HESTER GODFREY IN SEARCH OF PERFECTION.
"Papa,"' said Hester one morning, as she passed from the lawn into the
library, and threw her arms round her father's neck, "papa, I am
thoroughly resolved never to be married."
"Time enough, my darling, to think of that; but why this sudden
resolved?"
"Because married women are so unhappy. Adelaide and Annie were has
merry as crickets when they were single, and now how serious and
unhappy they appear."
"Seriousness is not unhappiness. Age makes one sedate."
"Nay, but I am sure they are miserable, and I tell you I will not
marry; so do not promise my hand to any one". And she put a very
lovely one into her father's hand as she spoke.
"I will not, my dear Hetty; but you may live to alter your mind."
"I shall not, and I will tell you why. I have considered this matter
very closely and I have discovered that a married woman is but a slave
to a man. She must have no will of her own, no purse of her own, and
though she has all the trouble and anxiety with the children, they are
his--not hers--as soon as they begin to reason. I love freedom, papa;
I will be no mere tool to any man. No art, no science, no refinement,
no practical improvement can flourish in slavery; and the reason women
have shown less aptitude for intellectual cultivation than men is,
that they are mere slaves--domestic drudges, for the most part--with
no higher interest than to procure food and clothing."
"Where did my Hester pick up Mary Wolstonecroft's writings?"
"Mary Wolstonecroft--who is she, papa?"
"A lady who advocates woman's rights, my love. I thought you had been
reading her book."
"There is no need if all she says is that which I feel, namely, that
all women are slaves. I learned this from simple observation. I wonder
all women do not feel it so."
"Women are supposed to live in their affections; and those whom we
love we serve willingly."
{474}
"Yes, but you know that soon becomes a mere supposition, even if it be
not so at first. How snappish wives usually are! I notice it in the
cottagers, in the tradesfolks; everywhere, where manners are not
taught to enable one to _sham_ before company. And the husbands are
surly, unmanageable bears; there must be something wrong in marriage
to produce these effects so frequently."
"And what remedy do you propose?" asked Mr. Godfrey, greatly amazed.
"Nay, that I have not considered. I only know that something is wrong
now, and that I will not marry 'till it is set right."
"Wait 'till you fall in love, my dear."
"Fall in love, indeed! What a ridiculous thing to do! No, papa, I
intend no fall; that is just why I will not marry. I might admire and
respect a man as my equal; I might even venerate him as my superior,
if he were my superior in mind; but bind myself to him as a slave I
would not. No Grecian hero in all antiquity could inspire me with love
enough to commit a moral suicide."
"The Grecian women claimed no equal rights," said Mr. Godfrey.
"No; I marked that well, papa. History is a treatise on men--on their
deeds, their daring, their wisdom, their improvement or retrogression.
Now and then, as if by accident, a woman's deeds were recorded, but
very rarely. Why this has been, I cannot divine. Woman ought, could,
should, and must rebel. This is the age of freedom. Does freedom
concern only half of the human race?"
"No; it concerned the horde of women who forced their way into the
royal apartments at Versailles. My Hester should have headed the
procession?"
"Now, papa, that is not fair. You know well I do not wish to
countenance rude and vulgar proceedings. Only I do not see why woman
should not cultivate her intellectual and moral powers, and march
onward in the career of perfectibility as well as man."
"What is that long word you used, Hester?"
"Now, papa, how provoking you are! Have you not yourself taught me to
cultivate every faculty to perfection, as a duty? Have you not often
said that the world has yet to learn the results of an equipoised,
many-sided development? That hitherto too strong a bias has been
given, and that a one-sided training has made a one-sided character?"
"I have said this. Hester, but what is this to the purpose?"
"Why, perfectibility must mean the tendency toward perfection produced
by this equipoised, by this many-sided development; and woman must be
the chief operator in effecting this equipoised development, because
woman is the exclusive educator of the young of either sex; and it is
when young, when very young, that the germs are laid of ideas which
perish not. Physiologists say that though character is modified
afterward, the form is, for the most part, given ere the seventh year
has been attained."
"It may be so, but what of that?" asked the father.
