THE 
 
 GIEL OF THE PEEIOD 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 ► 
 
M 
 
 [Repetnted, hy permission, from the Saturday Review] 
 
THE 
 
 GIRL OF THE PERIOD 
 
 AND OTHER 
 
 ^ociaf (&66ap0 
 
 BY 
 
 E. LYNN LINTON 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'THE ATOXE.MEXT OF LEAJVI DUNDAS' ' UXDER WHICH LORD?' 
 ' THE REBEL OF THE PAMH^Y ' ' lONE ' ETC. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON 
 RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STHEBT 
 
 yublisbcrs in ^?rbinarn to Witt UTajcstg Ibc Qnten 
 1883 
 
 [All rights re.iprveil] 
 
LONDON : PRINTED UY 
 
 -POTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUAUK 
 
 AND PARLIAXIF.XT STUEET 
 
TO 
 
 ALL GOOD GIRLS 
 
 AND 
 
 TRUE WOMEN 
 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2009 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/girlofperiodothe01lint 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 So MANY false reports followed the appearance of 
 these essays, that I am grateful to the authorities 
 of the Saturday Review for their present permission 
 to republish them under my own name, even though 
 the best of the day has a little gone by, and other 
 forms of folly have been flying about since these 
 were shot at. The essays hit sharply enough at the 
 time, and caused some ill-blood. ' The Girl of the 
 Period ' was especially obnoxious to many to whom 
 women were the Sacred Sex above criticism and 
 beyond rebuke ; and I had to pay pretty smartly 
 in private life, by those who knew, for what they 
 termed a libel and an untruth. With these passion- 
 ate repudiators on the one hand, on the other were 
 some who, trading on the enforced anonymity of the 
 paper, took spurious credit to themselves for the 
 authorship. I was twice introduced to the 'Writer 
 of the "Girl of the Period." ' The first time he was 
 a clergyman who had boldly told my friends that he 
 had written the paper ; the second, she was a lady of 
 VOL. I. a 
 
viu PREFACE. 
 
 rank well known in London society, and to this 
 hour believed by her own circle to have written this 
 and other of the articles included in the present 
 collection. I confess that, whether for praise or 
 blame, I am glad to be able at last to assume the 
 full responsibility of my own work. 
 
 In re-reading these papers I am more than ever 
 convinced that I have struck the right chord of 
 condemnation, and advocated the best virtues and 
 most valuable characteristics of women. I neither 
 soften nor retract a line of what I have said. One of 
 the modern phases of womanhood — hard, unloving, 
 mercenary, ambitious, without domestic faculty and 
 devoid of healthy natural instincts — is still to me a 
 pitiable mistake and a grave national disaster. And 
 I think now, as I thought when I wrote these papers, 
 that a public and professional life for women is in- 
 compatible with the discharge of their highest duties 
 or the cultivation of their noblest qualities. I think 
 now, as I thought then, that the sphere of human 
 action is determined by the fact of sex, and that 
 there does exist both natural limitation and natural 
 direction. This creed, which summarizes all that I 
 liave said in extenso^ I repeat with emphasis, and 
 maintain with the conviction of long years of ex- 
 perience. 
 
 E. Lynn Linton. 
 
 1883. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE GIRL OF THE PERIOD ....... 1 
 
 MODERN MOTHERS (l.) . . . . . . . . 10 
 
 MODERN MOTHERS (ll.) 19 
 
 PAYING one's shot 27 
 
 WHAT IS woman's WORKI 37 
 
 little women 48 
 
 IDEAL WOMEN 58 
 
 PINCHBECK 69 
 
 AFFRONTED W^OMANHOOD 79 
 
 FEMININE AFFECTATIONS 88 
 
 INTERFERENCE 99 
 
 THE FASHIONABLE WOMAN 109 
 
 SLEEPING DOGS 119 
 
 BEAUTY AND BRAINS 128 
 
 NYMPHS 137 
 
 MESALLIANCES 147 
 
X CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 WEAK SISTERS . .157 
 
 PINCHING SHOES . . .» . . . . . . 167 
 
 SUPERIOR BEINGS 17(3 
 
 FEMININE AMENITIES 184 
 
 GRIM FEMALES . . . . . . . . ,193 
 
 MATURE SIRENS 203 
 
 PUMPKINS . . . . . . . . . .213 
 
 WIDOWS . 223 
 
 DOLLS 234 
 
 CHARMING WOMEN ' . . . 244 
 
 APRON-STRINGS 254 
 
 FINE FEELINGS 264 
 
 SPHINXES 273 
 
 FLIRTING . . . 281 
 
 SCRAMBLERS . . . . . . . . . . 290 
 
 FLATTERY .......... 299 
 
 LA FEMME PASSEE 309 
 
 SPOILT WOMEN 317 
 
 DOVECOTS . ......... 325 
 
 BORED HUSBANDS . . . , . . . . . 335 
 
ESSAYS 
 
 UPON 
 
 SOCIAL SUBJECTS. 
 
 THE GIRL OF THE PERIOD. 
 
 Time was when the phrase, ^a fair young English 
 girl/ meant the ideal of womanhood ; to us, at least, 
 of home birth and breedmg. It meant a creature 
 generous, capable, modest ; something franker than a 
 Frenchwoman, more to be trusted than an Italian, as 
 brave as an American but more refined, as domestic 
 as a German and more graceful. It meant a girl who 
 could be trusted alone if need be, because of the 
 innate purity and dignity of her nature, but who was 
 neither bold in bearing nor masculme in mind ; a 
 girl who, when she married, would be her husband's 
 friend and companion, but never his rival ; one who 
 would consider his interests as identical with her 
 own, and not hold him as just so much fair game for 
 spoil ; who would make his house his true home and 
 place of rest, not a mere passage-place for vanity and 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
2 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 ostentation to pass through ; a tender mother, an 
 industrious housekeeper, a judicious mistress. 
 
 We prided ourselves as a nation on our women. 
 We thought we had the pick of creation in this fair 
 young English girl of ours, and envied no other 
 men their own. We admired the languid grace and 
 subtle fire of the South ; the docility and childlike 
 aflPectionateness of the East seemed to us sweet and 
 simple and restful ; the vivacious sparkle of the trim 
 and sprightly Parisienne was a pleasant little excite- 
 ment when we met with it in its own domain ; but 
 our allegiance never wandered from our brown-haired 
 girls at home, and our hearts were less vagrant than 
 our fancies. This was in the old time, and when 
 English girls were content to be what God and 
 nature had made them. Of late years we have 
 changed the pattern, and have given to the world a 
 race of women as utterly unlike the old insular ideal 
 as if we had created another nation altogether. The 
 Girl of the Period, and the fair young English girl 
 of the past, have nothing in common save ancestry 
 and their mother- tongue ; and even of this last the 
 modern version makes almost a new language, 
 through the copious additions it has received from 
 the current slang of the day. 
 
 The Girl of the Period is a creature who dyes 
 her hair and paints her face, as the first articles of her 
 personal religion — a creature whose sole idea of life is 
 fun; whose sole aim is unbounded luxury; and whose 
 dress is the chief object of such thought and intellect 
 
THE GIRL OF THE PERIOD. 3 
 
 as she possesses. Her main endeavour is to outvie 
 her neighbours in the extravagance of fashion. No 
 matter if, in the time of crinolines, she sacrifices 
 decency ; in the time of trains, cleanliness ; in the 
 time of tied-back skirts, modesty ; no matter either, 
 if she makes herself a nuisance and an inconvenience 
 to every one she meets ; — the Girl of the Period has 
 done away with such moral muffishness as considera- 
 tion for others, or regard for counsel and rebuke. It 
 was all very well in old-fashioned times, when fathers 
 and mothers had some authority and were treated 
 with respect, to be tutored and made to obey, but 
 she is far too fast and flourishing to be stopped in 
 mid-career by these slow old morals ; and as she 
 lives to please herself, she does not care if she dis- 
 pleases every one else. 
 
 Nothing is too extraordinary and nothing too 
 exaggerated for her vitiated taste ; and things which 
 in themselves would be useful reforms if let alone 
 become monstrosities w^orse than those which they 
 have displaced so soon as she begins to manipulate 
 and improve. If a sensible fashion lifts the gown 
 out of the mud, she raises hers midway to her knee. 
 If the absurd structure of wire and buckram, once 
 called a bonnet, is modified to something that shall 
 protect the wearer's face without putting out the 
 eyes of her companion, she cuts hers down to four 
 straws and a rosebud, or a tag of lace and a bunch of 
 glass beads. If there is a reaction against an excess 
 of Rowland's Macassar, and hair shiny and sticky 
 
 B 2 
 
4 SATUEDAY M0P.^^1S^GS. 
 
 with grease is thought less nice than if left clean and 
 healthily crisp, she dries and frizzes and sticks hers 
 out on end like certam savages in Africa, or lets it 
 wander down her back like Madge Wildfire's, and 
 thmks herself all the more beautiful the nearer she 
 approaches in look to a negress or a maniac. 
 
 With purity of taste she has lost also that far 
 more precious purity and delicacy of perception 
 which sometimes mean more than appears on the 
 surface. What the demi'inonde does in its frantic 
 efforts to excite attention, she also does in imitation. 
 If some fashionable devergondee en evidence is re- 
 ported to have come out with her dress below her 
 shoulder-blades, and a gold strap for all the sleeve 
 thought necessary, the Girl of the Period follows 
 suit next day ; and then she wonders that men some- 
 times mistake her for her prototype, or that mothers 
 of gh4s not quite so far gone as herself refuse her as 
 a companion for their daughters. She has blunted 
 the fine edges of feeling so much that she cannot 
 understand why she should be condemned for an 
 imitation of form which does not include imitation 
 of fact. She cannot be made to see that modesty of 
 appearance and virtue in deed ought to be inseparable; 
 and that no good girl can afford to appear bad, 
 under pain of receiving the contempt awarded to the 
 bad. 
 
 This imitation of the demi-monde in dress leads to 
 something m manner and feeling, not quite so pro- 
 nounced perhaps, but far too like to be honourable to 
 
THE GIRL OF THE PERIOD. 5 
 
 herself or satisfactory to her friends. It leads to 
 slang, bold talk and general fastness ; to the love of 
 pleasure and indifference to duty ; to the desire of 
 money before either love or happiness ; to useless- 
 ness at home, dissatisfaction with the monotony of 
 ordinary life, horror of all useful work ; in a word, 
 to the worst forms of luxury and selfishness — to the 
 most fatal effects arising from want of high principle 
 and absence of tender feeling. 
 
 The Girl of the Period envies the queens of the 
 demi-monde far more than she abhors them. She 
 sees them gorgeously attired and sumptuously ap- 
 pointed, and she knows them to be flattered, feted, 
 and courted with a certam disdainful admiration of 
 which she catches only the admiration while she 
 ignores the disdain. They have all that for which 
 her soul is hungering ; and she never stops to 
 reflect at what a price they have bought their gains, 
 and what fearful moral penalties they pay for their 
 sensuous pleasures. She sees only the coarse gild- 
 ing on the base token, and shuts her eyes to the 
 hideous figure in the midst and the foul legend 
 written round the edge. It is this envy of the plea- 
 sures, and indifference to the sins, of these women 
 of the demi-monde which is doing such iufinite mis- 
 chief to the modern girl. They brush too closely 
 by each other, if not in actual deeds, yet in aims 
 and feelings ; for the luxury which is bought by 
 vice mth the one is that thing of aU in life most 
 passionately desired by the other, though she is not 
 
6' SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 yet prepared to pay quite the same price. Un- 
 fortunately, she has already paid too much — all that 
 once gave her distinctive national character. 
 
 No one can say of the modern English girl that 
 she is tender, loving, retiring or domestic. The 
 old fault so often found by keen- sighted French- 
 women, that she was so fatally romanesqae^ so prone 
 to sacrifice appearances and social advantages for 
 love, will never be set against the Girl of the Period. 
 Love indeed is the last thing she thinks of, and 
 the least of the dano^ers besettino^ her. Love in a 
 cottage — that seductive dream which used to vex 
 the heart and disturb the calculations of the prudent 
 mother — is now a myth of past ages. The legal 
 barter of herself for so much money, representing 
 so much dash, so much luxury and pleasure — that 
 is her idea of marriage ; the only idea worth enter- 
 taming. For all seriousness of thought respecting 
 the duties or the consequences of marriage, she has 
 not a trace. If children come, they find but a step- 
 mother's cold welcome from her ; and if her husband 
 thinks that he has married anything that is to belong 
 to him — a tacens et placens uxor pledged to make him 
 happy — the sooner he wakes from his hallucination 
 and understands that he has simply married some one 
 who will condescend to spend his money on herself, 
 and who will shelter her indiscretions behind the shield 
 of his name, the less severe will be his disappoint- 
 ment. She has married his house, his carriage, his 
 balance at the banker's, his title ; and he himself is 
 
THE GIRL OF THE PERIOD. 7 
 
 just the inevitable condition clogging the wheel of 
 her fortune ; at best an adjunct, to be tolerated with 
 more or less patience as may chance. For it is only 
 the old-fashioned sort, not Girls of the Period pur 
 sang^ who marry for love, or put the husband before 
 the banker. But the Girl of the Period does not 
 marry easily. Men are afraid of her ; and with 
 reason. They may amuse themselves with her for 
 an evening, but they do not readily take her for life. 
 Besides, after all her efforts, she is only a poor copy 
 of the real thing ; and the real thing is far more 
 amusing than the copy, because it is real. Men can 
 get that whenever they like ; and when they go into 
 their mothers' drawing-rooms, with their sisters and 
 their sisters' friends, they want something of quite a 
 different flavour. Toujours perdrix is bad providing 
 all the world over ; but a continual weak imitation 
 of toujours perdrix is worse. 
 
 If we must have only one kind of thing, let us 
 have it genuine, and the queens of St. John's Wood 
 in their unblushing honesty rather than their imita- 
 tors and make-believes in Bayswater and Belgravia. 
 For, at whatever cost of shocked self-love or pained 
 modesty it may be, it cannot be too plainly told to 
 the modern English girl that the net result of her 
 present manner of life is to assimilate her as nearly 
 as possible to a class of women Avhom we must not 
 call by their proper — or improper — name. And we 
 are willing to believe that she has still some modesty 
 of soul left hidden under all this effrontery of fashion. 
 
8 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 and that, if she could be made to see herself as she 
 appears to the eyes of men, she would mend her ways 
 before too late. 
 
 It is terribly significant of the present state of 
 things when men are free to write as they do of the 
 women of their own nation. Every word of censure 
 flung against them is two-edged, and wounds those 
 who condemn as much as those who are condemned ; 
 for surely it need hardly be said that men hold 
 nothing so dear as the honour of their women, and 
 that no one living would wilhngly lower the repute of 
 his mother or his sisters. It is only when these have 
 placed themselves beyond the pale of masculine re- 
 spect that such things could be written as are written 
 now. When women become again what they were 
 once they mil gather round them the love and 
 homage and chivalrous devotion which were then an 
 Englishwoman's natural inheritance. 
 
 The marvel in the present fashion of life among 
 women is, how it holds its ground in spite of the 
 disapprobation of men. It used to be an old-thne 
 notion that the sexes were made for each other, and 
 that it was only natural for them to please each 
 other, and to set themselves out for that end. But 
 the Girl of the Period does not please men. She 
 pleases them as little as she elevates them ; and how 
 little she does that, the class of women she has taken 
 as her models of itself testifies. All men whose 
 opinion is worth having prefer the simple and 
 genuine girl of the past, with her tender little ways 
 
THE GIEL OF THE PERIOD. 9 
 
 and pretty bashful modesties, to this loud and ram- 
 pant modernization, with her false red hair and 
 painted skin, talking slang as glibly as a man, and 
 by preference leading the conversation to doubtful 
 subjects. She thinks she is piquante and exciting 
 when she thus makes herself the bad copy of a worse 
 original ; and she will not see that though men laugh 
 with her they do not respect her, though they flirt 
 with her they do not marry her ; she will not believe 
 that she is not the kind of thing they want, and that 
 she is acting against nature and her own interests 
 when she disregards their advice and offends theu' 
 taste. We do not understand how she makes out her 
 account, viewing her life from any side ; but all we 
 can do is to wait patiently until the national madness 
 has passed, and our women have come back again to 
 the old English ideal, once the most beautiful, the 
 most modest, the most essentially womanly in the 
 world. 
 
10 SATURDAY MORNINGS, 
 
 MODERN MOTHERS. 
 
 No human aifection has been so passionately praised 
 as maternal love, and none is supposed to be so holy 
 or so strong. Even the poetic aspect of that instinct 
 which inspires the young with their dearest dreams 
 does not rank so high as this ; and neither lover's 
 love nor conjugal love, neither filial affection nor 
 fraternal, comes near the sanctity or grandeur of the 
 maternal instinct. But all women are not equally 
 rich in this great gift ; and, to judge by appearances, 
 English women are at this moment wonderfully poor. 
 It may seem a harsh thing to say, but it is none the 
 less true : — society has put maternity out of fashion, 
 and the nursery is nme times out of ten a place of 
 punishment, not of pleasure, to the modern mother. 
 
 Two points connected with this subject are of 
 growing importance at this present time — the one is 
 the increasing disinclination of married women to be 
 mothers at all ; the other, the large number of those 
 who, being mothers, will not, or cannot, nurse their 
 own children. In the mad race after pleasure and 
 
MODERN MOTHERS. 11 
 
 excitement now going on through English society 
 the tender duties of motherhood have become simply 
 disagreeable restraints, and the old feeling of the 
 blessing attending the quiver fall is exchanged for 
 one the very reverse. With some of the more intel- 
 lectual and less instinctive sort, maternity is looked 
 on as a kind of degradation ; and women of this 
 stamp, sensible enough in everything else, talk im- 
 patiently among themselves of the base necessities 
 laid on them by men and nature, and how hateful to 
 them is everything connected with their characteristic 
 duties. 
 
 This wild revolt against nature, and specially 
 this abhorrence of maternity, is carried to a still 
 greater extent by American women; with grave 
 national consequences resulting ; but though we have 
 not yet reached the Transatlantic limit, the state 
 of feminine feeling and physical condition among 
 ourselves will disastrously affect the future unless 
 something can be done to bring our women back to a 
 healthier tone of mind and body. No one can object 
 to women declining marriage altogether in favour of 
 a voluntary self-devotion to some project or idea ; 
 but, when married, it is a monstrous doctrine to 
 hold that they are in any way degraded by the con- 
 sequences, and that natural functions are less honour- 
 able than social excitements. The world can get on 
 without balls and morning calls ; it can get on too 
 without amateur art and incorrect music ; but not 
 without wives and mothers : and those times in a 
 
12 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 nation's history when women have been social orna- 
 ments rather than family home- stays have ever 
 been times of national decadence and of moral 
 failm'e. 
 
 Part of this o^rowino: disinclination is due to the 
 enormous expense incurred now by havmg children. 
 As women have ceased to take any active share m 
 their own housekeeping, whether in the kitchen or 
 the nursery, the consequence is an additional cost for 
 service, which is a serious item in the yearly accounts. 
 Women who, if they lived a rational life, could and 
 would nurse their children, now require a wet-nurse, 
 or the services of an experienced woman who can 
 ' bring up by hand,' as the phrase is ; women 
 who once would have had one nursemaid now have 
 two ; and women who, had they lived a generation 
 ago, would have had none at all, must in their turn 
 have a wretched young creature without thought or 
 knowledge, into whose questionable care they dehver 
 what should be the most sacred obligation and the 
 most jealously-guarded charge they possess. 
 
 It is rare if, in any section of society where hired 
 service can be had, mothers give more than a super- 
 ficial personal superintendence to nursery or school- 
 room — a superintendence about as thorough as their 
 housekeeping, and as efficient. The one set of duties 
 is quite as unfashionable as the other ; and money is 
 held to relieve from the service of love as entirely as 
 it relieves from the need of labour. And yet, side 
 by side with this personal relinquishment of natural 
 
MODERN MOTHERS. ' 13 
 
 duties, has grown up, perhaps as an instinctive com- 
 pensation, an amount of expensive management 
 specially remarkable. There never was a time when 
 children were made of so much individual importance 
 in the family, yet were in so little direct relation 
 with the mother — never a time when maternity did 
 so little and social organization so much. Juvenile 
 parties ; the kind of moral obligation apparently felt 
 by all parents to provide heated and unhealthy 
 amusements for their boys and girls during the 
 holidays ; extravagance in dress, following the same 
 extravao^ance amono^ the mothers : the increasino* 
 cost of education ; the fuss and turmoil generally 
 made over them — all render children real burdens in 
 a house where money is not too plentiful, and where 
 every child that comes is not only an additional 
 mouth to feed and an additional body to clothe, but 
 a subtractor by just so much from the family fund of 
 pleasure. Even where there is no lack of money, the 
 unavoidable restraints of the condition, for at least 
 some months, more than counterbalance any senti- 
 mental delight to be found in maternity. For, before 
 all other things in life, maternity demands unselfish- 
 ness in women ; and this is just the one virtue of 
 which women have least at this present time — 
 just the one reason why motherhood is at a discount, 
 and children are regarded as inflictions instead of 
 blessings. 
 
 Few middle-class women are content to bring up 
 their children with the old-fashioned simplicity of 
 
14 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 former times, and to let them share and share alike 
 in the family, with only so much difference in their 
 treatment as is required by their difference of state ; 
 fewer still are willing to take on themselves the 
 labour and care which must come with children in 
 the easiest-going household, and so to save in the 
 expenses by their own work. The shabbiest little 
 wife, with her two financial ends always gaping and 
 never meeting, must have her still shabbier little 
 drudge to wheel her perambulator, so as to give her 
 an air of fine-ladyhood and being too good for such 
 work ; and the most indolent housekeeper, whose 
 superintendence of domestic matters takes her just 
 half an hour, cannot find time to go into the gardens 
 or the square with nurse and the children, so that 
 she may watch over them herself and see that they 
 are properly cared for. 
 
 In France, where it is the fashion for mother 
 and bonne to be together both out of doors and at 
 home, at least the children are not neglected nor 
 ill-treated, as is too often the case with us ; and 
 if they are improperly managed, according to our 
 ideas, the fault is in the system, not in the want of 
 maternal supervision. Here it is a very rare case 
 indeed when the mother accompanies the nurse and 
 children ; and those days when she does are nursery 
 gala-days to be talked of and remembered for weeks 
 after. As the little ones grow older, she may occa- 
 sionally take them with her when she visits her more 
 intimate friends ) but this is for her own pleasure, 
 
MODERN MOTHERS. 15 
 
 not their good ; and going with them to see that they 
 are properly cared for has nothing to do with the 
 matter. 
 
 It is to be supposed that each mother has a 
 profomid belief in her own nurse, and that when she 
 condemns the neglect and harshness shown to other 
 children by the servants in charge, she makes a 
 mental reservation in favour of her own, and is very 
 sure that nothing improper nor cruel takes iplace in 
 her nursery. Her children do not comjDlam ; and she 
 always tells them to come to her when anything is 
 amiss. On which negative evidence she satisfies her 
 soul, and makes sure that all is right because she is 
 too neglectful to see if anything is wrong. She does 
 not remember that her children do not complain 
 because they dare not. Dear and beautiful as all 
 mammas are to the small fry in the nursery, they are 
 always in a certain sense Junos sitting on the top of 
 Mount Olympus, making occasional gracious and 
 benign descents, but practically too far removed for 
 useful interference ; while nurse is an ever-present 
 power, capable of sly pinches and secret raids, as well 
 as of more open oppression — a power, therefore, to 
 be propitiated, if only with the grim subservience of 
 a Yezidi too much afraid of the Evil One to oppose 
 him. Wherefore nurse is propitiated, failing the pro- 
 tection of the glorified creature just gone to her grand 
 dinner in a cloud of lace and a blaze of jewels ; and 
 the first lesson taught the youthful Christian in short 
 frocks or knickerbockers is not to carry tales down 
 
16 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 stairs, and by no means to let mamma know what 
 nurse desires should be kept secret. 
 
 A great deal of other evil, beside these sly begin- 
 nings of deceit, is taught in the nursery ; a great 
 deal of vulgar thought, of superstitious fear, of class 
 coarseness. As, indeed, how must it not be when 
 we think of the early habits and education of the 
 women taken into the nursery to give the first strong 
 indelible impressions to the young souls under their 
 care? Many a man with a ruined constitution, and 
 many a woman with shattered nerves, can trace back 
 the beginning of their sorrow to those neglected 
 childish days when nurse had it all her own way 
 because mamma never looked below the surface, and 
 w^as satisfied with what was said instead of seeing 
 for herself what was done. It is an odd state of 
 society which tolerates this transfer of a mother's 
 holiest and most important duty into the hands of 
 a mere stranger, hired by the month, and never 
 thoroughly known. 
 
 Where the organization of the family is of the 
 patriarchal kind — old retainers marrying and multi- 
 plying about the central home, and carrying on a 
 warm personal attachment from generation to gene- 
 ration — this transfer of maternal care has not such 
 bad effects ; but in our present way of life, without 
 love or real relationship between masters and ser- 
 vants, and where service is rendered for just so much 
 money down and for nothing more noble, it is a 
 hideous system, and one that makes the modern 
 
MODERN MOTHERS. 17 
 
 mother utterly inexplicable. We wonder where her 
 mere instincts can be, not to speak of her reason, her 
 love, her conscience, her pride. Pleasure and self- 
 indulgence have indeed gained tremendous power, in 
 these later days, when they can thus break down the 
 force of the strono^est law of nature — a law strons!:er 
 even than that of self-preservation. 
 
 Folly is the true capillary attraction of the moral 
 world, and penetrates every stratum of society ; and 
 the folly of extravagant attire in the drawing-room is 
 reproduced in the nursery. Not content with bewil- 
 dering men's minds and emptying their husbands' 
 purses for the enhancement of their own charms, 
 women do the same by their children ; and the mother 
 who leaves the health and mmd and temper and 
 purity of her offspring in the keeping of a hired 
 nurse takes especial care of the colour and cut of the 
 frocks and petticoats. And there is always the same 
 strain after show, and the same endeavour to make a 
 little look a mickle. The children of five hundred a 
 year must look like those of a thousand ; and those 
 of a thousand must rival the tenue of little lords and 
 ladies born in the purple ; while the amount of money 
 spent on clothes in the tradesman class is a matter of 
 real amazement to those let into the secret. Simplicity 
 of diet, too, is going out with simplicity of dress, with 
 simplicity of habits generally ; and stimulants and 
 concentrated food are now the rule in the nursery, 
 where they mar as many constitutions as they make. 
 More than one child of whom we have had personal 
 
 VOL. I. C 
 
18 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 knowledge has yielded to disease induced by too 
 stimulating and too heating a diet ; but artificial 
 habits demand corresponding artificiality of food, and 
 so the candle burns at both ends instead of one. 
 
 Again, as for the increasing inability of educated 
 women to nurse their children, even if desirous of 
 doing so, that also is a bodily condition brought 
 about by an unwholesome and unnatural state of life. 
 Late hours, high living, heated blood, and constantly 
 breathing a vitiated atmosphere are the causes of this 
 alarming physical defect. But it would be too much 
 to expect that women should forego their pleasurable 
 indulgences, or do anything disagreeable to their 
 senses, for the sake of their ofi'spring. They are not 
 famous for looking far ahead on any matter ; but to 
 expect them to look beyond themselves, and their 
 own present generation, is to expect the great miracle 
 that never comes. 
 
19 
 
 MODERN MOTHERS, 
 
 IL 
 
 There was once a superstition among us that mothers 
 were of use in the world ; that they had their functions 
 and duties, without which society would not prosper 
 nor hold together ; and that much of the well-beino* 
 of humanity, present and future, depended on them. 
 Mothers in those bygone days were by no means 
 effete personages or a worn-out institution, but livino- 
 powers exercising a real and pervading influence ; 
 and they were credited with an authority which they 
 did not scruple to use when required. 
 
 One of the functions recognized as specially 
 belonging to them was that of guarding their youno- 
 people from the consequences of their own ignorance 
 — keeping them from dangers both physical and moral 
 until wise enough to take care of themselves, and 
 supplementing by their own experience the want of it 
 in their children. Another was that of preserving the 
 tone of society on a high level, and supplying the 
 antiseptic element by which the rest was kept pure ; 
 as, for example, insisting that the language used and 
 
 C 2 
 
20 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 the subjects discussed before them were such as 
 should not offend the modesty of virtuous women ; 
 that the people with whom they were required to 
 associate should be moderately honest and well con- 
 ducted ; and, in short, as mothers, discountenancing 
 everything in other men and women which they 
 would not like to see imitated by their own sons and 
 daughters. 
 
 This was one of the fond superstitions of an elder 
 time. For ourselves, we boast of our freedom from 
 superstition in these later days ; of our proud renun- 
 ciation of restraints and habits which were deemed 
 beneficial by our forefathers ; of our indifference to 
 forms and hatred of humbug ; and of all that tends 
 to fetter what is called individualism. Hence we 
 have found that we can go on without safeguards 
 for our young ; that society does not want its matrons 
 as the preservative ingredient for keeping it pure ; 
 and that the world is all the merrier for the loosening 
 of bonds which once it was the duty of women to 
 draw closer. In fact, mothers have gone out, sur- 
 viving only in the form of chaperons. 
 
 More or less on the search for her own pleasure — 
 if by any possibility of artifice she can be taken for 
 less than sixty, still ready for odd snatches of flirting 
 as she can find occasion — or, with her faculties con- 
 centrated on the chance of winning the rubber by 
 indifferent play — the chaperon's charge is not a very 
 onerous one ; and her daughters know as well as she 
 does that her presence is a blind rather than a pro- 
 
MODERN MOTHERS, 21 
 
 tection. They are with mamma as a form of speech ; 
 but they are left to themselves as a matter of fact. 
 Any one who is in the confidence of young people of 
 either sex knows a little of what goes on in the dark 
 corners and on the steps of the stairs — a favourite 
 anchorage for the loosely chaperoned in private houses 
 where two hundred are invited and only a hundred 
 can find room. But then the girls are ^ with mamma,' 
 and the young men are contented souls who take 
 what they can get without making wry faces. 
 Mamma, occupied in her own well- seasoned co- 
 quetries, or absorbed in the chances of her deep 
 ' finesse ' and the winning trick, lets the girls take 
 care of themselves, and would think it an intolerable 
 impertinence should a friend hint to her that her 
 place of chaperon included vigilant personal guardian- 
 ship, and that she would do better to keep her 
 daughters in her own charge than leave them to 
 themselves. 
 
 It is all very well for the advocates of youthful 
 innocence to affect to resent the slur supposed to 
 be cast on girlhood by the advocacy of this closer 
 guardianship ; or for those who do not know the 
 world to make their ignorance the measure of 
 another's knowledge, and to deny what they have 
 not proved for themselves. Those who do know the 
 world know what they say when they deprecate the 
 excessive freedom which is too often granted to 
 unmarried girls ; and their warning is fully justified 
 by experience when they call mothers back to their 
 
22 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 duty of stricter watchfulness. If indeed the young 
 are capable of self-j)rotection, then we grant with 
 them that mothers are a mistake : — Let them abdicate 
 without more ado. If license is more desirable than 
 modesty, and liberty better than reticence, the girls 
 may as well be left, as practically they are already, 
 free from the mother's guardianship:* ; but if we have 
 a doubt that way, we may as well give it the benefit 
 of consideration, and think a little on the subject 
 before going further on the present line. 
 
 From the first the mother, in the well-to-do 
 classes, acts too much the part of the hen ostrich 
 with her eggs. She trusts to the kindly influences 
 of external circumstances rather than to her own care 
 to make the hatching successful. ^N^urses, governesses, 
 schools, in turn relieve her of the irksome duties of 
 maternity. She sees her little ones at their stated 
 hour, and for the other twenty- three leaves them to 
 receive their first indelible impress from a class which 
 she is never tired of disj)araging. 
 
 As the children grow older the women by whom 
 they are moulded become higher in the social and 
 intellectual scale, but they are no more than before 
 subordinated to the mother's personal supervision. 
 She, for h^r part, cares only that her girls shall 
 be taught the correct shibboleth of their station ; 
 and for the rest, if she thinks at all, she cradles 
 herself in a generous trust in the goodness of human 
 nature, or the incorruptibility of her brood beyond 
 that of any other woman's brood. When they come 
 
MODERN MOTHERS. 23 
 
 under her own immediate hand, ' finished ' and ready- 
 to be introduced, she knows about as much of them 
 as she knows of her neighbours' girls m the next 
 square ; and in nme cases out of ten the sole duties 
 towards them which are undertaken by her are shirked 
 when possible, as a i:orvee which she is too wise to 
 bear unnecessarily. When she can, she shuffles them 
 off on some kind neighbourly hands, and lets her 
 daughters ' go about ' with the first person who offers, 
 glad to have a little breathing time on her own side, 
 and with always that generous trust in providence 
 and vicarious protection which has marked her 
 maternal career throughout. 
 
 In the lower half of the middle class the liberty 
 allowed to young girls grows yearly more and more 
 unchecked. They walk alone, travel alone, visit 
 alone ; and the gravest evils have been known to 
 arise from the habit which modern mothers have of 
 sending their daughters of sixteen and upwards 
 unaccompanied in London to colleges and classes. 
 Mamma has grown stout and lazy, and has always 
 some important matter on hand that keeps her at 
 home, half asleep in the easy-chair, while the girls 
 go to and fro, and take the exercise befitting their 
 youthful energies. Of course no harm can befall 
 them. They are her daughters, and the warnings 
 given by the keener- eyed, who have had experience, 
 are mere inventions of the enemy and slanders against 
 the young. So they parade the streets, dressed in 
 the most startling and meretricious costumes of the 
 
24 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 period ; and that fatal doctrine of self-protection counts 
 its victims by the score as the consequence. 
 
