charity to be benefited by it, but he couldn't do it without stepping
out of his way to sneer at female suffrage and kindred movements which
are advocated and engineered by pure, intelligent, cultivated, earnest
women, or fixing his seal of approbation on this particular branch of
philanthropy, as the only remedy for all the ills that come of an
empty purse and a grieved heart.
And just here is the fly in all these philanthropic ointments. Mix
your medicines in _my_ shop, or they will turn out poisons. That is
the spirit. Now I don't believe that one society, or one man or woman,
is the pivot on which this universe turns; and wishing well, as I do
every progressive, humanitarian movement, I deplore that its leaders
will not keep this fact in mind. I don't say that I wish _women_ would
keep it in mind, for I am a diligent reader of newspapers, and I see
men every day ignoring this broad foundation of civilization. I see
them making mouths at each other over a political bone or religious
fence; or I hear naughty names called, because one man grabbed a bit
of news for his paper, and scampered off with it to the dear public,
before his editorial neighbor got scent of it. Oh, women don't do all
the gossip and slander and back-biting in the world. They don't make
all the silly or stupid speeches either. Nor do they "rush into
print," any oftener than certain unquiet male spirits, "thirsting for
notoriety," as the phrase goes, who think they know when a colt is a
horse, and _vice versa_, better than any other man, because they
studied Greek at Oxford. Humbug is not always a female, but when
humbug _is_ a female, she generally hails from the top round of the
ladder! I am happy to say that, though I may be putting a stone into
the hands of mine adversary by the admission!
Human nature might be improved, even in the year 1869. How glad the
pop-gun clergyman of a small parish is, when some clerical big-gun is
supposed to make a false move on the sacerdotal chequer-board! How he
rushes publicly to "deplore" that his "dear brother in Christ should
lay himself open to the world's censure in this manner"! His "dear
brother's" popularity and big salary were not the animus of _that_
criticism--oh, no! Now I'm not one of those who believe that "a
minister" is certainly a saint, above his fellows; or that
Christianity is benefited by refusing to admit the shortcomings of
church-members. I once heard Rev. Dr. Hall preach a sermon on this
subject, every word of which was pure gold and ought to be printed in
pamphlet form and placed in the pews of all our churches.
"Mix your medicines in my shop, or they will be poisons"! How sick I
am of it! There is so much elbow room in the world, why fight only for
one corner? But men, set us "weak women" such a terrible example,
fighting and squabbling about straws, and whining when they are
defeated. Now, if instead of wasting their time this way, or idling it
away as fashionable loungers,--I speak after the manner of the New
York--to women,--if instead of belonging to useless up-town clubs,
where with the heads of their canes in their mouths, they sit in the
day-time, measuring passing female ankles, or drinking and talking
male scandal, or betting;--if instead they would--each butter-fly son
of them--take some good, interesting book, and finding some tenement
house, sit down of an evening and amuse some laboring man, who would
else flee from the discomforts of such a place to the nearest
grog-shop, how noble would this male butterfly of Fifth Avenue then
appear! In fact, this particular form of benevolence commends itself
to me as the only one that could rescue him from the butterfly
existence of up-town clubs.
A thought strikes me! As the "New York ----" remarks, when advising
women to teach sewing to poor girls, "but perhaps these female
butterflies of Fifth Avenue don't know themselves how to sew." Alas!
should these male butterflies of the Fifth Avenue club-houses not know
how to read, when they get to the tenement house of their poor
brother!
Now, to conclude, I see nothing antagonistic to a sewing-machine in a
woman's vote, but the Editor of the New York ---- is always throwing a
blanket over a woman's head, for fear she will see a ballot-box. You
may make soup, my dear, graciously says he, for poor women; or flannel
shirts for very little paupers, if you'll promise not to burn your
fingers in politics. That never'll do, my dear! It is _not_ coarse for
you to scramble at a matinee for seats, and elbow and jostle, and push
men's hats awry--oh, no! that's legitimate--but to subject yourself to
this kind of thing at the ballot-box, would be to forfeit man's love,
and soil both your skirts and reputation.
