THE KIND OF WOMAN I LOVE
Another answer to critics--Distorted minds--The portrait of a
womanly woman.
I once wrote an article on 'The Woman I Hate,' which brought me an
avalanche of letters, not all very pleasing reading. Many of them
conveyed to me the wrath of viragos, women's-righters, petticoated
males, trousered females, misunderstood and unclaimed women, ripe,
spectacled spinsters, cockatoos of all sorts and conditions, who
happened by the irony of fate and freaks of nature to be born of a sex
of which they failed to be an ornament.
One of these correspondents accused me of 'possessing a nasty mind' for
sneering at lady doctors. 'You insult women,' she says. 'Can you
imagine, for instance, a respectable woman submitting to an examination
by a man?' My dear lady, I am afraid I must return you the compliment.
Let me assure you that, just as an artist will see nothing in a female
figure beyond beauty and perfect harmony of lines, and will admire her
with as cool a mind as he would a statue, just so a doctor will examine
a woman as he would a piece of anatomy, and your mind must be fearfully
distorted and impure, if you imagine for a moment that a single
objectionable thought will pass through the mind of this man of
science.
If you really do think so, let me assure you that I pity you, or even
must despise you, from the bottom of my heart. And, while on this
subject, allow me to remind you that an eminent American man exclaimed
only the other day: 'In our country we have a great many female
doctors, female lawyers, female journalists, female orators, female
preachers, and females in all classes and professions and trades, but
what we want is a good many more female women.'
The woman I love is the female woman that I would protect and cherish
in return for all the sweet attention she would pay me, and which would
enable me to cheerfully fight the battle of life. How to describe her I
hardly know.
Should she be beautiful? Not necessarily. Pretty? Yes, rather. Good
figure? Decidedly. Clever? H'm--yes. Cheerful? By all means. Punctual?
Like a military man. Serious? Not too much. Frivolous? Yes, just a
little. Of a scientific turn of mind? B-r-r-r! no; I should shudder at
the idea of it. Of an artistic nature, then, with literary tastes? Yes,
certainly. But, above all, a keen, sensible, tactful little woman who
would make it the business of her life to study me, as I would make it
the business of my life to study her; a woman who could be in turn,
according to circumstances, a housewife, a counsellor, a 'pal,' a wife,
a sweetheart, a nurse, a patient, the sunshine of my life, and always a
confidante, a friend, and a partner.
In a little Normandy town I have a dear lady friend, Parisienne to the
core, whom I have known and loved from childhood. She is not far from
sixty, but, upon my word, I think she is still very beautiful. She was
in succession a loving, devoted daughter, an excellent wife, and an
adorable mother. She has now lost all she loved in the world, and she
devotes her time cultivating a lovely garden of flowers and attending
all the church services of the parish. A beggar never passes her
without receiving a little contribution, and she helps many a poor
family. In a word, the gay life of Paris is all forgotten, and you
would imagine that my recluse friend was a hermit, a sort of lay nun,
as it were.
Well, yes, she is all that; but isn't she a woman still, though! 'Do
you see,' she was saying to me one day, 'I have renounced all my
worldly ideas? My flowers, my books, my poor friends, that's the only
thought of my life now. I am old; I don't care how I dress or how I
look. Anything does for me now. The Parisienne that you used to know,
my dear friend, is dead and buried.'
'What a charming dress you have on!' I remarked. 'I do admire the
material and the colour, and the cut, too. And how beautifully made and
finished! Did you have that made in this town?'
The expression of her face was a study.
'My dear friend,' she exclaimed, 'you do not imagine I would get a
dress made in this stupid little hole of a town. They make bags here,
not gowns.' And she almost looked indignant, the dear! at the idea that
I could suppose she had not her dresses made in Paris. I smiled, and
said nothing.
And, as I looked at the book-shelves in her boudoir, I saw 'L'Imitation
de Jesus-Christ.' The volume next to it was 'Les Secrets du Cabinet de
Toilette.' I could not help making a little sarcastic remark to my dear
old friend.
'Well, _mon cher ami_,' she said, 'do you think the _bon Dieu_ would
give me a better reception if I presented myself with a face covered
with wrinkles? By the way, what is that stuff they make in England
which you told me is so good for the skin?'
Those little contradictions in a good and delightful woman make her
lovable. So I think, at any rate.
The woman I love is the woman who possesses all the womanly virtues and
qualities--sweetness, devotion, reliability. The little failings I
forgive in her are those of her sex--frivolity and the divine right of
changing her mind. If in any way woman apes man, she is intolerable and
hateful.