 The world is fond of throwing the blame of 
 any misfortune that may arise, now on the girl, 
 now on the man concerned ; but in honest fact that 
 blame really belongs to the mothers who let their 
 daughters run about the world without guide or 
 guard. A work was given to them by nature and 
 love to do which they have neglected, a duty which 
 they have discarded. Whoever chooses may chape= 
 ron, accompany, mould their daughters, so long as 
 they are freed from the trouble ; and their dependence 
 on the natural virtue of humanity and the beneficence 
 of circumstance runs exactly parallel with their own 
 indolence and neglect. 
 
 In preserving the tone of society pure the modern 
 mother is as far removed from the for.mer ideal as she 
 is i'Q the duty of takmg care of her girls. Too often 
 she is found making herself prominent in support of 
 the most objectionable movements ; or, when doubtful 
 questions are discussed in mixed society, she forgets 
 that regard for the purity of her daughters should 
 keep her silent, even if her own self-respect were 
 too weak to restrain her. When the conscienceless 
 world, living without a higher aim than that of success 
 and what is known by gettmg on, condones all kinds 
 of moral obliquity for the sake of financial prosperity 
 and social position, do Vv^e find that, as a rule, mothers 
 and matrons protest against opening their houses to 
 this gilded rascality ? If they did — if they made 
 
MODERN MOTHERS. 25 
 
 demerit and not poverty the cause of exclusion, virtue 
 and not success the title to reception— there would be 
 some check to the corruption which is so insolently 
 rampant now. 
 
 WoDien have this power in their own hands, 
 more especially those women who are mothers. If 
 they would only set themselves to check the incli- 
 nation for loose talk and doubtful discussions which 
 is characteristic of the present moment, they could 
 put an end to it without delay. So also they 
 might stop in less than a year the torrent of slang 
 with which Young England floods its daily speech ; 
 and by setting themselves against the paint and dye 
 and meretricious make-up generally of the modern 
 girl, they might bring next quarter's fashions back 
 to modesty and simplicity. 
 
 Women are. apt to murmur at their lot as one 
 without influence, variety, stirring purpose, space for 
 action. But it is, on the contrary, a lot full of dignity 
 and importance if properly regarded and fitly under- 
 taken. If they do not lead armies, they make the 
 characters of the men who lead and are led. If they 
 are not State Ministers nor Parliamentary orators, 
 they raise by their nobleness or degrade by their want 
 of delicacy and refinement the souls and minds of the 
 men who are. If they are not in the throng and 
 press of active life, they can cheer others on to high 
 aims, or basely reward the baser methods of existence. 
 As mothers they are the artificers who give the initial 
 touch that lasts for life ; and as women they complete 
 
26 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 what tlie mother began. Society is moulded mainly 
 by tliem, and tbey bring up their daughters on their 
 own pattern. 
 
 It is surely weak and silly then to blame society 
 for its ignoble tone, or the young for their disorders. 
 All men want the corrective influence of social 
 opinion, and it is chiefly women who create that 
 opinion. Youth, too, will ever be disorderly if it 
 gets the chance, and the race has not yet been born 
 that carries old heads on young shoulders. It is for the 
 mothers to suj^plement by their own wisdom the gaps 
 left by the mexperience and ignorance of youth ; it is 
 for the mothers to guide aright the steps that are apt, 
 without that guidance, to run astray, and to guard 
 against passions, emotions, desires, which, if left to 
 themselves, bring only evil and disaster, but which, 
 guarded and directed, may be turned to the best ends. 
 For ourselves, we deeply regret to see the rapid e:^- 
 tinction of motherhood in its best sense, and decline 
 to accept this modern loose-handed chaperon age as 
 its worthy substitute. We repudiate the plea of the 
 insubordination of the young so often put forward 
 in defence of the new state of things, for it is simply 
 nonsense. The young are what the mothers make 
 them, just as society is what the matrons allow it to 
 be ; and if these mothers and matrons did their duty, 
 we should hear no more of the wilfulness of the one 
 or the shameless vagaries of the other. The remedy 
 for each lies in their own hands only. 
 
27 
 
 PAYING ONIJ'S SHOT. 
 
 It Avould save mucli useless striving and needless dis- 
 appointment if the necessity of paying one's shot 
 were honestly accepted as absolute — if it were under- 
 stood, once for all, that society, like other manifesta- 
 tions of humanity, is managed on the principle of 
 exchange and barter, and equivalents demanded for 
 value received. The benevolence which gives out of 
 its own impulse, with no hope of reward save in the 
 wellbeing of the recipient, has no place in the drawing- 
 room code of morals. We may keep a useless 
 creatare from starving at the cost of so much of our 
 substance ^9^r diem, for the sole remuneration of 
 thanks and the consciousness of an equivocal act of 
 charity ; but who among us opens his doors, or gives 
 a seat at his table, to drawmg-room paupers unable 
 to pay their shot ? who cares to cultivate the ac- 
 quaintance of men or women who are unable to make 
 him any return ? It is not necessary that this 
 return should be in kind — a dinner for a dinner, a 
 champagne supper for a champagne sapper, and balls 
 with waxed floors for balls with stretched linen ; but 
 
28 SATURDAY MORNINGS, 
 
 shot must be paid in some form, whether in kind or 
 not, and the social pauper who cannot pay his quota 
 is Lazarus excluded from the feast. This is a hard 
 saying, but it is a true one. We often hear worthy 
 people who do not understand this law complain that 
 they are neglected — left out of wedding breakfasts — 
 passed over in dinner invitations — and that they find 
 it difficult to keep acquaintances when made. But 
 the fact is, these poor creatures who know so much 
 about the cold-shoulder of society are simply those 
 who cannot pay their shot, according to the currency 
 of the class to which they aspire ; and so by degrees 
 they get winnowed through the meshes, and fall to a 
 level where their funds will suffice to meet all de- 
 mands, triumphantly. For the rejected of one level 
 are not necessarily the rejected of all, and the base 
 metal of one currency is sound coinage in another. 
 People who would find it impossible to enter 
 a drawing-room in Grosvenor Square may have 
 all Bloom sbury at their command ; and what was 
 caviare to My Lord will be ambrosia to his valet — 
 all depending on the amount of the shot to be 
 paid and the relative value of coinage wherewith to 
 pay it. 
 
 The most simple form of payment is of course by 
 the elemental process of reciprocity in kmd ; a dinner 
 for a dinner and a supper for a supper : — a form as 
 purely instinctive as an eye for an eye and a tooth 
 for a tooth — the lex talionis of early jurisprudence 
 administered among wine- cups instead of in the 
 
PAYING ONES SHOT. 29 
 
 sliambles. But there are other niodes of payment as 
 efficient if less evident, and as imperative if more 
 subtle. For instance, women pay their shot — when 
 they pay it individually, and not through the 
 vicarious merits of their masculine relations — by 
 dressing well and looking nice ; some by being 
 pretty ; some by being fashionable ; a few by brilliant 
 talk ; while all ought to add to their private speciality 
 the generic virtue of pleasant manners. If they are 
 not pretty, pleasant, well-dressed nor well-connected, 
 and if they have no masculine pegs of power by which 
 they can be hooked on to the higher lines, they are let 
 to drop through the social meshes without an effort 
 made to retain them, as little fishes swim away un- 
 opposed through the loops which hold the bigger ones. 
 These things are their social duties — the final cause of 
 their drawing-room existence ; and if they fail in them 
 they fail in the purpose for which they were created 
 socially, and may die out as soon as convenient. 
 They have other duties, of course, and doubtless of 
 far higher moment and greater worth ; but the 
 question now is only of their drawing-room duties — 
 of the qualities which secure their recognition in 
 society — of the special coinage in which they must 
 pay their shot if they would assist at the great 
 banquet of social life. A dowdy, humdrum, well- 
 principled woman, whose toilette looks as if it had 
 been made with the traditionary pitchfork, and whose 
 powers of conversation do not go beyond the 
 strength of Cobwebs to Catch Flies, or MangnaWs 
 
30 SATURDAY MORNIXGS. 
 
 Questions^ may be an admirable wife, the painstaking 
 mother of future honest citizens, invaluable by a s^ick- 
 bed, beyond price in the nursery, a pattern of all 
 household economies, a woman absolutely faultless in 
 her sphere — and that sphere a very sweet and lovely 
 one. But her virtues are not those by which she 
 can pay her shot in society ; and the motherly good- 
 ness, of so much account in a dressing-jacket and 
 list -slippers, is put out of court when the fee to be 
 paid is liveliness of manner or elegance of appearance. 
 Certainly, worthy women who dress ill and look 
 ungraceful, and whose conversation is about up to 
 the mark of their children's easy- spelling-books, are 
 plentiful in society — unfortunately for those bracketed 
 with them for two hours' penance ; but in most cases 
 they have their shot paid for them by the wealth, the 
 importance, the repute, or the desirableness of their 
 relations. They may pay it themselves by their own 
 wealth and consequent liberal tariff of reciprocity; 
 but this is rare ; the possession of personal superiority 
 of any kind for the most part acting as a moral 
 stimulus with women whom the superiority of their 
 male belongmgs does not touch. And, by the way, it 
 is rather hard lines that so many celebrated men have 
 such dowdy wives. Artists, poets, self-made men of 
 all kinds often fail in this special article ; and, while 
 they themselves have caught the tone of the circle to 
 which they have risen, and pay their shot by manner 
 as well as by repute, their wives lag behind among 
 the ashes of the past, like Cinderellas before the advent 
 
PAYING ONES SHOT. 31 
 
 of the fairy godmother. How many of them are 
 carried through society as clogs or excrescences 
 which a polite world is bound to tolerate with more 
 or less equanimity, according to the amount of sen- 
 sitiveness bestowed by nature and cultivated by art ! 
 Sometimes, however, self-made men and their wives 
 are wise in their generation and understand the 
 terms on which society receives its members ; in 
 which case the marital Reputation goes to the front 
 alone, and the conjugal Cinderella rests tranquilly in 
 the rear. 
 
 Notoriety of all kinds, short of murder or forgery, 
 is one way of paying one's shot, specially into the 
 coffers of the Leo Hunters, of whom there are many. 
 It is shot paid to the general fund when one has seen 
 an accident— better still, if one has been in it. Many 
 a man has owed a rise in his scale of dinners to a 
 railway smash; and to have been nearly burnt to 
 death, to have escaped by a miracle from drownino-, 
 to have been set on by footpads or to have been 
 visited by burglars, is worth a round of At Homes, 
 because of the ready cash of a real adventure. To be 
 connected more or less remotely with the fashionable 
 tragedy of the hour is paying one's shot handsomely. 
 To have been on speaking terms with the latest re- 
 spectable scoundrel unmasked, or to have had dealings, 
 sufficiently remote to have been cleanly, with the 
 newest villainy, will be accepted as shot while the 
 public interest in the matter lasts. A chance visit to 
 ultra-grandees — grandees in ratio to the ordinary 
 
32 SATURDAY MOENINGS. 
 
 sphere — is shot paid with an air. A bad illness, or 
 the attendance on one, with the apparently unconscious 
 heroism of the details, comes in as part of the social 
 fine; especially if the person relating his or her expe- 
 rience has the knack of epigram or exaggeration, while 
 still keeping local colour and verisimilitude intact. 
 Interesting people who have been abroad and seen 
 things have good counters for a dinner-]3arty; paying 
 their shot for themselves and their hosts too, who put 
 them forward as their contribution to the funds of the 
 commonwealth, with certainty of acceptance. Some 
 pay their shot by their power of procuring orders 
 and free admissions. They know the manager of 
 this theatre or the leading actor of that; they are 
 acquainted with the principal members of the hang- 
 ing committees, and are therefore great in private 
 views; they are always good for a gratuitous treat 
 to folks who can afford to pay twice the sum de- 
 manded for their day's pleasure. Such people may 
 be stupid, ungainly, not specially polished, in grain 
 unpleasant; but they circulate in society because 
 they pay their shot and give back equivalents for 
 value received. A country-house, where there is a 
 good tennis-ground and a blushing bed of straw- 
 berries, is coinage that will carry the possessor very 
 far ahead through London society ; and by the same 
 law you will find healthy, well-conditioned country 
 folk tolerate undeniable little snobs of low calibre 
 because of that sixteen-roomed house in Tyburnia, a 
 visit to which represents so many concerts, so many 
 
PAYING ONE'S SHOT. 33 
 
 theatres, a given number of exhibitions, and a cert am 
 quantity of operas and parties. Had those un- 
 deniable little snobs no funds wherewith to pay 
 their shot, they would have had no place kept for 
 them among the rose-trees and the strawberry- beds ; 
 but, bringing their quota as they do, they take their 
 seat with the rest and are helped in their turn. 
 
 In fact, humiliating to our self-love as it may be, 
 the truth is, we are all valued socially, not for our- 
 selves integrally, not for the mere worth of the naked 
 soul, but for the kind of shot that we pay — for the 
 advantao;e or amusement to others that we can brino; 
 — for something in ourselves which renders us de- 
 sirable as companions — ^or for something belonging 
 to our condition which makes us remunerative as 
 guests. If we have no special qualification, if we 
 neither look nice nor talk well, neither bring glory 
 nor confer pleasure, we must expect to be shunted to 
 the side in favour of others who are up to the right 
 mark and who give as much as they receive. If this 
 truth were once fully established as a matter of social 
 science, a great advance would be made ; for nothmg 
 helps people so much as to clear a subject of what fog 
 may lie about it. And as the tendency of the age is 
 to discover the fixed laws which regulate the mutable 
 affairs of man, it would be just as well to extend the 
 inquiry from the jury-box to the dinner-table, and 
 from the blue-book to the visiting-list. Why is it 
 that some people struggle all their lives to get a 
 footing in society, yet die as they have lived — social 
 
 VOL. I. D 
 
34 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 Sisyphuses, never accomplishing their perpetually- re- 
 curring task ? There must be a reason for it, seeing 
 that nothing is ruled by blind chance, though much 
 seems to lie outside the independent will of the indi- 
 vidual. Enlighten these worthy people's minds on 
 the unwritten laws of invitation, and show them 
 that — thoroughly honest souls and to be trusted 
 with untold gold or with their neighbour's pretty 
 wife, which is perhaps a harder test, as they may 
 be — they are by no means to be trusted with the 
 amusement of a couple of companions at a dinner- 
 table. Show them that, how rich soever they may 
 be in the rough gold of domestic morality, they are 
 bankrupts in the small-change which alone passes 
 current in society — and, if invited where they aspire 
 to be, they would be taken on as pauper cousins 
 unable to pay their footing and good for neither 
 meat nor garnish. Let them learn how to pay 
 their shot, and their difficulties would vanish. They 
 would leave off repeating the fable of Sisyphus, and 
 attain completion of endeavour. No one need say 
 this is a hard or a selfish doctrine, for we all follow 
 it in practice. Among the people we invite to our 
 houses are some whom we do not specially like, but 
 whom we must ask because of shot paid in kind. 
 There are people who may be personally disagreeable, 
 ill- educated, uninteresting, ungainly, but whom we 
 cannot cut because of the relations in which we stand 
 towards them, and who take their place by right, 
 because they pay their shot with punctuality. There 
 
PAYING ONE'S SHOT. 35 
 
 are others whom we ask because of liking or de- 
 sirability, and shot paid in some specific form of 
 pleasantness, as in beauty, fashion, good manner, 
 notoriety ; but there are none absolutely barren of 
 all gifts of pleasantness to the guests, of reflected 
 honour to ourselves, and of social small-change 
 according to the currency. We do not go mto the 
 byways and hedges to pick up drawing-room tatter- 
 demalions who bring nothing with them and are 
 simply so much dead-weight on the rest, occupying 
 so much valuable space and consuming so much vital 
 energy. The law of reciprocity may be hard on 
 the strivers who are ignorant of its inexorable pro- 
 visions ; but it is a wholesome law, like other rules and 
 enactments agamst remediable pauperism. And were 
 we once thoroughly to understand that, if we would 
 sit securely at the table we must put something of 
 value into the pool — that we must possess advan- 
 tageous circumstances, or personal desirabilities, as 
 the shot to be paid for our place — the art of society 
 would be better cultivated than it is now, and the 
 classification of guests would be carried out with 
 greater judgment. Surely, if the need of being 
 gracious in manner, sprightly in talk, and of pleasant 
 appearance generally — all cultivable qualities, and to 
 be learned if not born in us by nature — were ac- 
 cepted as an absolute necessity, without which we 
 must expect to be overlooked and excluded, drawing- 
 rooms would be far brighter and dinner- tables far 
 pleasanter than they are at present ; to the advantage 
 
36 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 of all concerned! And, after all, society is a great 
 thino; in human life. If not equal in importance to 
 the family, or to political virtue, it has its own special 
 value ; and whatever adds to its better organization 
 is a gain in every sense. 
 
37 
 
 WHAT IS WOMAJS^'S WORK? 
 
 This is a question which one half the world is at 
 this moment asking the other half ; with very wild 
 answers as the result. Woman's work seems to be 
 in these days everything that it was not in times 
 past, and nothing that it was. Professions are 
 undertaken and careers invaded which were formerly 
 held sacred to men ; while things are left undone 
 which, for all the generations that the world has 
 lasted, have been naturally and instinctively assigned 
 to women to do. From the savage squaw gathering 
 fuel or drawing water for the wigwam, to the lady 
 giving up the keys to her housekeeper, housekeeping 
 has been considered one of the primary functions of 
 women. The man to provide — the woman to dis- 
 pense ; the man to do the rough initial work of 
 bread-winnmg, whether as a half-naked barbarian 
 hunting live meat or as a City clerk painfully 
 scorino^ lines of ruo'o;ed fio'ures — the woman to 
 cook the meat when got, and to lay out to the 
 best advantage for the family the quarter's salary 
 gained by casting up ledgers and writing advices 
 and bills of lading. Take human society in any 
 
38 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 phase we like, we must come doT^Ti to these radical 
 conditions ; and any system which ignores this 
 division of labour, and confounds these separate 
 functions, is of necessity imperfect and wrong. We 
 have nothing whatever to say against the professional 
 self-support of women who have no men to work for 
 them, and who must therefore work for themselves 
 in order to live. In what direction soever they can 
 best make their way, let them take it. Brains and 
 intellectual gifts are of no sex and no condition, and it 
 is far more important that good work should be done 
 than that it should be done by this or that particular 
 set of workers. But we are speaking of the home 
 duties of married women, and of those girls who 
 have no need to earn their daily bread, and who are 
 not so specially gifted as to be driven afield by the 
 irrepressible power of genius. We are speaking of 
 women who cannot help in the family income, but who 
 might both save and improve in the home ; women 
 whose lives are one long day of idleness, ennui and 
 vagrant imagination, because they despise the activi- 
 ties into which they were born, while seeking outlets 
 for their energies impossible to them both by functional 
 and social restrictions. 
 
 It is strange to see into what unreasonable disre- 
 pute active housekeeping — woman's first social duty 
 —has fallen in England. Take a family with four 
 or five hundred a year — and we know how small 
 a sum that is for ' genteel humanity ' in these days — 
 the wife who is an active housekeeper, even with 
 
WHAT IS WOMAN'S WOEK ? 39 
 
 such an income, is an exception to the rule ; and the 
 daughters who are anything more than drawing- 
 room dolls waiting for husbands to transfer them to 
 a home of their own, where they may be as useless 
 as they are now, are rarer still. For things are 
 getting worse, not better, and our young women are 
 less useful even than were their mothers ; while these 
 last do not, as a rule, come near the housekeeping 
 ladies of olden times, who knew every secret of 
 domestic economy and made a wise and pleasant 
 ' distribution of bread ' their grand point of honour. 
 The usual method of London housekeeping, even in 
 the second ranks of the middle- classes, is for the 
 mistress to give her orders in the kitchen in the 
 morning, leavmg the cook to pass them on to the 
 tradespeople when they call. If she be not very 
 indolent, and if she have a due regard for neatness 
 and cleanliness, she may supplement her kitchen 
 commands by going up stairs through some of the 
 bedrooms ; but after a kmd word of advice to the 
 housemaid if she be sweet-tempered, or a harsh note 
 of censure if she be of the cross-grained type, her 
 work in that department will be done, and her duties 
 for the day are at an end. There is none of the clever 
 marketing by which fifty per cent, is saved in the 
 outlay, if a woman knows what she is about and 
 how to buy ; none of that personal superintendence, 
 so encouraging to servants when genially performed, 
 which renders slighted work impossible ; none of that 
 ' seeing to things ' herself, or doing the finer parts 
 
40 SATURDAY M0ENING3. 
 
 of the work with her own hands, which used to form 
 part of a woman's unquestioned duty. She gives her 
 orders, weighs out her supplies, then leaves the 
 maids to do the best they know or the worst they 
 will, according to the degree in which they are sup- 
 plied with faculty or conscience. Many women boast 
 that their housekeeping takes them perhaps an hour, 
 perhaps half an hour, in the morning, and no more ; 
 and they think themselves clever and commendable 
 in proportion to the small amount of time given to 
 their largest family duty. This is all very well where 
 the income is such as to secure iirst-class servants — 
 professors of certain specialities of knowledge and 
 far in advance of the mistress ; but how about the 
 comfort of the house under this hasty generalship, 
 when the maids are mere scrubs who ought to go 
 through years of training if they are ever to be worth 
 their salt ? It may be very well too in large house- 
 holds governed by general system, and not by in- 
 dividual ruling ; but where the service is scant and 
 poor, it is a stupid, uncomfortable, as well as wasteful 
 way of housekeeping. It is analogous to English 
 cookery — a revolting poverty of result with flaring 
 prodigality of means ; all the pompous paraphernalia 
 of tradespeople and their carts and their red-books 
 for orders, with nothing worth the trouble of booking ; 
 and everything of less quantity and lower quality 
 than would be if personal pains were taken — which is 
 always the best economy. 
 
 What is there in practical housekeeping less 
 
^TIAT IS WOMAN'S WOEK ? 41 
 
 honourable than the ordinary work of middle- class 
 gentlewomen ? and why should women shrink from 
 doing for utility, and for the general comfort of the 
 family, what they would do at any time for vanity or 
 idleness ? No one need go into extremes, and wish 
 our nnddle-class o'entle women to become exao'o;erated 
 Marthas occupied only with much serving, Nausicaas 
 washing linen, or ' wise Penelopes ' spending their lives 
 in needlework alone. But, without undertaking any- 
 thing unpleasant to her senses or degrading to her 
 condition, a lady might do hundreds of things which 
 are now left undone in a house, or are given up to 
 the coarse handling of servants ; and domestic hfe 
 would gain in consequence. What degradation, for 
 instance, is there in cookery ? and how much more 
 home happiness would there not be if wives would 
 take in hand that great cold-mutton question ? But 
 women are both selfish and small on this point. Born 
 for the most part with feebly- developed gustativeness, 
 they affect to despise the stronger instinct in men, 
 and think it low and sensual if they are expected to 
 give special attention to the meals of the man who 
 provides the meat. This contempt for good cooking 
 is one cause of the io-norance there is amono; them of 
 how to secure good livmg. Those horrible traditions 
 of ' plain roast and boiled ' cling about them as 
 articles of culinary faith ,- and because they have 
 reached no higher knowledge for themselves, they 
 decide that no one else shall go beyond them. For 
 one middle-class gentlewoman who understands any- 
 
42 SATURDAY MORNINGS.* 
 
 thing about cookery, or who really cares for it as a 
 scientific art or domestic necessity, there are ten 
 thousand who do not ; yet our mothers and grand- 
 mothers were not ashamed to be known as deft pro- 
 fessors, and homes were happier in proportion to the 
 respect paid to the stewpan and the stockpot. And 
 cookery is more interesting now than it was then, 
 because more advanced, more scientific, and with 
 improve! appliances ; and, at the same time, it is of 
 confessedly more importance. 
 
 It may seem humiliating, to those who go in for 
 spirit pure and simple, to speak of the condition of 
 the soul as in any way determined by beef and cab- 
 bage ; but it is so, nevertheless ; the connexion 
 between food and virtue, food and thought, being a 
 very close one. And the sooner wives recognize this 
 connexion the better for them and for their husbands. 
 The clumsy savagery of a plain cook, or the vile 
 messes of a fourth-rate confectioner, are absolute sins 
 in a house where a woman has all her senses, and 
 can, if she will, attend personally to the cooking. 
 Many things pass for crimes which are really not so 
 bad as this. But how seldom do we find a house 
 where the lady does look after the food of the family ; 
 where clean hands and educated brains are put to 
 active service for the good of others ! The trouble 
 would be too great in our fine-lady days, even if there 
 were the requisite ability ; but there is as little ability 
 as there is energy, and the plain cook with her 
 savagery and the fourth-rate confectioner with his 
 
WHAT IS WOMAN'S WORK? 43 
 
 rancid pastry, have it all tlieir own way, according 
 as the election is for economy or ostentation. If by 
 chance we stumble on a household where the woman 
 does not disdain housewifely work, and specially 
 does not disdain the practical superintendence of the 
 kitchen, there we are sure to find cheerfulness and 
 content. 
 
 There seems to be something in the life of a 
 practical housekeeper that answers to the needs of a 
 woman's best nature, and that makes her pleasant and 
 good-humoured. Perhaps it is the consciousness that 
 she is doing her duty — of itself a wonderful sweetener 
 of the temper ] perhaps the greater amount of bodily 
 exercise keeps her liver in good case ; whatever the 
 cause, sure it is that the homes of the active house- 
 keepers are more harmonious than those of the feckless 
 and do-nothing sort. Yet the snobbish half of the 
 middle-classes holds housewifely work as degrading, 
 save in the trumpery pretentiousness of ' giving 
 orders.' A woman may sit in a dirty drawing-room 
 which the slipshod maid has not had time to clean, 
 but she must not take a duster in her hands and polish 
 the leo:s of the chairs : — there is no disoTace in the 
 dirt, only m the duster. She may do fancy-work of 
 no earthly use, but she must not be caught making a 
 gown. Indeed very few women could make one, and 
 as few will do plain needlework. They will braid and 
 embroider, ' cut holes, and sew them up again,' and 
 spend any amount of time and money on beads and 
 wools for messy draperies which no one wants. The 
 
44 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 end, being finery, sanctions the toil and refines it. 
 But they will not do things of practical use ; or, if 
 they are compelled by the exigencies of circumstances, 
 they think themselves martyrs and badly used by 
 the Fates. 
 
 The whole scheme of woman's life at this present 
 time is untenable and unfair. She wants to have all 
 the pleasures and none of the disagreeables. Her 
 husband goes to the City and does monotonous and 
 unpleasant work there ; but his wife thinks herself very 
 hardly dealt with if asked to do monotonous house- 
 work at home. Yet she does nothing more elevating 
 nor more advantageous. Novel-reading, fancy-work, 
 visiting and letter- writing, sum up her ordmary occu- 
 pations ; and' she considers these more to the point 
 than practical housekeeping. In fact it becomes 
 a serious question what women think themselves 
 sent into the world for — what they hold themselves 
 designed by God to be or to do. They grumble at 
 having children and at the toil and anxiety which a 
 family entails ; they thmk themselves degraded to 
 the level of servants if they have to do any practical 
 housework whatever ; they assert their equality with 
 man, and express their envy of his life, yet show 
 themselves incapable of learning the first lesson set 
 to men — that of doing what, they do not like to do. 
 What, then, do they want ? What do they hold 
 themselves made for ? Certainly some of the more 
 benevolent sort carry thsir energies out of doors, and 
 leave such prosaic matters as savoury dinners and 
 
WHAT IS woman's WORK? 45 
 
 fast shirt -buttons for coramittees and charities, where 
 they get excitement and kudos together. Others give 
 themselves to what they call keeping up society, 
 which means being more at home in every person's 
 house than their own ; and some do a little weak 
 art, and others a little feeble literature ; but there 
 are very few indeed who honestly buckle to the 
 natural duties of their position, and who bear with 
 the tedium of home-work as men bear wdth the 
 tedium of office -work. 
 
 The little royalty of home is the last place where 
 a woman cares to shine, and the most uninterestino- 
 of all the domains she seeks to govern. Fancy a 
 high-souled creature, capable of aesthetics, giving her 
 mind to soup or the right proportion of chutnee 
 for the curry ! Fancy, too, a brilliant creature fore- 
 going an evening's conversational glory abroad for 
 the sake of a prosaic husband's more prosaic dinner ! 
 He comes home tired from work, and desperately 
 in need of a good dinner as a restorative ; but the 
 plain cook gives him cold meat and pickles, or an 
 abomination which she calls hash, and the brilliant 
 creature, full of mind, thinks the desire for any- 
 thing else rank sensuality. It seems a little hard, 
 certainly, on the unhappy fellow who works at the 
 mill for such a return ; but women believe that 
 men are made only to work at the mill that they 
 may receive the grist accruing, and be kept in idle- 
 ness and uselessness all their lives. They have no 
 idea of lightening the labour of that mill-round by 
 
46 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 doing tlieir own natural work cheerfully and dili- 
 gently. They will do everything but what they 
 ought to do. They will make themselves doctors, 
 committee-women, printers, what not ; but they will 
 not learn cooking, and they will not keep their own 
 houses. There never was a time when women were 
 less the helpmates of men than they are at present ; 
 when there was such a wide division between the 
 interests and the sympathies of the sexes coincident 
 with the endeavour, on the one -side, to approximate 
 their pursuits. 
 
 A great demand is being made now for more 
 work for woman and wider fields for her labour. 
 We confess we should feel a deeper interest in the 
 question if we saw more energy and conscience put 
 into the work lying to her hand at home ; and we 
 hold that she ought to perfectly perform the duties 
 which we may call instinctive to her sex before 
 claimino; those hitherto held remote from her natural 
 condition. Much of this demand sj)rings from rest- 
 lessness and dissatisfaction ; little, if any, from higher 
 aspirations or nobler energies unused. Indeed, the 
 nobler the woman the more thoroughly she will do 
 her own proper work, in the spirit of old George 
 Herbert's well-worn line ; and tlie less she will feel 
 herself above that work. It is only the weak who 
 cannot raise their circumstances to the level of their 
 thoughts ; only the poor in spirit who cannot enrich 
 their deeds by their motives. 
 • That very much of this demand for more power 
 
WHAT IS woman's worvK? 47 
 
 of work comes from necessity and the absolute need 
 of bread, we know ; and that the demand will grow 
 louder as marriage becomes scarcer, and there are 
 more women adrift in the world without the pro- 
 tection and help of men, we also know. But this 
 belongs to another part of the subject. What we 
 want to insist on now is the pitiable ignorance and 
 shiftless indolence of most middle-class housekeepers ; 
 and what we would urge on woman is the value of 
 a better system of life at home before laying claim 
 to the discharofe of extra- domestic duties abroad. 
 
48 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 LITTLE WOMEN. 
 
 The conventional idea of a brave, energetic, or a 
 supremely criminal, woman has always been that of a 
 tall, dark-hairecl, large-armed virago who might pass 
 as the younger brother of her husband, and about 
 whom nature seemed to have hesitated before deter- 
 mining whether to make her a man or a woman : — 
 a kind of debateable land, in fact, between the 
 two sexes, and almost as much the one as the 
 other. Helen Macgregor, Lady Macbeth, Catharine de 
 Medici, Mrs. Manning, and the old-fashioned mur- 
 deresses in novels, were all of the muscular, black- 
 brigand type, with more or less of regal grace super- 
 added according to circumstances ; and it would 
 have been thought nothing but a puerile fancy to 
 have supposed the contrary of those whose personal 
 description was not already known. Crime, indeed, 
 in art and fiction, was generally painted in very nice 
 proportion to the number of cubic inches embodied 
 and the depth of colour employed ; though we are 
 bound to add that the public favour ran towards 
 muscular heroines almost as much as towards 
 muscular murderesses, which to a certain extent 
 
LITTLE WOMEN. 49 
 
 redressed the overweighted balance. Oar later novel- 
 ists, however, have altered the whole setting of the 
 palette. Instead of five foot ten of black and brown, 
 they have gone in for four foot nothing of pink and 
 yellow. Instead of tumbled masses of raven hair, 
 they have shining coils of purest gold. Instead of 
 hollow caverns whence flash unfathomable e^^es elo- 
 quent of every damnable passion, they have limpid 
 lakes of heavenly blue ; and their worst sinners are 
 in all respects fashioned as much after the outward 
 semblance of the ideal saint as they have skill to 
 design. 
 
 The original notion was a very good one, and the 
 revolution did not come before it was wanted ; but it 
 has been a little overdone of late, and we are threat- 
 ened with as great a surfeit of small-limbed yellow- 
 headed criminals as we have had of the black -haired 
 virago. One gets weary of the most perfect model in 
 time, if too constantly repeated ; as now, when we 
 have all begun to feel that the resources of the 
 angeFs face and demon's soul ha\e been more heavily 
 drawn on than is quite fair, and that, given ' heavy 
 braids of golden hair,' ' bewildering blue eyes,' ' a 
 small lithe frame,' and special delicacy of feet and 
 hands, we are booked for the companionship, through 
 three volumes, of a young person to whom Messalina 
 or Lucretia Borgia was a mere novice. 
 
 And yet there is a physiological truth in this 
 association of energy with smallness — perhaps, also, 
 with a certain tint of yellow hair, which, with a dash 
 
 VOL. I. E 
 
50 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 of re J through it, is decidedly suggestive of nervous 
 force. Suggestiveness, indeed, does not go very far 
 in an argument ; but the frequent connexion of 
 energy and smallness in women is a thing which all 
 may verify in their own circles. In daily life, who 
 is the really formidable woman to encounter ? — the 
 black-browed, broad-shouldered giantess, with arms 
 almost as big in the girth as a man's? or the pert, 
 smart, trim little female, with ijo more biceps than a 
 ladybird, and of just about equal strength with a 
 sparrow? Nine times out of ten, the giantess with 
 the heavy shoulders and broad black eyebrows is a 
 timid, feeble-minded, good-tempered person, inca- 
 pable of anything harsher than a mild remonstrance 
 with her maid, or a gentle chastisement of her child- 
 ren. Nine times out of ten her husband has her in 
 hand in the most perfect working order, so that she 
 would swear the moon shone at midday if it were his 
 pleasure that she should make a fool of herself by 
 her submissiveness. One of the most obedient and 
 indolent of earth's daughters, she gives no trouble to 
 any one, save the trouble of rousing, excitmg and 
 settmg going ; while, as for the conception or execu- 
 tion of any naughty piece of self-assertion, she is as 
 utterly incapable of either as if she were a child un- 
 born, and demands nothing better than to feel the 
 pressure of the leading-strings, and to know exactly 
 by their strain where she is desu'ed to go and what 
 to do. 
 
