our opinion” as to the working advantages of this theory. We know
how easy it is to find a soul, kindred or otherwise, of which it is
wise or profitable to make a mirror of our own, and have proved quite
thoroughly the comfort of expressing each sentiment as it arises, our
likes and dislikes, wishes, prejudices, and opinions. Let me state
just here, for fear of misapprehension, that in the words of Artemus
Ward, “this is intended to be sarkastikal,” and that my sober and
serious opinion is, that this absolute sincerity and perfect unity
of mind, speech and conviction is merely one of those rose-colored
delusions hanging like sunrise clouds about the dawn of love, and sure
to be dispelled when the orb of light either arises in his strength or
goes behind a cloud.
People who have found time to study the subject say that no two
leaves upon a tree, no two flowers upon a stalk, no two pebbles or
grains of sand or crystals upon the shore, are exactly alike, but the
microscope, if not the naked eye, will discern enough difference to
insure individuality, and it is said that a trained shepherd knows
every one of the sheep in a flock of hundreds as positively as his wife
does the lambs of her nursery. And if grains of sand, leaves and sheep
each have an individuality, and can never become precise fac-similes
of each other, is it not rather a foolish idea to try to force two
personalities into the same mold; and shouldn’t we suppose even lovers
might retain sense enough to see that their two minds, hearts or souls
are and will remain two, and would be valueless if they were only the
half of one, as they persist in calling them?
Frederic likes Limburger cheese and lager beer; Laura detests both,
and dotes upon caramels and sweet champagne. A little lunch is in
question, and Laura insists upon the Limburger and lager, “because I
like everything you do, darling,” and so makes herself ill for the
day. Frederic does not generally imitate this example, for, while a
man may be quite willing to surrender his politics, his religion and
his literary tastes to the lady of his love--that is, for a little
while--he does not, as a general thing, sacrifice his stomach; and if
Laura is not quite bereft of common sense she will not ask him to do
so, for, even if he complies with her request, he will never forgive
either himself or her.
And why should she attempt the folly of forcing her own palate into
identity with his? And why should she pretend to succeed? And why,
with her little nose pink in its effort not to curl up at the scent
of the cheese, and her eyes red and watery with her effort to quaff
the effervescent beer, should she perjure herself by declaring that
she likes it “ever so much,” and prefers it to champagne and frozen
pudding just as much as he does? Frederic, probably, does not believe
her, and thinks her a little fool for her pains, or, if he does believe
her, fails to feel any gratitude or admiration for the conversion. His
highest meed of praise is, “That’s where you show your good sense, my
dear,” and if the cheese lingers in her breath or the beer reddens her
nose, he is ever so faintly repelled by the likeness to himself.
They go out and meet Araminta, who is much prettier than Laura.
Frederic appreciates the fact, and when Laura jealously taxes him with
it he swears he doesn’t think so at all, didn’t know they met her,
never noticed her costume, had forgotten the color of her eyes. Now
if, like Laura, Frederic is resolved that there shall be only one mind
and one taste between them, he should reply: “Yes, my dear, Araminta is
far prettier than you, and her dress is far richer and more stylish.
We appreciate the fact, and we hate her for it, and wish we could deny
it.” But perfect frankness in this case would probably not conduce to
perfect harmony, and Frederic is too wise to attempt it, although in
avoiding Scylla he tumbles into Charybdis, and disparages the rival
beauty so much as to leave the impression that he is concealing a far
greater admiration than he really possesses.
What, then, should he do or say, and by what cunningly devised deceit
of love shall he conceal the fact that he perceives Araminta’s beauty,
while still loyal to Laura? For my part, I have no answer ready, for I
never yet have met a man clever enough to disguise his true sentiments
upon such subjects. And here let me once more warn the Frederics--that
is to say, the lovers and admirers among the male sex--that even
a very silly little woman is generally acute enough to follow the
workings of a man’s mind in matters relating to herself, and sees
through those little deceits and pretenses of his far quicker than he
can fathom her similar arts.
Supposing a case like the above, I really think a judicious sincerity
is better than attempt at diplomacy. “Yes, Araminta is very handsome,
no doubt, and I dare say the crowd would admire her more than they do
you; but I am not the crowd; I am your lover, and to me you are the
woman of the world. Let Araminta and the crowd go by; I am satisfied so
long as you remain.”