_WOMAN'S MILLENNIUM._
Hurrah for Massachusetts! Read this:
"Chief Justice Bigelow, of Massachusetts, made short work with
a divorce case which came before him at Springfield a day or
two ago. It was an application of a wife for a divorce from her
husband, on the ground of extreme cruelty. It coming up in
testimony that the woman had been beaten and otherwise ill-used
by her husband, the Judge at once decided the case in her
favor, taking occasion to remark that in case of any violence
by a husband to the wife, he should not hear all the points
before deciding in favor of the latter. The woman might forgive
cruelty toward herself, but the court would not."
Now _that's_ what I call a righteous decision. Let all the wives with
bruised shoulders, and arms, and backs, and eyes, (bruised _hearts_
are too common to talk about!) emigrate forthwith to this enlightened
State. Here's a man who is _just_ to a woman. Think of the rarity of
the thing! Compliments, and flattery, and gifts we can all have, till
we get to be old women, and some of us afterwards; but _justice_,
Messieurs! ah! that's quite another thing. Female eyes have grown dim
looking for _that_, all through the ages. Men start up from their
tobacco-torpor nowadays and ask, angrily, what means this present
restlessness of American women? This wide and deep-spread discontent,
which heaves to and fro, developing itself in a thousand different
forms? _My_ grandmother was contented enough. _My_ aunt never looked
beyond her own family. Are you quite sure of the first, and does the
latter deserve praise or blame for the pin-measure view of the world
to which she, the God-appointed instructor and guide of future men and
women, chooses to limit herself? Has she a _right_ to launch them on
the turbulent ocean of life, with only one poor miserable broken oar
to paddle their way? Such women are not praiseworthy; no more than
they who, busying themselves in public affairs, leave their children
to "come up" as chance or accident dictates. Are you quite sure, too,
that because only lately this "wail of discontent" has reached your
ear, that it has not been stifled under thousands of tombstones? Ah,
well I remember when too young to know what life _meant for a woman_,
hearing one who I have since learned had suffered and forgiven much,
murmur to herself as she wearily laid her head upon her pillow, "God
be thanked for sleep and forgetfulness!" and yet not one who saw her
smiling face, or heard her cheerful voice, or was charmed with her
intelligent conversation, ever dreamed that she was not "a contented
wife," as the phrase runs.
And just in this connection I would quote a remark which, for its
truth, should be inscribed on the _pipe_ (for there he would oftenest
meet it) of every man in the land.
"Only so far as a man is happily _married to himself_ is he fit for
married life, and family life in general. Unless he has 'cleared
himself up,' as the Germans say, he can at best but enter into
ambiguous relations to another. When a man is discordant in himself,
he makes all that he comes in contact with discordant."
Now, candidly I ask you, oughtn't that remark to be in the Holy
Scriptures? Perhaps you ask if the same is not true of women? I am not
such an idiot as to deny that, either; but what I marvel at is
this--that it should be such a perfectly natural and eminently
righteous thing for a _man_ to halloo to high heaven that _his_ mate
is not to his mind, after he has compassed heaven and earth to get
her, and such a crime for a woman to be "discontented and restless
under similar circumstances".
Nevertheless, I think woman's millennium is to come out
of all this unquiet and chaos. Here's a remark made at a
royal-literary-fund-dinner in England,--as true as I live, in
_England_, and in London at that,--and by Charles Kingsley at
that,--in response to a toast:
"As for imaginative literature," he said, "if the world continued to
go on as it was proceeding, _ladies_ must be called upon to fulfil
this duty. Where would they find among men such poets as Mrs.
Rossetti, Mrs. Jean Ingelow, or Miss A. Procter? Or who could write
such works of prose fiction as the authors of 'John Halifax' or
'Romola'? In former times _men_ only dealt with literature, but the
more delicate the weapon became, the more delicate were the hands
which wielded it. If he could give any advice to young men how they
might escape the trials and troubles that might beset their path in
the literary profession--how escape Whitecross Street prison and the
workhouse--it would be by marrying a literary lady, and setting
himself down to the humble and chivalrous duty of reviewing his wife's
books."