 But the little woman is irrepressible. Too fragile 
 
LITTLE WOMEN. 51 
 
 to come into the fighting section of humanity — a 
 puny creature whom one blow from a man's huge fist 
 could annihilate — absolutely fearless, and insolent 
 with the insolence which only those dare show who 
 know that retribution cannot follow — what can be 
 done with her ? She is afraid of nothing and to be 
 controlled by no one. Sheltered behind her weak- 
 ness as behind a triple shield of brass, the angriest 
 man dare not touch her, while she provokes him to a 
 combat in which his hands are tied. She gets her 
 own way in everything and everywhere. At home 
 and abroad she is equally dominant and irrepressible, 
 equally free from obedience and from fear. Who 
 breaks all the public order in sights and shows, and, 
 in spite of King, Kaiser, or Policeman X, goes where 
 it is expressly forbidden that she shall go ? Xot the 
 large-boned, muscular woman, whatever her tem- 
 perament ; unless, indeed, of the exceptionally 
 haughty type in distinctly inferior surroundings — 
 and then she can queen it royally enough and set 
 everything at most lordly defiance. 
 
 But in general the large-boned woman obeys the 
 orders given, because, while near enough to man to be 
 somewhat on a par with him, she is still undeniably 
 his inferior. She is too strong to shelter herself 
 behind her weakness, yet too weak to assert her 
 strength and def}^ her master on equal grounds. She 
 is like a flying fish — not one thing wholly ; and while 
 capable of the inconveniences of two lives is incapable 
 of the privileges of either. It is not she, for all her 
 
 E 2 
 
52 SATURDAY MOENINGS. 
 
 well-developed frame and formidable looks, but the 
 little woman, who breaks the whole code of laws 
 and defies all their defenders — the pert, smart, pretty 
 little woman, who laughs in your face and goes 
 straight ahead if you try to turn her to the right 
 hand or to the left, receiving your remonstrances 
 with the most sublime indifference, as if you were 
 talking a foreign language she could not understand. 
 She carries everything before her, wherever she is. 
 You may see her stepping over barriers, slipping 
 under ropes, penetrating to the green benches with a 
 red ticket, taking the best places on the platform 
 over the heads of their rightful owners, settling 
 herself among the reserved seats without an inch of 
 pasteboard to float her. You cannot turn her out 
 by main force. British chivalry objects to the public 
 laying on of hands in the case of a woman, even 
 when most recalcitrant and disobedient ; more parti- 
 cularly if she be a small and fragile-looking woman. 
 So that, if it be only a usurpation of places specially 
 masculine, she is allowed to retain what she has got, 
 amid the grave looks of the elders — not really dis- 
 pleased at the flutter of her ribbons among them — 
 and the titters and nudges of the young fellows. 
 
 If the battle is between her and another woman, 
 they are left to fight it out as they best can, with 
 the odds laid heavily on the little one. All this time 
 there is nothing of the tumult of contest about her. 
 Fiery and combative as she generally is, when break- 
 ing the law in public places she is the very soul of 
 
LITTLE WOMEN. 53 
 
 serene dariiig. She shows no heat, no passion, no tur- 
 bulence ; she leaves these as extra weapons of defence 
 to women who are assailable. For herself she re- 
 quires no such aids. She knows her capabilities and 
 the line of attack that best suits her, and she knows, 
 too, that the fewer points of contest she exposes the 
 more likely she is to slip into victory ; the more she 
 assumes and the less she argues, the slighter the 
 hold she gives her opponents. She is either per- 
 fectly good-humoured or blankly innocent ; she either 
 smiles you into indulgence or wearies you into com- 
 pliance by the sheer hopelessness of making any im- 
 pression on her. She may, indeed, if of the very voci- 
 ferous and shrill-tongued kind, burst out into such a 
 noisy demonstration as makes you glad to escape 
 from her, no matter what spoils you leave in her 
 hands ; just as a mastiff will slink away from a 
 bantam hen all heckled feathers and screeching 
 cackle and tremendous assumption of domg some- 
 thing terrible if he does not look out. Any way the 
 little woman is unconquerable ; and a tiny fragment 
 of humanity at a public show, setting all rules and 
 regulations at defiance, is only carrying out in the 
 matter of benches the manner of life to which nature 
 has dedicated her from the beo^inniner. 
 
 As a rule, the little woman is brave. When the 
 lymphatic giantess falls into a faint or goes off' into 
 hysterics, she storms, or bustles about, or holds on 
 like a game terrier, according to the work on hand. 
 She will fly at any man who annoys her, and she bears 
 
54 SATURDAY MOHNINGS. 
 
 » 
 
 herself as equal to the biggest and strongest fellow 
 of her acquaintance. In general she does it all by 
 sheer pluck, and is not notorious for subtlety or craft. 
 Had Delilah been a little woman she would never 
 have taken the trouble to shear Samson's locks. She 
 would have stood up against him with all his strength 
 untouched on his head, and she would have overcome 
 him too. Judith and Jael were both probably large 
 women. The work they went about demanded a 
 certain strenD;th of muscle and tous^hness of sinew : 
 but who can say that Jezebel was not a small, 
 freckled, auburn-haired Lady Audley of- her time, 
 fall of the concentrated fire, the electric force, the 
 passionate recklessness of her type ? Regan and 
 Goneril might have been beautiful demons of the 
 same pattern ; we have the example of the Mar- 
 chioness de Brinvilliers as to what amount of spiritual 
 devilry can exist with the face and manner of an 
 angel direct from heaven ; and perhaps Cordelia was 
 a tall dark -haired girl, with a pair of brown eyes, 
 and a long nose sloping downwards. 
 
 Look at modern Jewesses, with their flashing 
 Oriental orbs, their night-black tresses and the 
 dusky shadows of their olive -coloured complexions. 
 As catalogued properties according to the ideal, they 
 would be placed in the list of the natural criminals and 
 law-breakers, while in reality they are about as meek 
 and docile a set of women as are to be found within 
 the four seas. Pit a fiery little Welsh woman or 
 a petulant Parisienne against the most regal and 
 
LITTLE WOMEN. 55 
 
 Junonic amongst them, and let them try conclusions 
 in courage, in energy, in audacity ; the Israelitish 
 Juno will go down before either of the small Philis- 
 tines, and the fallacy of weight and colour in the 
 generation of power will be shown without the 
 possibility of denial. 
 
 Even in those old days of long ago, when human 
 characteristics were embodied and deified, we do not 
 find that the white-armed laro:e-limbed Hera, thou^j^h 
 queen by right of marriage, lorded it over her sister 
 goddesses by any superior energy or force of nature. 
 On the contrary, she was rather a heavy-going person, 
 and, unless moved to anger by her husband's nume- 
 rous infidelities, took her Olympian life placidly 
 enough, and once or twice got cheated in a way that 
 did no great credit to her sagacity. A little French- 
 woman would have sailed round her easily ; and as 
 it was, shrewish though she was in her speech when 
 provoked, her husband not only deceived but chastised 
 her, and reduced her to penitence and obedience as 
 no little woman would have suffered herself to be 
 reduced. 
 
 There is one celebrated race of women who were 
 probably the powerfully -built, large-limbed creatures 
 they are assumed to have been, and as brave and 
 energetic as they were strong and big — the Norse 
 women of the sagas, who, for good or evil, seem to 
 have been a very influential element in the old 
 Northern life. Prophetesses ; physicians ; dreamers of 
 dreams and accredited interpreters as well ; endowed 
 
56 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 with magic powers ; admitted to a share in the 
 councils of men ; brave in war ; active in peace ; 
 these fair-haired Scandinavian women were the fit 
 comrades of their men, the fit wives and mothers of 
 the Berserkers and the A^ikings. They had no tame 
 nor easy life of it, if all we hear of them be true. To 
 defend the farm and the homestead during their 
 husbands' absence, and to keep these and themselves 
 intact against all bold rovers to whom the Tenth 
 Commandment was an unknown law ; to dazzle and 
 bewilder by magic arts when they could not conquer 
 by open strength ; to unite craft and courage, de- 
 ception and daring, loyalty and independence, de- 
 manded no small amount of opposing qualities. But 
 the Steingerdas and Gudrunas were generally equal 
 to any emergency of fate or fortune, and slashed 
 their way through the history of their time more 
 after the manner of men than of women ; supple- 
 menting their downright blows by side thrusts of 
 craftier cleverness when they had to meet power with 
 skill and were fain to overthrow brutality by fraud. 
 The Norse women were certainly as largely framed 
 as they were mentally energetic, and as crafty as 
 either ; but we know of no other women who unite 
 the same characteristics and are at once cunning, 
 strong, brave and true. 
 
 On the whole, then, the little women have the 
 best of it. More petted than their bigger sisters, 
 and infinitely more powerful, they have their oAvn 
 way in part because it really does not seem worth 
 
LITTLE WOMEN. 57 
 
 while to contest a point with such little creatures. 
 There is nothing that wounds a man's self-respect 
 in any victory they may get or claim. Where there 
 is absolute inequality of strength, there can be no 
 humiliation in the self-imposed defeat of the stronger ; 
 and as it is always more pleasant to have peace than 
 war, and as big men for the most part rather like 
 than not to put their necks under the tread of tiny 
 feet, the little woman goes on her way triumphant 
 to the end ; breaking all the laws she does not like 
 and throwing down all the barriers which impede her 
 progress ; irresistible and irrepressible in all circum- 
 stances and under any conditions. 
 
58 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 IDEAL WOMEN, 
 
 It is often objected against fault-finders, writers 
 or others, that they destroy but do not build up ; 
 that while industriously blaming errors they take 
 good care not to praise the counteracting virtues ; 
 that in their zeal against the vermin of which they 
 are seeking to sweep the house clean they forget the 
 nobler creatures which do the good work of keeping 
 thmgs sweet and wholesome. But it is impossible to 
 be continually mtroducing the saving clause, ' all are 
 not so bad as these.' The seven thousand righteous 
 who have not bowed the knee to Baal are understood 
 to exist in all communities ; and, vicious as any 
 special section may be, there must always be the 
 hidden salt and savour of the virtuous to keep the 
 whole from falling into utter corruption. 
 
 This is specially true of modern women. Cer- 
 tainly some of them are as unsatisfactory as any of 
 their kind who have ever appeared on earth before ; 
 but it would be very queer logic to infer therefore that 
 all are bad alike, and that our modern womanhood is 
 as ill off as the Cities of the Plain, which could not 
 be saved for want of the ten just men to save them. 
 
IDEAL WOMEN. 59 
 
 Happily, we have noble women among us yet ; 
 women who believe in something besides pleasure, and 
 who do their work faithfully, wherever it may lie ; 
 women who can and do sacrifice themselves for love 
 and duty, and ^ho do not think they were sent into 
 the world simply to run one mad life-long race for 
 wealth, for dissipation, for distinction. But the life 
 of such women is essentially in retirement ; and 
 though the lesson they teach is beautiful, yet its 
 influence is necessarily confined, because of the narrow 
 sphere of the teacher. When public occasions for 
 devotedness occur, we in some sort measure the 
 extent to which the self-sacrifice of women can be 
 carried ; but in general their noblest virtues come 
 out only in the quiet sacredness of home, and the 
 most heroic lives of patience and well-doing go on in 
 seclusion, uncheered by sympathy and unrewarded 
 by applause. 
 
 Still, it is impossible to write of one absolute 
 womanly ideal — one single type that shall satisfy 
 every man's fancy ; for, naturally, what would be 
 perfection to one is imperfection to another, accord- 
 ing to the special bent of the individual mind. Thus 
 one man's ideal of womanly perfection is in beauty, 
 mere physical outside beauty ; and not all the virtues 
 under heaven could warm him into love with red 
 hair or a snub nose. He is entirely happy if his 
 wife be undeniably the handsomest woman of his ac- 
 quaintance, and holds himself blessed when all men 
 admire and all women envy. But he is blessed for 
 
60 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 his own sake rather than for hers. Pleasant as her 
 lovelmess is to look on, it is pleasanter to know that 
 he is the possessor of it. The ' handsomest woman 
 in the room' comes into the same category as the 
 finest picture or the most thoroughbred horse within 
 his sphere ; and if the degree of pride in his posses- 
 sion be different, the kind is the same. And so in 
 minor proportions — from the most beautiful woman 
 '^ (of all, to simply beauty as a sine qua non^ whatever 
 else may be wanting. One other thing only is as 
 absolute as this beauty, and that is its undivided 
 possession. 
 
 Another man's ideal is a good housekeeper and a 
 careful mother ; and he does not care a rush whether 
 his wife, if she is these, be pretty or ugly. Provided 
 she is active and industrious, minds the house 
 well, brings up the children as they ought to be 
 brought up, has good principles, is trustworthy and 
 even-tempered, he is not particular as to colour or 
 form, and can even be brought to tolerate a limp or 
 a squint. Given the broad foundations of an honour- 
 able home, and he will forego the lath and plaster of 
 personal appearance which will not bear the wear 
 and tear of years and their troubles. The soHd 
 virtues stand. His balance at the banker's is a fact ; 
 his good name and credit with the tradespeople are 
 facts ; so is the comfort of his home ; so are the health, 
 the morals, the education of his children. All these 
 are the true realities of life to him ; but the beauty 
 which changes to deformity by small-pox, which 
 
IDEAL WOMEN. 61 
 
 fades under dyspepsia, grows stale by habit, and is 
 worn threadbare by the end of twenty years, is only 
 a skin-deep grace which he does not value. Per- 
 haps he is right. Certainly, some of the happiest 
 marriages amongst one's acquaintances are those 
 where the wife has not one perceptible physical 
 charm, and where the whole force of her magnetic 
 value lies m what she is, not in how she looks. 
 
 Another man wants a tender, adoring, fair-haired 
 seraph, who will worship him as a demigod and 
 accept him as her best revelation of strength and 
 wisdom. The more dependent she is, the better he 
 will love her ; the less of conscious thought, of 
 active will, of originative power she has, the greater 
 will be his regard and tenderness. To be the one 
 sole teacher and protector of such a gentle little 
 creature seems to him the most delicious joy and the 
 best condition of married life ; and he holds Milton's 
 famous lines to be expressive of the only fitting rela- 
 tions between men and women. The adoring seraph 
 is his ideal ; Griselda, Desdemona, Lucy Ashton, 
 are his highest culminations of womanly grace ; and 
 the qualities which appeal the most powerfully to 
 his generosity are the patience which will not com- 
 plam, the gentleness that cannot resent, and the love 
 which nothing can chill. 
 
 Another man wants a cultivated intelligence in 
 his ideal. As an author, an artist, a student, a states- 
 man, he would like his wife to be able to help him 
 by the contact of bright wit and ready intellect. He 
 
62 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 believes in the sex of minds, and holds no work 
 complete which has not been created by the one and 
 perfected by the other. He sees how women have 
 helped on the leaders in troublous times ; he knows 
 that almost all great men have owed something of 
 their o;reatness to the influence of a mother or a wife ; 
 he remembers how thoughts which had lain dumb 
 and dormant in men's brains for more than half then' 
 lifetime have suddenly wakened up mto speech and 
 activity by the influence of a woman great enough to 
 call them forth. The adoring seraph would be an 
 encumbrance and nothing better than a child on his 
 hands ; and the soul which had to be awakened and 
 directed by him would run great chance of remaining 
 torpid and inactive all its days. He has his own life 
 to lead and round off ; and, so far from wishing to 
 influence another's, he wants to be helped for himself. 
 
 Another man cares only for the birth and social 
 position of the woman to whom he gives his name 
 and affection. To another yellow gold stands higher 
 than blue blood, and ' my wife's father ' may have 
 been a rag-picker, so long as rag-picking had been 
 distilled in a sufficiently rich alembic leaving a resi- 
 duum admittmg no kind of doubt. Venus herself 
 without a dowry would be only a pretty seaside girl 
 with a Newtown pippin in her hand ; but Miss 
 Kilmansegg would be something worth thinking of, 
 if but little worth looking at. 
 
 One man delights in a smart, vivacious little 
 woman of the irrepressible kind. It makes no dif- 
 
IDEAL WOME?^. 63 
 
 ference to him how petulant she is, how full of fire 
 and fury ; the most passionate bursts of temper 
 simply amuse him, like the anger of a canary-bird, 
 and he holds it fine fun to watch the small virago in 
 her tantrums, and to set her going again when he 
 thinks she has been a long enough time in subsi- 
 dence. His ideal of woman is an amusing little 
 plaything, with a great facility for being put up, and 
 a dash of viciousness to give it piquancy. Another 
 wants a sweet and holy saint whose patient humility 
 springs from principle rather than from fear ; another 
 likes a blithe- tempered, healthy girl with no nonsense 
 about her, full of fun and ready for everything, and he 
 is not particular as to the strict order or economy of 
 the housekeeping, provided only his wife is at all times 
 willing to be his pleasant playmate and companion. 
 Another delights in something very quiet, very silent, 
 very home- staying. One must have first-rate music 
 in his ideal woman; another, unimpeachable taste ; 
 a third, strict order ; a fourth, Hberal breadth of 
 nature ; and each has his own ideal, not only of 
 nature but of person — to the exact shade of the hair 
 the colour of the eyes and the oval of the face. But 
 all agree in the great fandamental requirements of 
 truth and modesty and love and unselfishness ; for 
 though it is impossible to write of one womanly ideal 
 as an absolute, it is very possible to detail the virtues 
 which ought to belong to all alike. 
 
 If this diversity of ideals be true of individuals, it 
 is especially true of nations, each of which has its 
 
CA SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 own ideal woman varying according to what is called 
 tlie genius of the country. To the Frenchman, if we 
 are to believe Michelet and the novelists, it is a 
 feverish little creature, full of nervous energy but 
 without muscular force ; of frail health and feeble 
 organization ; a prey to morbid fancies which she has 
 no strength to control nor yet to resist ; now weeping 
 away her life in the pain of finding that her husband — 
 a man gross and material because husband — does not 
 understand her, now sighing over her delicious sins 
 in the arms of the lover w^ho does ; without reason- 
 ing faculties but with divine intuitions w^hich are as 
 o-ood as revelations; without cool judgment but with 
 the lio-ht of burning passions which guide her just as 
 well ; thinking by her heart and carrying the most 
 refined metaphysics into her love ; subtle ; incompre- 
 hensible by the coarser brains of men and women who 
 are only honest ; a creature born to bewilder and to 
 be misled, to love and to be adored, to madden men 
 and to be destroyed by them. 
 
 It does not much signify that the reality is a 
 shrew^d, calculating, unromantic woman, with a hard 
 face and keen eyes, wdio for the most part makes a 
 good practical wife to her common- sense middle-aged 
 husband, who thmks more of her social position than 
 of her feelings, more of her children than of her 
 lovers, more of her purse than of her heart, and whose 
 oTcat object of life is a daily struggle for centimes. 
 It pleases the French to idealize their eminently 
 practical and worldly-wise women into this queer 
 
IDEAL WOMEN. 65 
 
 compound of hysterics and adultery; and if it pleases 
 tliem it need not displease us. To tlie German his 
 ideal is of two kinds — one, his Martha, the domestic 
 broad-faced Hausmutter^ who cooks good dinners at 
 small cost, and mends the family linen as religiously 
 as if this were the Eleventh Commandment specially 
 appointed for feminine fingers to keep, the poetic 
 culmination of whom is Charlotte cutting bread and 
 butter ; the other, his Mary, his Bettina, full of mind 
 and esthetics and heart-uplifting love, yearning after 
 the infinite with holes in her stockings and her shoes 
 down at heel. For what are coarse material mendino-s 
 to the aesthetic soul yearning after the Infinite and 
 worshipping at the feet of the prophet ? 
 
 In Italy the ideal woman of late times was the 
 ardent patriot, full of active energy, of physical force, 
 of dauntless courage. In Poland it is the patriot 
 too, but of a more refined and etherealized type, 
 passively resentmg Tartar tyranny by the subtlest 
 feminine scorn, and living in perpetual music and 
 mourning. In Spain it is a woman beautiful and 
 impassioned, with the slight drawback of needing a 
 world of looking after, of which the men are undeni- 
 ably capable. In Mohammedan countries generally 
 it is a comely smooth- skinned Dudii, patient and sub- 
 missive, always in good humour with her master, 
 economical in house-living to please the meanness, 
 and gorgeous in occasional attire to gratify the 
 ostentation, of the genuine Oriental ; but by no 
 means Dudii ever asleep and unoccupied. For, if 
 
 VOL. I, F 
 
ee SATURDAY xMORNINGS. 
 
 not allowed to take part in active outside life, the 
 Eastern's wife or wives have their home duties and 
 their maternal cares like all other women, and find 
 to their cost that, if they unduly neglect them, they 
 will have a bad time of it with Ali Ben Hassan when 
 the question comes of piastres and sequms, and the 
 dogs of Jews who demand payment, and the pigs 
 of Christians who follow suit. 
 
 The American ideal is of two kinds, like the Grer- 
 man — the one, the clever manager, the woman with 
 good executive faculty in the matters of buckwheat 
 cakes and oyster gumbo, as is needed in a country 
 so poorly provided with ' helps ; ' the other, the aspir- 
 ing soul who puts her aspirations into deeds, and 
 goes out into the world to do battle with the sins of 
 society as editress, preacher, stump-orator and the 
 like. It must be rather embarrassing to some men 
 that this special manifestation of the ideal woman at 
 times advocates miscegenation and free love ; but per- 
 haps we of the narrow old conventional type are not 
 up to the right mark yet, and have to wait until our 
 own women are thoroughly emancipated before we 
 can rightly appreciate these questions. At all events, 
 if this kind of thing pleases the Americans, it is no 
 more our busmess to interfere with them than with 
 the French compound ; and if miscegenation and 
 free love seem to them the right manner of life, let 
 them follow it. 
 
 In all countries, then, the ideal woman changes, 
 chameleon-like, to suit the taste of men ; and the 
 
IDEAL WOMEN. 67 
 
 great doctrine that her happiness does somewhat 
 dejDend on his liking is part of the very foundation of 
 her existence. According to his will she is bond or 
 free, educated or ignorant, lax or strict, house-keep- 
 ing or roving ; and though we advocate neither the 
 bondage nor the ignorance, yet we do hold to the 
 principle that, by the laws which regulate all human 
 communities everywhere, she is bound to study the 
 wishes of man and to mould her life in harmony 
 with his liking. No society can get on in which 
 there is total independence of sections and members, 
 for society is built up on the mutual dependence of 
 all its sections and all its members. Hence the 
 defiant attitude which women have lately assumed, 
 and their indifference to the wishes and remonstrances 
 of men, cannot lead to any good results whatever. 
 It is not the revolt of slaves against their tyrants 
 which they have begun — in that we could sympa- 
 thize — but it is a revolt against their duties. 
 
 And this it is which makes the present state of 
 things so deplorable. It is the vague restlessness, 
 the fierce extravagance, the neglect of home, the 
 indolent fine-ladyism, the passionate love of pleasure 
 which characterises the modern woman, that saddens 
 men and destroys in them that respect which their 
 very pride prompts them to feel. And it is the pain- 
 fid conviction that the ideal woman of truth and 
 modesty and simple love and homely living has 
 somehow faded away under the paint and tinsel of 
 this modern reality which makes us speak out as we 
 
 F 2 
 
68 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 have done, in the hope — perhaps a forlorn one — that 
 if she could be made to thoroughly understand what 
 men think of her, she would, by the very force of 
 natural instinct and social necessity, order herself in 
 some accordance with the lost ideal, and become 
 agam what we once loved and what we all regret. 
 
69 
 
 PINCHBECK. 
 
 Not many years ago no really refined gentlewoman 
 would have worn pinclibeck. False jewelry and 
 imitation lace were touchstones with the sex, and the 
 woman who would condescend to either was assumed, 
 perhaps not quite without reason, to have lost some- 
 thinof more than the mere niceness of technical taste. 
 This feeling ran through the whole of society, 
 and pinchbeck was considered as at once despicable 
 and disreputable. The successful speculator, sprung 
 from nothing, who had made his fortune during the 
 war, might buy land, build himself a mansion and 
 set up a magnificent establishment, but he was never 
 looked on by the aboriginal gentry of the place as 
 more than a lucky adventurer ; and the blue blood, 
 perhaps nourishing itself on thin beer, turned up its 
 nose disdainfully at the claret and Madeira which had 
 been personally earned and not lineally inherited. 
 This exclusiveness was narrow in spirit and hard 
 in individual working ; and yet there was a whole- 
 some sentiment underlying its pride \Yliicli made it 
 valuable in social ethics, if immoral on the score 
 of natural equality and human charity. It was the 
 rejection of pretentiousness, however gilded and 
 
70 SATURDAY MORNIKGS. 
 
 glittering, in favour of reality, however poor and 
 barren ; it was the condemnation of make-believe — the 
 repudiation of pinchbeck. It is not a generation since 
 this was the normal attitude of society towards its 
 nouveaiLX riches and Brummagem jewelry ; but time 
 moves fast in these later days, and national senti- 
 ments change as quickly as national fashions. 
 
 We are in the humour to rehabilitate all things, 
 and pinchbeck has now its turn with the rest. The 
 lady of slender means who would refuse to wear 
 imitation lace and false jewelry is as rare as the 
 country society which would exclude the nouveaii 
 riche because of his newness, and. not adopt him 
 because of his riches. The whole anxiety now is, not 
 what a thing is, but how it looks — not its quality, but 
 its appearance. Every part of social and domestic 
 life is dedicated to the apotheosis of pinchbeck. It 
 meets us at the hall- door, where miserable stuccoed, 
 pillars are supposed to confer a quasi-palatial dignity 
 on a wretched jerry-built little villa run up without 
 regard to one essential of home comfort or of archi- 
 tectural truth. It goes with us into the cold, conven- 
 tional drawing-room, where all is for show and nothing 
 for use, in which no one lives, and which is just the 
 mere pretence of a dwellmg-room, set out to deceive 
 the world into the belief that its cheap finery is the 
 expression of the every-day life and circumstances of 
 the family. It sits with us at the table, which a 
 confectioner out of a back street Las furnished and 
 where everything, down to the very flowers, is hired 
 
PINCHBECK. 71 
 
 for the occasion. It glitters in the brooches and 
 bracelets of the women, in the studs and signet-rings 
 of the men. It is in the hired broughams, the hired 
 waiters, the pigmy page-boys, the faded paper flowers, 
 the cheap champagne, and the affectation of social 
 consideration that meet us at every turn. The whole 
 of the lower section of the middle- classes is penetrated 
 through and through with the worship of pinchbeck ; 
 and for one family that holds itself in the honour and 
 simplicity of truth, ten thousand lie, to the world 
 and to themselves, in frippery and pretence. 
 
 The iH'eatest sinners in this are women. Men are 
 often ostentatious, often extravagant, and not un- 
 frequently dishonest in that broad way of dishonesty 
 which is called living beyond their means — sometimes 
 making up the deficit by practices which end in the 
 dock of the Old Bailey ; but, as a rule, they go in 
 for the real thing in details, and their pinchbeck is at 
 the core rather than on the surface. Women, on the 
 contrary, give themselves up to a more general pre- 
 tentioQsness, and, provided they can make a show, 
 care very little about the means ; provided they can 
 ring their metal on the counter, they ignore the want 
 of the hall- stamp underneath. Locality, dress, their 
 'visiting-list and domestic appearances are the four 
 things which they demand shall be in accord with 
 their neighbours' ; and for these four surfaces they 
 will sacrifice the Avhole internal fabric. They will 
 have a showy-looking house, encrusted with base 
 ornamentation and false grandeur, though it lets in 
 
72 SATUKDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 wind, rain and noise almost as if it were made 
 of mild or canvas, rather than a plain and sub- 
 stantial dwelling-place, with comfort instead of 
 stucco, and moderately thick walls instead of porches 
 and pilasters. Most of their time is necessarily 
 passed at home, but they will undergo all manner of 
 house discomfort resulting from this preference of 
 cheap finery over solid structure, rather than forego 
 their ' genteel locality ' and stereotyped ornamenta- 
 tion. A family of daughters on the one side, diligent 
 over the ' Battle of Prague ; ' a nursery full of crying 
 babies on the other ; more Battles of Prague opposite, 
 diversified by a future Lind practising her scales un- 
 weariedly ; water-pipes bursting in the frost ; walls 
 streaming in the thaw ; the lower offices reeking and 
 green with damp ; the upper rooms too insecure 
 for unrestricted movement — all these, and more 
 miseries of the same kind, a woman given over to the 
 worship of pinchbeck willingly encounters rather than 
 shift into a locality relatively unfashionable to her 
 sphere, but where she could have substantiality and 
 comfort for the same rent that she pays now for flash 
 and show. 
 
 In dress it is the same thing". She must look like 
 her neighbours, no matter whether they can spend 
 pounds to her shillings, so runs up a milliner's bill 
 beyond what she ought to afi'ord for the whole 
 family expenses. If others can buy gold, she can 
 manage pinchbeck. Glass that looks like jet, like 
 filagree work, like anything else she fancies, is every 
 
PINCHBECK. 73 
 
 bit to lier as good as the real thing ; and if she 
 cannot compass Valenciennes and Mechlin, she can go 
 to Nottingham and buy machine-made imitations that 
 will make quite as fine a show. How poor soever 
 she may be, she must hang herself about with orna- 
 ments made of painted wood, of glass, of vulcanite ; 
 she must break out into spangles and beads and chains 
 and henoitons, which are cheap luxuries and, as she 
 thinks, effective decorations. Flimsy silks make as rich 
 a rustle to her ear as the stateliest brocade ; and cotton 
 velvet delights the soul that cannot aspire to Genoa. 
 The love of pinchbeck is so deeply ingramed in her 
 that even if, in a momentary fit of aberration into 
 good taste, she condescends to a simple material 
 about which there can be neither disguise nor pre- 
 tence, she must load it with that detestable cheap 
 finery of hers till she makes herself as vulgar in a 
 muslin as she was in a cotton velvet. The simjolex 
 munditiis^ which used to be held as a canon of 
 feminine good taste, is now abandoned altogether, 
 and the more she can bedizen herself according to the 
 j)attern of a Sandwich islander the more beautiful 
 she thinks herself — the more certain the fascination of 
 the men and the greater the jealousy of the women. 
 This is the cause of all the tags and streamers, the 
 bits of ribbon here and flying ends of laces there, the 
 puffed-out chignons, and the trailing curls cut off 
 some dead girl's head, wherewith the modern English- 
 woman delights to make herself hideous. It is pinch- 
 beck througho u t . 
 
74 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 But we fear woman is past praying for in the 
 matter of fashion ; and that she is too far given over 
 to the abomination of pretence to be called back to 
 truth for any ethical reason whatsoever, or indeed by 
 anything short of high examples. And then, if 
 simplicity became the fashion, we should have our 
 pinchbeck votaries translating that into extremes as 
 they do now with ornamentation ; if my lady took 
 to plainness, they would go to nakedness. 
 
 Another bit of pinchbeck is the visiting-list — the 
 cards of invitation stuck against the drawing-room 
 glass — with the grandest names and largest fortunes 
 put forward, irrespective of dates or tenses. The 
 chance contact with the people represented may be 
 quite out of the ordinary circumstances of life, but 
 their names are paraded as if an accident, which has 
 happened once and may never occur again, were in 
 the daily order of events. They are brought to the 
 front to make others believe that the whole social 
 substance is of the same quality ; that generals and 
 admirals and lords and ladies are the common 
 elements of the special circle in which the family 
 habitually moves ; that pinchbeck is good gold, and 
 that ' composition ' means marble. Women are ex- 
 ceedingly tenacious of these pasteboard appearances. 
 In a house with its couple of female servants, where 
 formal visitors are very rare and invitations, save 
 by friendly word of mouth, rarer still, you may see 
 a cracked china bowl or cheap mock patera on the 
 hall table, to receive the cards which are assumed to 
 
PINCHBECK. 75 
 
 come in the thick showers usual with high people 
 who have hall- porters and a thousand names or more 
 on their books. The pile gets horribly dusty to be 
 sure, and the upper layer turns by degrees from 
 cream -colour to brown ; but antiquity is not held to 
 weaken the force of grandeur. The titled card left 
 on a chance occasion more than a year ago still keeps 
 the uppermost place, still represents a perpetual 
 renewal of aristocratic visits and an unbroken suc- 
 cession of social triumphs. Yellowed and soiled, it 
 is none the less the trump -card of the list ; and 
 while the outside world laughs and ridicules, the lady 
 at home thinks that no one sees through this puerile 
 pretence, and that the visiting-list is accepted accord- 
 ding to the status of the fugleman at the head. She 
 is very happy if she can say that the pattern of her 
 dress, her cap, her bonnet, was taken from that of 
 Lady So and So's ; and w^e may be quite sure that 
 all personal contact with grand folks so expresses 
 itself and perpetuates the memory of the event, by 
 such imitation — at a distance. It is too good an 
 occasion for the airing of pinchbeck to be disregarded ; 
 consequently, for the most part it is turned to this 
 practical account. Whether the fashion be suited to 
 the material or to the other parts of the dress, is 
 quite a secondary consideration ; it being of the essence 
 of pinchbeck to despise both fitness and harmony. 
 