Some such speech as this, _truthfully_ uttered, will be to most women
far more “fetching” than a wholesale disparagement of their rival,
which they _know_ must be insincere.
Another very common class of the deceits of love is for either the
man or the woman to feign virtues they do not possess, and do not
really care to acquire except for the occasion. The admirer, with
matrimony in his eye, is invited to visit at the home of the fair
one who, although as sweetly unconscious as a lamb cropping daisies,
understands perfectly why he is there and what he intends. How amiable
and gentle she is with her little brothers! How attentive and dutiful
to her mother! How bright and patient under her big brother’s teasing!
How quick to see that papa is tired, and give him his slippers, his
newspaper, his favorite seat. With what filial piety she listens to her
maiden aunt’s thrice-told tales, and finds grandmamma’s spectacles.
It is not all deceit, of course. She feels happy, and the world has
long since amended the old proverb into “Be happy and you’ll be good,”
and fully conscious that critical eyes and ears follow her every
action, she takes pleasure in making it an admirable one.
But if this new departure comes from no deeper motive; if, in fact, it
is only one of the deceits of love, it is worse than useless, for there
is nothing more murderous to love than the knowledge that it has been
obtained by false pretenses.
If, courtship over and marriage established, the bride gradually drops
all the amiable and ready observances that so pleased her lover; if
a nipping and peevish temper succeeds to the sweet patience he has
admired; if she is careless and negligent toward her parents, now that
there is nothing more to gain from them; if she shows herself selfish
and indolent and unsympathetic toward himself, she may be sure that his
disillusionment will be all the more rapid and thorough because he had
been led to believe in other things.
No, if a girl begins by deceiving her lover as to her own character she
had better resolve, in the interest of her own comfort, to keep up the
deceit for life, and never let him find out that any other course is
possible to her. She may, in fact, very wisely adapt to her own career
the advice, “If you are going to tell a lie, tell a good one, and then
stick to it.”
And I have seen cases where this course has been so successfully
pursued that the husband and the former friends of his wife remained
at variance for life as to her character; one looked upon the golden,
and the other upon, let us say, the (German) silver of the shield, and
neither could believe that the other saw straight.
I do not think men, even when in love, make such wholesale pretense
of a “change of heart” as this. In the first place, they seldom think
their own faults are objectionable, and in the next they have a lordly
fashion of expecting the women to accept them, faults and all.
“How your coat always smells of tobacco smoke!” says she, making a
little _moue_ as she withdraws from close contact with said coat.
“Oh, no, it doesn’t; I went up in the smoking room at the club, but
the wind has blown it all away--you don’t smell it,” replies he, which
statement can hardly be called a deceit, but is often satisfactory to
the weaker vessel.
No, men’s deceits of love are more generally with regard to the shady
corners of their lives, past or present. Probably no woman ever
accepted a man’s love without at once demanding a confession as to his
ever having proffered love to any other woman, etc.
Now there are very few men, very few indeed, who both can and will
answer these questions truthfully. Sometimes there are tender memories
which he shrinks from offering to his new love, as one might toss a
ball to a kitten. Sometimes he has loved where he could not offer
marriage, and honor demands that the whole affair shall remain secret,
even from the wife of his later life. Sometimes there are dark and
disgraceful secrets which it would be suicide to reveal, and sometimes,
one is ashamed to confess, a man deliberately plans to carry on two
lives, with one of which the innocent girl he asks to marry him has no
concern.
In whichever of these channels the truth may run, it is pretty certain
that it will not come to the surface in reply to the tender inquiries
of the fair one, and it is only a very young or a very credulous woman
who will believe, though he swear it that her lover has never kissed
other lips than hers, or whispered love to other ears. Nor, to my
mind, is it altogether desirable that it should be true; the nature of
man is versatile, and his appetite is omnivorous; his teeth are adapted
for the tearing of lamb as well as for the mashing of strawberries and
cherries. If he has never tasted the one or the other, be sure his
instinct will impel him to do so first or last, and it is better that
it should have been before we knew him than after we have committed our
own hearts to his keeping.