"Why, I think, then, that woman's especial vocation is to the study of
this perfectibility: that is, how to procure a due development--how to
teach the race to aspire. It seems to me that, generally speaking, the
aims of the world are very grovelling and sensual. If we could once
fire the race with the desire of reaching the utmost perfection of
which there nature is capable, methinks a glorious work would be
begun, and after ages might be brought almost to doubt of the misery
that now exists, their own position would be so different."
"It is a glorious project," said the father turning to the animated
girl, "but a difficult one; the world is large, and every one thinks
his own ideas the right ones."
"I know it; but I know, too that that thought must not check an
inspiration. Individuals have changed the face of nations before now.
Had they suffered their enthusiasm to be checked by dwelling on how
little one {475} person can do, nothing would ever have been done. An
individual who feels an intense interest in any subject, and a full
conviction that such a subject is likely to benefit his co-patriots,
is bound to carry forward his views to the utmost of his power."
"You may be right--nay, the principle is right; but what can my little
Hester do?"
"She can study and think and experimentalize and observe and have the
benefit of her father's advice through all, if only he will give it
her, if only he will put it out of his head that every girl is born to
be married, and that a girl cannot think and act for herself, and
cherish ideas of philanthropy and work for the public good."
"Lycurgus would not sanction this, my little Spartan girl."
"Perhaps not, papa; but times have altered. Legislators used to seek
for a numerous population. Now, Dr. Malthus says the world is
over-peopled."
"Why, Hester, I did not think these were subjects that you cared for
at all."
"But I do care for them, papa--more, much more than you think; and
what I ask of you is to forget that I am a girl, and let me think and
study everything--political economy, social economy, natural
philosophy, ethics, and aesthetics. I want to know how each of these
bears upon the condition the race, to see what man might be. I want to
know why man is created--to what he tends."
"Man is created to enjoy life, my child."
"Then why are so many miserable? Why have we disease, plague, famine,
war, and bloodshed?"
"'These are partly the result of man's ignorance."
"And yet man has existed nearly six thousand years, and every kind of
experience and teaching has been his; and philosophers, sages,
religionists, lawgivers have been trying to instruct him, and he is
ignorant still."
"You forget, Hester, that every individual that is born into the world
is born ignorant and helpless; and yet every individual must realize
instruction ere ignorance can be banished. Where you have an educated
people to work upon, you may propound improvements and be understood,
and then you will find instruments who will co-operate with you; but
now look at the population. Occupied in daily toil, as the price of
life, how can they comprehend high theories, or study experimental
philosophy. If they go into it at all, it must be to take upon trust a
few ideas, and they are as likely to take the wrong ideas as the right
ones, by that means."
"And is there no remedy for this? Is all this toil necessary? It seems
to me as if a great deal of unnecessary work is always being
performed. Spartan frugality would disapprove of much of modern
luxury; and is not half the toil for luxury merely?"
"Some of it is; but Spartan pride refused all toil, even for
necessaries. The laborers of the present day do the work of the helots
in Sparta. To work was beneath the dignity of a Spartan."
"And we have no helots in England now," said Hester.
"Would you wish to have?" asked Mr. Godfrey.
"No! Why should one part of mankind be sacrificed to the happiness of
the other? I would have no men slaves, no women slaves. Let all be
free and equal. If there is work to be done, let all do a portion, and
let all have a portion of rest, or rather of leisure, for the
improvement of the mental faculties."
"No man will work, unless compelled, at hard, daily labor. Those who
have property are not compelled. How will you compel them? For
instance, my neighbor, the blacksmith, has a wife and six children to
support. He works from twelve to fourteen hours daily. His wife keeps
no servant; she scrubs, washes, cooks, and attends to all herself.
Now, you {476} and I, being people of leisure, should do half their
work for them. Suppose you go and help the wife, and I go and help the
blacksmith half of every day; they might then study perfectibility the
other half."
Hester laughed. "We might do worse than that," she said; "but that
would only be helping two individuals, whereas I wish to place society
on a right principle. I no longer wonder at the French revolution. Had
I to toil hard and to live hard, seeing all the while some few
privileged beings do nothing at all but revel in luxury, I should be a
revolutionist too; only I should not know how to set the matter right.
One thing is clear from all history, luxury is an injury to the
individual who uses it, and all states have been weakened when luxury
has become common; therefore, father, I will make myself hardy, that I
may not be corrupted in my own proper person."