 There is a large amount of pinchbeck in the 
 appearance of social influence, much cultivated by 
 women of a certain activity of mind and with more 
 
76 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 definite aims than all women have. This belongs to 
 a grade higher than the small pretences of which we 
 have been speaking — to women who have money, and 
 so far have one reality, but who have not, by their 
 own birth or their husbands', the orio;inal standmo; 
 which would give them this social influence as of right. 
 Some make themselves notorious for their drawino;. 
 room patronage of artists, which however does not 
 include buying their pictures ; others gather round 
 them scores of obscure authors, whose books they talk 
 of but do not read ; a few, a short time since, were 
 centres of spiritualistic circles and got a queer kind 
 of social influence thereby, so far as Philistine desire 
 to witness the ' manifestations ' went ; and one or two 
 are names of weight in the emancipated ranks, and 
 take chiefly to what they call ' working women.' 
 These are they who attend Ladies' Committees, where 
 they talk bosh and pound away at utterly unmterest- 
 ing subjects as diligently as if what they said had 
 any point in it, and what they did any ultimate 
 issue in probability or common sense. But beyond 
 the fact of having a large house, where their several 
 sets may assemble at stated periods, these would-be 
 lady patronesses are utterly impotent to help or to 
 hinder ; and their patronage is just so much pinch- 
 beck, not worth the trouble of weiofhinof. 
 
 In all this gaudy attempt at show, this restless 
 dissatisfaction with what they are and ceaseless 
 endeavour to a23pear something they are not, our 
 middle-class ladies are doing themselves and society 
 
PINCHBECK. 77 
 
 infinite mischief. Tbey set the tone to the world 
 below them ; and the small tradespeople and the 
 servants, when they copy the vices of their superiors, 
 do not imitate her grace the duchess, but the doctor's 
 wife over the way, and the lawyer's lady next door, 
 and the young ladies everywhere, who all try to 
 appear like women of rank and fortune, and who are 
 ashamed of nothing so much as of industry, truth and 
 simplicity. Hence the rage for cheap finery in the 
 kitchen, just a trifle more ugly and debased than that 
 worn in the drawing-room ; hence the miserable 
 pretentiousness and pinchbeck fine-ladyism filtermg 
 like poison through every pore of our society, to 
 result God only knows in what grave moral cataclysm, 
 unless women of mind and education will come to the 
 front and endeavour to stay the plague already 
 begun. Chains and brooches may seem but small 
 material causes for important moral efi'ects, but they 
 are symbols ; and, as "symbols, they are of deep 
 national value. 
 
 No good will be done till we get back some of our 
 fine old horror of pinchbeck, and once more insist on 
 Truth as the foundation of our national life. Educa- 
 tion and refinement will be of no avail if they do not 
 land us here ; and the progress of the arts and 
 sciences must not be brought to mean chiefly the 
 travesty of civilized ladies into the semblance of 
 savages, by the cheap imitation of costly substances. 
 Women are always rushing about the world eao-er 
 after everything but their home business. Here is 
 
78 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 something for tliem to do — the regeneration of society 
 by means of their own energies ; the bringing people 
 back to the dignity of truth and the beauty of 
 simphcity ; the substitution of that self-respect which 
 is content to appear what it is, for the feeble pride 
 which revels in pinchbeck because it cannot get 
 gold, which endeavours so hard to hide its real estate 
 and to pass for what it is not and never can be. 
 
AFFRONTED WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Amongst other queer anomalies in human nature 
 is the difference that lies between sectarian sins and 
 personal immoralities, between the intellectual un- 
 truth of a man's creed and the spiritual evil of his 
 own nature. Kigid Calvinism, for instance, which 
 narrows the issues of divine grace and shuts up the 
 avenues of salvation from all but a select few, is a 
 sour and illiberal faith ; and yet a rigid Calvinist, 
 simply continuing to believe in predestination and 
 election as he was taught from the beginning, may be 
 a generous, genial, large-hearted man. An inventor 
 scheming out the deadliest projectile that has yet 
 been devised is not necessarily indifferent to human 
 life on his own account ; nor is every American who 
 talks tall talk about the glorious destinies of his coun- 
 try and the infinite superiority of his countrymen, as 
 conceited personally as he is vamglorious nationally. 
 In fact, he may be a very modest fellow by his own 
 fireside ; and though in his quality of American he is 
 of course able to whip universal creation, in his mere 
 quality of man he is quite ready to take the lower seat 
 at the table and to give honour where honour is due. 
 
80 SATURDAY MOEXIXGS. 
 
 This kind of distinction between the faults of the 
 sect and the person, the nature and the cause, is very 
 noticeable in women ; and especially in all things 
 relatino- to themselves. Individually, many among 
 them are meek and long-suffering enough, and would 
 be as little capable of resenting a wrong as of 
 revencdno" it. Being used from the cradle to a good 
 deal of snubbing, they take to it kindly as part of 
 the inevitable order of things, and kiss the chasten- 
 ing rod with edifying humility ; but, collectively, 
 they are the most impatient of rebuke, the most arro- 
 S^ant in moral attitude, and the most restive of all 
 created things sought to be led or driven. The 
 woman who will bear to hear of her personal faults 
 without offering a word in self-defence, and who will 
 even say peccavi quite humbly if hard pressed, fires 
 up into illimitable indignation when told that her 
 foibles are characteristic of her sex, and that she is no 
 worse than nature meant her to be. Personally she 
 is willino- to confess that she is only a poor worm 
 grovelling in the dust — perhaps an exceptionally 
 poor worm, if of the kind given to spiritual asceti- 
 cism — but by her class she claims to be considered 
 next door to an angel, and arrogates to her sex 
 virtues which she would blush to claim on her own 
 
 behalf. 
 
 Men, as men, are all sorts of bad things, as 
 every one knows. They are selfish, cruel, tyrannical, 
 sensual, unjust, bloodthirsty — where does the list 
 end ? and human nature in the abstract is a bad 
 
AFFRONTED WOMANHOOD. 81 
 
 thing too, given over to lies and various deadly 
 lusts ; but women, as women, are exempt from any 
 special share in the general miquity, and only come 
 under the ban with universal nature — with lambs and 
 doves and other pretty creatures — not quite perfection, 
 because of the Fall which spoilt everything, and yet 
 very near it. As children of the rash parents who 
 corrupted the race they certainly suffer from the 
 general infection of sin that followed, but, as 
 daughters contrasted with the sons, they are so far 
 superior to those evil-minded brethren of theirs that 
 their comparative virtues by sex override their posi- 
 tive vices by race. As individuals, they are worms ; 
 as human beings, they are poor smful souls ; but by 
 their womanhood they are above rebuke. 
 
 Women have been so long wrapped in this 
 pleasant little delusion about the sacredness of their 
 sex, and the perfections belonging thereto by nature, 
 that any attem^jt to show them the truth and con- 
 vince them that they too are guilty of the mean 
 faults and petty ways common to a fallen humanity 
 — whereof certain manifestations are special to them- 
 selves — is met with the profound scorn or shrill cries 
 of affronted womanhood. A man who sjDeaks of their 
 faults as they appear to him, and as he suffers by 
 them, is illiberal and unmanly, and the rage of the 
 more hysterically indignant would not be very far 
 below that of the Thracian MaBnads, could they lay 
 hands on the offending Orpheus of the moment ; hut 
 a woman who speaks from knowledge, and touches the 
 
 VOL. I. G 
 
82 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 weak places and the sore spots known best to the 
 initiated, is a traitress even baser than the rude man 
 who perhaps knows no better. 
 
 The whole life and being of womanhood must 
 be held sacred from censure, exalted as it is by a 
 kind of sentimental apotheosis that will not bear 
 reasoning about, to something very near divinity. 
 Even the follies of fashion must be exempt from 
 both ridicule and rebuke, on the ground of man's 
 utter ignorance of the merits of the question ; for 
 how should a poor male body know anything about 
 trains or crinolines, or the pleasure that a woman 
 feels in making herself ridiculous or indecent in 
 appearance and a nuisance to her neighbours? while, 
 for anything graver than the follies of fashion, it 
 is in a manner high treason against the supremacy 
 of the sex to assume that they deserve either ridicule 
 or rebuke. Besides, it is indelicate. Women are 
 made to be worshipped, not criticized ; to be rever- 
 enced as something mystically holy and incompre- 
 hensible by the grosser masculine faculties ; and it 
 is indiscreet, to say the least of it, when vile man 
 takes it on himself to test the idol by the hard 
 mechanical tests of truth and common -sense, and to 
 show the world how much alloy is mingled with the 
 gold. 
 
 This is in ethics what the Oriental's reserve 
 about his harem is in domestic life. The sacred- 
 ness of a Mohammedan's womankind must be so 
 complete that they are even nameless to the coarser 
 
AFFRONTED WOMANHOOD. 83 
 
 sex ; and not, ' How ^.s your wife ? ' '■ How are your 
 daughters ? ' but, ' How is your house ? ' is the only 
 accepted form of words by which Ali may ask Hassan 
 about the health of his Fatimas and Zuliekas. In 
 much the same way our women must be kept behind 
 the close gilded gratings of aiFected perfectness, and, 
 above all things, never publicly discussed — much less 
 publicly condemned. 
 
 It is by no means a proof of wisdom, or of the 
 power of logically reasoning out a position and its 
 consequences, that women should thus demand to be 
 treated as things superior to the faults and follies of 
 humanity at large. They are clamouring loudly, and 
 with some justice, for an equal share in the world's 
 work and wages, and it is wonderfully stupid in them 
 to stand on their womanly dignity and their quasi- 
 sacredness, when told of their faults and measured 
 according to their shortcomings, not their pretensions. 
 If they come down into the arena to fight, they must 
 fight subject to the conditions of the arena. They 
 must not ask for special rules to be made in their 
 behalf — for blunted weapons on the one side and 
 impregnable defences on the other. If they demand 
 either mystic reverence or chivalric homage they 
 must be content with their own narrow but safe 
 enclosure, where they have nothing to do but to look 
 at the turmoil below, and accept with gratitude such 
 portions of the good things fought for as the men to 
 whom they belong see fit to bring them. They can- 
 not at one and the same time have the good of both 
 
 G 2 
 
84 SATURDAY M0R^'1^TTS 
 
 positions — the courtesy claimed by weakness and tlie 
 honour paid to prowess. If they mingle in the melee 
 they mnst expect as hard knocks as the rest, and 
 must submit to be bullied when they hit foul and to 
 be struck home when they hit wide. If they do not 
 like these conditions, let them keep out of the fray 
 altogether ; but if they choose to mingle in it, no 
 hysterics of affronted womanhood, however loud the 
 shrieks, will keep them safe from hnrd knocks and 
 rough treatment. 
 
 Time out of mind women have been credited with 
 all the graces and virtues possible in a world which 
 ' the trail of the serpent ' has defiled. To be sure 
 they have been cursed as well, as the causes of most 
 of the miseries of society from Eve's time to Helen's, 
 and later still. Teterrima causa. But the praise 
 alone sticks, so far as their own self-belief is con- 
 cerned, and men, who create the curses, may arrange 
 them to their own liking. The poet says they are 
 * ministering angels ; ' the very name of mother is to 
 some men almost as holy as that of God, and the 
 most solemn oath a Frenchman can take in a private 
 wa}^ is not by his own honour, but by the name or 
 the head or the life of his mother. 
 
 As wives — well, save in the old nursery doggrel 
 which sets forth that they are made of ' all that's 
 good if well understood ' — as wives certamly they 
 get not a few ungentle rubs. But then only a 
 husband knows where the shoe pinches, and if he 
 blasphemes during the wearing of it, on his own 
 
AFFRONTED WOMANHOOD. 85 
 
 head be tlie guilt as is already the punishment. 
 As maidens they are confessedly the most sacred 
 manifestation of humanity, and to be approached 
 with the reverence rightfully due to the holiest 
 thing we know ; while in the new spiritualistic 
 world we are told to look for the time when the 
 moral supremacy of woman shall be the recognized 
 law of human life and the reign of violence and 
 tears and all iniquity shall therefore be at an end. 
 Thus the moral loveliness of collective womanhood 
 is a dogma which men are taught from their boyhood 
 as an article of faith if not a matter of experience, 
 and women naturally keep them up to the mark — 
 theoretically, at all events. Yet for all this lip- 
 homao^e, of which so much account is made, women 
 are often ill-used and brutalized, and m spite of their 
 superior pretensions as often fall below men m every 
 quality but that of patience. And patience is emi- 
 nently the virtue of weakness, and therefore woman's 
 cardinal grace ; speaking broadly and allowing for 
 exceptions. But what women do not see is that all 
 this poetic flattery comes originally from the idealiz- 
 ing passion of men, and that, left to themselves, with 
 only each other for critics and analyzers, they would 
 soon find themselves stripped of their superfluous 
 moral finery and reduced to the bare core of un- 
 compromising truth. And this would be the best 
 thing for them in the end. If they could but rise 
 superior to the weakness of flattery, chey would rise 
 beyond the power of much that now degrades them. 
 
86 SATUEDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 If they would bat honestly consider the question ot 
 their own shortcomings when told where they fail, 
 and what they cannot do, and what they will be 
 sure to make a mess of if they attempt, they would 
 prove their title to man's respect far more than they 
 prove it now by the shrill cries and indignant remon- 
 strances of affronted womanhood. 
 
 This is the day of trial for many thmgs — among 
 others, for the capacity of women for an enlarged 
 sphere of action and more public exercise of power. 
 Do women think they show their fitness for nobler 
 duties than those already assigned them, by their im- 
 patience under censure, which is, after all, but one 
 mode of teachmg ? Are they qualifying themselves 
 to act in concert with men, by assuming an absolute 
 moral supremacy which it is a kmd of sacrilege to 
 deny ? If they think they are on the right road as at 
 present followed, let them go on in heaven's name. 
 When they have wandered sufficiently far perhaps 
 they will have sense enough to turn back, and see for 
 themselves what mistakes they have made and might 
 have avoided, had they had the wisdom of self-know- 
 ledge in only a small degree. Certainly, so long as 
 womanhood is held to confer, ^j>t'r sc, a special and un- 
 assailable divinity, so long will women be rendered 
 comparatively incapable of the best work through 
 vanity, through ignorance^ and through impatience of 
 the teaching that comes by rebuke. Nothing is so 
 damaging in the long run as exaggerated pretensions ; 
 for by-and-by, after a certain period of uncritical 
 
AFFRONTED WOMANHOOD. 87 
 
 homage, the world is sure to believe that the silver 
 veil which it has so long respected hides deformity, not 
 divinity, and that what is too sacred for public use is 
 too poor for public honour. If the faults of women are 
 not to be discussed, nor their follies condemned, 
 because womanhood is a sacred thing and a man 
 naturally respects his mother and sisters, then women 
 must be content to live in a moral harem, where they 
 will be safe from both the gaze and the censure of the 
 outside world ; they must not come down into the 
 battle-fields and the workshops, where they forfeit all 
 claim to protection and have to accept the man's law 
 of ' no favour.' It must be one thing or the other. 
 Either their merits must be weighed and their capacity 
 assayed in reference to the place they want to take — 
 and in doing this their faults must be boldly and dis- 
 tmctly discussed — or they must be content with their 
 present condition ; and, with the mystic sanctity of 
 their womanhood, they must accept also its moral 
 seclusion — belonging, by their very nature, to things 
 too sacred for criticism and too perfect for censure. It 
 rests with themselves to decide which it is to be. 
 
88 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 FEMININE AFFECTATIONS, 
 
 The old form of feminine affectation used to be that 
 of a die-away fine lady afflicted with a mysterious 
 malady known by the name of the vapours, or one, 
 no less obscure, called the spleen. Sometimes it was 
 an etherealized being who had no capacity for homely 
 things, but who passed her life in an atmosphere of 
 poetry and music, for the most part expressing her 
 vague ideas in haltmg rhymes which gave more 
 satisfaction to herself than to her friends. She was 
 probably an Italian scholar and could quote Pet- 
 rarch and Tasso, and did quote them pretty often ; 
 she might even be a Delia Cruscan by honourable 
 election, with her own peculiar wreath of laurel and 
 her own silver lyre ; any way she was ' a sister of 
 the Muses/ and had something to do with Apollo 
 or Minerva, whom she was sure to call Phcebus or 
 Pallas Athene, as being the more poetical name of the 
 two. Probably she had dealings with Diana too — for 
 this kind of woman does not in any age affect the 
 ^seaborn,' save in a hazy sentimental way that bears 
 no fruits — a neatly-turned sonnet or a clever bit 
 of counterpoint being to her worth all the manly 
 
FEMININE AFFECTATIONS. 89 
 
 love or fireside home delio;hts that the world can 
 give. What is the touch of babies' dimpled fingers 
 or the rosy kisses of babies' lips compared to the 
 pleasures of being a sister of the Muses and one of 
 the beloved of Apollo ! The Delia Cruscan of 
 former days, or her modern avatar, will tell you that 
 music and poetry are godlike and bear the soul away 
 to heaven, but that the nursery is a prison and babies 
 are no dearer gaolers than any other ; and that 
 household duties disgrace tlie aspiring soul mounting 
 to the empyrean. This was the Ethereal Being of 
 last generation — the Blue-stocking, as a poetess in 
 white satin, with her eyes turned up to heaven and 
 her hair in dishevelled cascades about her neck. She 
 dropped her mantle as she finally departed ; and we 
 still have the Delia Cruscan essence, if not in the 
 precise form of earlier times. We still have ethereal 
 beings who, as the practical outcome of their ether- 
 ealization, rave about music and poetry and aesthetics 
 and culture, and horribly neglect their babies and the 
 weekly bills. 
 
 A favourite form of feminine affectation among 
 certain opposers of the prevalent fast type is in an 
 intense womanliness — an aggravating intensity of 
 womanliness — that makes one long for a little rough- 
 ness, just to take ofi" the cloying excess of sweet- 
 ness. This kind is generally found with large eyes, 
 dark in the lids and hollow in the orbit, by which a 
 certain spiritual expression is given to the face — a 
 certain look of being consumed by the hidden fire of 
 
90 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 lofty thought, that is very effective. It does not 
 destroy the effectiveness that the real cause of the 
 darkened lids and cavernous orbits is most probably 
 internal disease, when not antimony. Eyes of this 
 sort stand for spirituality and loftiness of thought 
 and intense womanliness of nature : and, as all men 
 are neither chemists nor doctors, the simulation does 
 quite as well as truth. 
 
 The main characteristic of these women is self- 
 consciousness. They live before a moral mirror, 
 and pass their time in attitudinizing to what they 
 think the best advantage. They can do nothing 
 simply, nothing spontaneously and without the 
 fullest consciousness as to how they do it, and 
 how they look while they are doing it. In every 
 action of their lives they see themselves as pic- 
 tures, as characters in a novel, as impersonations of 
 poetic images or thoughts. If they give you a glass 
 of water, or take your cup from you, they are Youth 
 and Beauty ministering to Strength or Age, as the 
 case may be ; if they bring you a photographic 
 album, they are Titian's Daughter carrying her 
 casket, a trifle modernized ; if they hold a child in 
 their arms, they are Madonnas, and look unutterable 
 maternal love though they never saw the little crea- 
 ture before, and care for it no more than for the 
 puppy in the mews ; if they do any small personal 
 office, or attempt to do it — making believe to tie a 
 shoestring, comb out a curl, fasten a button — they 
 are Charities in graceful attitudes, and expect you to 
 
FEMININE AFFECTATIONS. 91 
 
 think them both charitable and graceful. Nine times 
 out of ten they can neither tie the string nor fasten 
 the button with ordinary deftness— for they have 
 a trick of using only the ends of their fingers when 
 they do anything with their hands, as being more 
 graceful and fitting in better, than would a firmer 
 grasp, wdth the delicate womanliness of the character ; 
 and the less sweet and more commonplace woman 
 who does not attitudinize morally and never parades 
 her womanliness, beats them out of the field for real, 
 helpfulness, and is the Charity which the other only 
 plays at being. 
 
 This kind too affects, in theory, wonderful sub- 
 missiveness to man. It upholds Griselda as the 
 type of feminine perfection, and — still in theory — 
 between independence and being tyrannized over, 
 goes in for the tyranny. ' I would rather my hus- 
 band beat me than let me do too much as I liked,' 
 said one before she married, who, after she was 
 married, managed to get entire possession of the 
 domestic reins and took good care that her nominal 
 lord should be her practical slave. For, notwithstand- 
 ing the sweet submissiveness of her theory, the 
 intensely womanly woman has the most astonishing 
 knack of getting her own way and imposing her ow^n 
 will on others. The real tyrant among w^omen is 
 not the one who flounces and splutters and de- 
 clares that nothing shall make her obey, but this 
 soft-mannered, large-eyed, intensely w^omanly person 
 who says that Griselda is her ideal and that the 
 
92 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 whole duty of woman lies in unquestioning obedience 
 to man. 
 
 In contrast with this special affectation is the 
 mannish woman — the woman vdio wears a double- 
 breasted coat with big buttons, of which she flings 
 back the lappels with an air, understanding the 
 suggestiveness of a wide chest and the need of un- 
 checked breathing ; who wears unmistakeiible shirt- 
 fronts, linen collars, vests and plain ties, like a man ; 
 who folds her arms or sets them akimbo, like a man ; 
 who even nurses her feet and cradles her knees, in 
 spite of her petticoats, and makes believe that the 
 attitude is comfortable because it is manlike. If the 
 excessively womanly woman is affected in her 
 sickly sweetness, the mannish woman is affected in 
 her breadth and roughness. She adores dogs and 
 horses, which she places far above children of all 
 ages. She boasts of how good a marksman she is — 
 she does not call herself markswoman — and how she 
 can hit right and left and brmg down both birds 
 flying. When she drinks wine she holds the stem 
 of the glass between her first two fingers, hollows 
 her underlip, and, throwing her head well back, tosses 
 off the whole at a draught — she would disdain the 
 lady-like sip or the closer gesture of ordinary women. 
 She is great in cheese and bitter-beer, in claret-cup 
 and still champagne, but she despises the puerilities 
 of sweets or of effervescing wines. She rounds her 
 elbows a'nd turns her wrist outward, as men round 
 their elbows and turn their wrists outward. She is 
 
FEMININE AFFECTATIONS. 93 
 
 fond of carpentry, she says, and boasts of her powers 
 with the plane and saw. For charms to her watch- 
 chain she Avears a cork-screw, a gimlet, a big knife 
 and a small foot-rule ; and in contrast with the 
 intensely womanly woman, who uses the tips of her 
 fingers only, the mannish woman when she does 
 anything uses the whole hand, and if she had to 
 thread a needle would thread it as much by her 
 palm as by her fingers. All of which is aiFectation 
 — from first to last affectation ; a mere assumption 
 of virile fashions utterly inharmonious to the whole 
 being, physical and mental, of a woman. 
 
 Then there is the affectation of the woman who 
 has taken propriety and orthodoxy under her special 
 protection, and who regards it as a personal insult 
 when her friends and acquaintances go beyond the 
 exact limits of her mental sphere. This is the 
 woman who assumes to be the antiseptic element in 
 society ; who makes believe that without her the 
 world and human nature would go to the dogs and 
 plunge headlong into the abyss of sin and destruc- 
 tion forthwith ; and that not all the grand heroism 
 of man, not all his thought and energy and high 
 endeavour and patient seeking after truth would 
 serve his turn or the world's if she did not spread 
 her own petty preserving nets, and mark out the 
 boundary lines within which she would confine the 
 range of thought and speculation. She knows that 
 this assumption of spiritual beadledom is mere affec- 
 tation, and that other mdnds have as much right to 
 
94 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 their own boundary lines as that which she daims 
 for herself : but it seems to her pretty to assume 
 that woman generally is the consecrated beadle of 
 thought and morality, and that she, of all women, is 
 most specially consecrated. As an offshoot of this 
 kind stands the affectation of simplicity — the woman 
 whose mental attitude is self- depreciation, and who 
 poses herself as a mere nobody when the world is 
 ringing with her praises. ' Is it possible that your 
 Grace has ever heard of me ? ' said one of this class 
 with prettily affected naivete at a time when all 
 England was astir about her, and when colours and 
 fashions went by her name to make them take with 
 the public at large. Xo one knew better than the 
 fair ingenue in question how far and wide her fame 
 had spread ; but she thought it looked modest and 
 simple to assume ignorance of her own value, and to 
 declare that she was but a creeping worm when all 
 the world knew that she was a soaring butterfly. 
 
 There is a certain like kind of affectation very 
 common among pretty women ; and this is the 
 affectation of not knowing that they are pretty, and 
 not recognizing the effect of their beauty on men. 
 Take a w^oman with bewildering eyes, say, of a mad- 
 dening size and shape and fringed with long lashes 
 which distract you to look at ; the creature knows that 
 her eyes are bewildering, as well as she knows that 
 fire burns and that ice melts ; she knows the effect 
 of that trick she has with them — the sudden uplift- 
 ing of the heavy lid and the swift, full gaze that she 
 
FEMININE AFFECTATIONS. 95 
 
 gives right into a man's eyes. She has practised it 
 often in the glass, and knows to a mathematical 
 nicety the exact height to which the lid must be 
 raised and the exact fixity of the gaze. She knows 
 the whole meaning of the look and the stirring of 
 men's blood that it creates ; but if you speak to her 
 of the effect of her trick, she puts on an air of 
 extremest innocence, and protests her entire ignor- 
 ance as to anything her eyes may say or mean ; and 
 if you press her hard she will look at you in the 
 same way for your own benefit, and deny at the 
 very moment of offence. Various other tricks has 
 she with those bewildering eyes of hers— each more 
 perilous than the other to men's peace ; and all un- 
 sparingly employed, no matter what the result. For 
 this is the woman who flirts to the extreme limits, 
 then suddenly draws up and says she meant nothing. 
 Step by step she has led you on, with looks and 
 smiles and pretty doubtful phrases always suscep- 
 tible of two meanings —the one for the ear by mere 
 word, the other for the heart by the accompaniments 
 of look and manner, which are intangible ; step by 
 step she has drawn yoa deeper and deeper into the 
 maze where she has gone before as your decoy ; 
 then, when she has you safe, she raises her eyes for 
 the last time, complains that you have mistaken her 
 cruelly and that she has meant nothing more than 
 any one else might mean ; and what can she do to 
 repair her mistake ? Love you ? marry you ? No ; 
 she is engaged to your rival, who counts his thou- 
 
96 SATURDAY MOENINGS. 
 
 sands to your hundreds ; and what a pity that you 
 had not seen this all along and that you should have 
 so misunderstood her ! Besides, what is there about 
 her that you or any one should love ? 
 
 Of all the many affectations of women, this affec- 
 tation of their own harmlessness when beautiful, 
 and of their innocence of design when they practise 
 their arts for the discomfiture of men, is the most 
 dane:erous and the most disastrous. But what can 
 one say to them? The very fact that they are 
 dangerous disarms a man's anger and blinds his 
 perception until too late. That men love though 
 they suffer is the woman's triumph, guilt and con- 
 donation ; and so long as the trick succeeds it will 
 be practised. 
 
 Another affectation of the same family is the ex- 
 treme friendliness and familiarity which some women 
 adopt in their manners towards men. Young girls 
 affect an almost maternal tone to boys of their own 
 age, or a year or so older ; and they, too, when their 
 wiser elders remonstrate, declare they mean nothing, 
 and how hard it is that they may not be natural! 
 This form of affectation, once begun, continues 
 through life ; being too convenient to be lightly dis- 
 carded ; and youthful matrons not long out of their 
 teens assume a tone and ways that would befit middle 
 age counselling giddy youth, and that might by chance 
 be dangerous even then if the ' Indian summer ' 
 were specially bright and warm. 
 
 Then there is that affectation pure and simple 
 
FEmNINE AFFECTATIONS. 97 
 
 which is the mere affectation of manner, such as is 
 shown in the drawling voice, the mincing gait, the ex- 
 treme gracefulness of attitude which by consciousness 
 ceases to be grace, and the thousand little minaudeines 
 and coquetries of the sex known to us all. And 
 there is the affectation which people of a higher 
 social sphere show Avhen they condescend to those of 
 low estate, and talk and look as if they are not quite 
 certain of their company, and scarcely know if they 
 are Christian or heathen, savage or civilized. And 
 there is the affectation of the maternal passion with 
 women who are never by any chance seen with their 
 children, but who speak of them as if they were never 
 out of their sight ; the affectation of wifely adoration 
 with women who are to be met about the world with 
 every man of their acquaintance rather than with 
 their lawful husbands ; the affectation of asceticism 
 in women who lead a self- enjoying life from end 
 to end ; and the affectation of political fervour in 
 those who would not give up a ball or a new dress to 
 save Europe from universal revolution. 
 
 Go where we will, the affectation of being some- 
 thing she is not meets us in woman, like a ghost we 
 cannot lay, a mist we cannot sweep away. In the 
 holiest and the most trivial things we find it pene- 
 trating everywhere — even in church and at her 
 prayers, when the pretty penitent, rising from her 
 lengthy orisons, lifts her eyes and furtively looks 
 about to see who has noticed her self-abasement and 
 to whom her picturesque piety has commended itself. 
 VOL. I. H 
 
98 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 All sorts and patterns of good girls and pleasant 
 women are very dear and delightful ; but the pearl of 
 great price is the thoroughly natural and unaffected 
 woman — that is, the woman who is truthful to her 
 heart's core, and who would as little condescend to 
 act a pretence as she would dare to tell a lie. 
 
99 
 
 INTERFERENCE. 
 
 About the strongest propensity in human nature, 
 apart from the purely personal instincts, is the pro- 
 pensity to interfere. We do not mean tyranny ; that 
 is another matter — tyranny being active while inter- 
 ference is negative — the one standing as the mascu- 
 line, the other as the feminine, form of the same 
 principle. Besides, tyranny has generally some 
 personal gain in view when it takes it in hand to force 
 people to do what they dishke to do ; while inter- 
 ference seeks no good for itself at all, but simply 
 prevents the exercise of free-will for the mere 
 pleasure to be had out of such prevention. 
 
 Again, the idea of tyranny is political rather than 
 domestic ; but the curse of interference is seen most 
 distinctly within the four walls of home, where also 
 it is most felt. Yery many people spend their lives 
 in interfering with others — perpetually putting spokes 
 into wheels with the turning of which they have 
 nothing to do, and thrusting their fingers into pies 
 about the baking of which they are in no way con- 
 cerned ; and of these people we are bound to confess 
 that women make up the larger number and are the 
 
 H 2 
 
100 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 greater sinners. To be sure there are some men — 
 small, fussy, finnicking fellows, with whom nature 
 has made the irreparable blunder of sex — who are 
 as troublesome in their endless interference as the 
 narrowest-minded and most meddling women of their 
 acquaintance ; but the feminine characteristics of men 
 are so exceptional that we need not take them into 
 serious calculation. For the most part, when men 
 do interfere in any manly sense at all, it is with such 
 things as they think they have a right to control — 
 say, with the wife's low dresses or the daughter's 
 too patent flirtations. They interfere and prevent 
 because they are jealous of the repute, perhaps of the 
 beauty, of their womankind ; and, knowing what 
 other men say of such displays, or fearing their effect, 
 they stand between folly and slander to the best of 
 their ability. But this kmd of interference, noble or 
 ignoble as the cause may be, comes mto another class 
 of motives altogether and does not belong to that 
 kind of interference of which we are speaking. 
 
 Women, then, are the great interferers at home, 
 both with each other and with men. They do not 
 tell us what we are to do, beyond going to church 
 and subscribing to their favourite mission, so much 
 as they teU us what we are not to do. They do not 
 command so much as they forbid. And, of all women, 
 wives and daughters are the most given to handlmg 
 these check-strings and putting on these drag-chains. 
 Sisters, while young, are obliged to be less interfering, 
 under pain of a perpetual round of bickering ; for 
 
INTERFERENCE. 101 
 
 brothers are not apt to submit to the counsel of 
 creatures for the most part so loftily snubbed as 
 sisters ] while mothers nine times out of ten are laid 
 aside for all but sentimental purposes, so soon as the 
 son has ceased to be a boy and has learned to become 
 a man. The queenhood, therefore, of personal and 
 domestic interference lies with wives, and they know 
 how to use the prerogative they assume. Take an 
 unlucky man who smokes under protest — his wife not 
 liking to forbid the pleasure entirely, but always 
 grudging it and interfering with its exercise. Each 
 cigar represents a battle, deepening in intensity ac- 
 cording to the number. The first may have been had 
 with only a Hght skirmish — perhaps a mere threaten- 
 ing of an attack that passed away without coming to 
 actual onslaught ; the second brings up the artillery ; 
 while the third or fourth lets all the forces loose, and 
 sets the big guns thundering. She could understand 
 a man smoking one cigar in the day, she says, with a 
 gracious condescension to masculine weakness; but 
 when it comes to more she feels that she is called on 
 to interfere, and to do her best towards checking such 
 a reprehensible excess. It does not weaken her position 
 that she knows nothing of what she is talking about. 
 She never smoked a cigar herself, therefore does not 
 understand the uses nor the abuses of tobacco ; but 
 she holds herself pledged to interfere so soon as she 
 gets the chance ; and she redeems that pledge with 
 energy. 
 
 The man too, who has the stomach of an ostrich 
 
102 SATURDAY MOENINGS. 
 
 and an appetite to correspond, but about whom tbe 
 home superstition is that he has a feeble digestion 
 and must take care of his diet, has also to run the 
 gauntlet of his wife's interfering forces. He never 
 dines nor sups jollily with his friends without being 
 plucked at and reminded that salmon always dis- 
 agrees with him ; that champagne is sure to give 
 him a headache to-morrow ; and, ' My dear ! when 
 you know how bad salad is for you ! ' or, * How can 
 you eat that horrid pastry ? You will be so ill in 
 the night ! ' ' What ! more wine ? another glass of 
 whisky ? how foolish you are ! how wrong ! ' The 
 wife has a nervous organization which cannot bear 
 stimulants ; the husband is a strong, large-framed 
 man who can drink deep without feeling it ; but to 
 the excitable woman her feeble hmit is her husband's 
 measure, and when he has gone beyond the range of 
 her own short tether, she trots after him remonstrat- 
 ing, and thinks herself justified in interfering with 
 his further progress. For women cannot be brought 
 to understand the capacities of a man's life ; they 
 cannot be made to understand that what is bad 
 for themselves may not be bad for others, and that 
 their weakness ought not to be the gauge of a man's 
 strength. 
 