But if this omnivorous appetite has been fully tested, and if the
strawberries appeal to the palate more highly than the stronger meats,
there is a certain amount of probability of constancy in the last
direction so long as the delicate fruit retains its sweet and alluring
flavor. But how foolish of the human strawberry to insist upon those
grinders saying they had never crushed meat, or those incisors that
they had never cut into an apple or a banana!
A man cannot be sincere as to his past experiences if he is no better
than the average man, and to insist upon his being so is to drive
him into a labyrinth of deceit, where to be sure he is generally
quite content to dwell. But this deceit is utterly unjustifiable and
unpardonable when it concerns not only the past but the present and the
proposed future.
A man, like a woman, may, under the influence of a real love, assume a
character which has never hitherto been his; he may resolve sincerely
to close the gates of those dark ways wherein he has hitherto walked,
and to let his future path be open to the light of day and to the
closest scrutiny of his wife’s eyes; and although he does not quite
truthfully reply to the inquisition she is sure to make into his
ancient history, he may be forgiven if he is really going to make the
future as fair as he is now representing the past.
So the moral of that is, my dear sisters, don’t be too severe upon the
deceits of love, however transparent you may find them, so long as it
is your own unwise persistence that has forced them upon your lover.
But there are other deceits practiced by both sexes, especially by
lovers who are no longer young--little deceits as to age, as to
infirmities, as to weariness, as to former experiences, in fact as to
all landmarks that might reveal just how much of life’s course has been
traversed, and, although neither party is very much deceived, he or she
accepts the other’s little pretenses on the tacit understanding that
his or her own shall pass muster.
“You tickle me, Billy; tickle me, do;
You tickle me, Billy, and I’ll tickle you!”
But saddest of all deceits of love, because it is only of self-love, is
the picture of an apparition that does not exist. A girl brought up in
the worship of the world, and its needs and amusements, all of which
require money, has the opportunity of marrying a man who can give her
all those things if she will give him her youth and beauty and--her
love. The latter is perhaps already bestowed, perhaps it has not yet
awakened, perhaps it is altogether wanting. At any rate she must
feign it, or she cannot complete her share of the bargain. Well, women
can generally do whatever they set their hands to, and this among the
rest, but is it not true that no deceit of love is so pitiful as this
feigning of a love that does not exist? None so pitiful and none so
transparent, although so often practiced that both you and I can think
of more than one example--more’s the pity of it, more’s the pity!
XVII.
WOMAN’S COURAGE.
It is the accepted idea of the world that courage is a masculine
attribute almost exclu and that all women are timid creatures, needing
all sorts of protection and support, shelter and encouragement from
man, who, according to St. Paul, “is the head of the woman.”
Perhaps he is, but I must say he does not always keep ahead.
Now, my own theory is that this idea, set up in the dark ages, when
woman was either a slave or a servant to man, has, like many other
respectable ideas, become outgrown and antiquated. The last fifty
years have developed the nature and capacities of woman with a good
deal of the instantaneous transformation seen in a pantomime when
the clumsy hoyden suddenly develops into the fairy queen, all pink
gauze, spangles and diamond-tipped wand, or, to put it more prettily,
the effect upon a garden of roses, which in one hour of hot sunshine
develop from half-blown buds into flowers of glorious and fragrant
maturity.
If this blossoming goes on for another century at the rate it has begun
in this, the women of the year 2000 will wonder what those quaint old
writers of the nineteenth century could have meant by objecting to
women as physicians, lawyers, preachers and legislators.
“Why, just fancy men trying to manage the world without the advice and
direction of women!” some fair student of that day will exclaim. And
another will add:
“And electricity only in its infancy! What vital force _was_ there in
those days to keep the world moving at all?”
Now, one of the errors which time has thus far perpetuated and now is
ready to abjure and contradict, is this of the cowardice of women and
courage of men as distinctly opposed to each other.
I don’t say but what, in the case of a mouse, a man is more courageous
than a woman, and perhaps in that of a lion or tiger, although in the
matter of mad dogs I recently had proof that the woman is the more
courageous. I was visiting a suburban friend lately when a dog began to
show ominous symptoms of madness just in front of the house. My friend
called from the window to the man working on the lawn and bade him go
at once and throw a pail of water over the poor beast. The man dropped
his mower, came and looked at the dog, and flatly refused to approach
him any nearer, saying in so many words that he was afraid to do so.
