what I hope may be brought to
pass. Let not this little disappointment of an hour vex you any longer.
Go--gain strength in the country--meditate--and read.'
'Oh, read!' cried the girl, impatiently; 'I am sick of reading.'
'Read,' continued the Professor; 'read--with closed doors--the
_forbidden books_. They stand in your own castle, locked up in cases;
they have not been destroyed because they are not known to exist. Read
Shakespeare.'
Events which followed prevented the Countess from undertaking this
course of study; for she remained in town. From time to time the
Professor was wont to startle her by reading or quoting some passage
which appealed to her imagination as nothing in modern poetry seemed
able to do. She knew that the passage came from one of the old books
which had been put away, locked up, or destroyed. It was generally a
passage of audacity, clothing a revolutionary sentiment in words which
burned themselves into her brain, and seemed alive. She never forgot
these words, but she dared not repeat them. And she knew herself that
the very possession of the sentiments, the knowledge that they existed,
made her 'dangerous,' as her enemies called her; for most of them were
on the attributes of man.
The conversation was interrupted by a servant, who brought the Countess
a note.
'How very imprudent!' cried Constance, reddening with vexation. 'Why
will the boy do these wild things? Help me, Professor. My cousin, Lord
Chester, wants to see me, and is coming, _by himself_, to my
house--here--immediately.'
'Surely I am sufficient guardian of the proprieties, Constance. We will
say, if you like, that the boy came to see his old tutor. Let him come,
and, unless he has anything for your ear alone, I can be present.'
'Heaven knows what he has to say,' his cousin sighed. 'Always some
fresh escapade, some kicking over the limits of convention.' She was
standing at the window, and looked out. 'And here he comes, riding along
Park Lane as if it were an open common.'