 A pale, chilly woman, afflicted with chronic bron- 
 chitis, who wears furs and velvets in May and fears 
 the east wind as much as an East Indian fears a tiger, 
 does her best to coddle her husband, father, sons, 
 in about the same ratio as she coddles herself They 
 
INTERFERENCE. 103 
 
 must not go out without an overcoat ; they must 
 take an umbrella if the day is at all cloudy ; they 
 must not walk too far nor ride too hard ; and they 
 must be sure to be at home by a given hour. 
 
 When such women as these have to do with men just 
 on the boundary-line between the last days of vigour 
 and the first of old age, they put forward the time of 
 old age by many years. We see their men rapidly 
 sink into the softness and incapacity of senility, when 
 a more bracing life would have kept them good for 
 half-a-dozen years longer. But women do not care 
 for this. They like men to be their own companions 
 and dread rather than desire the masculine comrade- 
 ship which would keep them up to the mark of virile 
 independence ; for most women — but not all — would 
 rather have their husbands manly in a womanly way 
 than in a manly one, as being more within the com- 
 pass of their own sympathies and understanding. 
 
 The same kind of interference is very common 
 where the husband is a man of broad humour — one 
 who calls a spade a spade, with no circumlocution 
 about an agricultural implement. According to the 
 odd law of compensation which regulates so much of 
 human action, the wife of such a man is generally 
 one of the ultra-refined kind, who thinks herself 
 consecrated the enduring censor of her husband's 
 speech. As this is an example most frequently to be 
 found in middle life and where there are children 
 belonging to the establishment, the word of warning 
 is generally ' papa ! ' — said with reproach or resent- 
 
104 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 ment, according to circumstances — which has, of 
 course, the effect of drawing the attention of the 
 young people to the paternal breadth of speech, and 
 of fixing that special breach of decorum on their 
 memory. Sometimes the wife has sufficient self- 
 restraint not to give the word of warning in public, 
 but can nurse her displeasure for a more convenient 
 season ; but so soon as they are alone the miser- 
 able man has to pass under the harrow, as only 
 husbands with wives of a chastising spirit can pass 
 under it, and his life is made a burden to him 
 because of that unlucky anecdote told with such 
 verve a few hours ago, and received with such shouts 
 of pleasant laughter. Perhaps the anecdote was just 
 a trifle doubtful ; granted ; but what does the wife 
 take by her remonstrance? Most probably a quarrel; 
 possibly a good-natured jyeccavi for the sake of being 
 let off the continuance of the sermon ; perhaps a 
 yawn ; most certainly not reform. If the man be a 
 man of free speech and broad humour by nature and 
 liking, he will remain so to the end ; and what the 
 censorship of society leaves untouched, the inter- 
 ference of a wife will not control. 
 
 Children come in for an enormous share of inter- 
 ference, which is not direction nor discipline, but 
 simple interference for its own sake. There are mothers 
 who meddle with every expression of individuality 
 in their young people, quite irrespective of moral 
 tendency, or whether the occasion is trivial or impor- 
 tant. In the fancies, the pleasures, the minor details 
 
INTERFERENCE. 105 
 
 of dress in their children, there is always that intrud- 
 ing maternal finger upsetting the arrangements of the 
 poor little pie as vigorously as if thrones and altars 
 depended on the result. Not a game of any kind 
 can be begun, nor a blue ribbon worn instead of a 
 pink, without maternal interference; so that the 
 bloom is rubbed off every enjoyment, and life becomes 
 reduced to a kind of goose-step, with mamma for the 
 drill-sergeant prescribing the inches to be marked. 
 Sisters, too, do a great deal of this kind of thing 
 among each other ; as all those who are intimate in 
 houses where there are large families of unmarried 
 girls must have seen. The nudges, the warning 
 looks, the deprecatmg ' Amy's ! ' and ' Oh, Lucy's 1 ' 
 and ' Hush, Rose's ! ' by which some seek to act as 
 household police over the others, are patent to all 
 who use their senses. In some houses the younger 
 sisters seem to have been born chiefly as training 
 grounds for the elders, whereon they may exercise 
 their powers of interference ; and a hard time they 
 have of it. If Emma goes to her embroidery, Ellen 
 tells her she ought to practise her singing ; if Jane is 
 reading, Mary recommends sewmg as a more profit- 
 able use of precious time ; if Amy is at her easel, Ada 
 wants to turn her round to the piano. It is quite the 
 exception where four or five sisters leave each other 
 free to do as each likes, and do not take to drilHng 
 and interference as part of the daily programme. 
 
 Something of the reluctance to domestic service, 
 so painfully apparent among the better class of 
 
106 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 working women, is due to this spirit of interference 
 with women. The lady who wrote about the caps and 
 gOAATis of servant-girls, and drew out a plan of dress, 
 down to the very material of their gloves, was an 
 instance of this spirit. For, when we come to analyze 
 it, what does it really signify to us how our servants 
 dress, so long as they are clean and decent and do 
 not let their garments damage our goods ? Fashion 
 is almost always ridiculous, and women, as a rule, 
 care more for dress than they care for anything else ; 
 and if the kitchen apes the parlour, and Phyllis gives 
 as much thought to her new linsey as my lady gives 
 to her new velvet, we cannot wonder at it, nor need 
 we hold up our hands in horror at the depravity of 
 the smaller person. Does one flight of stairs transpose 
 morality ? If it does not, there is no real ethical reason 
 why my lady should interfere with poor Phyllis' s 
 enjoyment in her igly little vanities, when she herself 
 will not be interfered with — though press and pulpit 
 both try to turn her out of her present path into the 
 way which all ages have thought the best for her and 
 the one naturally appointed. It is a thing that will 
 not bear reasoning on, being simply a form of the old 
 ^ who will guard the guardian ? ' Who will direct 
 the directress ? and to whose interference will the 
 interferer submit ? 
 
 There are two causes for this excessive love of 
 interference among women. The one is the narrow- 
 ness of their lives and objects, by which insignificant 
 things gain a disproportionate value in their eyes ; 
 
INTERFERENCE. 107 
 
 the otlier, tlieir belief that they are the only saviours 
 of society, and that without them man would become 
 hopelessly corrupt. And to a certain extent this 
 .belief is true ; but surely with restrictions ! Because 
 the clearer moral sense and greater physical weakness 
 of women restrain men's fiercer passions and force 
 them to be gentle and considerate, women are not, 
 therefore, the sole arbiters of masculine life into whose 
 hands is given the paying out of just so much rope 
 as they think fit for the occasion. They would do 
 better to look to their own tackle before settling so 
 exactly the run of others ; and if ever their desired 
 time of equality is to come, it must come through 
 mutual independence, not through womanly inter- 
 ference, and as much liberality and breadth given 
 as demanded: — which, so far as humanity has gone 
 hitherto, has not been the feminine manner of squar- 
 ing accounts. 
 
 Grant that women are the salt of the earth and 
 the great antiseptic element in society, still that does 
 not reduce everything else to the verge of corruption 
 which they alone prevent. Yet they evidently think 
 that it is so, and that they are each and all the keepers 
 of keys which give them a special entrance to the 
 temple of morality, and by which they are able to 
 exclude or admit the grosser body of men. Hence they 
 interfere and restrict and pay out just so much rope, 
 and measure off just so much gambolling ground, as 
 they think fit ; then think vile man a horribly wicked 
 invention when he takes things into his own hand 
 
108 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 and goes beyond their boundary -lines. It is all done 
 in good if in a very narrow faith — that we admit 
 wilhngly ; but we would call their attention to the 
 difference there is between influence and interference ; 
 which is just the difference between their ideal duty 
 and their daily practice — between being the salt of 
 the earth and the blister of the home. 
 
 We think it only justice to put in a word for 
 those poor henpecked fellows of husbands at a time 
 when the whole cry is for Woman's Eights, which 
 seems to mean chiefly her right of making man 
 knuckle under on all occasions and of making one 
 will serve for two lives — and that will hers. We 
 assure her that she would get her own way in large 
 matters much more easily if she would leave men 
 more liberty in small ones, and not teaze them by 
 interfering: in thino-s which do. not concern her and 
 have only reference to themselves. 
 
109 
 
 TEE FASHIONABLE WOMAN, 
 
 Among the many odd products of a mature civiliza- 
 tion, the fashionable woman is one of the oddest. 
 From first to last she is an amazing spectacle ; and 
 if we take human life in any earnestness at all, 
 whether individually, as the passage to an eternal 
 existence the condition of which depends on what we 
 are here, or collectively, as the highest thing we 
 know, we can only look in blank astonishment at the 
 fashionable woman and her career. She is the one 
 sole capable member of the human farxiily without 
 duties and without useful occupation ; the one sole 
 being who might be swept out of existence altogether, 
 without deranging the nice arrangement of things, or 
 upsetting the balance of inter-dependent forces. We 
 know of no other organic creation of which this could 
 be said ; but the fashionable woman is not as other 
 creatures, being, fortunately, sui generis, and of a type 
 not existing elsewhere. If we take the mere ordering 
 of her days and the employment of her time as the 
 sign of her mental state, we may perhaps measure to a 
 certain extent, but not fully, the depth of inanity into 
 which she has fallen and the immensity of her folly. 
 
110 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 Considering her as a being with the potentiality of 
 reason, of usefulness, of thought, the actual result 
 is surely the saddest and the strangest thing under 
 heaven ! 
 
 She goes to bed at dawn and does not attempt 
 to rise till noon. For the most part she break- 
 fasts in bed, and then amuses herself with a cursory 
 glance at the morning paper, if she have sufficient 
 energy for so great a mental exertion ; if she have 
 not, she lies for another hour or two in that half- 
 slumberous state which is so destructive to mind and 
 body, weakening as it does both fibre and resolution, 
 both muscle and good principle. At last she lan- 
 guidly rises, to be dressed in time for luncheon and 
 her favoured intimates — the men who have the entree 
 at sacred hours when the world in general is for- 
 bidden. Some time later she dresses again for 
 her drive — for the first part of the day's serious 
 business ; for paying visits and leaving cards ; for 
 buying jewelry and dresses, and ordering all sorts 
 of unnecessary things at her milliner's ; for this 
 grand lady's ordinary ' day,' and that grand lady's 
 extraordinary At Home ; for her final slow parade in 
 the Park, where she sees her friends as in an open 
 air drawing-room, makes private appointments, carries 
 on flirtations, and hears and retails gossip and scandal 
 of a full flavour. Then she goes home to dress for 
 tea in a ' lovely gown ' of suggestive piquancy ; to be 
 followed by dinner, the opera or a concert, a soiree, 
 or perhaps a ball or two ; whence she returns towards 
 
THE FASHIONABLE WOMAN. Ill 
 
 morning, flushed with excitement or worn out with 
 fatigue, feverish or nervous, as she has had pleasure 
 and success or disappointment and annoyance. 
 
 This is her outside life ; and this is no fancy- 
 picture and no exaggeration. After a certain time of 
 such an existence, can we wonder if her complexion 
 fades and her eyes grow dim ? if that inexpressible 
 air of haggard weariness creeps over her, which ages 
 even a young girl and makes a mature woman sub- 
 stantially an old one ? It is then that she has 
 recourse to those foul and fatal expedients of which 
 we have heard more than enough in these latter days. 
 She will not try simplicity of living, natural hours, 
 wholesome occupation, unselfish endeavour, but 
 rushes off for help to paints and cosmetics, to stimu- 
 lants and drugs, and attempts to restore the tarnished 
 freshness of her beauty by the very means which 
 further corrode it. Every now and then, for very 
 weariness when not for idleness, she feigns herself 
 sick and has her favourite physician to attend her. 
 In fact the funniest thing about her is the ease with 
 which she takes to her bed on the slightest provoca- 
 tion, and the strange pleasure she seems to find in 
 what is a penance to most women. 
 
 You meet her in a heated, crowded, noisy room, 
 looking just as she always looks, whatever her 
 normal state of health may be ; and in answer to 
 your inquiries she tells you she has only two hours 
 ago left her bed to come here, having been confined 
 to her room for a week, with Dr. Blank in close 
 
112 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 attendance. If you are an intimate female friend she 
 will whisper you the name of her malady, which is 
 sure to be something terrific, and which, if true, 
 would have kept her a real invalid for months instead 
 of days ; but if you are only a man she will make 
 
 herself out to have been verv ill indeed in a more 
 
 t/ 
 
 mysterious way, and leave you to wonder at the 
 extraordinary physique of fashionable women, which 
 enables them to live on the most friendly touch-and- 
 go terms with death, and to overcome mortal maladies 
 by an effort of the will and the delights of a ducal 
 ball. The favourite physician has a hard time of it 
 with these ladies ; and the more popular he is the 
 harder his work. It is well for his generation when 
 he is a man of honour and integrity, and knows how 
 to add self-respect and moral power to the qualities 
 which have made him the general favourite. For 
 his influence over women is almost unlimited — like 
 nothino; so much as that of the handsome Abbe of 
 the Regency or the fascinating Monsignore of Rome ; 
 and if he chooses to abuse it and turn it to evil 
 issues, he can. And, however great the merit in him 
 that he does not, it does not lessen the demerit of the 
 woman that he could. 
 
 Sometimes the fashionable woman takes up with 
 the clergyman instead of the physician, and coquets 
 with religious exercises rather than with drugs ; but 
 neither clergyman nor physician can change her mode 
 of hfe nor give her truth nor common- sense. Some- 
 times there is a fluttering show of art- patronage. 
 
THE FASHIONABLE WOMAN. 113 
 
 and the fashionable woman has a handsome painter 
 or well-bred musician in her train, whom she pets 
 publicly and patronizes graciously. Sometimes it 
 is a young poet or a rising novelist, considerably 
 honoured by the association, who dedicates his next 
 novel to her, or writes verses in her praise, with such 
 fervency of gratitude as sets the base Philistines on 
 the scent of the secret — perhaps guessing not far 
 amiss. For the fashionable woman has always some 
 love-affair on hand, more or less platonic according to 
 her own temperament or the boldness of the man — a 
 love-aflPair in which the smallest ingredient is love ; a 
 love-aflPair which is vanity, idleness, a dissolute imagi- 
 nation and contempt of such prosaic things as 
 morals ; a love- aif air not even to be excused by the 
 tragic frenzy of earnest passion, and which may be 
 guilty and yet not true. 
 
 The physical effects of such a life as this are as 
 bad as the mental, and both are as bad as the worst 
 can make them. A feverish, overstrained condition of 
 health either prevents the fashionable woman from 
 being a mother at all, or makes her the mother of 
 nervous, sickly children. Many a woman of high rank 
 is at thi s moment paying bitterly for the disappoint- 
 ment of which she herself, in her illimitable folly, has 
 been the sole and only cause. And, whether women 
 like to hear it or not, it is none the less a truth that 
 part of the reason for their being born at all is that 
 ^hey may in their turn bear children. The unnatural 
 feeling against maternity existing among fashionable 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
114 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 women is one of the worst mental signs of their state, 
 as their frequent inability to be mothers is one of the 
 worst physical results. This is a condition of things 
 which no false modesty nor timid reserve should keep 
 in the background, for it is a question of national 
 importance, and will soon become one of national 
 disaster unless checked by a healthier current and 
 more natural circumstances. 
 
 Dress, dissipation and flirting make up the ques- 
 tionable lines which enclose the life of the fashionable 
 woman, and which enclose nothing useful, nothing 
 good, nothing deep nor true nor holy. Her piety is a 
 pastime ; her art the poorest pretence ; her pleasure 
 consists only in hurry and excitement alternating with 
 debasing sloth, in heartless coquetry or in lawless 
 indulgence, as nature made her more vain or more 
 sensual. As a wife she fulfils no wifely duty in any 
 grand or loving sense, for the most part regarding 
 her husband only as a banker or an adjunct, accord- 
 ing to the terms of her marriage settlement ; as a 
 mother she is a stranger to her children, to whom 
 nurse and governess supply her place and give such 
 poor makeshift for maternal love as they are enabled or 
 inclined. In no domestic relation is she of the smallest 
 value, and of none in any social circumstance beside 
 the adorning of a room— if she be pretty — and the help 
 she gives to trade through her expenditure. She 
 lives only in the gaslight, and her nature at last 
 becomes as artificial as her habits. 
 
 As years go on, and she changes from the acknow- 
 
THE FASHIONABLE WOMAN. 115 
 
 ledged belle to la femme j^cissee, she goes through a 
 period of frantic endeavour to retain her youth ; and 
 even when time has clutched her with too firm a hand 
 to be shaken off, and she begins to feel the infirmities 
 which she still puts out all her strength to conceal, even 
 then she grasps at the departing shadow and fresh 
 daubs the crumbling ruin, in the belief that the world's 
 eyes are dim and that stucco may pass for marble for 
 another year or two longer. Or she becomes a Bel- 
 gravian mother, with daughters to sell to the highest 
 bidder ; and then the aim of her life is to secure the 
 purchaser. Her daughters are never objects of real 
 love with the fashionable woman. They are essen- 
 tially her rivals, and the idea of carrying on her life 
 in theirs, of forgetting herself in them, occurs to her 
 only as a forecast of death. She shrinks even from 
 her sons, as livmg evidences of the lapse of time 
 which she cannot deny, and awkward memoria technica 
 for fixing dates ; and there is not a home presided 
 over by a fashionable woman where the family is 
 more than a mere name, a mere social convention 
 loosely held together by circumstances, not by 
 love. 
 
 Closing such a life as this comes the unhonoured 
 end, when the miserable made-up old creature totters 
 down into the grave where paint and padding, and 
 glossy plaits cut from some fresh young head, are of no 
 more avail ; and where death, which makes all things 
 real, reduces her life of lies to the nothingness it 
 has been from the beo'lnnms;. What does she leave 
 
 I 2 
 
116 SATUKDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 behind her ? A memory by which her children may 
 order their own lives in proud assurance that so they 
 will order them best for virtue and for honour ? Or a 
 memory which speaks to them of time misused, of 
 duties unfulfilled, of love discarded for pleasure, and 
 of a life -long sacrifice of all things good and pure for 
 selfishness ? 
 
 We all know examples of the worldly old woman 
 clinging batlike to the last to the old roofs and rafters ; 
 ^and we all know how heartily we despise her, and 
 how we ridicule her in our hearts, if not by our words. 
 If the reigTimg queens of fashion, at present young 
 and beautiful, would but remember that they are only 
 that worldly old woman in embryo, and that in a 
 very few years they will be her exact likeness, unhap- 
 pily repeated for the scorn of the world once more to 
 follow ! The traditional skeleton at the feast had a 
 wonderfully wise meaning, crude and gross as it was 
 in form. . For though its memento mori, too constantly 
 before us, would either sadden or brutalize, as we 
 were thoughtful or licentious, yet it is good to see 
 the end of ourselves, and to study the meaning and 
 lesson of our lives in those of our prototypes and 
 elder likenesses. 
 
 The pleasures of the world are, as we all know, 
 very potent and very alluring, but nothing can 
 be more unsatisfymg if taken as the main purpose 
 of life. While we are youno\ the mere stirrino- 
 of the blood stands instead of anythmg more real ; 
 but' as we go on, and the pulse flags and pleasur- 
 
THE FASHIONABLE WOMAN. 117 
 
 able occasions get rare and more rare, we find that 
 we have been like the Prodigal Son, and that our food 
 and his have been out of much the same trough, and 
 come in the main to much the same thing. 
 
 This is an age of extraordinary wealth and of 
 corresponding extraordinary luxury; of unparalleled 
 restlessness, which is not the same thing as activity or 
 energy, but which is the kind of restlessness that 
 disdains all quiet and repose, as unendurable stagna- 
 tion. Hence the fashionable woman of the day is one 
 of extremes in her own line also ; and the idleness, the 
 heartlessness, the self-indulgence, the want of high 
 morality, and the insolent luxury at all times charac- 
 teristic of her were never displayed with more cynical 
 effrontery than at present, and never called for more 
 severe condemnation. 
 
 The fashionable women of Greece and Rome, 
 of Italy and France, have left behind them names 
 which the world has made typical of the vices 
 naturally engendered by idleness and luxury. But 
 do we wish that our women should become sub- 
 jects for an English Juvenal ? that fashion should 
 create a race of Laises and Messalinas, of Lucrezia 
 Borgias and Madame du Barrys, out of the stock 
 which once gave us Lucy Hutchinson and Elizabeth 
 Fry ? Once the name of Enghshwoman carried 
 with it a grave and noble echo as the name of 
 women known for their gentle bearing and their blame- 
 less honour — of women who loved their husbands, 
 and brought up about their own knees the children 
 
118 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 they were not reluctant to bear and not ashamed to 
 love. Now, it too often means a girl of the period, a 
 frisky matron, a fashionable woman — a thing of paints 
 and pads, consorting with dealers of no doubtful 
 calling for the purchase of what she grimly calls 
 'beauty,' makmg pleasure her only good and the 
 world her highest god. It too often means a woman 
 who is not ashamed to supplement her husband with 
 a lover, but who is unwilling to become the honest 
 mother of that husband's children. It too often 
 means a hybrid creature, perverted out of the natural 
 way altogether, affecting the license but ignorant of 
 the strength of a man ; as girl or woman alike value- 
 less so far as her highest natural duties are concerned ; 
 and talking largely of liberty while showing at every 
 turn how much she fails in that co -essential of liberty 
 — knowledge how to use it. 
 
119 
 
 SLEEPING DOGS. 
 
 There is a capital old proverb, often quoted but not 
 so often acted on, called ' Let sleeping dogs lie ; ' a 
 proverb which, if we were to abide by its injunction, 
 would keep us out of many a mess that we get into 
 now, because we cannot let well alone. Certainly we 
 fall into trouble sometimes, or rather we drift into it 
 — we allow it to gather round us — for want of a 
 frank explanation to clear off small misunderstand- 
 ings. At least novelists say so, and then make a 
 great point of the anguish endured by Henry and 
 Angelina for three mortal volumes, because they were 
 too stuj)id to ask the reason why the one looked cold 
 the other evening at the duchess's ball, and the other 
 looked shy the next morning in the park. But then 
 novelists, poor souls, are driven to such extravagant 
 expedients for motives and matter, that we can 
 scarcely take them as rational exponents of real life 
 in any way ; though the very meaning and final 
 cause of their profession is to depict human nature 
 as it is, and to show the reflex action of character 
 and circumstances somewhat according to the pattern 
 set out in the actual world. But, leavino- novelists 
 
120 " SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 alone, on the whole we find m real life that if speech 
 is silvern, silence is essentially golden, and that more 
 harm is done by saying too much than by saying too 
 little ; above all, that infinite mischief arises by not 
 letting sleeping dogs lie. 
 
 People are so wonderfully anxious to stir up the 
 dregs of everything, they can never let things rest. 
 Take a man or woman who has done something 
 queer that gets noised abroad, and who is coldly 
 looked on m consequence by those who believe the 
 worst reports which arise as interpretations. Now 
 the wisest thing undoubtedly is to bear this coldness 
 as the righteous punishment of that folly, and to 
 trust for rehabilitation to the mysterious process 
 called ' living it down.' If there has been absolutely 
 no sinfulness to speak of, nothing but a little im- 
 prudence and a big glossary of scandalous explana- 
 tion, a little precipitancy and a great deal of ill- 
 nature, by all means wake up the sleeping dog and 
 set him howling through the streets. He may do 
 good, seeing that truth would be your friend. But 
 if there be a core of ugly fact, even if it be not quite 
 so ugly as the envelope which rumour has wrapped 
 round it, then fall back on the dignity of ' living it 
 down,' and let the dog lie sleeping and muzzled. 
 
 There is another, but an unsavoury saying, which 
 advises against the stirring up of evil odours ; but 
 this is just what imprudent, high-spirited people will 
 not understand. They will take their own way in 
 spite of society and all its laws ; they will kick over 
 
SLEEPING DOGS. 121 
 
 the traces when it suits them ; they will do this and 
 that of which the world says authoritatively, ' Xo, 
 you shall not do it ; ' and then, when the day of 
 wrath arrives, and down conies the whip on the 
 offending back, they shriek piteously and wake up 
 all the dogs in the town in the ' investigation of their 
 case.' And a queer kennel enough they turn out 
 sometimes ! They would have done better to put 
 up with their social thrashing than to have set the 
 bloodhounds of ' investigation ' on their heels. 
 
 Actions for libel often do this kind of thmg, as 
 every one may read for himself. Many a man who 
 gets his farthing damages had better have borne the 
 surly growl of the only half- roused dog, than have 
 retaliated, and so waked him up. The farthing 
 damages, representing say a cuff on the head or a 
 kick in the ribs, or a milder ' Lie down, sir ! ' may 
 be very pleasant to the feelings of the yelped -at, as 
 so much revenge exacted — Shylock's pound of flesh, 
 without the blood. But what about the conse- 
 quences ? what about the disclosure of your secret 
 follies and the uncovering of the foundations on 
 which the libel rested ? The foundations remain 
 immoveable to the end of time if the superstructure 
 be disroofed, and the sleeping dog is awakened, never 
 to be set at rest again while he has a tooth in his 
 head that can bite. 
 
 One of the arts of peaceful living at home is 
 contained in the power of letting sleepmg dogs lie. 
 Papa is surly — it is a way papas have — or mamma is 
 
122 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 snappish, as even the best of mammas are at times 
 when the girls are tiresome and will flirt with 
 ineligible younger brothers, or when the boys, who 
 must marry money, are paying attention to dowerless 
 beauty instead. Well, the family horizon is overcast, 
 and the black dog keeps the gate of the family 
 mansion. Better let it lie there asleep, if it will but 
 remain so. It is not pleasant to have it there 
 certainly, but it would be worse to rouse it into 
 activity and to have a general yelping through the 
 house. 
 
 Sometimes, indeed, in a family given to tears 
 and caresses and easily excited feelings, a frank 
 challenge as to reasons why is answered by a tem- 
 porary storm, followed by a scene of effusion and 
 attendrissementj and the black dog is not awakened, 
 but banished, by the rousing he has got. This is a 
 method that can be tried when you have perfect 
 knowledge and command of your material ; else it is 
 a dangerous, and nine times out of ten would be an 
 unsuccessful, experiment. It is nearly always unsuc- 
 cessful with husbands and wives, who often sulk, but 
 rarely for causes needing explanation. Angelina 
 knows quite well that she danced too often the other 
 night with that fascinating young Lovelace for whom 
 her Henry has a special, and not quite groundless, 
 aversion. She may put on as many airs of injured 
 innocence as she likes, and affect to consider herself 
 an ill-used wife suffering grievous things because of 
 her husband's displeasure and the black dog of sulks 
 
SLEEPING DOGS. 123 
 
 accompanying ; but she knows as well as her Henry 
 himself where her sin lies, and to kick at the black 
 dog would only be to set him loose upon her, and be 
 well barked at if not worried for her pains. The 
 wiser course would be to muzzle him by ignoring his 
 presence ; and so in almost all cases of domestic dog, 
 however black. 
 
 A sleeping dog of another kind, which it would 
 be well if women would always leave at rest, is the 
 potential passion of a man who is a cherished friend 
 but an impossible lover. Certain slow-going men 
 are able to maintain for life a strong but strictly 
 platonic attachment for certam women. If any 
 warmer impulse or more powerful feeling give 
 threatening notice of arising, it is kept in due sub- 
 jection and a wholesome state of coolness, perhaps 
 by its very hopelessness even if returned, perhaps 
 by the fear or the knowledge that it would be ill- 
 received, and that the only passport to the pleasant 
 friendship so delighted in is in this calm and sober 
 platonism. This is all very well so long as the 
 woman minds what she is about ; for the passionless 
 attachment of a man depends mainly on her desire 
 to keep things in their present place, and on her 
 power of holdmg to the line to be observed. If she 
 oversteps this line, if she wakens up that sleeping 
 dog of passion, it is all over with her and platonism. 
 What was once a pleasant truth would now be a 
 burning satire ; for friendship routed by love can 
 never take service under its old banners again. 
 
124 SATURDAY MOENTNGS. 
 
 And yet this is what women are continually 
 doing. They are always complaining that men are 
 not their friends, and that they are only selfish and 
 self-seeking in their relations with them ; yet no 
 sooner do they possess a man friend who is nothing 
 else than they try their utmost to convert him into 
 a lover, and are not too well pleased if they do not 
 succeed — which might by chance sometimes happen 
 like any other rare occurrence, but not often. And 
 yet success ruins everything. It takes away the 
 friend and does not give an available lover ; it de- 
 stroys the existing good and substitutes nothing 
 better. If the woman be of the fishpond type, whose 
 heart Thackeray wanted to ' drag,' she simply turns 
 round upon the unhappy victim with one of the 
 ' looks that kill ; ' if she be more weak than vain 
 and less designing than impulsive, she regrets the 
 momentary infatuation which has lost her her friend ; 
 but in any case she has lost him — by her own folly, 
 not by inevitable misfortune. 
 
 Just as easy is it to rouse the sleeping dogs of 
 hatred, of jealousy, of envy. You have a tepid well- 
 controlled dislike to some one ; and you know that 
 he knows it. For feelings are eloquent, even when 
 dumb, and express themselves in a thousand ways 
 independent of words. You do not care much about 
 your dislike — you do not nurse it nor feed it in any 
 way, and are rather content than not to let it lie 
 dormant, and so far harmless. But your imloved 
 friend cannot let well alone. He will be always 
 
SLEEPING DOGS. 125 
 
 treading on your corns and touching you on the raw. 
 That unhicky speculation you made ; your play that 
 was damned ; the election you lost ; the decision 
 that was given against you, with costs — whenever 
 you see him he is sure to introduce some topic that 
 rubs you the wrong way, till at last the sleeping dog 
 gets fairly roused, and what was merely a well- 
 ordered dislike bursts out into a frantic and unofo- 
 vernable hatred. It has been his own doing. Just 
 as in the case of the platonic friend transformed into 
 the passionate lover by the woman's wiles, so the dis- 
 like that gave you no trouble — become now the hatred 
 which is a real curse to your existence — results from 
 your friend's incessant rousing up of sleeping passions. 
 Young people are much given to this kind of thing. 
 There is an impish tendency in most girls, and in all 
 boys, that makes teazing a matter of exquisite delight 
 to them. If they know of any sleeping dog which an 
 elder carries about under his cloak, they are never so 
 happy as when they are rousing it to activity, though 
 their own backs may get bitten in the fray. Let a 
 youngster into the secret of a weakness, a sore, and 
 if he can resist the temptation of torturing you as the 
 result of his knowledge he may lay claim to a virtue 
 almost unknown in boyish morals. But he some- 
 times pays dearly for his fun. More than one life- 
 long dislike, culminating in a disastrous codicil or 
 total omission from the body of the will, has been the 
 return-blow for a course of boyish teazings which a 
 testy old uncle or huffish maiden aunt has had to 
 
126 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 undergo. The punishment may be severe and unjust ; 
 but the provocation was great ; and revenge is a 
 human, if indefensible, instinct common to all classes. 
 
 Fathers and mothers themselves are not always 
 sacred ground, nor are their special dogs suffered to 
 lie sleeping undisturbed ; and perhaps the favouritism 
 and comparative coldness patent in almost every 
 family may be traced back to the propensity for 
 soothing or for rousing those parental beasts. For 
 even fathers and mothers have personal feelings in 
 excess of their instincts, and they, no more than any 
 one else, like to be put through their paces by the 
 impish vivacity of youth, and made to dance accord- 
 ing to the piping of an irreverent lad or saucy girl. 
 If they have dogs, they do not want their children to 
 pry into their kennels and whistle them out at their 
 pleasure ; and those who do so most will naturally 
 get worst off in the great division of family love ' Let 
 sleeping dogs lie,' certainly, as a rule for private life. 
 
 Historically, the saying does not hold good. For 
 if the great leaders of thought and reform had not 
 roused up the sleeping dogs of their day, and made 
 them give tongue for all after ages to hear, we should 
 be but poorly off at this present time. Many of our 
 liberties have been got only by diligently prodding 
 up that very sleepy dog, the public, till he has been 
 forced to show his teeth ; and history is full of 
 instances of how much has been done, all the world 
 over and m every age, by the like means. Sometimes 
 the prodded dog flies at the wrong throat on the 
 
SLEEPING DOGS. 127 
 
 other side, as we have had a few notable instances of 
 late; and then it would have been wiser to leave 
 him quietly sleeping in the shade, whether at 
 Mentana or elsewhere ; to rouse for rending being 
 a poor amusement at the best, and an eminently 
 unprofitable use of leather. 
 
128 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 BEAUTY AND BRAINS. 
 
 That lovely woman fulfils only half lier mission 
 when she is unpersonable instead of beautiful, all 
 young men, and all pretty girls secure in the 
 consciousness of their own perfections, will agree. 
 Indeed, it is cruel to hear the way in which ingenuous 
 youths despise ugly girls, however clever, whose 
 charm lies in their cleverness only, with a counter- 
 action in their plamness. To hear them, one would 
 think that hardness of feature was, like poverty, a 
 crime voluntarily perpetrated, and that contempt was 
 a righteous retribution for the offence. Yet their 
 preference, though so cruelly expressed, is to a 
 certain extent the right thing. When we are young, 
 the beauty of women has a supreme attraction 
 beyond all other possessions or qualities ; and there 
 are self-evident reasons why it should be so. It is 
 only as we grow older that we know the value of 
 brains, and, while still admiring beauty — as indeed 
 who does not ? — admire it as one passing by on the 
 other side — as a grace to look at, but not to hold, 
 unless accompanied by something more lasting. 
 
 This is in the middle term of a man's life. Old 
 
BEAUTY AND BRAINS. 129 
 
 age, perhaps with the unconscious yearning of regret, 
 goes back to the love of youth and beauty for their 
 own sake ; extremes meeting here as in almost all 
 other circumstances. The danger is when a young 
 man, obeying the natural impulse of his age and 
 state, marries beauty only, with nothing more 
 durable beneath. The mind sees what it brings, and 
 we love the ideal we create rather than the reality 
 that exists. A pretty face, the unworn nerves of 
 youth, the freshness of hope that has not yet been 
 soured by disappointment nor chilled by experience, 
 a neat stroke at croquet and a merry laugh easily 
 excited, make a girl a goddess to a boy who is what 
 he himself calls in love and his friends ' spoony.' 
 She may be narrow, selfish, spoilt, unfit to bear the 
 burdens of life and unable to meet her trials 
 patiently ; she may be utterly unpractical and silly 
 — one of those who never mature but only grow old 
 — without judgment, forethought, common-sense or 
 courage ; but he sees nothing of all this. To him 
 she is perfect ; the 'j oiliest girl in the world,' if he be 
 slangy, or the 'dearest,' if he be affectionate ; and he 
 neither sees nor heeds her potential faults. 
 
