XII.

Men, by reason of their hardness of heart, gravitate towards the

material theory, and women, by reason of their softness of heart,

lower to the same level. Men defy heaven and earth to compass

self-indulgence, and women defy the divine law written in their hearts

rather than thwart men. Instead of setting their faces like a flint

against this tendency, they accept it, excuse it, try to think it

inevitable, a matter of organization, and make the best of it. They

will counsel young girls not to reckon upon receiving as much love as

they give! Fatal advice! Disastrous generalization! Yet neither

unnatural nor unkind, for it is the fruit of a sad and wide

experience. They would gladly spare fresh souls the apples of Sodom,

whose fair seeming bewrayed themselves; but they should teach them to

avoid disappointment, not by counting upon bitterness, but by

rejecting apples of Sodom altogether, and receiving only such fruit as

cheers the heart of God as well as man. Why shall not women receive

as much love as they give? Is man less capable of loving than woman?

Where in nature or in revelation is the warrant for such an

hypothesis? When He commands, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with

all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with

all thy strength," is he not speaking to men as well as women? and are

a man's heart, soul, mind, and strength less than a woman's? Are not

husbands commanded to love their wives even as Christ loved the

Church? and did he love the Church less than the Church loved him? Is

not every man commanded in particular to love his wife even as

himself,--to love his wife as his own body? and is a man's love to

himself, his love to his own body, a feeble and untrustworthy

sentiment? You find in the Bible no letting a man off from his duties

of love; no letting him down. Old-fashioned as it is, written for a

state of society far different from ours, often brought forward to

prop up old wrongs and bluff off newly-found rights, the Bible is

still the very storehouse of reforms. It contains the germs not only

of spiritual life, but of spiritual living. Glows on its pages the

morning-red which has scarcely yet gilded the world.

Women must not expect to receive as much love as they give! It is

inviting men to esteem lightly what should be a priceless possession.

It is not waiting for them to drag down the banner to the dust; it is

making haste to trail it for them with malice aforethought. Men now

are not too constant, too devoted to the higher aims of life; but let

constancy and devotion not be expected of them, and in what

seven-league boots will they stride down the broad road! It is doing

them but left-handed service thus to throw the door open to weakness

and wavering concerning higher interests, and a blind devotion to the

god of this world. To assume that their tone may be low, is to lower

their tone. Men are less good than they would be if goodness were

demanded of them. The current is turbid and unwholesome, because it is

not strictly required to be pure and clear. The way for women to be

truly serviceable to men, is to be themselves exacting.

"Exacting"? What word is that? An exacting woman? An exacting wife?

"Hail! Horrors, hail!" The unlovely being has existed, and within the

memory of men still living, but it has always been looked upon as a

monster,

"Whom none could love, whom none could thank,

Creation's blot, creation's blank!"

We have fallen on evil times indeed if such a being is to be held up

for approval and imitation.

But the character of exaction depends somewhat on the nature of the

thing exacted. To exact from a man that to which you have a right, and

which it is his own truest interest to bestow, is neither unchristian

nor unamiable. One may and should grant large room for the play of

tastes; for differences of organization, opinion, habit, education;

