the meeting of his sect. He walks with light, short, jaunty steps, his
head a little on one side. He is dressed in black shiny raiment, and
a wide-brimmed felt hat covers his head: it is the uniform of piety in
England. He wears all the imaginable symbols of English goodness,
including a brand-new piece of blue ribbon in his buttonhole; and he
carries his indispensable umbrella in his hand. The umbrella is the
_fidus Achates_ of every true-born Briton. You will never see one of
them so lost to the sense of propriety as to carry a walking-stick to
these meetings of male and female cherubim.
Does he enter into conversation? he _trusts_ you are pretty well
(pronounced _pooty well_). He will never push his presumption so far
as to imagine that, in this world of trials and sufferings, you can be
quite well. We must not expect too much; we must be content with the
small mercies Providence sends. Does he give you an appointment for
the morrow? "he _hopes_ to have the pleasure of seeing you, if the
Lord will." If you are to meet together to pray, to dine, nay, were it
only to take tea, the invitation invariably bears the proviso, D.V.
This prudent and wise person enters and leaves the tabernacle of the
West-end noiselessly. He would walk upon eggs without breaking them.
He casts right and left little grimaces that are so many forced
smiles; then takes his seat, and says a short prayer in his hands or
in his hat. It is generally in their hats that the Englishmen of Low
Church and dissenting sects address their prayers to Heaven.
The secretary's report of the state of the Association's finances is
read to the audience; some monotonous and endless hymns are sung; and
an edifying conference follows, showing the flourishing condition of
the society, and the benefits it confers upon humanity in general, and
its ministers in particular.
The meeting then breaks up, and at the door, little groups are formed,
a great deal of hand-shaking goes on, accompanied with felicitations
on the subject of the success of the good cause. Here is a sample
conversation that I caught one day in passing, and which I give word
for word:--
1st _Cherub_ (male).--"How do you do, Mrs. Jones? Are you pooty well?"
2nd _Cherub_ (female).--"Pooty well, thank you; are you pooty well?"
1st _Cherub_.--"Pooty well. How is dear Miss Evans? Is she pooty
well?"
3rd _Cherub_ (female).--"Not very well; she has such a bad cold!"
4th _Cherub_ (male).--"Has she really? This is a dreary world, is it
not? Dear soul, I hope she will take care of herself."
5th _Cherub_ (female).--"Glorious meeting, was it not?"
_Chorus._--"Glorious, indeed!"
I make my way to the door of the Hall. The entrance and lobby are
covered with advertisements: the programmes of the performances. In
this steeple-chase of people, who know how to believe in God and make
a snug little income out of it, it is the General of the Salvation
Army that carries off the palm: he announces assets to the amount of
over 350,000 pounds sterling, and an army of 500,000 soldiers, male
and female, well disciplined, and devoted to the cause. He has
outshone Messrs. Moody and Sankey, the American evangelists, who, in
1875, were preaching every evening to London audiences of thirty and
forty thousand persons, and that for months running! It is all over.
Mr. Sankey accompanies himself on a harmonium; the general has big
drums, cymbals and trombones; long live the general! Since the
imprisonment of Miss Booth, in Switzerland, the shares of the
Salvation Army have gone up steadily: there is no more lucrative
profession than that of a martyr, when it is properly carried out ...
and the "General" knows how to _battre la caisse et la remplir_.
As in this weary world, people do not live on the word of life alone,
Exeter Hall keeps a restaurant. I notice the bill of fare, posted up
at the door. This bill of fare fills my soul with sadness and regret.
My illusions vanish; I am no longer in paradise. I had expected
something in this way:--
_Potage alleluia aux flageolets_,
_Petit Agneau sauce Pénitence_,
_Haricots bon jeune homme_,
_Lentilles sauce Esaü_,
_Crême à la Vertu_,
_Soufflé aux petits Anges_,
_Paradise pudding_.
But I was doomed to be disappointed.
VIII.
The Boas of the Aristocracy--The prettiest Women in London--Shop
girls--Barmaids--Actresses and Supernumeraries--Miss Mary Anderson.
According to the account of Lady John Manners, this is how the ladies
of the upper classes in England fare. As this _haulte dame_ should be
an authority on the matter, not only will we accept her statements as
perfectly correct, but we will also profit by her observations to draw
some judicious conclusions.