And true to her resolution, Hester, regardless of public opinion,
became simple in her habits. A hard bed, plain diet, an uncarpeted
room, with singular plainness of dress, distinguished this young
aspirant after perfectibility. Her mother would willingly have seen
her dress in a manner becoming her station; but Hester "did not choose
to make herself a peg on which to hang dressmakers' fancies. Clothes
were for two purposes," she said, "for warmth and decency; when these
two objects were attained it was enough." Her mother's remonstrances
availed nothing, and her father laughed: the eccentricities of the
spoiled child amused him, and daily he became more accustomed to
gratify every wish that she expressed.
Hester was in earnest. She founded schools, she formed societies in
which adult laborers might receive instruction in the evenings; she
established libraries and promoted the scientific associations
afterward more fully developed under the name of "Mechanics'
Institutes." Hester visited the lowly that she might form an estimate
of their real position, observe their improveable points, and
cultivate these latter to good purpose; but the intricacies thickened
upon her. She heard complaints that the poor were improvident and
wasteful.
"How can that be," said she, "when a man pays rent, and provides fuel,
clothing, and food for himself, his wife, and four children, out of
wages at twelve shillings a week? How much does our mere board cost?
twenty times that sum at least, and mamma is called economical. Oh! it
must be a miserable life they lead on such a poor pittance as that!
Papa, a man must have food; he gets it from the ground: he must have
shelter; a few trees chopped down will give him that: he must have
clothes; these also he can grow: why not place man on land where they
can get these, rather than let them half starve at home?"
"It is being done in or colonies; but an emigrant's life, my Hester,
would scarcely assist your perfectible theories. Every moment is
employed in drudgery of some kind. A large proportion of the emigrants
die of hardship."
Hester turned round impatiently, "Ever, ever an obstacle! Yet I will
not give up. There must be a way of improving mankind, and I will find
it yet."
These discussions were frequently renewed, but with little better
success. On one occasion Eugene was present, and he said with a smile,
"So you, too, are seeking the philosopher's stone, sister? I doubt you
will not find it in exterior relationships or in material
circumstance; evil is in the world--evil to a larger amount than you
have any conception of, and no exterior arrangement will suffice to
banish it. Set man free, as you term it, from the restraint of
overlabor, without awakening the interior impulse to realize a higher
life, and the chances are that the ale-house or gin-shop will be his
school."
"But will not education affect this awakening?"
{477}
"Education on a right basis would undoubtedly do much, but not
education on a selfish basis; not if the highest aim is to improve in
temporalities, not if virtue is proposed as the best policy to forward
earthly views. This would be merely teaching a system of selfish
calculation that would make man neither wiser nor better, and
consequently not happier."
"And what other motive would you suggest, brother?"
Eugene glanced at his father and hesitated. After a moment's pause, he
said: "Some philosophers, and among them the divine Plato, have
thought that within man dwelt an essence called a soul, and that its
culture furnished motives superior to all others in enlightening man.
There are other theories respecting the soul worth studying too, I
think. That which has influenced Europe during eighteen hundred years
has been the religion of Christ. Have you ever studied that, Hester?"
"No! I thought it was a superstition akin to, though distinct from,
the ancient pagan mythology."
"You will not find it so." rejoined her brother, "or rather you will
find it the opposite. Paganism is the worship of self, of sensuality,
of self-aggrandizement, and of physical power. Christianity is the
worship of spirituality; it triumphs over selfishness by divine love,
and elevates the soul by the same influence above the paltry views
emanating from an exclusive adhesion to man's lower nature."
Mr. Godfrey's lowering brow betokened a rising storm. Eugene made his
escape, and Hester laid her hand on her father's shoulder, and said
coaxingly, "Did you not say I might study every influence, papa, that
has affected humanity? Why not study this of which Eugene speaks?"
"Hester, there is a serpent in the East which has the power of fixing
his eye on the bird he marks for his prey, and his fascination is such
that by merely continuing to gaze he draws his victim straight into
his mouth."
"What of this, father?"
"It is so of superstition also; it strikes a chord in the human heart,
which, once awakened, becomes restless evermore. Let it but once
attract your notice, it fascinates, monopolizes every faculty, and the
strongest minds have fallen victims to its baneful power of
concentrating the attention. Let it alone, my child."