The picture of that sublime bit of majesty, a _British husband_,
performing such a feat, is so impossible to contemplate, that I must
stop, that my readers and myself may take breath.
I am inclined to believe that there are a great many kinds of women,
both in England and America. This idea seems to be lost sight of, by
the writers of both nations, who have lately undertaken to describe
the feminine element, under such titles as "the Girl of the Period,"
or "The Woman of the Time;" presenting to our view monstrosities,
which no doubt exist, but which are no more to be taken specimens of
the whole, than is the Bearded Woman, or the Mammoth Fat Girl.
New York, for instance, is not wholly given over to the feminine
devil. Angels walk our streets, discernible to eyes that _wish_ to
see. Noble, thoughtful, earnest women; sick of shams and pretence;
striving each so far as in her lies, to abate both, and to diminish
the amount of physical and moral suffering. Then, I never go into the
country for a few weeks' summer holiday, that I do not find
large-hearted, large-brained women, stowed away among the green
hills, in little cottages, which are glorified inside and outside by
their presence; women who, amid the press of house and garden work,
find time for mental culture; whose little book-shelves hold well-read
copies of our best authors. Women--sound physically, mentally,
morally; women, whom the _Man of the Period_, who most surely exists,
has never found. Now and then, some man, fit to be her mate, in his
rambles in the sweet summer time, is struck as I am by these gems
hidden amid the green hills, and appropriates them for his own. But
for the most part, the more sensible a man is, the bigger the fool he
marries. This is especially true of biographers! What a wrong, then,
to the great army of sensible, earnest women in either country to pick
out a butterfly as the national type. Because a few men in New York
and London and Paris wear corsets, and dye their whiskers and hair,
and pad out their hollow cheeks and shrunken calves, it does not
follow that Victor Hugo, and John Bright, and the great army of brave
men who won our late victory, are all popinjays. For every female fool
I will find you a male mate. So when the inventory of the former is
taken, the roll-call of the latter might as well be voiced. Are women
so "fond of gossip"? Pray, what is the staple of after-dinner
conversation when the wine comes on and the women go off? Do women
"lavish money on personal adornment"? How many men are there who would
be willing to tell on what, and on whom, their money was worse than
lavished? Do women "leave their nursery altogether to hirelings"? How
many corresponding men are there, whose own children under their own
roofs, are almost entire strangers to their club-frequenting fathers?
And yet what good, noble men are to be seen for the looking? Faithful
to their trusts, faithful to themselves, unmoved by the waves of folly
and sin that dash around them, as is the rock of Gibraltar.
I claim that justice be done by these writers on both sides of the
water, to both sexes. Fools, like the poor, we shall have always with
us; but, thank God, the "just" man and the "just" woman "still live"
to redeem the race. Men worthy to be fathers, and large-brained women,
who do not even in this degenerate day, disdain to look well after
their own households.
* * * * *
It is but seldom that a child needs the rod, especially if taken from
the time it is able to understand language, and firmly yet kindly
treated, and given to know that No and Yes _mean_ No and Yes, without
any shadow of turning. It is a question, too, whether those who have
unfortunately _come up_, instead of being judiciously _brought up_,
are ever made better by harshness, under the name of discipline.
_ENGLISH NOTIONS ABOUT WOMEN._
Our neighbors over the water, judging from an article in one of their
leading papers, seem to be greatly exercised at present on "The Woman
Question." The old model Englishwoman who sneezed exactly at the same
hour her great grandmother did, and sat down, and rose up, and went
out, and came in whenever her husband bade her,--and made no
objection, at the same time, to any irregularity either in his hours
or habits,--it seems, has disappeared. Instead, we have that
horror,--the English female-physician; the English female would-be
voter; in short, the English female who asserts her right to
individuality, in action and opinion, equally with her husband.