"In well-appointed sporting country houses," says Lady John
Manners,[3] "before the ladies--indeed, before most of the
gentlemen--leave their beds, dainty little services of tea and
bread-and-butter are carried to them. Sometimes the younger men prefer
brandy and soda. Fortified by these refreshments, the non-sporting
guests come to breakfast about ten. Four hot dishes, every sort of
cold meats that might fitly furnish forth a feast, fruits, cakes, tea,
coffee, cocoa, claret, constitute a satisfactory breakfast, often
prolonged till within two hours and a half of luncheon. The important
institution of luncheon begins at two. Again, the table is spread with
many varieties of flesh and fowl, hot and cold proofs of the cook's
ability, plain puddings for those who study their health, creations in
cream for those who have not yet devoted themselves to that
never-failing source of interest. Coffee is often served after lunch,
which is usually over soon after three. If a shooting party has gone
out, Norwegian stoves, crammed with hot dishes of an appetizing
character, have been despatched to the scene of action. The ladies
gather round the tea-table about five, usually showing much
appreciation of any little surprises in the way of muffins, or
tea-cakes, provided by a thoughtful hostess. When the shooters come
in, some will probably join the ladies, perhaps a few may like a
little champagne, but tea and talk tempt the majority. Dinner is
served at eight or half-past, and two hours more are then spent at
table. After dinner, coffee is brought into the dining-room, while the
gentlemen smoke. It is whispered that some of the ladies enjoy a
post-prandial cigarette. Liqueurs and tea are offered during the
evening, and keep up flagging energies till the ladies ostensibly go
to bed, after a little money has changed hands at poker or loo." The
gentlemen then have whisky, brandy, claret, effervescing waters, and
lemons brought them, to help them support existence till one or two
o'clock in the morning.
[3] _National Review_, March, 1844.
Such is the ordinary of the aristocracy. Quite a choker this ordinary,
is it not?
Now this prodigious voracity seems to account for many things.
But first, it is impossible not to admire the wisdom of Providence in
arming these carnivora, I will not say with tusks of defence, but with
those tusks of attack that betray their nationality in any part of the
world.
We can understand now why English women over forty have shrunken gums;
we can understand now why their poor teeth very sensibly protest
against their superhuman task, and slant outwards, so as to get a
little help from the gums in this gigantic work of mastication; we
understand at last how it is that the eyes of most of the _habituées_
of Rotten Row seem to be starting from their sockets, and you need not
smile, for your eyes would soon do the same, if your digestive
apparatus were kept in perpetual movement of deglutition. It is a
facial panic.
The fact is that, in the fashionable promenade of Hyde Park, you see
very few pretty women. With the exception of some children that
certainly are lovely, the majority of the faces you see in the
carriages are sulky and stupid-looking; they have lobster eyes that
throw you an indifferent and half-dead glance: they are the faces of
digesting boas in a comatose state, the faces of women who seem to
have not a pleasure in life. No smiles, no little graceful gestures of
recognition from one carriage to another: it is Madame Tussaud's
exhibition out for an airing: a solemn and stupid procession.
If you would refresh your eyes with the sight of pretty faces, young,
rosy, plump and fresh,--if you would see them by the hundred, go and
take a stroll, between nine and ten o'clock in the morning, in Regent
Street, Oxford Street, New Bond Street, and Piccadilly. There you will
see the prettiest national produce that John Bull has to show you. The
finest specimens of Englishwomen are the assistants in the great
drapery, bonnet and mantle shops. The English tradesmen of importance,
who know their business, only employ women that are young, pretty, in
face and figure, and well behaved; and the sight of these hundreds of
independent, respectable, and well-mannered girls, going to their
shops every morning, is one of the most refreshing and edifying to be
seen in this immense city.
I have many times accompanied ladies to bonnet shops in the West-end,
where I have sometimes witnessed very amusing little scenes. I have
seen young spinsters of thirty-nine summers, make a pretty shop girl
put on all the hats in the shop, and then go to the glass and try them
on one after another. The disappointed looks of these poor dears were
quite diverting. It is a curious thing, they seemed to say to
themselves, making a wry face the while, none of these hats suit me as
they do that girl! And with what a mischievous, wicked little smile,
those pretty milliners of twenty-five--that pitiless age--said: "Oh!
that hat suits you so beautifully!" I admired the angelic patience
with which they tried the whole stock of the shop upon those ugly
heads. This occupation cannot fail to be often very amusing, and in
the evening, on returning home, what funny stories they must have to
tell each other!
