Women have been the slaves of slaves; and in my judgment it took
millions of ages for woman to come from the condition of abject slavery
up to the institution of marriage. Let me say right here, that I regard
marriage as the holiest institution among men. Without the fireside
there is no human advancement; without the family relation there is no
life worth living. Every good government is made up of good families.
The unit of good government is the family, and anything that tends to
destroy the family is perfectly devilish and infamous. I believe in
marriage, and I hold in utter contempt the opinions of those long-haired
men and short-haired women who denounce the institution of marriage.
The grandest ambition that any man can possibly have, is to so live, and
so improve himself in heart and brain, as to be worthy of the love of
some splendid woman; and the grandest ambition of any girl is to make
herself worthy of the love and adoration of some magnificent man. That
is my idea. There is no success in life without love and marriage. You
had better be the emperor of one loving and tender heart, and she the
empress of yours, than to be king of the world. The man who has really
won the love of one good woman in this world, I do not care if he dies
in the ditch a beggar, his life has been a success.
I say it took millions of years to come from the condition of abject
slavery up to the condition of marriage. Ladies, the ornaments you
wear upon your persons to-night are but the souvenirs of your mother's
bondage. The chains around your necks, and the bracelets clasped upon
your white arms by the thrilled hand of love, have been changed by the
wand of civilization from iron to shining, glittering gold.
But nearly every religion has accounted for all the devilment in this
world by the crime of woman. What a gallant thing that is! And if it
is true, I had rather live with the woman I love in a world full of
trouble, than to live in heaven with nobody but men.
I read in a book--and I will say now that I cannot give the exact
language, as my memory does not retain the words, but I can give the
substance--I read in a book that the Supreme Being concluded to make a
world and one man; that he took some nothing and made a world and one
man, and put this man in a garden. In a little while he noticed that
the man got lonesome; that he wandered around as if he was waiting for
a train. There was nothing to interest him; no news; no papers; no
politics; no policy; and, as the devil had not yet made his appearance,
there was no chance for reconciliation; not even for civil service
reform. Well, he wandered about the garden in this condition, until
finally the Supreme Being made up his mind to make him a companion.
Having used up all the nothing he originally took in making the world
and one man, he had to take a part of the man to start a woman with. So
he caused a sleep to fall on this man--now understand me, I do not say
this story is true. After the sleep fell upon this man, the Supreme
Being took a rib, or as the French would call it, a cutlet, out of this
man, and from that he made a woman. And considering the amount of raw
material used, I look upon it as the most successful job ever performed.
Well, after he got the woman done, she was brought to the man; not to
see how she liked him, but to see how he liked her. He liked her, and
they started housekeeping; and they were told of certain things they
might do and of one thing they could not do--and of course they did it.
I would have done it in fifteen minutes, and I know it. There wouldn't
have been an apple on that tree half an hour from date, and the limbs
would have been full of clubs. And then they were turned out of the park
and extra policemen were put on to keep them from getting back.
Devilment commenced. The mumps, and the measles, and the whooping-cough,
and the scarlet fever started in their race for man. They began to have
the toothache, roses began to have thorns, snakes began to have poisoned
teeth, and people began to divide about religion and politics, and the
world has been full of trouble from that day to this.
Nearly all of the religions of this world account for the existence of
evil by such a story as that!
I read in another book what appeared to be an account of the same
transaction. It was written about four thousand years before the other.
All commentators agree that the one that was written last was the
original, and that the one that was written first was copied from the
one that was written last. But I would advise you all not to allow your
creed to be disturbed by a little matter of four or five thousand years.
In this other story, Brahma made up his mind to make the world and a man
and woman. He made the world, and he made the man and then the woman,
and put them on the island of Ceylon. According to the account it was
the most beautiful island of which man can conceive. Such birds, such
songs, such flowers and such verdure! And the branches of the trees
were so arranged that when the wind swept through them every tree was a
thousand AEolian harps.
Brahma, when he put them there, said: "Let them have a period of
courtship, for it is my desire and will that true love should forever
precede marriage." When I read that, it was so much more beautiful and
lofty than the other, that I said to myself, "If either one of these
stories ever turns out to be true, I hope it will be this one."