 It is only when she has stepped down from her 
 pedestal to the level of the home-threshold that he 
 finds out she is but a woman after all, and perhaps an 
 exceptionally weak and peevish one. Then he knows 
 that he would have done better for himself had he 
 married that plain brave-hearted girl who would have 
 had him to a dead certainty if he had asked her, but 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
130 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 whom he so unmercifully laughed at when he was 
 making love to his fascinating charmer. As years 
 go on and reduce the Hebe and Hecate of eighteen to 
 much the same kind of woman at forty — with perhaps 
 the advantage on Hecate's side if of the sort that 
 ripens well and improves by keeping — the man feels 
 that he has been a fool after the manner of Bunyan's 
 Passion ; that he has eaten up his present in the 
 past, and had all his good things at once. If he had 
 but looked at the future and been able to wait ! 
 But in those days he wanted beauty that does not 
 last, and cared nothing for brains which do ; and so, 
 having made his election he must abide by it, and 
 eat bitter bread from the yeast of his own brewing. 
 
 Many a man has cursed, his whole life long, the 
 youthful infatuation that made him marry a pretty 
 fool. Take the case of a rising politician whose fair- 
 faced wife is either too stupid to care about his 
 position, or who imperils it by her folly. If amiable 
 and affectionate, and in her own silly little way ambi- 
 tious, she does him incalculable mischief by exag- 
 geration, and by saying and domg exactly the things 
 which are most damaging to him; if stupid, she is just 
 so much deadweight that he has to carry with him 
 while swimming up the stream. She is very lovely 
 certainly, and people crowd her drawing-room to look 
 at her ; but a plain -featured, sensible, shrewd woman, 
 with no beauty to speak of but with tact and clever- 
 ness, would have helped him in his career far better 
 than does his brainless Venus. He finds this out 
 
BEAUTY AND BRAINS. 131 
 
 when it is too late to change M. for N. in the mar- 
 riage service. 
 
 The successful men of small beginnings are greatly 
 liable to this curse of wifely hindrance. A barrister 
 once briefless and now in silk — an artist once ob- 
 scure and now famous — who in the days of impe- 
 cuniosity and Bohemianism married the landlady's 
 pretty daughter and towards the meridian of life find 
 themselves in the front ranks of la haute volee with a 
 wife who drops her h's and multiplies her s's, know 
 the full bitterness of the bread baked from that hasty 
 brewing. Each woman may have been beautiful in 
 her youth, and each man may have loved his own 
 very passionately; but if she have nothing to sup- 
 plement her beauty — if she have no brains to fall back 
 on, by which she can be educated up to her husband's 
 present social position as the wife of his successful 
 maturity — she is a mistake. Dickens was quite right 
 to kill off pretty childish Dora in ' David Copperfield.' 
 If she had lived she would have been like Flora in 
 ^ Bleak House,' who indeed was Dora grown old but 
 not matured ; with all the grace and beauty of her 
 youth gone, and nothing else to take their place. 
 
 Men do not care for brains m excess in women. 
 They like a sympathetic intellect which can follow 
 and seize their thoughts as quickly as they are 
 uttered ; but they do not much care for any clear or 
 specific knowledge of facts. Even the most philo- 
 sophic among them would rather not be set right in 
 a classical quotation, an astronomical calculation, or 
 
 K 2 
 
132 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 the exact bearing of a political question by a lovely 
 being in tarlatane whom he was graciously unbending 
 to instruct. Neither do they want anything very 
 strong-minded. To most men, indeed, the feminine 
 strono'-mindedness that can discuss immoral problems 
 without blushing is a quality as unwomanly as a well- 
 developed biceps or a ' shoulder- of-mutton ' fist. It is 
 sympathy, not antagonism — it is companionship, not 
 rivalry, still less supremacy, that they like in women ; 
 and some women with brains as well as learning — for 
 the two are not the same thing — understand this, 
 and keep their blue stockings well covered by their 
 petticoats. Others, enthusiasts for freedom of thought 
 and intellectual rights, show theirs defiantly ; and 
 meet with their reward. Men shrink from them. 
 Even clever men, able to meet them on their own 
 ground, do not feel drawn to them ; while all but 
 hi o-h- class minds are humiliated by their learning and 
 dwarfed by their moral courage. And no man likes 
 to feel humiliated or dwarfed in the presence of a 
 woman, and because of her superiority. 
 
 But the brains most useful to women, and most 
 befitting their work in life, are those which show 
 themselves in common-sense, in good judgment, and 
 that kind of patient courage which enables them to 
 bear small crosses and great trials alike with dignity 
 and good temper. Mere mtellectual culture, how- 
 ever valuable it may be in itself, does not equal 
 the worth of this kind of moral power ; for as the 
 true domain of woman is the home, and her way of 
 
BEAUTY AND BRAINS. 133 
 
 ordering her domestic life the best test of her facul- 
 ties, mere intellectual culture does not help in this ; 
 and, in fact, is often a hindrance rather than a help. 
 What good is there in one's wife being an accom- 
 plished mathematician, a sound scholar, a first-rate 
 musician, a deeply-read theologian, if she cannot 
 keep the accounts square, knows nothmg of the 
 management of children, lets herself be cheated by 
 the servants and the tradespeople, has not her eyes 
 opened to dirt and disorder, and gives way to a 
 fretful temper on the smallest provocation ? 
 
 The pretty fool who spends half her time in 
 trying on new dresses and studying the efi'ect of 
 colours, and who knows nothing beyond the last 
 new novel and the latest plate of fashions, is not a 
 more disastrous wife than the woman of profound 
 learning whose education has taught her nothing 
 practical. They stand at the opposite ends of the 
 same scale, and neither end gives the true position of 
 women. Indeed, if one must have a fool in one's 
 house, the pretty one would be the best, as, at the 
 least, pleasant to look at ; which is something gained. 
 
 The intellectual fool, with her head always in 
 books and ' questions,' and her children dropping ofi* 
 like sheep for the want of womanly care, is something 
 more than flesh and blood can tolerate. The pretty 
 fool cannot help herself. If nature proved herself but 
 a stepmother to her, and left out the best part of her 
 wits while taking such especial care of her face, it is 
 no fault of hers : but the intellectual fool is a case of 
 
134 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 maladministration of powers, for which she alone is 
 responsible ; and in this particular alternative between 
 beauty and brains, without a shadow of doubt we 
 would go in for beauty. 
 
 Ball-rooms and dinner-tables are the two places 
 where certain women most shine. In the ball-room 
 Hebe is the queen, and has it all her own way 
 without fear of rivals. A very few men who care for 
 dancing for its own sake will certainly dance with 
 Hecate if she is light on hand, keeps accurate time, 
 and manages her feet with scientific precision ; but 
 to the ruck of youths, Hebe, who jerks herself into 
 step every second round, but whose lovely face and 
 perfect figure make up for everything, is the partner 
 they all besiege. Only to those exceptional few who 
 regard dancing as a serious art would she be a bore 
 with her three jumps and a hop ; while Hecate, 
 waltzing like an angel, would be divine, in spite of 
 her high cheek-bones and hght green eyes a fieur de 
 tete. But at a dinner-table, where a man likes to talk 
 between the dishes, a sympathetic listener with 
 pleasant manners, to whom he can au' his stalest 
 stories and recount his personal experiences, is pre- 
 ferable to the prettiest girl if a simpleton, only able 
 to show her small white teeth in a silly smile, and 
 say ' yes ' and ' indeed ' in the wrong places. The 
 ball-room may be taken to represent youth; the 
 dinner- table maturity. The one is the apotheosis of 
 mere beauty, in clouds of millinery glory and a 
 heaven of flirting ; the other is solid enjojrment, with 
 
BEAUTY AND BRAINS. 135 
 
 brains to talk to by the side and beauty to look at 
 opposite, in just the disposition that makes life perfect. 
 A well-ordered dinner-table is a social microcosm; 
 and, being so, this is the blue riband of the arrange- 
 ment. 
 
 Every woman is bound to make the best of her- 
 self. The strong-minded women who hold themselves 
 superior to the obligations of dress and manner and 
 all the pleasant little artificial graces belonging to an 
 artificial civilization, and who think any sacrifice 
 made to appearance just so much waste of power, are 
 awful creatures, ignorant of the real meaning of their 
 sex — social Graiae wanting in every charm of woman- 
 hood, and to be diligently shunned by the wary. 
 
 This making the best of themselves is a very dif- 
 ferent thing from making dress and personal vanity 
 the first considerations in life. Where women in 
 general fail is in the exaggerations into which they 
 fall on this and on almost every other question. They 
 are apt to be either demireps or devotees ; frights or 
 flirts ; fashionable to an extent that lands them in 
 illimitable folly and drags their husbands' names 
 through the mire, or they are so dowdy that they 
 disgrace a well-ordered drawing-room, and among 
 nicely-dressed women stand out as living sermons on 
 slovenliness. If they are clever, they are too com- 
 monly blue- stockings, and let the whole household 
 go by the board for the sake of their fruitless studies ; 
 and if they are domestic and good managers they sink 
 into mere servants, never opening a book save their 
 
136 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 daily ledger, and having no thought beyond the 
 cheesemonger's bill and the butcher's prices. They 
 want that fine balance, that accurate self- measurement 
 and knowledge of results, which goes by the name 
 of common- sense and is the best manifestation of 
 brains they can give, and the thing which men most 
 prize. It is the most valuable working form of 
 intellectual power, and has most endurance and 
 vitality ; and it is the form which helps a man on in 
 life, when he has found it in his wife, quite as much 
 as money or a good connexion. 
 
 So that, on the whole, brains are before beauty 
 in the solid things of life. For admiration and per- 
 sonal love and youthful enjoyment, beauty of course 
 is supreme ; but as we cannot be always young nor 
 always apt for pleasure, it is as well to provide for 
 the days when the daughters of music shall be 
 brought low and the years draw nigh which have 
 no pleasure in them. 
 
137 
 
 JSYMPHS, 
 
 Between the time of the raw school-girl and that of 
 the finished young lady is the short season of the 
 nymph, when the physical enjoyment of life is per- 
 haps at its keenest, and a girl is not afraid to use her 
 limbs as nature meant her to use them, nor ashamed 
 to take pleasure in her youth and strength. This is 
 the time when a sharp run down a steep hill, with 
 the chance of a tumble midway, is an exercise by no 
 means objected to ; when clambering over gates, 
 sciles, and even crabbed stone-walls is not refused 
 because of the undignified display of ankle which 
 the adventure mvolves ; when leaping a ditch comes 
 in as one of the ordinary accidents of a marshland 
 walk ; and when the fun of riding is infinitely en- 
 hanced if the horse be only half broken or bare- 
 backed. 
 
 The nymph — an out-of-door, breezy, healthy girl, 
 more after the pattern of the Greek Oread than the 
 Amazon — is found only in the country ; and for 
 the most part only in the remoter districts of the 
 country. In the town she degenerates into fastness, 
 according to the law which makes evil merely the 
 
138 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 misdirection of force, as dirt is only matter in the 
 wrong place. But among the momitains, in the 
 secluded midland villages, or out on the thinly- 
 populated moorland tracts, the nymph may be found 
 in the full perfection of her nature. And a very 
 beautiful kind of nature it is ; though it is to be 
 feared that certain ladies of the stricter sort would 
 call her ' tomboy,' and that those of a still narrower 
 way of thought, unable to distinguish between un- 
 conventionality and vulgarity, would hold her to be 
 decidedly vulgar — which she is not — and would 
 wonder at her mother for ' lettino: her q:o on so.' 
 
 You fall upon the nymph at all hours and in all 
 seasons. Indeed, she boasts that no weather ever 
 keeps her indoors, and prefers a little roughness of 
 the elements to anything too luscious or sentimental. 
 A fresh wind, a sharp frost, a blinding fall of snow, 
 or a pelting shower of rain are all high jmks to the 
 nymph, to whom it is rare fun to come in like a 
 water-dog, dripping from every hair, or shaking the 
 snow in masses from her hat and cloak. She prefers 
 this kind of thing to the suggestive beauty of the 
 moonlight or the fervid heats of summer ; and 
 thinks a long walk in the crisp sharp frost, with the 
 leaves crackling under her feet, worth all the night- 
 ingales in the wood. And yet she loves the spring 
 and summer too, for the sake of the flowers and the 
 birds and the beasts and the insects they bring forth ; 
 for the nymph is almost always a naturalist of the 
 perceptive and self-taught kind, and has a marvellous 
 
NYMPHS. 139 
 
 faculty for finding out nests and rare habitats, and 
 for tracking unusual trails to the hidden home. 
 
 There is no prettier sight among girls than the 
 nj-mph when thoroughly at her ease, and enjoying 
 herself in her own peculiar way. That wonderful 
 grace of unconsciousness which belongs to savages 
 and animals belongs to her also, and she moves with 
 a supple freedom which affectation or shyness would 
 equally destroy. To see her running down a green 
 field, with the sunlight falling on her ; her light dress 
 blown into coloured clouds by the wind; her step 
 
 a little too long for the correct town-walk but 
 
 so firmly planted and yet so light, so swift, so 
 even!— her cheeks freshly flushed by exercise; her 
 eyes bright and fearless; her white teeth shown 
 below her upper lip as she comes forward with a 
 rmging laugh, carrying a young bird which she has 
 just caught, or a sheaf of wild flowers for which she 
 has been periUing her neck, is to see a beautiful and 
 gracious picture which you remember with pleasure 
 all your life after. Or you meet her quite alone on a 
 wide bleak moor, with her hat in her hand and her 
 hair blowing across her face, looking for plovers' eggs, 
 or ferns and orchids down in the damp hollows. She 
 IS by no means dressed according to the canons of 
 Le Follet, and yet she always manages to have some- 
 thmg picturesque about her— something that would 
 dehght an artist's taste, and that is in perfect har- 
 mony with herself and her surroundings— which she 
 wears with profound ignorance as to how well it 
 
140 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 suits her — or at most with only an instinctive know- 
 ledge that it is the right thing for her. She may be 
 shy as she meets you ; if she is passing out of the 
 nymph state into that of conscious womanhood, she 
 will be shy ; but if still a nymph with no disturbing 
 influences at work, she will probably look at you 
 with a fixed, perplexing, half-provoking look of 
 fi:*ank curiosity which you can neither notice nor 
 take advantage of ; the trammels of conventional life 
 fettering one side heavily, if not the other. 
 
 Shocking as it is to say, the nymph may some- 
 times be met on the top of a haycart, and certainly 
 in the hayfield, where she is engaged in scattering 
 the ' cocks,' if not in raising them; and where even 
 the haymakers themselves — and they are not a 
 notably romantic race — -do not grumble at the extra 
 trouble she gives them, because of her evident de- 
 light in her misdeeds. Besides, she has a bright 
 word for them as she passes ; for the nymph has 
 democratic tendencies, and is fi:'ank and ^ aff'able ' to 
 all classes alike. She needs to be a little looked after 
 in this direction, not for mischief but for manners ; 
 for, if not judiciously checked, she may become in 
 time coarse. There are seamy sides to everything, 
 and the nymph does not escape the general law. 
 
 If the nymph condescends to any game at all, it 
 is croquet, at which she is inexorably severe. She 
 knows nothing of the little weakness which makes 
 her elder sisters overlook the patent spooning of the 
 favourite curate, even though he is opposed to them 
 
NYMPHS. ]41 
 
 — nothing of the tender favouritism which pushes on 
 an awkward partner by deeds of helping outside the 
 law. The nymph, who has no weakness nor tender- 
 ness of that kind, knows only the game ; and the 
 game has not elastic boundaries. Therefore she is 
 inflexible in her justice to one side and the other. Is 
 it not the game ? she says when reproached with 
 being disagreeable and unamiable. 
 
 But even croquet is slow to the nymph, who has 
 been known to handle a bat not discreditably, and 
 who is an adept at firing at a mark with real j)Owder 
 and ball. If she lives near a lake, a river, or the 
 sea, she is first-rate at boating, can feather her oar 
 and back water with the skill of a veteran oarsman, 
 and can reef a sail or steer close without the sliolitest 
 hesitation or nervousness. She is .also a famous 
 swimmer, and takes the water like a duck ; and at an 
 ordinary summer seaside resort, if by chance she ever 
 profanes herself by showing ofi" there, she attracts a 
 crowd of beach -loungers to watch her feats far outside 
 the safe barrier of the bathing-machines. She is a 
 great walker, wherever she lives. If a mountaineer, 
 she is a clever cragswoman, making it a point of 
 honour to go to the top of the most difficult and 
 dangerous mountains in her neighbourhood, and 
 coaxing her brothers to let her join them and their 
 friends in expeditions which require both nerve and 
 strength. 
 
 Her greatest sphere of social glory is a picnic, 
 where she always heads the exploring party, clam- 
 
142 SATUKDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 bering up the rocks of the waterfall, or divmg 
 down mto the close- smelling caves, or scaling the 
 crumbling walls of the ruin before any one else can 
 come up to her. She is specially happy at old ruins, 
 where she flits m and out among the broken columns 
 and under the mouldering arches, like a spirit of the 
 place unduly disturbed. Sometimes she climbs up 
 by unseen means, till she reaches a point where it 
 makes one dizzy to see her ; and sometimes she 
 startles her company by the sudden bleatmg of 
 a sheep, or the wild hoot of an owl. For she can 
 imitate the sounds of animals for the most part with 
 wonderful accuracy ; though she can also smg simple 
 ballads without music, with sweetness and correct- 
 ness. She is fond of all animals and fears none. 
 She will pass through a field thronged with wild- 
 lookino' cattle without the least hesitation ; and 
 makes friends even with the yelping farm- dogs which 
 come snapping and snarling at her heels. In winter 
 she feeds the wood-birds by flocks, and always takes 
 care that the horses have a handful of corn or a 
 carrot when she goes to see them, and that the cows 
 are the better for her visit by a bunch of lucerne or 
 a fat fresh cabbage-leaf. The home-beasts show 
 their pleasure when they hear her fleet footstep on 
 the paved yard ; and her favourite pony whinnies to 
 her in a peculiar voice as she passes his stable door. 
 These are her friends, and their love for her is her 
 reward. 
 
 In her early days the nymph was notorious for 
 
NYMPHS. 143 
 
 her dilapidated attire, perplexing mother and nurse to 
 mend, or to understand why or how it had come about. 
 But as her favourite hiding-place was in a forked 
 branch midway up an old tree in the shrubbery, or 
 a natural arbour which she had cut out for herself in 
 the very heart of the underwood, it was scarcely to 
 be wondered at if cloth and cotton testified to the 
 severity of her retreats. She has still mysterious 
 rents in her skirts, got no one knows how ; and her 
 mother still laments over her aptitude for rags, and 
 wishes she could be brought to see the beauty of 
 unstained apparel. She is given to early rising — 
 to fits indeed of rising at some wild hour in the 
 morning, for walks before breakfast and the like 
 innocent insanities. Sometimes she takes it in hand 
 to educate herself in certain stoicisms, and goes 
 without butter at breakfast or without breakfast 
 altogether, if she thinks that thereby she will grow 
 stronger or less inclined to self-indulgence. For 
 drink she will never touch wine nor beer ; but she 
 likes new milk, and is great in her capacity for water. 
 The nymph is almost always of the middle -classes. 
 It is next to impossible indeed that she should be 
 found in the higher ranks, where girls are not left 
 to themselves, and where no one lives in far-away 
 country places out of the reach of public opinion and 
 beyond the range of public overlooking. Some years 
 ago, before the railroads and monster hotels had made 
 the mountain districts like Hampstead or Richmond 
 on a Sunday afternoon, the nymph was to be found in 
 
144 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 great abundance down in Cumberland and Westmore- 
 land. By the more remote lakes, like Buttermere and 
 Hawes Water, and in the secluded valleys running up 
 from the larger lakes, you would come upon square 
 stuccoed houses, generally abominably ugly, where 
 the nymph was mistress of the situation. She might 
 be met riding about alone in a flapping straw hat, long 
 before hats were fashionable headgear for women, and 
 in a blue baize skirt for all the riding-habit thought 
 necessary ; or she might be encountered on the wild 
 fell sides, or on the mountain heights, or in her boat 
 sculling among the lonely lake islets, or gathering 
 water-lilies in the bays. In the desolate stretch of 
 moorland country to the north of Skiddaw the whole 
 female population a few years ago was of the nymph 
 kind ; but railroads and the penny-post, cheap trains, 
 fashion and fine-ladyism have penetrated even into 
 the heart of the wild mountains, and now the nymph 
 there is only a transitional development — not, as 
 formerly, a fixed type. 
 
 The nymph is the very reverse of a flirt. She has 
 no inclination that way, and looks shy and awkward 
 at the men who pay her compliments or attempt any- 
 thing like sentimentality. But she is not superior to 
 boys, who are her chosen companions and favourites. 
 A bold, brave boy, who just overtops her in skill and 
 daring, is her delight ; but anything over twenty is 
 ^ awfully old,' while forty and sixty are so remote 
 that the lines blur and blend together and have no 
 distinction. By-and-by the nymph becomes a staid 
 
NYMPHS. 145 
 
 young woman, and marries. If she goes into a close 
 town and has children, very often her vigorous health 
 gives way, and we see her in a few years nervous, 
 emaciated, consumptive, and with a pitiful yearning 
 for ' home ' more pathetic than all the rest. But if 
 she remams where she is, in the fresh pure air of her 
 native place, she retains her youth and strength long 
 after the age when ordinary women lose theirs, and 
 her children are celebrated as magnificent specimens 
 of the future generation. 
 
 We often see in country places matrons of over 
 forty who are still like young women, both in looks 
 and bearing, both in mental innocence and physical 
 power. They have the shy and innocent look of 
 girls ; they blush like girls ; they know less evil 
 than almost any town -bred girl of eighteen, mothers 
 of stalwart youths though they may be ; they can 
 walk and laugh and take pleasure in their lives like 
 girls ; and their daughters find them as much sisters 
 as mothers. It is not quite the same thing if they 
 do not marry ; for among the saddest sights of social 
 life is that terrible fading and withering away of 
 comely, healthy, vigorous young country girls, who 
 slowly pass from nymphs, full of grace and beauty, 
 of happiness and power, to antiquated virgins, soured, 
 useless, debilitated and out of nature. Of these, too, 
 there are plenty in country places ; but perhaps some 
 scheme will be some day set afoot which shall re- 
 dress the overweighted balance and bring to the 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
146 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 service of the future some of the healthiest and best 
 of our women. Meanwhile the fresh, innocent, 
 breez}^ nymph is a charming study ; and may the 
 time be far distant which shall see her tamed and 
 civilized out of existence altogether ! 
 
147 
 
 MESALLIANCES. 
 
 The French system of parents arranging the mar- 
 riao'e of their children without the consent of the orirl 
 being even asked, but assumed as granted, is not so 
 wholly monstrous as many people in England believe. 
 It seem.s to be founded on the idea that, given a 
 young girl who has been kept shut up from all possi- 
 bility of forming the most shadowy attachment for any 
 man whatsoever, and present to her as her husband a 
 sufficiently well-endowed and nice-looking man, with 
 whom come hberty, pretty dresses, balls, admiration 
 and social standing, and the chances are she will 
 love him and live with him in tolerable harmony to 
 the end of the chapter. And this idea is by no means 
 wholly beside the truth, as we find it in practice. 
 The parents, who are better judges of character and 
 circumstance than the daughter can possibly be, are 
 supposed to take care that their future son-in-law is 
 up to their standard, whatever that may be, and that 
 the connexion is not of a kind to bring discredit on 
 their house ; and on this and the joint income, as 
 the solid bases, they build the not very unreasonable 
 hypothesis that one man is as good as another for 
 
148 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 the satisfaction of a quite untouched and virginal 
 fancy, and that suitable external conditions go fur- 
 ther and last longer than passion. They trust to 
 the force of instinct to make all square with the affec- 
 tions, while they themselves arrange for the smooth 
 running of the social circumstances ; and they are 
 not far out in their calculations. 
 
 The young people of the two lonely lighthouse 
 islands, who made love to each other through tele- 
 scopes, are good examples of the way in which in- 
 stinct simulates the impulse which calls itself love 
 when there are two or three instead of one to look 
 at. For we may be quite sure that had the lighthouse 
 island youth been John instead of James, fair instead 
 of dark, garrulous instead of reticent, short and fat 
 instead of tall and slender, the lighthouse island girl 
 would have loved him all the same, and would have 
 quite believed that this man was the only man she 
 ever could have loved, and that her instinctive gravi- 
 tation was her free choice. 
 
 The French system of marriage, then, based on 
 this accommodating instinct, works well for women 
 who are not strongly individual, not inconstant by 
 temperament, and not given to sentimentality. But, 
 seeing that all women are not merely negative, and 
 that passions and affections do sometimes assert 
 themselves inconveniently, the system has had the 
 effect of making society lenient to the little follies 
 of married women, unless too strongly pronounced — 
 partly because the human heart insists on a certain 
 
^lESALLIANCES. 149 
 
 amount of free-will, which fact must be recognized — 
 but partly, we must remember, because of the want 
 of the young-lady element in society. In England, 
 where our girls are let loose early, we have free- 
 trade in flirting ; consequently, we think that all that 
 sort of thing ought to be done before marriage, and 
 that, when once a woman has made her choice and 
 put her neck under the yoke, she ought to stick 
 to her bargain and loyally fulfil her self-imposed 
 engagement. 
 
 One consequence of this free-trade in flirting and 
 this large amount of personal liberty is that love- 
 marriages are more frequent with us than with the 
 French, with whom mdeed, in the higher classes, 
 they are next to impossible ; and, unfortunately, the 
 corollary to this is that love -marriages are too often 
 mesalliances. There is of course no question, ethi- 
 cally, between virtuous vulgarity and refined vice. 
 A groom who smells of the stable and speaks broad 
 Somersetshire or racier Cumberland, but who is brave, 
 faithful, honest, incapable of a lie or of meanness in 
 any form, is a better man than the best-bred gentle- 
 man whose life is as vicious as his bearing is unexcep- 
 tionable. The most undeniable taste in dress, and the 
 most correct pronunciation, would scarcely reconcile 
 us to cruelty, falsehood, or cowardice ; and yet we do 
 not know a father who would prefer to give his girl to 
 the groom, rather than the gentleman, and who would 
 think horny-handed virtue, dressed in fustian and 
 smelling of the stable, the fitter husband of the two. 
 
150 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 If we take the same case out of our own time and 
 circumstances, we have no doubt as to the choice to 
 be made. It seems to us a very little matter that 
 honest Charicles should tell his love to Aglae in the 
 broad Doric tongue instead of in the polished Athe- 
 nian accents to which she was accustomed ; that he 
 should wear his chiton a hand's breadth too long or 
 a span too short ; that his chlamys should be flung 
 across his brawny chest in a way which the young 
 bloods of the time thought ungraceful ; or that, as 
 he assisted at a symposium, he should not hold the 
 rhyton at quite the proper angle, but in a fashion at 
 which the refined Cleon laughed as he nudged his 
 neighbour. Yet all these conventional solecisms, of 
 no account whatever now, would have weighed 
 heavily against poor Charicles when he went to de- 
 mand Aglae' s hand ; and the balance would probably 
 have gone down in favour of that scampish Cleon, 
 who was an Athenian of the Athenians, perfect in all 
 the graces of the age, but not to be compared to 
 his rival in anything that makes a man noble or 
 respectable. We, who read only from a distance, 
 think that Aglae' s father made a mistake, and that 
 the honester man would have been the better choice 
 of the two. 
 
 It is only when we bring the same circumstances 
 home to ourselves that we realize the immense im- 
 portance of the social element ; and how, in this 
 complex life of ours, we are unable to move in a 
 single line independent of all it touches. Imagme a 
 
MESALLIANCES. 151 
 
 fine old county family with a son-in-law who ate 
 peas with his knife, said ' you was ' and ' they is,' 
 and came down to dinner in a shooting-jacket and a 
 blue bird's-eye tied in a wisp about his throat ! He 
 might be the possessor of all imaginable virtues, and, 
 if occasion required, a very hero and a preux cheva- 
 lier, however rough ; but occasions in which a man 
 can be a hero or a preua^ chevalier are rare, whereas 
 dinner comes every day, and the senses are never 
 shut. The core within a conventionally ungainly 
 envelope may be as sound as is possible to a corrupt 
 humanity, but social life requires manners as well as 
 principles ; and though eating peas with a knife is 
 not so bad as telling falsehoods, still we should all 
 agree in saying. Give us truth that does not eat peas 
 with its knife ; let us have honesty in a dress coat 
 and pureheartedness in a clean shirt, seeing that 
 there is no absolute necessity why these several 
 things should be disunited. 
 
 Love-marriages, made against the will of the 
 parents before the character is formed and while the 
 obligations of society are still unrealized, are gene- 
 rally mesalliances founded on passion and fancy only. 
 A man and woman of mature age who know what 
 they want may make a mesalliance, but it is made 
 with a full understanding and deliberate choice ; and, 
 if the thing turns out badly, they can blame theui- 
 selves less for precipitancy than for wrong calcula- 
 tion. The man of fifty who marries his cook knows 
 what he most values in women. It is not manners 
 
152 SATURDAY MOENINGS. 
 
 and it is not accomplishments j perhaps it is useful- 
 ness, perhaps good-temper ; at all events it is some- 
 thing that the cook has and that the ladies of his 
 acquaintance have not, and he is content to take the 
 disadvantages of his choice with its advantages. But 
 the boy who runs away with his mother's maid 
 neither calculates nor sees any disadvantages. He 
 marries a pretty girl because her beauty has touched 
 his senses ; or he is got hold of by an artful woman 
 who has bamboozled and seduced him. It is only 
 when his passion has worn off that he wakes to the 
 full consequences of his mistake, and understands 
 then how right his parents were when they cashiered 
 his pretty Jane so soon as they became aware of 
 what was going on, and sent that artful Sarah to the 
 right about — -just a week too late. 
 
 It is the same with girls ; but in a far greater 
 extent. If a youth's mesalliance is a millstone round 
 his neck for life, a girl's is simply destruction. The 
 natural instinct with all women is to marry above 
 themselves; and we know on what physiological 
 basis this instinct stands, and what useful racial ends 
 it serves. And the natural instinct is as true in its 
 social as in its physiological expression. A woman's 
 honour is m her husband ; her status, her social life, 
 are determined by his ; and even the few women 
 who, having made a bad marriage, have nerve and 
 character enough to set themselves free from the 
 personal association, are never able to thoroughly 
 regain their maiden place. There is always some- 
 
MESALLIANCES. 153 
 
 thing about them which clogs and fetters them; always 
 a kind of doubtful and depressing aura that sur- 
 rounds and influences them. If they have not strength 
 to free themselves, they never cease to feel the mis- 
 take they have made, until the old sad process of 
 deo-eneration is accomplished, and the ' grossness of 
 his nature' has had strength to drag her down. 
 After a time, if her ladyhood has been of a super- 
 ficial kind only, a woman who has married beneath 
 herself may ease down into her groove and be like 
 the man she has married ; if, however, she has suffi- 
 cient force to resist outside influences she will not 
 sink, and she will never cease to sufi'er. She has 
 sinned against herself, her class and her natural 
 instincts ; and has done substantially a worse thing 
 than has the boy who married his mother's maid. 
 Society understands this, and not unjustly if harshly 
 punishes the one while it lets the other go scot- 
 free ; so that the woman who makes a mesalliance 
 sufl'ers on every side, and destroys her life almost as 
 much as the woman who goes wrong. 
 
 AH this is as evident to parents and elders as 
 that the sun shines. They understand the impera- 
 tive needs of social life, and they know how fleeting 
 are the passions of youth and how they fade by time 
 and use and inharmonious conditions ; and they feel 
 that their first duty to their children is to prevent a 
 mesalliance which has nothing, and can have nothing, 
 but passion for its basis. But novelists and poets 
 are against the hard dull dictates of worldly wisdom, 
 
154 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 and join in the apotheosis of love at any cost — all for 
 love and the world well lost ; love in a cottage, with 
 nightingales and honeysuckles as the chief means of 
 paying the rent ; Libussa and her ploughman ; the 
 prmcess and the swineherd, &c. And the fathers 
 who stand out against the ruin of their girls by 
 means of estimable men of inferior condition and 
 with not enough to hve on, are stony-hearted and 
 cruel, while the daughters who take to cold poison in 
 the back -garden, if they cannot compass a secret 
 honeymoon or an open flight, have all the world's 
 sympathy and none of its censure. The cruel parent 
 is the favourite whipping-boy of poetry and fiction ; 
 and yet which is likely to be the better guide — ■ 
 reason or passion ? experience or ignorance ? calcula- 
 tion or impulse? maturity which can judge or 
 youth which can only feel ? There would be no 
 hesitation in any other case than that of love ; but 
 ■^he love-instinct is generally considered to be supe- 
 rior to every other consideration, and has to be 
 obeyed as a divme voice, no matter at what cost or 
 consequence. 
 
 The ideal of life, accordmg to some, is founded on 
 early marriages. But men are slower in the final 
 setting of their character than women, and one never 
 knows how a young fellow of twenty or so will turn 
 out. If he is devout now, he may be an infidel at 
 forty; if, under home influences, he is temperate 
 and pure, when these are withdrawn he may become 
 
MESALLIANCES. 155 
 
 a rake of the fastest kind. His temper, morals, busi- 
 ness power, ability to resist temptation, all are as yet 
 inchoate and undefined ; nothing is sure ; and the 
 gu'l's fancy that makes him perfect in proportion to 
 his good looks, is a mere instinct determined by 
 chance association. 
 