It was in a fashionable milliner's shop in New Bond Street. A
scarecrow in petticoats had just chosen, after an hour's hesitation, a
sweet little white hat, that a girl of twenty would have thought too
childish for herself. Two pretty assistants bowed the lady out with a
very grave look, and closed the door. "I think women ought to expire
at forty, don't you?" said one of them to her companion. And the two
wicked creatures were near exploding with fun.
The fashionable shops are not the only ones that keep a good stock of
nice-looking English girls. Some of the finest specimens are to be
seen in the restaurants and buffets. Messrs. Spiers and Pond have
legions of them under their orders. These magnificent daughters of
Albion are of an inferior social grade, but they are well behaved,
and, for the most part, remarkably handsome. They are not so modest as
to be unable to bear the gaze of the sterner sex, or to allow a few
dandies to have a little flirtation with them over their glass of
wine; but still women who consent to stand behind a counter from ten
in the morning to twelve at night, for a salary of about thirty
shillings a week, are evidently respectable. In the case of a young
and handsome woman, a modest income is a certificate of virtue.
Once more, it is in the theatre that, in default of talented
actresses, you may admire beautiful women. I am bound, however, to
make an exception here in favour of Mrs. Stirling, the greatest
_comédienne_ in England, who, in spite of her talent as a teacher,
will leave no one after her to replace her; of Mrs. Bernard Beere, so
_sympathique_, so refined; of silver-voiced Mrs. Bancroft, so gay, so
sparkling with fun and mischief; of Miss Ellen Terry, so gracefully
youthful, frolicsome, and coaxing; of Mrs. Kendall, the first among
sentimental heroines of the English stage, with her delicacy, pathos,
and irreproachable purity of diction.
With the exception of the actresses just mentioned, you will see very
little to admire on the London stage but pretty women. And, after all,
this is not to be despised; one may pass an evening very agreeably in
looking at pretty faces and fine shoulders, especially after dining _à
l'anglaise_. When you have partaken of the fifth repast spoken of by
Lady John Manners, your intellect is not very exacting. So, I will not
hesitate to advise you, when you come to London, to go and see the
grand spectacular pieces, the Drury Lane pantomimes included, even if
the great impresario (to do him justice, no one knows how to mount a
play as he does) were to mention, in his next advertisements, that I
gave you such advice.
It is impossible to speak of English actresses without mentioning the
beautiful American lady who drew crowds to the Lyceum this year, in
the absence of Mr. Irving and Miss Terry, who were at the time
delighting the Yankees.
Miss Mary Anderson may boldly be proclaimed the champion beauty of the
world.
Her acting is good, but her beauty is such as to make one oblivious
of her talent. Her face is divinely sweet and beautiful; her gaze
ingenuous, her grace indescribable, her sculptural lines classic in
their purity; her proportions perfect: it is a feast for the eyes.
Gérard would not have desired a more chaste or purer model for his
Psyche receiving the first kiss of Cupid.
IX.
The _Demi-monde_--Sly Dogs--The Disreputable World--The Society for
the Protection of Women--Humble Apologies for grave Mistakes.
In a country where, as M. Taine says in his _History of English
Literature_, religion and morality are coins which you must have in
your pocket either good or counterfeit, the _monde où l'on s'amuse_ is
here the _monde où l'on se cache_. The _demi-mondaine_ is not a
prominent personage over here, and the Englishman who glides into her
house at nightfall, with his coat-collar turned up to his ears, and
his hat lowered over his eyes, would never think of taking her to a
theatre or of putting her into his carriage in Hyde Park. For this, I
think he deserves a good mark. Call it hypocrisy if you like; it is
deference to public opinion, and I prefer the vice that hides its head
to the vice that gives itself airs.
I heard with my own ears, a few years ago, in a Parisian
drawing-room, a lady of good society compliment a young man on the
pretty sinner she had seen him with in a box at a theatre. And the
receiver of the compliment seemed mightily pleased. His look said,
"Yes, it is So-and-So, who is on the best of terms with me."