John Bull sets down his mug of beer, and says that the thing is
monstrous. He says that he no longer can lounge off by himself, as in
bachelor days, although he is a married--and, therefore, a more
important--member of society. He says that he is not allowed, as
formerly, to spend every evening with his bachelor cronies,--Tom,
Dick, and Harry. He says that his wife positively expects him to act
as if he were married. He says that, when he tells her decidedly that
he wont do this, that she pays no more attention to this refusal than
as if he hadn't made it; but quietly returns to the same point of
disputation the next day, and every day, and every month, and all
through the year, with a terrible and feline pertinacity. He says that
it is like the slow dropping of water on some sensitive part of the
frame; he says he don't like it, and don't know what to do about it.
He says, besides, that marriage is not at all favorable to largeness
of mind, or breadth of view, which is very obvious, in his own case,
in the remarks above quoted! He says that all she says and does "has
the stamp of Lilliput;" and that should she even have the right of
suffrage, she would barter away her vote for a new gown. He says
justice is a quality unknown to woman; which is very true, and I want
him to understand that is just what she is contending for. He says, to
make a long matter short, that when he married he expected to live
just exactly the same life that he did before, and that he finds he
can't; and, moreover, he says, with a sweeping wave of his John Bull
hand, that no husband was ever made more large-hearted, or tolerant,
or in any way benefited by marriage.
Now if a man will marry, with such absurd ideas of what marriage ought
to be, and if he will marry a _fool_, I advise him not to go whining
round the world about it: he deserves the consequences. But let him
not insist that _all_ women are fools, because he got on his knees to
obtain one. I will always maintain that there are twenty bad husbands
to one bad wife; and that, that one would seldom continue bad if her
husband were just and kind to her. As to marriage "narrowing a man's
mind," that which never had any breadth cannot be narrowed. And
history abundantly shows how wise in counsel, how judicious in
influence, how helpful in sympathy and co-operation have been many
such wives.
Now it is often said that a wife, to a literary man, is only a
hindrance. Provided she is not a fool, it would pay him, in my
opinion, to give her a regular salary, if he could not obtain it
otherwise, to give him the _feminine side_ of every great question of
the day, as it comes up--which by the way, she does unconsciously, and
which has anything but a "narrowing" effect either on his mind or his
writings, whether he acknowledges it or not.
It is no small thing to be able to toss her a book and say, "I want to
know what is in that book, but I haven't time to read it; run it over,
will you, and tell me what you think of it?"--or to get from her the
condensation of newspapers, magazines, and pamphlets, in the same way;
or translations; or to have her assistance in answering letters,
without prompting, when pressed for time; to ask her where such and
such a passage may be found in certain authors, which have escaped
_his_ memory. Is contact with such a woman narrowing?
It is horrible for a man of sense to be yoked to a fool, and _vice
versa_. No one denies it. But the whole kernel of the woman matter is
just this: Men no longer are what they were. There _are_ no _young_
men now. Before they have ceased to be young men, the majority of
them, by a total disregard of Nature's laws, have unfitted themselves
for contact with, and companionship and appreciation of, pure, _good_
women. It is as if a baby should be fed from birth with highly-spiced
condiments; and then, at maturity, be expected to have a relish for
pure, wholesome food. The fault is _not_ in women, but in the men, who
bring to the healthful, simple, sweet pleasures of matrimony, diseased
minds and dilapidated bodies.
It is perfectly amazing the quantity of insulting advice volunteered
in this day to women. Now here is an extract, I am happy to say, in
this instance, from an English journal; the land, _par excellence_, of
wife-beating, and kindred abominations in "high" and "low" life, in
which the wife is advised if she would "wind her husband around her
finger,"--though why that amusement is particularly desirable I fail
to see,--if she would do this, "she must carefully study the
cookery-book; so that his meals need not be monotonous." How many of
his children she must attend to, during this interesting perusal, and
while perfecting the results of such study, our writer does not state;
nor does he throw any light upon the question--whether, when this
delicate animal is gorged like the anaconda, he will, as does the
anaconda, go immediately into a state of stupor, and be comparatively
harmless until other re-enforcements are needed.