My friend reiterated the order, but to no effect, when of a sudden a
brawny, red-armed woman dashed around the corner of the house, pail in
hand, and made for the dog, who, after one dreadful backward glower at
her, rushed off and was seen no more.
When the story was told at night to the master of the house, he
commented on it by smiting his knee, laughing delightedly, and
exclaiming: “Give me a woman every time when I want water poured over a
mad dog. They don’t know any better than to try it on. I hope you gave
the cook a dollar, my dear.”
Then I was present when a sweet little curly-haired thing, a girl of
some twenty years old, seized a savage bloodhound by the neck and
choked him off her pet kitten, which he had chased into the house--that
is, I don’t suppose her tiny dimpled hands were really capable of
choking him, but he was so impressed by the dauntless spirit behind
them that he dropped the kitten and ran.
When his master was told of the exploit, he turned pale and exclaimed:
“My God! That dog has torn a man to pieces before now!”
The strongest spring of action in a woman’s nature is love, and the
perfectly reckless courage she will sometimes display must have its
root in love. She must feel the need of saving or serving some one
whose life is dearer to her than her own, or, like Joan of Arc or
Charlotte Corday, she must love her country better than herself and
despise the death awaiting her in its defense.
In fact, the truth is that man’s courage is a matter of calculation,
and so may be served to order, may be indulged or restrained, may be
sold to the highest bidder, and if a higher appear may be transferred
and resold without injuring its quality in the least. This is not to
be taken as an ill-natured hit at mankind, but a simple statement
of fact as relating to mercenary troops and soldiers of fortune,
and I only point out the fact as opposed to that other fact just
mentioned--namely, that woman’s courage springs only from the personal
feeling of the moment and has its root in love.
But, after all, it is more in the moral than the physical world that
woman’s courage is most clearly shown, and also man’s cowardice, and in
no direction more plainly than in matters of the heart.
Is it not so even in your own experience or observation?
A man and woman are mutually attached, and are desirous of further
acquaintance. Now, the theory is--a theory established by man and
consented to by woman--that she, whether maid or widow, modestly
conceals her preference, not confessing it even to herself, and
throwing all sorts of obstacles in the way of her wooer, such as
avoiding his society, pretending not to understand his advances,
skillfully evading his attempts at a declaration, and when he has
valiantly conquered the opportunity and confessed his love and offered
his hand and heart the traditional woman is very much astonished at
the unforeseen declaration, and in a tremor of sweet confusion utterly
denies any reciprocal fondness. Then a siege begins wherein the man,
bold, aggressive, persistent, demolishes the defensive works wherein
the woman has intrenched herself, refuses to take no for an answer, and
finally by courage and perseverance conquers all opposition and secures
the prize.
Well, now I ask again, Are these the facts in the case, O woman, so
far as you are able to testify?
You know they are not, I know they are not, and every woman in the
world, if sufficiently civilized to know anything, knows they are not.
The man is attracted to the woman. He asks an introduction perhaps, and
the acquaintance begins on his part with a vague feeling of distrust
and curiosity. He does not in the very least understand this enchanting
sphinx, and although confessing her charm in his heart is afraid of
what she may develop. He has--that is, all sensible men have--an innate
consciousness that the subtlety, the quickness, the unexpectedness of
a woman’s maneuvers are far out of reach of his comprehension, and he
awaits what she will do and say with very much the feeling Watt and
Fulton may have had when they first set their steam engines going and
stood by in admiring awe, uncertain whether this wonderful new agent
they had evoked would destroy them in one splendid flash or deign to
follow their lead and prove a blessing to them and mankind.
Should the woman thus approached feel disposed to torment her tentative
lover, she has a thousand ways of doing so. She laughs at his
sentimental speeches. She fails to understand his clever compliments.
She asks him ironical and teasing questions with an air of seraphic
innocence and ingenuous desire for information. She entertains him with
praises of his rival. She cares nothing for boating, which is the end
and aim of his being, and dotes upon horses, of which he knows nothing.