Men do not meet around the dining-table of the English _cocotte_, nor
in her drawing-room. They do not go to her house to have a chat, much
less to pay her court: her sittings are held within closed doors. It
is not Aspasia nor Lais, it is a fine animal of a girl that friend
John pays a visit to, when he has not time to go to Boulogne. He
returns home, and no one, not even his most intimate friend, is the
wiser for his little nocturnal expeditions. Next day, with rosy cheeks
and downcast eyes, he accompanies his mother and sisters to church,
bearing a goodly number of books of devotion under his arm.
Hypocrisy! you will cry. No, it is not. Unless you accept La
Rochefoucauld's definition of hypocrisy: "homage that vice renders to
virtue;" for, thanks to this hypocrisy, the virtuous woman has not in
public to yield her rightful place to the other, who, conscious of her
degradation, keeps in the shade. The virtuous woman can reign, her
rights undisputed; and, in the inner family circle, the conduct of
the young men is rarely a subject of scandal for the ladies, who are
the honour of the house, and who certainly have a right to exact a
little consideration for their feelings.
I know a good Englishman, whose abode is about nine miles distant from
Brighton. Every Saturday he pays a little anonymous visit to this
town.
"What on earth takes you to Brighton every Saturday?" said one of his
sisters laughingly to him one day.
----"My dear child, I go to have my hair cut," replied the sly dog,
without wincing.
Next best to the whole truth, is the truth.
I know another, who, Briton though he be, begins to feel the effects
of the motion of the Ocean, as he invests in a railway ticket at
Charing Cross. Yet this does not prevent his passing a couple of days
at Boulogne about once a fortnight. He has never satisfactorily
explained the reason of these little trips to me. All I know is, that
if you want to tease him, you have only to say to him: "You have been
to Boulogne, I think?" or, "Do you know Boulogne?"
* * * * *
There are no recognised houses of ill-fame in England, a fact of which
the virtuous John is immensely proud. Not that there is much cause for
it. If English law refuses to officially recognise vice and to
regulate it within four walls, it tolerates it in the open air, in the
streets, and above all, in the parks; and I cannot see what public
morality gains by it, unless it be the encouragement to deny, even in
the face of evident facts, something which is not recognised by law,
and the satisfaction of knowing that Nemesis follows the nocturnal
frequenters of the parks, in the shape of colds in the head ... and
the rest. I have spoken elsewhere of the processions of Regent Street
and the Strand, of the fair that is held in the shameless crowd that
swarms about the Haymarket and in the parks, from sunset to two in the
morning. I will not return to the subject; it would be out of place to
dwell long on the matter and enter into sickening details. Thanks to
the efforts of Lord Dalhousie, one of the most popular and intelligent
members of the House of Lords, it is probable that before long one of
the most hideous sights of London--a sight certainly unique in Europe,
will no longer meet the eyes of people unfortunate enough to be out of
doors after nightfall. Lord Dalhousie will, I think, succeed in
passing an Act of Parliament which will close the career of the
streets to girls under sixteen. That will be a grand improvement.
By-the-bye, it is high time that I should repair, whilst I think of
it, a grave error that I committed. I said, alas! I even put it down
in black and white, that there was a Society in England for the
protection of animals, and I was ill-inspired enough to add, "a
Society for the protection of women does not yet exist." Well, it
appears it does. You would never have thought it, would you? Nor I
either. Nothing is more certain, however: this Society has existed for
years, it appears. Consequently, the other day, on taking up my paper,
I was not surprised to see that a London magistrate had not feared to
fine a brute of a husband ten shillings, for having smashed his wife's
head with the tongs.[4] My compliments to a Society that inspires such
terror in a magistrate of the great city. After such an example as
that, few husbands will be opening their wives' heads to see what
there is inside. Let me hasten to make my most humble apologies to the
Society.
[4] See Appendix (b).
All writers of books upon England mention the fact that, in the lower
classes, a man gets rid of a lawful wife for the sum of a few
shillings, and the critics never fail to cry "Exaggeration!"
"Caricature!" Of course I did not escape the usual diatribes on the
subject. I can understand being charged with having exaggerated, for I
have remarked this year in the papers, two cases of wives having been
sold for sixpence and a pint of beer respectively, whereas I had said
that the price of the transaction varied from half-a-crown to ten
shillings.