 A girl, too, has more character than she shows 
 in her girlhood. Though she sets sooner than men, 
 she does not set unalterably, and marriage and ma- 
 ternity bring out the depths of her nature as nothing 
 else can. It is only common- sense, then, to jnarry 
 her to a man whose character is already somewhat 
 formed, rather than to one who is still fluid and 
 floating. 
 
 It is all very weU to talk of fighting the battle 
 of life together, and welding together by time. Many 
 a man has been ruined by these metaphors. The 
 theory, partly true and partly pretty, is good enough 
 m its degree ; and, indeed, so far as the weldings 
 goes, we weld together in almost all things by time. 
 We wear our shoe till we wear it into shape and 
 it ceases to pinch us ; but, in the process, we go 
 through a vast deal of pain, and are liable to make 
 corns which last long after the shoe itself fits easily. 
 We do not advocate the French system of marrying 
 ofl* our girls according to our own ideas of suitable- 
 ness, and without consulting them ; but we not the 
 less think that, of all fatal social mistakes, mesalliances 
 are the most fatal, and, in the case of women, to be 
 
156 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 avoided and prevented at any cost short of a broken 
 heart or a premature death. And even death would 
 sometimes be better than the life-long misery, the 
 enduring shame and humiliation, of certain mesalli' 
 ances. 
 
157 
 
 WEAK SISTERS. 
 
 The line at which a virtue becomes a vice through 
 excess can never be exactly defined, being one of 
 those uncertain conditions which each mind must 
 determine for itself. But there is a line, wheresoever 
 we may choose to set it ; and it is just this fine 
 dividing mark which women are so apt to overrun. 
 For women, as a rule, are nothing if not extreme. 
 Whether as saints or sinners, they carry a principle 
 to its outside limits ; and of all partizans they are 
 the most thoroughgoing, whether it be to serve God 
 or the devil, liberty or bigotry, Bible Communism or 
 Calvinistic Election. Sometimes they are just as 
 extreme in their absolute negation of force, and in 
 the narrowness of the limits within which they would 
 confine all human expression either by word or deed 
 — and especially all expression of feminine life. These 
 are the women who carry womanly gentleness into 
 the exaggeration of self-abasement, and make them- 
 selves mere footstools for the stronger creature to 
 kick about at his pleasure ; the weak sisters who 
 think all self-reliance unfeminine, and any originality 
 of thought or character an offence against the or- 
 
158 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 dained inferiority of their sex. They are the parasitic 
 plants of the human family, living by and on the 
 strength of others ; growths miable to stand alone, 
 and, when deprived of their adventitious support, 
 falling to the ground in a ruin perhaps worse than 
 death. 
 
 It is sad to see one of these weak sisters when 
 given up to herself after she has lived on the strength 
 of another. As a wife, she was probably a docile, 
 gentle kind of Medora — at least on the outside ; for 
 we must not confound weakness with amiability — 
 suffering many things because of imperfect servants 
 and unprofitable tradesmen, maybe because of unruly 
 children and encroaching friends, over none of whom 
 she had so much moral power as enabled her to 
 hold them in check : but on the whole driftins: 
 through her days peacefully enough, and, though 
 always in difficulties, never quite aground. She had 
 a tower of strength in her husband, on whom she 
 leaned for assistance in all she undertook, whether it 
 were to give a dose of Dalby to the child, or a scold- 
 ing to the maid, or to pronounce upon the soundness 
 of two rival sects each touting for her soul. While 
 he lived she obeyed his counsel — not always without 
 a futile echo of discontent in her own heart — and 
 copied his opinions with what amount of accuracy 
 nature had bestowed on her ; though it must be con- 
 fessed more often making a travesty than a facsimile, 
 according to the trick of inferior translators, and not 
 necessarily better pleased with his opinions than with 
 
WEAK SISTERS. 159 
 
 his counsels. For your weak sister is frequently 
 peevish, and though unable to originate is not always 
 ready to obey cheerfully ; cheerfulness indeed being 
 for the most part an attribute of power. 
 
 Still, there stood her tower of strength, and while 
 it stood, she, the parasite growing round it, did well 
 enough, and flourished with a pleasant semblance of 
 individual life into the hollowness of which it was no 
 one's business to inquu-e. But when the tower fell, 
 where was the ivy ? The husband taken away, what 
 became of the wife? — he who had been the life and she 
 only the parasite. Abandoned to the poor resources 
 of her own judgment she is like one suddenly thrown 
 into deep water, not knowing how to swim. She has 
 no judgment. She has been so long accustomed to 
 rely on the mind of another, that her will is paralyzed 
 for want of use. She is any one's tool, any one's echo, 
 and worse than that, if left to herself she is any one's 
 victim. All she wants is to be spared the hardship 
 of self-reliance and to be directed free of individual 
 exertion. She is utterly helpless — helpless to act, to 
 direct, to decide ; and it depends on the mere chance 
 of proprietorship whether her slavery shall be degrada- 
 tion or protection, ruin or safety. For she will be a 
 slave, whosoever may be her proprietor ; being the 
 pabulum of which slaves and victims are naturally 
 formed. The old age of Medora is Mrs. Borradaile, 
 who, if her husband had lived, would have probably 
 ended her life in an honourable captivity and a well- 
 directed subserviency. 
 
160 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 We often see this kind of helpless weakness in 
 the daughter of a man of overbearing will, or of a 
 termagant mother fond of managing and impatient of 
 opposition. During the plastic time of her life, when 
 education might perhaps have developed a sufficient 
 amount of mental muscle, and a course of judicious 
 moulding might have fairly set her up, she is snubbed 
 and suppressed till all power is crushed out of her. 
 She is taught the virtue of self-abnegation till she has 
 no self to abnegate ; and the backbone of her in- 
 dividuality is so incessantly broken that at last there 
 is no backbone left m her to break. She has become 
 a mere human mollusc which, when it loses its native 
 shell, drifts helplessly at the mercy of chance currents 
 into the maw of any stronger creature that may fancy 
 it for his prey. One often sees these poor things 
 left orphans and friendless at forty or fifty years of 
 ao-e. They have lived all their lives in leading-strings, 
 and now are utterly unable to walk alone. They are 
 infants in all knowledge of the world, of business, of 
 human life ; their youth is gone, and with it such 
 beauty and attractiveness as they might have had, 
 so that men who liked them when fresh and 
 gentle at twenty do not care to accept their wrinkled 
 helplessness at forty. They have been kept in and 
 kept down, and so have made no friends of their 
 own ; and then, when the strong willed father dies" 
 and the termagant mother goes to the place where 
 the wicked cease from troubling, the mollusc these 
 have hitherto protected is left defenceless and alone. 
 
WEAK SISTERS. 161 
 
 If she has money, her chances of escape from the 
 social sharks always on the look-out for fat morsels 
 are very small mdeed. It is well if she falls into no 
 worse hands than those of legitimate priests of either 
 section, whether enthusiastic for chasubles or crazy 
 for missions ; and if her money is put to no baser 
 use than supplying church embroidery for some 
 Brother Ignatius at home, or blankets for converted 
 Africans in the tropics. It might go into Agape= 
 mones, into spiritual Athen^ums, into Bond Street 
 back-parlours, where it certainly would do no good, 
 take it any way one would ; for, as it must go into 
 some side-channel dug by stronger hands than hers, 
 the question is, into which of the innumerable con- 
 duits oifered for the conveyance of superfluous means 
 shall it be directed ? 
 
 This is the woman who is sure to q-q in for 
 religious excess of one kind or another, and for 
 w^hom therefore, a convent with a sympathetic 
 director is a godsend past words to describe. She is 
 unfit for the life of the world outside. She has 
 neither strength to protect herself, nor beauty to 
 win the loving protection of men ; she cannot be 
 taken as a precious charge, but she will be made a 
 pitiable victim ; and, though matins and vespers 
 come frightfully often, surely the narrow safety of a 
 convent- cell is a better fate for her than the publicity 
 of the witness-box at the Old Bailey! As she must 
 have a master, her condition depends on what master 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
162 SATUEDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 she has ; and the whole line of her future is ruled 
 accordinof to the fact whether she is directed or ' ex- 
 ploited,' and used to serve noble ends or base ones. 
 
 As a mother, the weak sister is even more 
 unsatisfactory than as a spinster left to herself with 
 funds which she can manipulate at pleasure. She 
 is affectionate and devoted ; but of what use are 
 affection and devotion without guiding sense or 
 judgment ? Even m the nursery, and while the 
 little ones need only physical care, she is more 
 obstructive than heljDful, never having so much self- 
 reliance nor readiness of wit as to dare a remedy for 
 one of those sudden maladies, mcidental to children, 
 which are dangerous just in proportion to the length 
 of time they are allowed to run unchecked. And if she 
 should by chance remember anything of therapeutic 
 value, 'she has no power to make her children take 
 what they don't like to take, nor do what they don't 
 like to do. In the horror of an accident she is lost. 
 If her child were to cut an artery, she would take 
 it up into her lap tenderly enough, but she would 
 never dream of stopping the flow ; if it swallowed 
 poison, she would send for the doctor who lives ten 
 miles away ; and if it set itself on fire, she would 
 probably rush with it into the street, for the chance 
 of assistance from a friendly passer-by. She never 
 has her senses under serviceable command ; and her 
 action in a moment of danger generally consists in 
 unavailing pity or in obstructive terror, but never in 
 useful service nor in valuable suggestion. 
 
WEAK SISTERS. 163 
 
 But if useless in her nursery while her children 
 are young, she is even more helpless as they get 
 older ; and the family of a weak woman grows up, 
 unassisted by counsel or direction, just as the old 
 Adam wills and the natural bent inclines. Her sfirls 
 may be loud and fast, her sons idle and dissipated, 
 but she is powerless to correct or to influence. If her 
 husband does not take the reins into his own hands, 
 or if she be a widow, the young people manage matters 
 for themselves under the perilous guidance of youth- 
 ful passions and inexperience. And nine times out 
 of ten they give her but a rough corner for her own 
 share. They have no respect for her, and, unless 
 more generously compassionate than young people 
 nsually are, scarcely care to conceal the contempt 
 they cannot help feeling. What can she expect ? 
 If she was not strono; enouo;h to root out the tares 
 while still green and tender, can she wonder at their 
 luxuriant growth about her feet now ? She, like 
 every one else, must learn the sad meaning of retri- 
 bution, and how the weakness which allowed evil 
 to flourish unsubdued has to share in its conse- 
 quences and to suffer for its sin. 
 
 Unsatisfactory m her home, the weak sister does 
 not do much better in society. She is there the 
 embodiment of restriction. She can bear nothing 
 that has any flavour or colour in it. Topics of 
 broad human interest are forbidden in her presence 
 because they are vulgar, improper, unfeminine. She 
 takes her stand on her womanhood, and makes that 
 
 M 2 
 
164 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 womanhood to be something apart from humanity in 
 the gross. There must be no cakes and ale for 
 others if she be virtuous ; and spades are not to be 
 called spades when she is by to hear. She is the 
 limit beyond which no one must go, under pam of 
 such displeasure as the weak sister can show. And, 
 weak as she is in many things, she can compass a 
 certain strength of displeasure ; she can condemn, 
 persistently if not passionately. 
 
 Nothing is more curious than the way in which 
 the weak sister exercises this power of condemnation, 
 and nothing much more wide than its scope. If 
 incapable of yielding to certain temptations, because 
 incapable of feeling them, she has no pity for those 
 who have not been able to resist ; yet, on the other 
 hand, she cannot comprehend the vigour of those who 
 withstand such influences as conquer her. If she 
 be under the shadow of family protection, safe in 
 the power of those who know how to hold her in all 
 honour and prosperity, she cannot forgive the poor 
 weak waif — no weaker than herself ! — who has 
 been caught up in the outside desert of desolation, 
 and made to subserve evil ends. Yet, on the other 
 hand, fm^ the woman who is able to think and act 
 for herself she has a kind of superstitious horror ; 
 and she shrinks from one who has made herself 
 notorious, no matter what the mode or method, as 
 from something tainted, something unnatural and 
 unwomanly. She has even grave doubts respect- 
 "ng the lawfulness of doing good if the manner of 
 
WEAK SISTERS. 165 
 
 it gets into the papers and names are mentioned as 
 well as things ; and though the fashion of the day 
 favours feminine notoriety in all directions, she holds 
 by the mstinct of her temperament, and languidly 
 maintams that woman is the cipher to which man 
 alone gives distinctive value. Griselda and Medora 
 are the types to her of womanly perfection ; and the 
 only strength she tolerates in her own sex is the 
 strength of endurance and the power of patience. 
 She has no doubt in her own mind that the ordained 
 purpose of woman is to be convenient for the high- 
 handedness and brutality of man ; and any woman 
 who objects to this theory, and demands a better 
 place for herself, is flying in the face of Providence 
 and forfeiting one of the distinctive privileges of her 
 sex. For the weak sister thinks, like some others, 
 that it is better to be destroyed by orthodox means 
 than to be saved by heterodox ones ; and that if good 
 Christians uphold moral suttee, they are only pagans 
 and barbarians who would put out the flames and 
 save the victim from the burning. So far she is 
 respectable, in that she has a distinct theory about 
 something ; but it is wonderfully eloquent of her 
 state that it should only be the theory of Griseldadom 
 as womanly perfection, and the beauty to be found 
 in the moral of Cinderella sitting supmely among 
 the ashes, and forbidden to own even the giass- 
 pper that belonged to her. Fortunately for the 
 world, the weak sister and her theories do not rule. 
 Indeed we are in dano-er of o-oino; too much the 
 
166 SATUKDAY MOKNINGS. 
 
 other way in these times, and the revolt of our 
 women against undue slav^ery goes very near to a 
 revolt against wise submission. Still, women who 
 are to be the mothers of men ought to have some 
 kind of power, if the men are to be worth their place 
 in the world ; and if we want creatures with back- 
 bones we must not give our strength to rearing a 
 race of molluscs. 
 
167 
 
 PINCHING SHOES, 
 
 There are two ways of dealing with pinching shoes. 
 The one is to wear them till you get accustomed to 
 the pressure, and so to wear them easy ; the other is 
 to kick them off and have done with them altoofether. 
 The one is founded on the accommodating principle 
 of human nature by which it is enabled to fit itself to 
 circumstances, the other is the high-handed master- 
 fulness whereby the earth is subdued and obstacles 
 are removed ; the one is emblematic of Christian 
 patience, the other of Pagan power. Both are good 
 in certain states and neither is absolutely the best 
 for all conditions. There are some shoes indeed, 
 which, do what we will, we can never wear easy. 
 We may keep them well fixed on our feet all our life, 
 loyally accepting the pressure which fate and misfor- 
 tune have imposed on us ; but we go lame and 
 hobbled in consequence, and never know what it is 
 to make a free step, nor to walk on our way without 
 discomfort. Examples abound ; for among all the 
 pilgrims toiling more or less painfully through life to 
 death, there is not one whose shoes do not pinch him 
 somewhere, how easy soever they m.ay look and how 
 soft soever the material of which they may be made. 
 
168 SATURDAY MOENINGS. 
 
 Even those proverbial possessors of roomy shoes, the 
 traditional King and Princess, have their own little 
 private bedroom slippers which pinch them, unde- 
 tected by the gaping multitude who measure happi- 
 ness by lengths of velvet and weight of gold em- 
 broidery ; and the envied owners of the treasure 
 which all seek and none find might better stand as 
 instances of sorrow than of happiness — examples of 
 how badly shod poor royalty is, and how, far more 
 than meaner folk, it sufi*ers from the pinching of its 
 regal shoes. 
 
 The uncongeniality of a profession into which a 
 man may have been forced by the injudicious over- 
 ruling of his friends, or by the exigencies of family 
 position and inherited rights, is one form of the 
 pinchmg shoe by no means rare to find. And here, 
 again, poor royalty comes in for a share of the grip on 
 tender places, and the consequent hobbling of its feet. 
 For many an hereditary king was meant by nature 
 to be nothing but a plain country gentleman at the 
 best — perhaps even less ; many, like poor ' Louis 
 Capet,' would have gone to the end quite happily and 
 respectably if only they might have kicked off the 
 embroidered shoes of sovereignty and betaken them- 
 selves to the highlows of the herd — if only they 
 might have exchanged the sceptre for the turning- 
 lathe, the pen or the fowling-piece. ' Je deteste mon 
 metier de roi,' Victor Emmanuel is reported to have 
 siad to a republican friend who sympathized with 
 the monarch's well-known tastes in other thino-s 
 
PINCHING SHOES. 169 
 
 beside his hatred of the kingly profession ; ^nd 
 history repeats this frank avowal in every page. But 
 the purple is as hard to be got rid of as Deianen-a's 
 robe ; for the most part carrying the skin along with 
 it and trailed through a pool of blood in the act of 
 transfer — which is scarcely what royalty, oppressed 
 with its own greatness, and willing to rid itself of 
 sceptre and shoes that it may enjoy itself in list- 
 slippers after a more bourgeoise fashion, would find 
 in accordance with its wishes. 
 
 Lower down in the social scale we find the 
 same kind of misfit between nature and position 
 as a very frequent occurrence — pinching shoes, 
 productive of innumerable corns and tender places, 
 being many where the feet represent the temperament 
 and the shoes are the profession. How often we see 
 a natural ' heavy ' securely swathed in cassock and 
 bands, and set up in the pulpit of the family 
 church, simply because the tithes were large and the 
 advowson was part of the family inheritance. But 
 that stiff rectorial shoe of his will never wear easy. 
 The man's secret soul goes out to the parade- 
 ground and the mess-table. The glitter and jingle 
 and theatrical display of a soldier's life seem to 
 him the finest thmgs in the whole round of pro- 
 fessions, and the quiet uneventful life of a village 
 pastor is of all the most abhorrent. He wants to act^ 
 not to teach. Yet there he is, penned in beyond all 
 power of breaking loose on this side the grave ; 
 bound to drone out muddled sermons half an hour 
 long and eminently good for sleeping draughts, instead 
 
170 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 of shouting terse and stirring words of command which 
 set the blood on fire to hear ; bound to rout the 
 shadowy enemy of souls with weapons he can neither 
 feel nor use, instead of prancing off at the head of 
 his men, waving his drawn sword above his head in 
 a whirlwind of excitement and martial glory, to rout 
 the tangible enemies of his country's flag. He loves 
 his wife and takes a mild parsonic pleasure in his 
 roses ; he energizes his schools and beats up recruits 
 for his parish penny readings ; he lends his pulpit 
 to missionary delegates and takes the chair at the 
 meeting for the conversion of Jews ; he does his 
 duty, poor man, so far as he knows how and so far 
 as nature gave him the power ; but his feet are in 
 pinching shoes all his life long, and no amount of 
 walking on the clerical highway can ever make them 
 pleasant wearing. Or he may have a passionate love 
 for the sea, and be mewed up in a lawyer's musty 
 office where his laro'e limbs have not half enouofh 
 space for their natural activity ; where he is perched 
 for twelve hours out of the twenty-four on a high stool 
 against a desk instead of climbing cat-like up the 
 ropes ; and where he is set to engross a longwinded 
 deed of conveyance, or to make a fair copy of a bill 
 of costs, instead of bearing a hand in a gale and 
 saving his ship by pluck and quickness. He could 
 save a ship better than he can engross a deed ; while, 
 as for law, he cannot get as much of that into his 
 heavy brain as would enable him to advise a client on 
 the simplest case of assault ; but he knows all the 
 
PINCHING SHOES. 171 
 
 cliiFerences of rig, and the whole code of signals, and 
 can tell you to a nicety about the flags of all nations, 
 and tlie name and position of every spar and stay and 
 sheet, and when to reef and when to set sail, with any 
 other nautical information to be had from books and 
 a chance cruise as far as the Nore. That pen behind 
 his ear never ceases to gall and fret ; his shoe never 
 ceases to pinch ; and to the last day of his life the 
 high stool in the lawyer's office will be a place of 
 penance and the sailor's quarter-deck the lost heaven 
 of his ambition. 
 
 No doubt, by the time the soldier wrongly la- 
 belled as a parson or the sailor painfully working 
 the legal treadmill, comes to the end of his career, 
 the old shoe which has pinched him so long will be 
 worn comparatively easy. The gradual decay of 
 manly vigour, and the slow but sure destruction of 
 strong desires, reduce one's feet at last to masses of 
 accommodating pulp ; but what suffering we go 
 throuo^h before this result can be attamed ! — what 
 years of fruitless yearning, of fierce despair, of pa- 
 thetic self-suppression, of jarring discord between 
 work and fitness, pound all the life out of us 
 before our bones become like wax and pinching 
 shoes are transformed to easy-fitting slippers ! For 
 itself alone, not counting the beyond to which the 
 hope clings, it would scarcely seem that such a life 
 were worth the livmg. 
 
 Another pinching shoe is to be found in climate 
 and locality. A man hungering for the busy life of 
 
172 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 the city has to vegetate in the rural districts, where 
 the days drop one after the other like leaden bullets, 
 and time is only marked by an accession of dulness. 
 Another, thirsting for the repose of the country, 
 has to jostle daily through Cheapside. To one 
 who thinks Canadian salmon-fishing the supreme of 
 earthly happiness, fate gives the chance of chasing 
 butterflies in Brazil ; to another who holds ' the 
 common objects of the seashore ' of more account 
 than silver and gold, an adverse fortune assigns a 
 station in the middle of a plain as arid as if the 
 world had been made without water ; and a third, 
 who cares for nothing but the free breathing of the 
 open moors or the rugged beauty of the barren fells, 
 is dropped down into the heart of a narrow valley 
 where he cannot see the sun for the trees. At first 
 this matter of locality seems to be but a very small 
 grip on the foot, not worth a second thought ; but it 
 is one of a certain cumulative power impossible to 
 describe, though keen enough to him who suffers ; 
 and the pinching shoe of uncongenial place is quite 
 as hard to bear as that of uncongenial work. 
 
 Again, a man to w liom intellectual companionship 
 means more than it does to many is thrown into a 
 neighbourhood wdiere he cannot- hope to meet with 
 comprehension, still less with sympathy. He is a 
 Freethinker, and the neighbourhood goes in for the 
 strictest Methodism or the highest ultra-Ritualism ; 
 he is a Radical, and he is in the very focus of county 
 Toryism, where the doctrine of equality and the 
 
PINCHING SHOES. 173 
 
 rights of man is just so much seditious blasphemy, 
 while the British Constitution is held as a direct 
 emanation from divine wisdom second only to the 
 Bible ; or he is a Tory to the backbone — and his 
 backbone is a pretty stiff one — and he is in the 
 midst of that blatant kind of Radicalism which 
 thinks gentlehood a remnant of the dark ages, and 
 confounds good breeding with servility, and loyalty 
 to the Crown with oppression of the people. Sur- 
 rounded by his kind, he is as much alone as if in the 
 middle of a desert. An Englishman among English- 
 men, he has no more mental companionship than if 
 he were in a foreign country where he and his neigh- 
 bour spoke different tongues, and each had a set of 
 signs with not two agreeing. And this kind of 
 solitude makes a pinching shoe to many minds ; 
 though to some of the more self-centred or defying kind 
 it is bearable enough — perhaps even giving a sense 
 of roominess which closer communion would destroy. 
 Of course one of the worst of our pinching shoes 
 is matrimony, when marriage means bondage and 
 not union. The mismated wife or husband never 
 leaves off, willingly or unwillingly, squeezing the 
 tender places ; and the more the pressure is objected 
 to the worse the pain becomes. And nothing can 
 relieve it. A country gentleman, hating the dust 
 and noise of London, with all his interest in his 
 county position and all his pleasure in his place, and 
 a wife whose love lies in Queen's balls and opera- 
 boxes, and to whom the country is simply a slice 
 
174 SATURDAY MOR]SlNGS. 
 
 out of Siberia wherever it may be ; a hearty hospit- 
 able man, hking to see his table well filled, and a 
 wife with a weak digestion, irritable nerves and a 
 morbid horror of society ; a pushing and ambitious 
 man, with a loud voice and an imposing presence, 
 and a shrinking fireside woman, who asks only to 
 glide unnoticed through the crowd and to creep 
 noiselessly from her home to her grave — are not all 
 these shod with pinching shoes, which, do what they 
 will, go on pinching to the end, and which nothing 
 short of death or the Sir James Hannen of the time 
 can remove ? The pinching shoe of matrimony 
 pinches both sides equally — excepting indeed, one 
 of the two is specially phlegmatic or pachyder- 
 matous, and then the grip is harmless ; but, as a 
 rule, the ring-fence of marriage doubles all con- 
 ditions, and when A. walks hobbled, B. falls lame, 
 and both suffer from the same misfit. However, the 
 only thing to do is to bear and wear till the upper- 
 leather ^delds or till the foot takes the required 
 shape ) but there is an eternity of pain to be gone 
 throuo^h before either of these desirable ends comes 
 about ; and the instinct which dreads pain, and 
 questions its necessity, is by no means a false one. 
 For all that, we must wear our pinching shoes of 
 matrimony till death or the Divorce Court pulls 
 them from our feet ; which points to the need of 
 being more careful than we usually are about the fit 
 beforehand. 
 
 Poverty has a whole rack full of pinching shoes 
 very hard to get accustomed to, and as bad to dance 
 
PINCHING SHOES. 175 
 
 in lightly as were the fiery slippers of the naughty 
 little girl in the German fairy-tale. Given a large 
 heart, generous instincts and an empty purse, and we 
 have the conditions of a real tragedy, both individual 
 and social. For poverty does not mean only that ele- 
 mental want of food and clothing which we generally 
 associate with its name. Poverty may have two 
 thousand a year as well as only a mouldy crust and 
 three shillings a week from the parish ; and poverty 
 cursing its sore feet in a brougham is quite as 
 common as poverty, full of corns and callosities, 
 blaspheming behind a costermonger's barrow. The 
 shoe may pinch horribly, though there is no question 
 of hunger or the ' twopenny rope ; ' for it is all a 
 matter of relative degree, and the means wherewith 
 to meet wants. But as poverty is not one of those 
 fixed conditions of human life which no human 
 power can remove, we have not perhaps quite so much 
 sympathy with its grips and pinches as in other 
 things less remediable. For while there is work still 
 undone in the world, there is gain still to be had. 
 The man whose energies stagnate now m a dry 
 channel can, if he will, turn them into one more 
 fertile ; and if he is making but a poor business out 
 of meal, it is his own fault if he does not try to 
 make a better out of malt. Where the shoe pinches 
 hardest is in places which we cannot protect and 
 with a grip which we cannot prevent ; but we cannot 
 say this of poverty as a necessary and inalienable 
 condition, and sympathy is so much waste when 
 circumstances can be changed by energy or will. 
 
176 SATURDAY MOKNi:sGS. 
 
 SUPERIOR BEIXGS, 
 
 Every now and then one comes across the path of a 
 Superior Being — a being who seems to imagine itself 
 made out of a different kind of clay from that which 
 forms the coarser ruck of humanity, and whose pre- 
 sence crushes us with a sense of our own inferiority, 
 exasperating or humiliating, according to the amount 
 of natural pride bestowed upon us. The superior 
 being is of either sex and of all denominations ; and 
 its superiority comes from many causes — bemg some- 
 times due to a wider grasp of intellect, sometimes 
 to a loftier standard of morals, sometimes to better 
 birth or a longer purse, and very often to the simple 
 conceit of itself which simulates superiority and 
 believes in its own apery. The chief characteristic 
 of the superior being is that exalted pity for in- 
 feriority which springs from the consciousness of 
 excellence. In fact, one of the main elements of 
 superiority consists in this sublime consciousness 
 of private exaltation, and the immense interval that 
 separates it from the grosser condition it surveys. 
 Kivalry is essentially angry and contentious, but 
 confessed superiority can afford to be serene and 
 
SUPERIOR BEINGS. 177 
 
 compassionate. The little people who live in that 
 meagre sphere of theirs, mental and social, with 
 which not one point of its own extended circle 
 comes in contact, are deserving of all pity and are 
 below anything like active displeasure. That they 
 should be content with such a meagre sphere seems 
 inconceivable to the superior being, as it contem- 
 plates its own enlarged horizon with the complacency 
 j)roper to a dweller in vastness. Or it may be that 
 its own world is narrow ; and its superiority will 
 then be that it is high, safe, exclusive, while its pity 
 will flow down for those poor wayfarers who wander 
 afield in broad latitudes, and know nothing of the 
 pleasure found in reserved places. In any case the 
 region in which a superior bemg dwells is better 
 than the region in which any other person dwells. 
 
 Take a superior being who has made up a private 
 account with truth, and who has, in his own mind at 
 least, unlocked the gate of the great mysteries of life, 
 and got to the back of that eternal Why ? for ever 
 confrontmg us. It does not in the least degree sig- 
 nify how the key is labelled. It may be High Church 
 or Low Church, Swedenborgianism or Positivism. 
 The name has nothing to do with the thino". It 
 is the contented certainty of having unlocked that 
 great gate at which others are hammering in vain 
 which confers the superiority, and how the thino- has 
 been done does not affect the result. Neither does 
 it disturb the equanimity of the superior being when 
 he meets with opposing superior beings who have 
 
 VOL. I. X 
 
178 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 also made up their private accounts with truth, but 
 in quite another handwriting and with a different 
 sum-total at the bottom of the page ; who have also 
 unlocked the gate of the great mysteries, but with a 
 key of contradictory wards, while the gate itself is of 
 another order of architecture altogether. But then 
 nothing ever does disturb the equanimity of the 
 superior being ; for, as he is above all rivalry, so is 
 he beyond all teachuig. The meeting of two superior 
 bemgs of hostile creed is like the meeting of the two 
 blind kings in the story, each claiming the crown 
 for his own and both ignorant of the very existence 
 of a rival. It may be that the superior being has 
 soared away into the cold region of spiritual negation, 
 whence he regards the praying and praising multi- 
 tudes who go to church and believe in Providence 
 as grown people regard children who still believe in 
 ghosts and fairies. Or it may be that he has plunged 
 into the phosphorescent atmosphere of mysticism and 
 an all -pervading superstition ; and then all who hold 
 by scientific law, and who think the test of common 
 sense not absolutely valueless, are Sadducees who 
 know nothing of the glorious liberty of the light, 
 but who prefer to live in darkness and to make them- 
 selves the agents of the great Lord of Lies. 
 
 Sometimes the superior being goes in for the 
 doctrine of love and impulse, as against reason or 
 experience, holding the physiologist and political 
 economist as creatures absolutely devoid of feeling ; 
 and sometimes his superiority is shown in the appli- 
 
SUPERIOR BEINGS. ' 179 
 
 cation of the hardest material laws to the most subtle 
 and delicate manifestations of the mind. But on 
 which side soever he ranks himself — as a spirituaUst 
 to whom reason and matter are stumbling-blocks and 
 accursed, or as a materialist denying the existence of 
 spiritual influences at all — he is equally secure of his 
 own superiority and serene in his own conceit. That 
 there should be two sides to any question never 
 seems to strike him ; and that a man of another 
 creed should have as much right as himself to a 
 hearing and consideration is the one hard sayino- 
 impossible for him to receive. With a light and 
 airy manner of playful contempt — sometimes with a 
 heavy and Johnsonian scorn that keeps no terms 
 with an opponent — the superior being meets all your 
 arguments or batters down all your objections ; some- 
 times, indeed, he will not condescend even so far as 
 this, but when you express your adverse opinion just 
 lifts up his eyebrows ^^-ith a good-humoured kind of 
 surprise at your mental state, but lets you see that 
 he thinks you too hopeless, and himself too superior, 
 to waste powder and shot upon you. It is of the 
 nature of things that there should be moles and that 
 there should be eagles ; so much the worse for the 
 moles, who must be content to remain blind, not 
 seeing things patent to the nobler vision. 
 
 The superior being is sometimes a person who is 
 above all the passions and weaknesses of ordinary 
 men ; a philosopher, or an etherealized woman dwell- 
 ing on serene Olympian heights which no clouds 
 
180 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 obscure and where no earth-fogs rise. The passions 
 which shake the human soul, as tempests shake the 
 forest trees, and warp men's lives according to the 
 run of their own lines, are unknown to these Olym- 
 pian personages who cannot understand their power. 
 They look on these tempestuous souls with a curious 
 analytical gaze, speculating on the geography of their 
 Gethsemane, and wondering why they cannot keep 
 as calm and quiet as they themselves are. They sit 
 in scornful judgment on the mysterious impulses 
 regulating human nature — regulating and disturbing 
 — and think how perfect all things would be if only 
 passions and instincts were cut out of the great plan, 
 and men and women were left to the dommion of 
 pure reason. But they do not take mto account the 
 law of constitutional necessity, and they are utterly 
 unable to strike a balance between the good and evil 
 wrought both by the tempests of souls and by those 
 of nature. They only know that storms are incon- 
 venient, and that for themselves they have no need 
 of such convulsions to clear off stagnant humours ; 
 nor are they made of elements which kindle and ex- 
 plode at the contact of such or such materials. And 
 if they know nothing of all this, why then should 
 others ? If they can sit on Olympian heights serene 
 above all passion, why should not the whole world 
 sit with them, and fogs and fires, earthquakes and 
 deluges, be conditions unknown ? 
 
 When this kind of superior being is a woman, 
 there is something pretty in the sublime assumption of 
 
SUPERIOR BEINGS. 181 
 
 her supremacy and the sweeping range of her condem- 
 nation. Sheltered from temptation and secure from 
 dangler, she looks out on life from the serene heic>:hts 
 of her safe place, and wonders how men can fail and 
 women fall before the power of trials of which she 
 knows only the name. Her circulation is languid 
 and her temperament phlegmatic ; and the burning 
 desire of life which sends the strong into danger, 
 perhaps into sin, is as much unknown to her as is 
 the fever of the tropics to a Laplander crouching in 
 his snow-hut. But she judges none the less positively 
 because of her ignorance ; and, as she looks into your 
 quivering face with her untroubled eyes, lets you 
 see plainly enough how she despises all the human 
 frailties under which you may have tripped and 
 stumbled. Sometimes she rebukes you loftily. Your 
 soul is sore with the consciousness of your sin, your 
 heart is weak with the pain of life ; but the superior 
 being tells you that repentance cannot undo the evil 
 that has been done, and that to feel pain is weak. 
 