Also he tells the wife that "opposition and contradiction always make
him furious; then he stamps and roars and becomes dangerous: she must
by all means avoid that." It is so strange, this Solomon says, "that
when a wife _knows_ that a certain line of conduct is sure to produce
this effect, she will do it, though victory is easy provided"--well,
in short, provided she allows him to stamp and roar and become
dangerous, like his son Tommy, when he can't have another stick of
candy, and whom he himself would severely punish, for imitating his
gentlemanly papa.
Are there no lines of conduct a husband persistently pursues towards
his wife, though he "knows they are sure to wound and give offence?"
And would he think "stamping and roaring and being dangerous" any
excuse for a dislike of it? Is the man who sends his dear little child
for that which will intoxicate him, or takes that child to bar-rooms
and drinking-places to obtain it, never to be remonstrated with by the
mother, lest he should be "angry"? Is the man who allows his relatives
constantly to interfere with and slander his wife, who never write him
letters without containing sly insinuations, intended--howsoever they
may fail--to disturb conjugal and family harmony; who institute a
court of inquiry into family expenses, probable journeys, &c.,
location of residence, and insist upon all these things being settled
according to _their_ means and standard, is this husband never to be
told that such interference is insufferable, "because he will be
angry"?
Is there a husband living who would permit a wife's father or brother
to insist on managing his business affairs in such a clandestine,
down-cellar, surreptitious manner through the wife? If he preferred
going to spend the summer at one place rather than another, how would
he like that matter settled by a conclave of his wife's relatives, and
determined by _their_ probable locality? I do not say that the latter,
too, has not happened. In either case, it is a monstrous impertinence,
and to be resented. I might multiply other instances of abuse to
women, but these will suffice.
_Let men, above all, ask themselves with regard to women--to
wives--this question--and answer it in a manly, honest manner, whether
it is condemnatory of their own "line of conduct" or the contrary:
Should I be willing to endure what I expect my wife to bear, were I a
woman and a wife?_ If not--is it just, or right, or manly, then, for
me to expect it of her?
It is needless to say that this is the last question asked; and this
is the root of all the evil. This making by men a broad easy road of
license for themselves, while women are clogged, fettered, penned in,
worried, harassed and unjustly treated, till even they--"become
dangerous." And though the author above quoted seems to entertain no
such possibility, our lunatic asylums and tomb-stones, if they stated
the actual causes of insanity and death, might convince the most
skeptical.
* * * * *
There is a kind of sentimental preaching to which an audience is
sometimes treated, which is very repulsive to the hearty, sincere
worshipper. Preaching which is full of poetical quotations; preaching
where some of the words are clipped of their syllables, and others
_chewed_, so to speak, indefinitely. Egotistical, drawling preaching,
under which people go to sleep, or smile derisively, according to
their humor; but from which none come away with the good seed which
will spring up and bear fruit a hundred-fold. Essay preaching--walking
gingerly round duty, and flattering self-love; milk-and-water
preaching--colorless, flavorless, and thin.
_RAG-TAG AND BOB-TAIL FASHIONS._
When I say that the street-dress of the majority of _respectable_
women of New York today is disgusting, I but feebly express my
emotions. I say the _respectable_ women, and yet, save to those who
know them to be such, their appearance leaves a wide margin for doubt.
The clown at a circus wears not a more stunning or parti-colored
costume; in fact, his has the advantage of being sufficiently
"taut,"--to use a nautical phrase,--not to interfere with locomotion;
while theirs--what with disgusting humps upon their backs, and big
rosettes upon their sides and shoulders, and loops, and folds, and
buttons, and tassels, and clasps, and bows upon their skirts, and
striped satin petticoats, all too short to hide often clumsy
ankles,--and more colors and shades of colors heaped upon one poor
little fashion-ridden body than ever were gathered in one rainbow--and
all this worn without regard to temperature, or time, or place--I say
this presents a spectacle which is too disheartening even to be
comical.