but a catholicity which admits to its presence anything that defileth

is no fruit of that tree whose leaves are for the healing of the

nations. The gardener who is tolerant of weeds and not untender

towards misshapen, or dwarfed, or otherwise imperfect flowers will

have but a sorry show for the eyes of the master. Such latitude is a

source of deterioration. It is the kindness which kills. Each sex

should be to the other an incitement to lofty aims. Each should stand

on its own mountain-height and call to the other through clear, bright

air; but such sufferance only draws both down into the damp,

unwholesome valley-lands where lurk fever and pestilence. A woman

cannot with impunity open her doors to unworthy guests. There may be

bowing and smiling, and never-ending smooth speech, but in the end,

and long before the end, they shall draw their swords against the

beauty of her wisdom and shall defile her brightness. A man may go all

lengths in pursuit of his own selfish comfort, but he does not the

less respect those who hold themselves above it, and if women, who

should be pure and purifying, mar the spotlessness of a divine

sanctity and lessen the claims of an imperial dignity, thinking

thereby to be meeter for profane approach, they work a work whose evil

strikes its roots into the inmost life of society. From mistaken

kindness woman may weave a narrow garland, but there is lost a glory

from the hand that bears and the brow that wears it. If the queen is

content to spend her life in the kitchen over bread and honey, and if

she is satisfied that the king spend his in the parlor counting out

his money, neither king nor queen will receive that homage or command

that allegiance which is the rightful royal prerogative.

There is a foolish subservience, an ostentatious and superficial

chivalry, an undignified and slavish deference to whims which silly

women demand and sillier men grant. Yet even this is not so much the

fault of the weak women as of the strong men, who surround women with

the atmosphere which naturally creates such weakness. But women have a

right, and it is their duty to expect, to claim, to exact if you

please, a constancy, spirituality, devotion, as great as their own.

Where God makes no distinction of sex in his demands upon mankind, His

creatures should not make distinctions. "Men are different from

women," is the conclusion of the whole matter at female

debating-societies, and the all-sufficient excuse for every

short-coming or over-coming; but the Apostles and Prophets find

therein no warrant for a violation of moral law, no guaranty for

immunity from punishment, no escape from the obligations to unselfish

and righteous living. Nowhere does the Saviour of the world proclaim

to men a liberty in selfishness or sin. His kingdom will never come,

nor his will be done on earth as it is done in heaven, so long as men

are permitted to take out indulgences. If they do it ignorantly, not

knowing the true character and claims of womanhood, nor consequently

of manhood, they should be taught. If they think a wife's chief duty

is to economize her husband's fortunes, or to minister to his physical

comforts, they should be speedily freed from the illusion. If they

suppose knowledge to be ill-adapted to the female constitution, and

harmless only when administered homoeopathically, they should be

quietly undeceived. If they have been so trained that marriage is to

them but unholy ground whereon is found no place for modesty,

chastity, delicacy, reverence, how shall they ever unlearn the bad

lesson but through pure womanly teaching?

But women fear to take this attitude. There are many indeed who have

become so demoralized that they do not know there is any such attitude

to take; but there are others who do see it, and shrink from assuming

it. Women whose courage and fortitude are indescribable, who will

brave pain and fatigue and all definite physical obstacles in their

path, will bow down their heads like a bulrush with fear of that

indefinable thing which may be called social disapprobation. Through

cowardice, they are traitors to their own sex, and impediments to the

other. One cannot find it in his heart to blame them harshly. The

weakness has so many palliations, it is so natural a growth of their

wickedly arranged circumstances, as to disarm rebuke and move scarcely

more than pity; but it is none the less a fact, lamentable and

disastrous. Women who know and lament the erroneous notions and the

guilty actions of men concerning woman, and the culpable relations of

men to women, will endeavor to hold back the opinions of a woman when

they go against the current. They will admit the force of all her

objections, the justice of every remonstrance, but will assure her

that opposition will be of no avail. She will accomplish nothing,

but--and here lies the real bugbear--but she will make men almost

afraid of her!

I would that men were not only almost, but altogether afraid of every

woman! I would that men should hold woman in such knightly fear that

they should never dare to approach her, matron or maid, save with

clean hands and a pure heart; never dare to lift up their souls to

vanity nor swear deceitfully; never dare to insult her presence with

words of flattery, insincerity, coarseness, sensuality, mercenary

self-seeking, or any other form of dishonor. I would that woman were

herself so noble and wise, her approbation so unquestionably the

reward of merit, that a man should not dare to think ignobly lest his

ignoble thought flower into word or act before her eyes; should not

wish to think ignobly, since it removed him to such a distance from

her, and wrought in him so sad an unlikeness to her; should not be

able to think ignobly, being interpenetrated with the celestial

fragrance which is her native air. I would have the heathen

cloud-divinity which inwraps her with a factitious light, only to hide

her real features from mortal gaze, torn utterly away, that men may

see in her the fullest presentation possible to earth of the god-like

in humanity. So powerfully does the Most High stand ready to work in

her to will and to do of his good pleasure, that she may be to man a

living revelation, Emanuel, God with us.