The article is going down, it is evident.
These cases must be much more frequent than they would appear to be
from newspaper reports. Such transactions are naturally settled by
private contract, and, as the English take very good care to keep at a
respectable distance from these gentry, unique in the world, there is
no means of knowing much about the matter. Now and then, some idiot,
who has got rid of his wife in this unceremonious fashion, is simple
enough to imagine that he can go and marry another directly. Then,
accused of bigamy, he is sent to the Court of Assizes, the papers
publish the case, and the affair thus comes to light.
The other day, a man who had married again after having sold his first
wife, said to his judge: "My former wife is very happy with her new
owner, my Lord; set me free, let me go home to my new wife, and I
promise your Lordship that I will feed her." (_Sic._)
The appeal was a touching one.
The judge condemned him to six months' imprisonment.
Truly his Lordship had no bowels of compassion.
X.
Reflections of an Innocent upon Women in General and Englishwomen
in Particular--Epistle to John Bull--Women's Rights--A Stormy
Meeting--Viragos and other British Guys of the Sisterhood of St.
Catharine.
Woman is an _objet d'art_ to be handled with circumspection, and when
one has a few little truths to say to this last great gift of the
Creator to man, one must set about it carefully, I admit.
Nevertheless, seeing that woman was given to us for our companion,
more or less with our consent, why should we not be able to say to her
politely, amiably, but frankly, addressing her collectively in her
person: Come, ladies, let us see if we cannot arrive at some
understanding. What do you want? I hear you constantly loudly
demanding the emancipation of your sex. You can do without us; and as
for our protection, henceforth you'll none of it. For you, in times
past, have we drawn the sword; to-day you hold us scarce worthy to
draw cheques at your bidding. You would be man's equal, as if you
ought not to be amply content with being incontestably his superior.
You have graces of body and mind, in a word, you are angels, men pay
you a homage that falls little short of worship. Do you crave fresh
duties that you may place man under new obligations? He will go
bankrupt, I assure you. Your first duties are to be tender, true, and
fair to see. You have every intention of continuing to be the latter,
we have no doubt, but you mean to be tender and sweet no longer. You
mean to strike, as your sisters did in the days of Aristophanes. Now,
on what terms will you reinstate us in your good graces? Will you
change lots with us? I do not suppose we should offer much opposition
to that; for if we Frenchmen have the bump of amativeness, we pay
dearly enough for it to prevent our being likely to be proud of it.
Does it not seem to you that, all things considered, you have the more
enviable lot? Dispensers of happiness, have you not the world at your
feet?
You want to be learned? But you are learned, in the heart's lore, by
nature. You want to be free? But we are your slaves confessed. You
want to make the laws? But your lightest word is law already. And
besides, between ourselves, do you not make your husbands vote pretty
much as you please, in the Chamber of Deputies? You want to have more
influence in the higher councils? But are you not satisfied with
knowing that it was a woman who was the cause of the fall of the human
race; that a woman has been the cause of every great catastrophe from
the siege of Troy down to the Franco-Prussian war; that, in a word,
woman has ever inspired our noblest actions and our foulest crimes?
You are proud of saying that to your sex belonged Joan of Arc, Jane
Hachette, Charlotte Corday, Madame de Staël, and George Sand. Quite
true; but, as I have had the honour of telling you before, woman was
intended to be a companion for man. Now could you find me many
gentlemen who would have been happy to take to wife anyone of the
ladies I have just mentioned?
The rights of woman! what a fine phrase! what a pretty farce! what a
sonorous platitude!
No, dear ladies, be not led away by those spectacled blue-stockings
who seek to estrange us from one another. The more you try to resemble
us, the more you lose your charm: electric fluids of the same name
repel one another; electric fluids of opposite kinds attract each
other.
The name of woman will ever be glorious so long as it is synonymous
with beauty, tenderness, sweetness, devotion, all the sacred troop of
virtues; it will be glorious, thanks to the Lucretias, the Penelopes,
the Cornelias, ancient and modern, to the devoted daughters, the
loving wives, the adorable mothers, to the thousands of obscure
heroines who remind us, in the words of the poet of Antiquity, that
the most virtuous women have been those whom the world has heard least
of.
* * * * *