Then when she sees him utterly daunted and defeated, when she sees,
in fact, that the courage which should have sustained him is utterly
exhausted, and he is about to seek safety in flight, she flashes upon
him a smile, a long, sweet look, a tone, a gesture, a word, and he is
at her feet again.
Perhaps, on the other hand, the woman is attracted to the man who has
hardly noticed her. She is not delayed in her approaches by any sense
of doubt or mystery; she does not in the least look upon the object
of her regard as a sphinx or a mystery; she is not at all afraid of
him or of what he may do or say; she understands his nature, so far
at least as she needs to for her present purposes, and she feels
instinctively that she has the battle in her own hand; she goes into
the fray--that is to say, into the sweet combat of love--with calm and
assured courage, while he, as we have said, is tremulous with that fear
of the unknown which is the most demoralizing of all fears. We will
suppose that she really desires this man as a husband and does not, as
in the former case, wish merely to amuse herself with conquering him.
Her tactics are now altogether different, and the theory held by man
of what a woman is and should be is based upon the course pursued by a
woman in love who intends a permanent result from her passion.
She now shows herself gentle, docile, thirsting for information upon
any subject the man fancies himself learned in, let it be boots or
horses, Aristotle or Bismarck, pork or grain, or bonds, or theosophy,
or finance. No matter which of these or a hundred more does he
discourse upon, it is the one subject on which she has always longed
to be informed, and she combines with the innocent ignorance of the
dove so much of the wise intelligence and quickness of the serpent that
the man, fooled to the top of his bent, is presently ready to declare
that such sweet and suggestive sympathy is precisely what he has always
needed to enable him to carry out his life’s work, and if he can only
secure it as his own, etc.
Or, if the declaration is not so easily reached, if the man’s inherent
cowardice holds him back even while his love urges him forward, how
the woman’s calm courage and self-command enable her to general the
situation! How quietly she gives him the opportunity which he never
could have found for himself! How easily and gently she guides the
conversation into the channel, conducting by easy if sinuous reaches
to the desired haven! With what tact she interprets his awkward,
stammering phrases and puts into his mouth turns of speech which he
dimly desired, yet never could have originated! And all the time, like
the acting commander in a battle, she leaves the baton in the hands of
the marshal, who sits in the shade and looks on.
“The page killed the boar;
The knight had the gloire;”
and the man goes away from the scene of his betrothal with the step and
mien of a conqueror, and thinks to himself what a dear, sweet, gentle,
docile little wife he is to have, and what a clever fellow he is to
have drawn that timid confession of love from her reluctant lips.
Life goes on, and the courage of womanhood develops in grander ways
and more useful forms. Riches take wings, and the man, finding himself
embarrassed, shrinks with masculine timidity from facing the fact
himself or from confessing it to the world. Perhaps he even tries to
hide it from the wife of his bosom, but she smiles at the attempt at
evasion, plucks out the secret, and holding it up in calm, courageous
hands, shows it for the poor thing it is, and tells so bravely how it
is to be conquered and put aside that the man plucks up heart of grace
to meet the foe before whom he had been ready to fall down in abject
submission.
And if poverty--deep, dire poverty--comes, it is woman’s courage
that meets it and makes the best of it; it is she who dares to show
herself to the world, to their own world, in the garb and equipage and
occupation of poverty; it is she who says, virtually, if not in words,
“My mind to me a kingdom is,”
and reigns a queen within that kingdom undisturbed by the stupid
comments of poor souls who cannot comprehend her or her royalty.
Perhaps the man breaks down utterly, for men are far more prone to
break than bend, and then nine times out of ten the wife finds courage
and ability to take up the laboring oar that he has dropped, and
becomes the breadwinner of the family. And with what brave and strong
resolution is that labor accomplished, even when the frail physique
seems crumbling beneath the strain!
The mother of one of our governors sat up in bed when he was but a few
days old and sewed upon boys’ trousers for a clothing store, that she
might pay the woman who nursed her for one week more. Another woman,
crippled from the waist down, rolled herself around the house in a
chair and did her own housework, because her husband could not afford
to hire it done.
And how many more have done as much and never were heard of?