We ought to stand in awe of one another. We do not sufficiently

respect personality. Every soul comes fresh from the creative hand and

bears its own divine stamp. We should not go thoughtlessly into its

presence. We should not wantonly violate its holiness. Even the body

is fearfully and wonderfully made, and well may be, for it is the

temple of the Holy Ghost; but if the temple is sacred, how much more

that holy thing which the temple enshrines,--the unseen,

incomprehensible, infinite soul, the essential spirit, the holy ghost.

Who that cherishes the divine visitant in his own heart but must be

amazed at the reckless irreverence with which we assail each other. It

is not the smile, the chance word, the pleasant or even the hostile

rencounter in the outer courts; it is that we do not respect each

other's silences. We do not scruple to pry into the arcana. The

hermit's sanctuary may lie in the huntsman's track, but he will have

his pleasure though hermit and sanctuary were in the third heaven. We

do not accept what is given with gladness and singleness of heart; we

stretch out wanton hands to pull aside the curtain and reveal to the

garish day what should be suffered to repose in the twilight of inner

chambers.

When the prudent adviser, the practical man or woman, counsels, "Do

not demand so much from your friends,--they won't stand it,"--am I to

infer that friendship is a mercenary matter, a thing of compromise and

barter? Shall I fence in my acts, words, thoughts, that I may secure

something whose sole value, whose sole existence, indeed, lies in its

spontaneity? Shall I haggle for incense? Am I loved for what I do,

what I say, what I think, and not for what I am? Why, this is not

love. I am myself, first of all, not Launcelot nor another. He who

loves me can but wish me to be this in fullest measure. I will live my

life. I will go whithersoever the spirit leads. He who loves me will

rejoice in this and give me all furtherance. I demand all things--in

you. I demand nothing--from you. "Will not stand it"? If you can hate

me, hate me. If you can refrain from loving, love not. I can dispense

with your regard, but there is something indispensable. You shall love

me because you cannot help it, or you shall love me not at all. If I

cannot compel affection in the teeth of all conflicting opinion, I

renounce it altogether. If the aroma of character is not strong enough

to overpower with its sweetness all unfragrant exhalations of opinion,

it is a matter of but small account.

If two people should design simply to club together, to take their

meals at the same table and dwell under the same roof, it would be a

thing to be carefully considered; but when the question is, not of

association alone, but of absolute oneness, not of similarity of

tastes or habits, but of an inmost and all-prevailing sympathy, it

becomes us to be wary. Mere mechanical junction is easy of

accomplishment, but a chemical combination demands fine analysis and

the most careful adjustment. It needs not that a globe of fire should

come raging through the skies to set our world ablaze; a very slight

change in the atmosphere which embraces it, a little less of one

ingredient, a little more of another, and the earth and the works that

are therein shall be burned up. Yet the delicacy of matter is but a

faint type of the delicacy of mind. He who would pass within the veil

to commune with the soul between the cherubim must assume holy

garments. If the trouble seem to him too great, let him be content to

tarry without. Uzzah put forth an incautious hand and touched the ark

of God unbidden, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against him,

and there he died by the ark of God. Now, as then, if any man defile

the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is

holy, which temple ye are.