Then they had their courtship, with the nightingale singing, and the
stars shining, and the flowers blooming, and they fell in love. Imagine
that courtship! No prospective fathers or mothers-in-law; no prying and
gossiping neighbors; nobody to say, "Young man, how do you expect to
support her?" Nothing of that kind. They were married by the Supreme
Brahma, and he said to them: "Remain here; you must never leave this
island." Well, after a little while the man--and his name was Adami, and
the woman's name was Heva--said to Heva: "I believe I'll look about a
little." He went to the northern extremity of the island where there was
a little narrow neck of land connecting it with the mainland, and the
devil, who is always playing pranks with us, produced a mirage, and when
he looked over to the mainland, such hills and vales, such dells and
dales, such mountains crowned with snow, such cataracts clad in bows of
glory did he see there, that he went back and told Heva: "The country
over there is a thousand times better than this; let us migrate." She,
like every other woman that ever lived, said: "Let well enough alone; we
have all we want; let us stay here." But he said "No, let us go;" so she
followed him, and when they came to this narrow neck of land, he took
her on his back like a gentleman, and carried her over. But the moment
they got over they heard a crash, and looking back, discovered that this
narrow neck of land had fallen into the sea. The mirage had disappeared,
and there were naught but rocks and sand; and then the Supreme Brahma
cursed them both to the lowest hell.
Then it was that the man spoke,--and I have liked him ever since for
it--"Curse me, but curse not her, it was not her fault, it was mine."
That's the kind of man to start a world with.
The Supreme Brahma said: "I will save her, but not thee." And then she
spoke out of her fullness of love, out of a heart in which there was
love enough to make all her daughters rich in holy affection, and said:
"If thou wilt not spare him, spare neither me; I do not wish to live
without him; I love him." Then the Supreme Brahma said--and I have liked
him ever since I read it--"I will spare you both and watch over you and
your children forever."
Honor bright, is not that the better and grander story?
And from that same book I want to show you what ideas some of these
miserable heathen had; the heathen we are trying to convert. We send
missionaries over yonder to convert heathen there, and we send soldiers
out on the plains to kill heathen here. If we can convert the heathen,
why not convert those nearest home? Why not convert those we can get at?
Why not convert those who have the immense advantage of the example of
the average pioneer? But to show you the men we are trying to convert:
In this book it says: "Man is strength, woman is beauty; man is courage,
woman is love. When the one man loves the one woman and the one woman
loves the one man, the very angels leave heaven and come and sit in that
house and sing for joy."
They are the men we are converting. Think of it! I tell you, when I read
these things, I say that love is not of any country; nobility does not
belong exclusively to any race, and through all the ages, there have
been a few great and tender souls blossoming in love and pity.
In my judgment, the woman is the equal of the man. She has all the
rights I have and one more, and that is the right to be protected. That
is my doctrine. You are married; try and make the woman you love happy.
Whoever marries simply for himself will make a mistake; but whoever
loves a woman so well that he says "I will make her happy," makes no
mistake. And so with the woman who says, "I will make him happy." There
is only one way to be happy, and that is to make somebody else so, and
you cannot be happy by going cross lots; you have got to go the regular
turnpike road.
If there is any man I detest, it is the man who thinks he is the head
of a family--the man who thinks he is "boss!" The fellow in the dug-out
used that word "boss;" that was one of his favorite expressions.
Imagine a young man and a young woman courting, walking out in the
moonlight, and the nightingale singing a song of pain and love, as
though the thorn touched her heart--imagine them stopping there in the
moonlight and starlight and song, and saying, "Now, here, let us settle
who is 'boss!'" I tell you it is an infamous word and an infamous
feeling--I abhor a man who is "boss," who is going to govern in his
family, and when he speaks orders all the rest to be still as some
mighty idea is about to be launched from his mouth. Do you know I
dislike this man unspeakably?
I hate above all things a cross man. What right has he to murder the
sunshine of a day? What right has he to assassinate the joy of life?
When you go home you ought to go like a ray of light--so that it will,
even in the night, bursty out of the doors and windows and illuminate
the darkness. Some men think their mighty brains have been in a turmoil;
they have been thinking about who will be alderman from the fifth ward;
they have been thinking about politics; great and mighty questions have
been engaging their minds; they have bought calico at five cents or six,
and want to sell it for seven. Think of the intellectual strain that
must have been upon that man, and when he gets home everybody else in
the house must look out for his comfort. A woman who has only taken care
of five or six children, and one or two of them sick, has been nursing
them and singing to them, and trying to make one yard of cloth do the
work of two, she, of course, is fresh and fine and ready to wait upon
this gentleman--the head of the family--the boss!