Yet the general opinion seems to be that human beings are made by

machinery like Waltham watches, and will fit perfectly when brought

together at random, as the different parts taken indiscriminately from

a heap of similar parts will fit and form a watch. Juxtaposition is

the only necessary preliminary to harmony. On the contrary, it is true

not only of prodigies, but of every member of the race that nature

made him and then broke the mould. Every person is a prodigy. So

great, so radical, so out-spreading, are the differences between

individuals, that the wonder is, not that they quarrel so much, but

that they are ever peaceful when brought together. The wonder is that

so many fierce antagonisms can be soothed even into an outward quiet.

Looking at it as mechanism, seeing how diverse, aggressive, and

impatient are the qualities of man, and how peculiarly are his

circumstances adapted to foster his peculiarities, one would say that

the only security was in solitude. Indeed, young people are very apt

to think so. They combine in an ideal all the charms which attract,

and exclude from it all the disagreeable traits which repel them, and

see reality fall so far short of their imaginary standard that they

fully believe they shall never find the true Prince. And they never

would, but for an inward, inexplicable suffusion of the Divine

essence, whose source and action lie beyond knowledge or control,

which works without instigation, but is all-powerful to create or

annihilate. This, however, which is the sole explanation of the

phenomenon, which is the sole conciliator between opposing forces, is

generally left out of view. People scarcely seem to be conscious that

there is any phenomenon. They philosophize sagaciously upon the

singular skill which swings unnumbered worlds in space, and spins them

on in never-ending cycle, yet marks out their paths so wisely that

world sweeps clear of world and never a collision crushes one to ruin.

But full as the universe is of stars, the nearest are hundreds of

thousands of miles apart; while the intellectual, nervous worlds that

are set going on the surface of our earth are close together. Half a

dozen of them are placed as it were shoulder to shoulder. Their zigzag

orbits intersect each other a hundred times a day. Is it any wonder

that there is hard abrasion, that surfaces are seamed and furrowed,

and that sometimes a crash startles us? Is not the wonder rather that

crashes are not the order of the day, that the seams are seams and not

cracks through the whole crust, and that the largest result of

abrasion is smoothness and evenness and polish?

Yet, utterly unmindful of the fitness of things, people will wonder

why a man and a woman who are thrown occasionally together do

not--what? Attack each other in an outburst of impatience at stupidity

and cross-purposes? Not at all, but "strike up a match." That is, put

themselves into relations which shall turn an association whose

redeeming feature is that it is casual and under control into an

association that is constant and irrevocable! Masculine backwardness

is not perhaps considered remarkable, as indeed there is very little

of it to be remarked, but the utmost surprise is expressed on those

rare occasions in which women are supposed to have declined a

"desirable offer." That a woman should not avail herself of an

opportunity to become the wife of a man who is well-educated,

well-mannered, "well-off," seems to be an inexplicable fact. He is her

equal in fortune, position, character. Commentators "cannot see any

reason why she should not marry him." But is there any reason why she

should marry him? The burden of proof lies upon motion, not rest; upon

him who changes, not upon him who retains a position. All these things

which are called inducements are no more than so many sticks and

stones; you might just as well repeat the a b c, and call that

inducement. The matters which bear on such conclusions are of an

entirely different nature. Your "inducements" may come in by and by,

when the main point is settled, to modify outward acts, but till the

Divine Spirit moves, they are without form and void.

Nor are well-wishers always so careful as to take the man himself into

the account. If surroundings are favorable, if to a by-stander there

seems to be a sort of house-and-barn adaptation, it is enough. House

and barn should at once join roof and become one edifice. It is of no

importance that this holds stalls for horned oxen, and that

entertainment for angels; that the one is informed with spiritual life

and the other filled with hay: hay and heaven are all one to many

eyes. "Why does she not marry him?" Why? Simply because there is not

enough of him, or what there is is not of the right stuff. If he were

twenty instead of one, she might dare promise to honor him, might dare

hope to respect him. If he had just twenty times as much of _being_,

or if his amplitude could be converted into fineness, he might meet

her on equal ground; but being only one and such a one, she is in an

overwhelming majority, and it is not republican that majorities should

yield to minorities. He may be, as you say, "just as good as she," but

not good for her.