Do you know another thing? I despise a stingy man. I do not see how
it is possible for a man to die worth fifty million of dollars, or ten
million of dollars, in a city full of want, when he meets almost every
day the withered hand of beggary and the white lips of famine. How a man
can withstand all that, and hold in the clutch of his greed twenty or
thirty million of dollars, is past my comprehension. I do not see how he
can do it. I should not think he could do it any more than he could keep
a pile of lumber on the beach, where hundreds and thousands of men were
drowning in the sea.
Do you know that I have known men who would trust their wives with their
hearts and their honor but not with their pocketbook; not with a dollar.
When I see a man of that kind, I always think he knows which of these
articles is the most valuable. Think of making your wife a beggar! Think
of her having to ask you every day for a dollar, or for two dollars or
fifty cents! "What did you do with that dollar I gave you last week?"
Think of having a wife that is afraid of you! What kind of children do
you expect to have with a beggar and a coward for their mother? Oh,
I tell you if you have but a dollar in the world, and you have got to
spend it, spend it like a king; spend it as though it were a dry leaf
and you the owner of unbounded forests! That's the way to spend it! I
had rather be a beggar and spend my last dollar like a king, than be a
king and spend my money like a beggar! If it has got to go, let it go!
Get the best you can for your family--try to look as well as you can
yourself. When you used to go courting, how elegantly you looked! Ah,
your eye was bright, your step was light, and you looked like a prince.
Do you know that it is insufferable egotism in you to suppose a woman
is going to love you always looking as slovenly as you can! Think of
it! Any good woman on earth will be true to you forever when you do your
level best.
Some people tell me, "Your doctrine about loving, and wives, and all
that, is splendid for the rich, but it won't do for the poor." I tell
you to-night there is more love in the homes of the poor than in the
palaces of the rich. The meanest hut with love in it is a palace fit for
the gods, and a palace without love is a den only fit for wild beasts.
That is my doctrine! You cannot be so poor that you cannot help
somebody. Good nature is the cheapest commodity in the world; and love
is the only thing that will pay ten per cent, to borrower and lender
both. Do not tell me that you have got to be rich! We have a false
standard of greatness in the United States. We think here that a man
must be great, that he must be notorious; that he must be extremely
wealthy, or that his name must be upon the putrid lips of rumor. It is
all a mistake. It is not necessary to be rich or to be great, or to be
powerful, to be happy. The happy man is the successful man.
Happiness is the legal tender of the soul.
Joy is wealth.
A little while ago, I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon--a
magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a dead deity--and
gazed upon the sarcophagus of rare and nameless marble, where rest at
last the ashes of that restless man. I leaned over the balustrade and
thought about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world.
I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine, contemplating suicide.
I saw him at Toulon--I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of
Paris--I saw him at the head of the army of Italy--I saw him crossing
the bridge of Lodi with the tri-color in his hand--I saw him in Egypt in
the shadows of the pyramids--I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the
eagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I saw him at Marengo--at
Ulm and Austerlitz. I saw him in Russia, where the infantry of the snow
and the cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's
withered leaves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster--driven by
a million bayonets back upon Paris--clutched like a wild beast--banished
to Elba. I saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his
genius. I saw him upon the frightful field of Waterloo, where Chance and
Fate combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king. And I saw him
at St. Helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the
sad and solemn sea.
I thought of the orphans and widows he had made--of the tears that
had been shed for his glory, and of the only woman who ever loved him,
pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition. And I said I would
rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes. I would rather
have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes
growing purple in the kisses of the autumn sun. I would rather have been
that poor peasant with my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day
died out of the sky--with my children upon my knees and their arms about
me--I would rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless
silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial
impersonation of force and murder, known as "Napoleon the Great."
It is not necessary to be great to be happy; it is not necessary to
be rich to be just and generous and to have a heart filled with divine
affection. No matter whether you are rich or poor, treat your wife as
though she were a splendid flower, and she will fill your life with
perfume and with joy.
And do you know, it is a splendid thing to think that the woman you
really love will never grow old to you. Through the wrinkles of time,
through the mask of years, if you really love her, you will always see
the face you loved and won. And a woman who really loves a man does not
see that he grows old; he is not decrepit to her; he does not tremble;
he is not old; she always sees the same gallant gentleman who won her
hand and heart. I like to think of it in that way; I like to think that
love is eternal. And to love in that way and then go down the hill
of life together, and as you go down, hear, perhaps, the laughter of
grandchildren, while the birds of joy and love sing once more in the
leafless branches of the tree of age.
I believe in the fireside. I believe in the democracy of home. I believe
in the republicanism of the family. I believe in liberty, equality and
love.