These views appear in the (perhaps apocryphal) stories occasionally

told of renowned personages. A poor man or an obscure man proposes to

a young woman whose father is rich, and he is refused. The poor and

obscure man becomes presently a great banker, a governor, president of

a college, or recovers lost counties, or dukedoms in Europe. I have

even heard the story repeated of the Emperor of the French and a New

York young woman. Moral: Is not the woman sorry now that she did not

marry the poor man? Probably not. Certainly not if she belongs to the

true type. What have all these changes to do with the matter? Is he

any more comfortable to live with because he is a governor? Is he any

more adapted to her because he is a duke? It is barely possible that

she was mistaken; but if she were, she is probably ignorant of it

herself. His present state does not indicate a mistake. Only a close

companionship would be likely to discover it. The qualities which make

domestic content are not usually revealed by ever so brilliant public

success. If they originally existed, they are little likely to have

been developed. As business affairs are usually conducted, they are

more likely to drown out home happiness than to create it. But all

this is irrelevant. Nothing is really meant to which this is an

answer. It is only the manifestation of a blindness to what

constitutes attraction. The man has discovered outside advantages, and

it is assumed that that is enough. She of course refused him because

she had not sagacity enough to discern the shadow of his coming

greatness. It does not seem to be suspected that she could have

refused him because he did not suit her! What difference does it make

whether a man is a clown or a king, if you do not like him? Is a great

judge necessarily an agreeable person to think of? Is a world-renowned

financier necessarily the person who will have most power to draw out

what is good and gracious in a woman? Girls naturally give their

loyalty to men, not to crowns, or ermine. The lovely Florina was as

fond of King Charming, when he came to her in the shape of a Bluebird,

as when he appeared at court in royal majesty. Wicked outside opinion,

it is true, warps their judgment in a very great degree, and destroys

their freedom; but of their own nature, in their inmost hearts, they

are true; and when they have independence enough to manifest their

truth in these palpable acts, they may be safely set down as true.

They acted from sincerity and dignity, not from mercenary

short-sightedness. They acted from the most simple and natural causes,

and what have they to regret? It is much better to be the wife of an

honest and respectable American citizen than to be Empress of the

French,--even looking at it in a solely worldly point of view. When we

add to this that one loves the American citizen, and does not love the

French Emperor, the case may as well be ruled out of court at once.

There is no ground for any further proceedings.

Men and women act upon these views too much, as well in regulating as

in establishing a home. They recognize and make liberal allowance for

palpable, outspoken wants, yet are unmindful or contemptuous of others

equally important, but less on the surface, and less sharply defined.

A man who would incur self-reproach and the contempt of his neighbors

by allowing his wife to suffer from lack of bread in his house, will

not suspect so much as a slight dereliction of duty in allowing her to

suffer from lack of beauty there. A woman who is never weary of

meeting the demands upon her husband's palate, who will have the joint

cooked exactly to his liking, and the dinner prompt to his

convenience, would scout the thought of leaving her morning's

occupation to give him her company in a two hours' drive. People will

devote their lives uncomplainingly to meeting each other's wants, but

will neutralize all their efforts and sacrifice happiness hand over

hand by neglecting or disregarding each other's tastes. They will

spend all their money in thatching the roof, but will do just nothing

at all to keep the fire alive on the hearth. There are very few indeed

who are not able to do both. Of course if people lavish their whole

strength on gross matters, they have none left for the finer; but it

is not often that gross matters _need_ the whole strength. A careful

observation and just views would be able, as a general thing without

detriment, to wrest many an hour from vain, vulgar, useless, or

harmful pursuits, to bestow it upon adornments and amenities that do

not perish with the using. And if a man or a woman is so deteriorated

as to prefer the indulgence of a coarse or frivolous appetite, or the

inordinate indulgence of a merely natural appetite, to the

gratification and cultivation of refined and elevated tastes,--the

more's the pity!