 The superiority which some women assume over 
 men is very odd. It is like the grave rebuke of a 
 child, not knowing what it is that it rebukes. When 
 women take up their parable and censure men for 
 the wild or evil things they do, not understanding 
 how or why it has come about that they have done 
 them, and knowing as little of the inner causes as of 
 the outer, they are in the position of superior beings 
 talking unmitigated rubbish. To be sure, it is very 
 sweet and innocent rubbish, and has a lofty air about 
 
182 SATURDAY MOENI^'GS. 
 
 it that redeems what else would be mere presump- 
 tion ; but there is no more practical worth in what 
 they say than there is in the child's rebuke when its 
 doll will not stand upright on sawdust legs, nor eat a 
 crumb of cake with waxen lips. This is one reason 
 why women of the order of superior beings have so 
 little influence over men ; they judge without know- 
 ledge and condemn without insight. If they could 
 thoroughly fathom man's nature, so as to understand 
 his difficulties, they would then have moral power if 
 their aims were higher than his, their principles more 
 lofty, their practice more pure. As it is, they have 
 next to none ; and the very men who seem to yield 
 most go only so far as to conceal what the superior 
 being disapproves of ; they do not change because of 
 her greater weight of doctrine. 
 
 Men show themselves as superior beings to women 
 on another count — intellectually, rather than morally. 
 While women rebuke men for their sins, men snub 
 women for their follies ; the one wields the spiritual, 
 the other the intellectual, weapon of castigation, and 
 both hold themselves superior, beyond all possibility 
 of rivalry, according to the chance of sex. The mas- 
 culine view of a subject always imposes itself on 
 women as something unattainable by the feminine 
 mind. Nine times out of ten it brings them to a 
 due sense of their own inferiority, save in the case 
 of the superior being, to whom of course the mas- 
 culine view counts for nothino; ao^ainst her own. But 
 even when women do not accept a man's opinions, 
 
SUPERIOR BEINGS. 183 
 
 tliey instinctively recognize his greater value, his 
 greater breadth and strength. Perhaps they cry 
 out against his hardness, if he is a political econo- 
 mist and they are emotional ; or against his lower 
 morality if he goes in for universal charity and philo- 
 sophical latitudinarianism, and they are enthusiasts 
 with a clearly-defined faith and a belief in its infal- 
 libility. These are wide tracts of difference between 
 the two minds, not to be settled by the ipse dixit of 
 even a superior being ; but in general the superiority 
 of the man makes itself more felt than the superiority 
 of the woman. While one preaches, the other ridicules ; 
 and snubljino; does more than condemnation. 
 
184 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 FEMININE AMENITIES. 
 
 A man's foes are those of his own household, and the 
 keenest enemies of women are women themselves. 
 No one can inflict such humiliation on a woman as 
 can a woman when she chooses ; for if the art of high- 
 handed snubbing belongs to men, that of subtle 
 wounding is peculiarly feminine, and is practised by 
 the best-bred of the sex. Women are always more 
 or less antagonistic to each other. They are gregarious 
 in fashions and emulative in follies, but they cannot 
 combine ; they never support their weak sisters ; 
 they shrink from those who are stronger than the 
 average ; and if they would speak the truth boldly, 
 they would confess to a radical contempt for each 
 other's intellect — which perhaps is the real reason 
 why the sect of the ' emancipated ' commands so 
 small a following. 
 
 Half a dozen ordinary men advocating ' emanci- 
 pation' doctrines would do more towards leavening 
 the whole bulk of womankind than any number 
 of first-class women. Where these do stand by 
 each other it is from instinctive or personal affec- 
 tion rather than from class solidarity. And this is 
 
FEmNINE AMENITIES. 185 
 
 one of the most striking distinctions of sex, and one 
 cause, among others, why men have the upper hand, 
 and why they are able to keep it. Certainly there are 
 reasons, sufficiently good, why women do not more 
 readily coalesce ; and one is the immense difference 
 between the two extremes — the silly being too silly 
 to appreciate the wise, and the weak too weak to 
 bear the armour of the strong. There is more 
 difference between outsiders among women than there 
 is among men ; the feminine characteristic of ex- 
 aggeration making a gap which the medium or 
 average man fills. The ways of women with each 
 other more than all else show the great difference 
 between their morale and that of men. They flatter 
 and coax as men could not do, but they are also more 
 rude to each other than any man would be to his 
 fellow. It is amazing to see the things they can do 
 and will bear — things which no man would dream of 
 standing and which no man would dare to attempt. 
 This is because they are not taught to respect each 
 other, and because they have no fear of consequences. 
 If one woman is insulted by another, she cannot de- 
 mand satisfaction nor knock the offender down ; and 
 it is unladylike to swear and call names. She must 
 bear what she can repay only in kmd ; but, to do her 
 justice, she repays in a manner undeniably effective 
 and to the point. 
 
 There is nothing very pronounced about the 
 feminine modes of aggression and retaliation ] and 
 yet each is eloquent and sufficient for its purpose. It 
 
186 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 may be only a stare, a shrug, a toss of the head ; 
 but women can throw an intensity of disdain into the 
 simplest gesture which answers the end perfectly. 
 The unabashed serenity and unflinching constancy 
 with which one woman can stare down another is in 
 itself an art that requires a certain amount of natural 
 genius, as well as carefal cultivation. She puts up 
 her eyeglass — not being shortsighted — and surveys 
 the enemy standing two feet from her, with a sublime 
 contempt for her whole condition, or with a still more 
 sublime ignoring of her sentient existence, that no 
 words could give. If the enemy be sensitive and 
 unused to the kind of thing, she is absolutely crushed, 
 destroyed for the time, and reduced to the most 
 pitiable state of self-abasement. If she be of a tougher 
 fibre, and has had some experience of feminine war- 
 fare, she returns the stare with a corresponding 
 amount of contempt or of obliviousness ; and from 
 that moment a contest is begun which never ceases 
 and which continually stains in bitterness. The stare 
 is the weapon of offence most in use among women, 
 and is specially favoured by the experienced against the 
 younger and less seasoned. It is one of the instinc- 
 tive arms native to the sex ; and we have only to watch 
 the introduction of two girls to each other to see this, 
 and to learn how even in youth is begun the exercise 
 which time and use raise to such deadly perfection. 
 
 In the conversations of women with each other we 
 again meet with examples of their peculiar amenities 
 to their own sex. They never refrain from showing 
 
FEMININE AMENITIES. 187 
 
 how mucli they are bored ; they contradict flatly, 
 without the flimsiest veil of apology to hide their 
 rudeness ; and they interrupt ruthlessly, whatever 
 the subject in hand may be. One lady was giving 
 another a minute account of how the bride looked 
 yesterday when she was married to Mr. A., of some- 
 what formidable boudoir repute, with whom her 
 listener had had sundry tender passages which made 
 the mention of his marriage a notoriously sore subject. 
 ' Ah ! I see you have taken that old silk which Madame 
 Josephine wanted to palm off on me last year,' said the 
 tortured listener brusquely breakmg into the narra- 
 tive without a lead of any kind. And the speaker 
 was silenced. In this case it was the interchano^e of 
 doubtful courtesies, wherein neither deserved pity ; 
 but to make a disparaging remark about a gown, in 
 revenge for turning the knife in a wound, was a 
 thoroughly feminine manner of retaliation, and one 
 that would not have touched a man. Such shafts 
 fall blunted against the rugged skin of the coarser 
 creature ; and the date or pattern of a bit of cloth 
 would not have told much against the loss of a 
 lover. But as most women passionately care for 
 dress, their toilet is one of their most vulnerable parts. 
 Ashamed to be unfashionable, they tolerate anything 
 in each other rather than shabbiness or eccentricity, 
 even when picturesque ; hence a sarcastic allusion to 
 the age of a few yards of silk as a set-off against a 
 grossly cruel stab was a return wound of considerable 
 depth cleverly given. 
 
188 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 The introduction of the womankind belonmio^ to 
 a favourite male acquaintance of somewhat lower 
 social condition affords a splendid oj)portunity for 
 the display of feminine amenity. The presentation 
 cannot be refused, yet it is resented as an intrusion. 
 ' Another daughter, Mr. C. ! You must have a dozen 
 daughters surely,' a peeress said disdainfully to a 
 commoner whom personally she liked, but whose 
 family she did not want to know. The poor man had 
 but two ; and this was the introduction of the second. 
 
 Yery painful to a high-spirited gentlewoman 
 must be the way in which a superior creature of this 
 kind receives her, if not of the same set as herself. 
 The husband of the inferior creature may be adored, 
 as men are adored by fashionable women who love 
 only themselves, and care only for their own plea- 
 sures. Artist, man of letters, beau sabreiir^ he is 
 the passing idol, the temporary toy, of a certain 
 circle ; and his wife has to be tolerated for his sake, 
 and because she is a lady and fit to be presented, 
 though an outsider. So they patronize her till the 
 poor woman's blood is on fire ; or they snub her 
 till she has no moral consistency left in her, and 
 is reduced to a mere mass of pulp. They keep her in 
 another room while they talk to her husband with 
 their other intimates ; or they admit her into their 
 circle, where she is made to feel like a Gentile among 
 the faithful, for either they leave her unnoticed alto- 
 gether or else speak to her on subjects quite apart 
 from the general conversation, as if she were inca- 
 
FEMININE AMENITIES. 189 
 
 pable of understanding them on their own ground. 
 They ask her to dinner without her husband, and take 
 care that there is no one to meet her whom she would 
 like to see ; but they ask him when they are at their 
 grandest, and express their deep regret that his wife 
 (uninvited) cannot accompany him. They know 
 every turn and twist that can humiliate her if she has 
 pretensions which they choose to demolish. They 
 praise her toilet for its good taste in simplicity, when 
 she thinks she is one of the finest on an occasion on 
 which no one can be too fine. They tell her that pat- 
 tern of hers is perfect, and made just like the dear 
 duchess's famous dress last season, when she believes 
 that she has Madame Josephine's last, fi:-eshly im- 
 ported from Paris. They celebrate her dinner as the 
 very perfection of a refined family dinner without 
 parade or cost, though it has all been had from the 
 crack confectioner's, and though the bill for the en- 
 tertainment will cause many a day of family pinching. 
 These are the thmgs which women say to one another 
 when they wish to pain and humiliate ; things which 
 pain and humiliate some more than would a positive 
 disgrace. For some women are distressingly sensitive 
 about these little matters. Their lives are made up 
 of trifles, and a failure m a trifle is a failure in their 
 object of life. 
 
 Women can do each other no end of despite in a 
 small way in society, not to speak of mischief of a 
 graver kind. A hostess who has a grudge against 
 one of her more famous lady-guests can always ensure 
 
190 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 her a disappointing evening under cover of doing her 
 supreme honour and paying her extra attention. If 
 she sees the enemy engaged in a pleasant conversation 
 with one of the male stars, down she swoops, and in 
 the sweetest manner possible carries her oiF to another 
 part of the room, to introduce her to some school-girl 
 who can only say yes or no in the wrong places — ' who 
 is dying for the honour of talking to you, my dear ; ^ 
 or to some unfledged strij)ling who blushes and grows 
 hot and cannot stammer out two consecutive sen- 
 tences, but who is presented as a rising genius and 
 to be treated with the consideration due to his future. 
 As her persecution is done under the guise of extra 
 friendliness, the poor victim cannot cry out, nor yet 
 resist ; but she knows that whenever she goes to Mrs. 
 So and So's she will be seated next the stupidest man 
 at table, and prevented from talking to any one she 
 likes in the evening ; and that every vdsit to that lady 
 is made in some occult manner unpleasant to her. 
 And yet what has she to complain of ? She cannot 
 complain in that her hostess trusts to her for help m 
 the success of her entertainment, and moves her about 
 the room as a perambulating attraction which she has 
 to dispense fairly among her guests, lest some should 
 be jealous of the others. She may know that the 
 meaning is to annoy ; but who can act on meaning as 
 against manner ? How crooked soever the first may 
 be, if the last is straight the case falls to the ground, 
 and there is no room for remonstrance. 
 
 Often women flirt as much to annoy other women 
 
FEMININE AMENITIES. 191 
 
 as to attract men or amuse themselves. If a wife has 
 crossed swords with a friend, and the husband is in 
 any way endurable, let her look out for retaliation. 
 The woman she has offended will take her revenge 
 by flirting more or less openly with the husband, all 
 the while loading the enemy with flattery if she be 
 afraid of her, or snubbing her without much diso-uise 
 if she feel herself the stronger. The wife cannot help 
 herself, unless things go too far for public patience. 
 A jealous woman without proof is the butt of her 
 society, and brings the whole world of women like a 
 nest of wasps about her ears. If wise, she will io-nore 
 Avhat she cannot laugh at ; if sensitive, she will fret ; 
 if vindictive, she will repay. Xme times out of ten 
 she does the last, and, may be, with interest ; and so 
 goes on the duel, though all the time the fighters 
 appear to be intimate friends and on the best possible 
 terms together. 
 
 But the range of these feminine amenities is 
 not confined to women ; it includes men as well ; 
 and women continually take advantage of their posi- 
 tion to insult the stronger sex by saying to them 
 things which can be neither answered nor resented. 
 A woman can with the quietest face and the gentlest 
 voice imaginable insinuate that you have just 
 cheated at cards ; she can give you the lie direct as 
 coolly as if she were correcting a misprint ; and you 
 cannot defend yourself. To brawl with her would be 
 unpardonable ; to contradict her is useless ; and the 
 sense of society does not allow you to show her any 
 
192 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 active displeasure. In this instance the weaker crea- 
 ture is the stronger, and the more defenceless is the 
 safer. You have only the rather questionable con- 
 solation of knowing that you are not singular in your 
 discomfiture, and that when she has made an end of 
 you she will probably have a turn with your betters, 
 and make them too, dance to her piping, whether 
 they like the tune or not. At all events, if she 
 humiliates you she humiliates her sisters still more ; 
 and with the knowledge that, hardly handled as you 
 have been, others are yet more severely dealt with, 
 you must learn to be content, and to practise as much 
 of that grim kind of patience, which suffers keenly 
 and bears silently, as your nature will permit. 
 
GRIM FEMALES. 
 
 Almost all histories and mythologies embody the 
 idea of a race of grim females. Whether as fabulous 
 and complex monsters, like the Sphmx and the 
 Harpies, or in the more human forms of the Fates 
 and the Furies, unsexed women have been uni- 
 versally recognized as forming part of the system of 
 nature and to be accepted among the stranger mani- 
 festations of human life. Yet it is hard to under- 
 stand why they should exist at all. As moral 
 'sports,' they are so far interesting to the psycho- 
 logists ; but, as women with definite duties and fixed 
 functions, nothing can be less admirable. They are 
 even worse than effeminate men — which is saying 
 everything. 
 
 The grim female must be carefully distinguished 
 from the masculine woman ; for they are by no 
 means essentially the same, though the types may 
 run into each other, and sometimes do. But the 
 masculine \^'oman, if not grim but only Amazonian, 
 has often much that is fine and beautiful in her, 
 as we see in her great prototype Pallas Athene ; 
 but the grim female pur sang is never noble, never 
 VOL. I. 
 
194 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 beautiful ; and the only meaning of her existence — 
 the only mission she seems sent into the world to 
 fulfil — is that of serving as a warning to the young 
 what to avoid. 
 
 The grim female is not necessarily an old maid, 
 as would appear likely at first sight. We find her 
 of all conditions indifferently — as maid, wife, widow, 
 as mother and childless alike — and we do not find 
 that her condition in any way afi*ects her character. 
 If born grim, she remains grim to the end ; and 
 neither marriage nor motherhood modifies her. The 
 grim female of novelists is generally an old maid ; 
 but she is a caricature, painted in the broadest lines 
 and copied from the outsides of things. She is em- 
 phatically an odd woman ; odd in her dress, her 
 mode, her state. She wears a flapping cap, skimpy 
 skirts and rusty brown mittens on her bony hands. 
 She has a passionate aversion against men and matri- 
 mony ; and she lives queerly behind a barricaded 
 house- door, with a small slavey, or an elderly female 
 afilicted with deafness, to do her work and bear the 
 brunt of her temper. But she is always odd, un- 
 married, unfashionable and unlike everybody else, and 
 could never be mistaken for an ordinary woman fi'om 
 the first phrase which stamps her personality on the 
 page to the last paragraph of her fictitious existence. 
 
 Now the grim female of real life may be one of 
 the most conventional of her sex, and in fact, she 
 generally is one of the most conventional of her sex. 
 She is one who rules her household with a rod of 
 
GRIM FEMALES. 195 
 
 iron carefully wrouglit after the pattern of lier 
 neighbours' rods, and to whom a dish set awry, or 
 the second-best china instead of the best, counts 
 for as great a moral delinquency in her servants as 
 a breach of all the Ten Commandments together. 
 She is a woman who regards being out of the fashion, 
 or being foremost in the fashion, as equally reprehen- 
 sible, and to whom dress is among the most important 
 matters of life. Wherefore she is notorious for a 
 certain grim grandeur of style, as one who respects 
 herself by her clothes, and is known among other 
 women as possessing handsome lace and costly velvet 
 in profusion. Are not lace and Yelvet de rigueur for 
 women of condition ? and what is the grim female 
 but the embodiment of the ' rigour of the game ' in 
 all matters ? Therefore she clothes herself sump- 
 tuously, without elegance or taste ; and would as soon 
 be seen abroad in her dressing-gown and slippers as 
 without her characteristic heavy velvet or rustling 
 silk. But the artist's little wife, in her fresh muslin 
 and nice admixture of colours, sails round her for 
 grace and beauty at about one-twentieth part of what 
 the grim female's stately ugliness has cost. 
 
 One characteristic of the grim female is her want 
 of womanly passion for children. She may have so 
 much maternal instinct, perverted, as to be on friendly 
 terms with a dog or two, a cat, or may be a cock- 
 atoo ; but she has no real affection for children, no 
 comprehension of child-nature, and the ^ sublime 
 nonsense ' of the nursery is a thing unknown to her 
 
 2 
 
196 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 from first to last. If she have children of her own, 
 she treats them in a hard wooden way that has 
 nothing of the ideal mother about it. She generally 
 sees that they are properly cared for, because she is 
 a disciplinarian ; but, though she is mexorable on the 
 score of cold baths and ' no trash,' she never con- 
 descends to the weakness of love. If her little ones 
 are sick, they are set aside and dosed until they are 
 well ; if they are naughty, they are punished ; but 
 they never know those moments of tender indulgence 
 which help them over a period of indisposition not 
 severe enough for actual doctoring, yet throwing 
 them out of gear and inducing a spell of what 
 ignorance calls naughtiness. Rhadamanthus was a 
 weakling compared to the grim female in the nur- 
 sery ; and what she is in her nursery she continues 
 to be in the schoolroom, and the drawing-room to 
 follow. Her children are always causes of amioyance 
 to the grim female, and the first stirrings of indi- 
 viduality, the first half- unconscious trials of their 
 young strength, are ofi*ences she cannot away with. 
 Children and inferiors are they in her eyes, even when 
 grown up and married ; and she exacts from them 
 the humility and deference of their lower condition. 
 Hence she is one to whom the present generation is 
 undeniably worse than the past ; one who groans 
 over the follies and shortcomings of the times and 
 who thinks that good conduct died out with her own 
 youth, and that it is not likely, by the look of thmgs, 
 to be restored. In fact, youth itself is the root and 
 
GRIM FEMALES. 197 
 
 basis of offence ; and if she coerces children, she 
 tyrannizes over girls and snubs young men, with 
 inexorable impartiality. 
 
 The grim female is not necessarily a strono-- 
 minded woman, nor a learned woman, like those who 
 wear spectacles, go to scientific meetings and are 
 great in the classics and the 'ologies. She may be 
 of the emancipated class ; it all depends on chance ; 
 and a grim female, when of the emancipated, is a 
 very formidable person indeed. But she is not 
 necessarily one of these. On the contrary, part 
 of her very grimness comes from her intense 
 conservatism and uncompromising conventionality. 
 Nothing is so abhorrent to her as innovation or 
 novelty in any shape. She does not hold with any 
 one out of the narrowest groove of respectable be- 
 lief, in what direction soever the diverging line may 
 go. A Romanist or a Baptist, a Jew or an infidel, 
 it is all one to her ; each is equally dreadful to her, 
 and each is eternally foredoomed. She is of the ortho- 
 dox Church without fal-lals ; as far removed from 
 Rituahsm as she is from rantino;, and demandinof for 
 herself that infallibity of judgment and absolute pos- 
 session of the truth which she denies to the Pope 
 and all his Cardinals. Beware how you broach new 
 doctrines in her presence. She has been known 
 before now to abjure her nearest relations for no 
 greater moral lapse than a weak belief in globules ; 
 while, as for anything like graver aberrations, say on 
 the ape theory or on the plurality of races, on develop- 
 
198 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 ment in religions or on a republican form of govern- 
 ment, she has no toleration whatever. If the Smith- 
 field fires existed at the present day, the grim female 
 would be the first to light the faggots. It is all the 
 same if she belongs to any Dissenting persuasion ; 
 part of her grimness coming from her intolerance, 
 and her own beliefs being simply the springboard on 
 which she stands. 
 
 Many causes produce the grim female. It may 
 be that she is grim from social pride as well as from 
 natural hardness. If she has been used to live with 
 people whom, rightly or wrongly, she considers her 
 inferiors, she will probably queen it over them in a 
 very unmistakeable manner. The prelatic blood is 
 renowned for this sort of thing ; and a bishop's 
 daughter, or an archbishop's grand-daughter, or Mrs. 
 Proudie, prelatic by marriage only, if of the grim class, 
 is one of the grimmest of her class. The halo of sanc- 
 tity round the mitre and the crozier will be greater in 
 her eyes than even the glitter of the strawberry leaves; 
 and she holds herself consecrated by her birth or 
 marriage to the understanding of every moral ques- 
 tion, and specially to the final settlement of every 
 tough theological position. Or she may be grim be- 
 cause of her isolation and meagre intercourse with the 
 world at large ; such as she is found in the remoter 
 districts. This kind comes into the exceptional or 
 novelist's class, and is often more masculine than 
 grim. These are the women who hunt and fish and 
 shoot like men, and who may be found in all weathers 
 
GRIM FEMALES. 199 
 
 wandering alone about the mountains in short petti- 
 coats and spatterdashes — women who affect to be 
 essentially mannish in person, habits and attire, and 
 who may be quite jolly easy-going fellows in their 
 own way, or else grim and trenchant, as nature or 
 the fit takes them. This is a kind not at all un- 
 common in country places among the higher class of 
 resident ladies — ladies who are so highly placed 
 locally that they can afford to disregard public 
 opinion, and who are so independent by disposition 
 that they naturally go off to the manly side, and make 
 themselves bad imitations, as the best they can do. 
 
 The grim female tries her strength with all new- 
 comers. She is like one of the giants or black knights 
 of old romance, who lived in castles or caves, whence 
 they pounced on all passers-by, and either wrung 
 their necks if they conquered or retreated howling 
 if discomfited. This is what the grim female does 
 in her degree. She dashes on all who are presented 
 to her, and has a passage of arms as the first act of 
 the new drama. If her oj^ponents yield out of timi- 
 dity or good-breeding, or perhaps from not under- 
 standing the warlike nature of the encounter, she 
 puts her foot on them forthwith, and ignominiously 
 crushes them ; if they defy her, and give her back 
 blow for blow, ten to one she cuts them and becomes 
 then' enemy for ever after. For she has not breadth 
 enough to be magnanimous, and the one thing she 
 never forgives is successful opposition. Yery grim 
 is she in the presence of human weakness, moral and 
 
200 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 physical. Woe to that unhappy maid of hers who 
 has slipped on the narrow path of prudence ! She 
 will be turned out to perish with no more com- 
 punction than if she were a black-beetle to be swept 
 out of the way. 
 
 As a nurse the grim female is precise, punctual, 
 obedient to orders, but inexorable. She would give 
 the patient a fit of nervous hysterics which would 
 throw him back for a week, rather than allow him five 
 minutes' grace in the matter of a painful operation 
 or a nauseous draught. Without variableness or 
 weakness herself, she cannot endure it in others, and 
 whosoever comes under her hand must be content to 
 remain in shape, and to keep himself well braced up 
 to the utmost rigidity of duty. If she had to lose 
 an arm or a leg, she would go to her trouble like a 
 Trojan ; and why not others? She would merely 
 tighten her lips and hold her breath, and then would 
 sit down to let herself be hacked and mangled with- 
 out a groan or a word. To judge by the notice 
 given of her in her sister's life, Emily Bronte was 
 of the grim class, and about the grimmest for her 
 age and state that could well be found. Had she 
 lived, and lived unsoftened, she would have been 
 one unbroken mass of iron and granite, without a 
 soft spot anywhere. Her very love was fiercer than 
 other women's hate ; her strength was more terrible 
 than a man's anger ; her passions were as fiery as 
 furnace flames. Of all the examples we could cite, 
 she seems about the fittest for our model. 
 
GRBI FEMALES. 201 
 
 A grim female has no mercy. Slie may be just, 
 but if so, it is in a hard un compromizing way that 
 makes her justice worse than others' partiality. For 
 justice can be sympathetic, even if unwavering ; and 
 the grim female is never sympathetic, how painful 
 soever the work on hand and the sentence to be 
 executed. Neither is she gay ; for she is not plastic 
 enough to be either one or the other. She is run 
 into an iron mould, where her nature is compressed 
 as in a vice ; and she allows of no e:^pansion, no 
 lipping over, no bursting of bonds anyhow. 
 
 What would become of us if all our women were 
 like her ? Without any of the feminine little weak- 
 nesses at which we have our laugh yet which we 
 do not wholly dislike — without any of the pretty 
 coaxing ways which we know warp our better 
 judgment and take us out of the strict course ; and 
 yet how pleasant that warping process is ! — without 
 any even of the transient petulances which give so 
 much light and shade to a woman's character, 
 the grim female stands like an old-world Gorgon, 
 turnino' livino; flesh and blood to stone. When 
 we look at her we are inclined to forgive all the 
 smallness and silliness which sometimes vex us in 
 the ordinary woman, and to think that there are 
 worse things than the love of dress for which we 
 so often reproach our wives and daughters ; that 
 flirting, which is reprehensible no doubt, might 
 be exchanged for something even more repre- 
 hensible ; and that vanity, of the giggling, coquettish 
 
202 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 kind, though to be steadily discouraged and sternly 
 reproved, is not quite the worst femmine thing after 
 all. Surely not ! A grim female who cannot flirt nor 
 giggle nor cry, nor yet kiss and make up again when 
 scolded, is far away a worse kind of thing than a 
 feather-headed little puss who is always doing wrong 
 by reason of her foolish brain, but who manages 
 somehow to pull herself right because of her loving 
 heart. Weak women, vain women, aflPected women, 
 and the whole class of silly women, whatever the 
 speciality of silliness exhibited, are tiresome enough, 
 heaven knows ; but, unsatisfactory as they are, they 
 are better than the grim female — that woman of no 
 sex, born without softness or sympathy and living 
 without pity and without love. 
 
20; 
 
 MATURE SIRENS, 
 
 Nothing is more incomprehensible to girls than the 
 love and admiration sometimes given to middle-aged 
 women. They cannot understand it ; and nothing 
 but experience will ever make them understand it. 
 In their eyes, a woman is out of the pale of personal 
 alFection altogether when she has once lost that shin- 
 ing gloss of youth, that exquisite freshness of skin 
 and suppleness of limb, which to them, in the insolent 
 plenitude of their unfaded beauty, constitute the 
 chief claims to admiration of the one sex from the 
 other. And yet they cannot conceal from themselves 
 that the pretty maid of eighteen is often deserted for 
 the handsome woman of forty, and that the patent 
 witchery of their own youth and brilliant colouring 
 goes for nothing against the mysterious charms of 
 a mature siren. What can they say to such an 
 anomaly ? There is no good in going about the 
 world disdainfully wondering how on earth a man 
 could ever have taken up with such an antiquated 
 creature 1 — suggestively asking their male friends what 
 could he see in a woman of her age, old enough to be 
 his mother ? There the fact stands ; and facts are 
 
204 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 stubborn things. The eligible suitor who has been 
 coveted by more than one golden-haired girl has 
 married a woman twenty years her senior, and the 
 middle-aged siren has quietly carried off the prize 
 which nymphs in their teens have frantically desired 
 to win. What is the secret ? How is it done ? The 
 world, even of silly girls, has got past any belief in 
 spells and talismans, such as Charlemagne's mistress 
 wore, and yet the man's fascination seems to them 
 quite as miraculous and almost as unholy as if it had 
 been brought about by the black art. But if they 
 had any analytical power they would understand the 
 diablerie of the mature siren clearly enough ; for it is 
 not so difficult to understand when one puts one's 
 mind to it. 
 
 In the first place, a woman of ripe age has a 
 knowledge of the world, and a certain suavity of 
 manner and moral flexibility, wholly wanting to the 
 young. Young girls are for the most part all angles 
 — harsh in their judgments, stiff in their prejudices, 
 narrow in their sympathies. They are full of com- 
 bativeness and self-assertion if they belong to one 
 type of young people, or they are stupid and shy if 
 they belong to another type. They are talkative with 
 nothing to say, and positive with nothing known ; 
 or they are monosyllabic dummies who stammer out 
 Yes or No at random, and whose brains become hope- 
 lessly confused at the first sentence with which the 
 stranger, to whom they have just been introduced, 
 attempts to open a conversation. They are generally 
 
MATURE SIEENS. 205 
 
 without pity ; their want of experience making them 
 hard towards sorrows which they do not miderstand 
 — let us charitably hope also making them ignorant 
 of the pain they inflict. That famous article in the 
 Times on the cruelty of young girls, apropos of 
 Constance Kent's confession, though absurdly exag- 
 gerated, had in it the core of truth which gives the 
 sting to such papers, which makes them stick, and 
 which is the real cause of the outcry they create. 
 
 Girls are cruel ; there is no question about it. 
 If passive rather than active, they are simply in- 
 different to the sufferings of others ; if of a more 
 active temperament, they find a positive pleasure in 
 giving pain. A girl will say horribly cruel things 
 to her dearest friend, then laugh at her because 
 she cries. Even her own mother she will hurt and 
 humiliate if she can ; while, as for any unfortunate 
 aspirant not apj^roved of, were he as tough- skinned 
 as a rhmoceros she would find means to make 
 hioi wince. But all this acerbity is toned down 
 in the mature woman. Experience has enlarged her 
 sympathies, and knowledge of suffering has softened 
 her heart to the sufferings of others. Her lessons of 
 life too, have taught her tact ; and tact is one of 
 the most valuable lessons that a man or woman can 
 learn. She sees at a glance the weak points and 
 sore places in her companion, and she avoids them ; 
 or if she passes over them, it is with a hand so soft 
 and tender, a touch so soothing, that she calms m- 
 stead of irritating. A girl would have come down 
 
206 SATUEDAY MOENINGS. 
 
 on those weak places heavily, and would have torn 
 off the bandages from the sore ones, jesting at scars 
 because she herself had never felt a wound, and de- 
 riding the sybaritism of diachylon because ignorant 
 of the anguish it conceals. 
 
 Furthermore, the mature siren is thoughtful for 
 others. Girls are self- asserting and aggressive. Life 
 is so strong in them, and the instinct which prompts 
 them to try their strength with all comers and to get 
 the best of everything everywhere, is so irre^Dressible, 
 that they are often disagreeable because of that in- 
 stinctive selfishness, that craving, natural to the 
 young, of taking all and giving back nothing. But 
 the mature siren knows better than this. She knows 
 that social success entirely depends on what each of us 
 can throw into the common fund of society ; that the 
 surest way to win consideration for ourselves is to be 
 considerate for others ; that sympathy begets liking, 
 and self-suppression leads to exaltation ; and that if 
 we want to gain love we must first show how well 
 we can give it. Her tact then, and her sympathy, her 
 moral flexibility and quick comprehension of character, 
 her readiness to give herself to others, are some of the 
 reasons, among others, why the society of a cultivated 
 agreeable woman of a certain age is sought by those 
 men to whom women are more than mere mistresses 
 or toys. Besides, she is a good conversationalist. 
 She has no pretensions to any special or deep learning 
 ■^for, if pedantic, she is spoilt as a siren at any age 
 — but she knows a little about most things ; at all 
 
MATURE SIRENS. 207 
 
 events, she knows enough to make her a pleasant 
 companion in a tete-a-tete or at a dinner- table, and to 
 enable her to keep up the ball when thrown. And 
 men like to talk to intelligent women. They do not 
 like to be taught nor corrected by them, but they 
 like that quick sympathetic intellect which follows 
 them readily, and that amount of knowledge which 
 makes a comfortable cushion for their own. And a 
 mature siren who knows what she is about would 
 never do more than this, even if she could. 
 
 Thouo:h the mature siren rests her claims to ad- 
 miration on more than mere personal charms, and 
 appeals to something beyond the senses, yet she is 
 personable and well preserved, and, in a favourable 
 light, looks nearly as young as ever. So the men 
 say who knew her when she was twenty ; who loved 
 her then, and have gone on loving her, with a differ- 
 ence, despite the twenty years which lie between this 
 and then. Girls, indeed, despise her charms because 
 she is no longer young ; and yet she may be even 
 more beautiful than youth. She knows all the little 
 niceties of dress, and, without going into the vulgar 
 trickery of paint and dyes — which would make her 
 hideous — is up to the best arts of the toilet by which 
 every point is made to tell and every minor beauty 
 is given its fullest value. For part of the art and 
 mystery of sirenhood is an accurate perception of 
 times and conditions, and a careful avoidance of that 
 suicidal mistake of which la femme jKissee is so often 
 guilty — namely, setting herself in confessed rivalry 
 
208 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 with the young by trying to look hke them, and so 
 losing the good of what she has retained, and betray- 
 ing the ravages of time by the contrast. 
 
 The mature siren is wiser than this. She knows 
 exactly what she has and what she can do ; and before 
 all things avoids whatever seems too youthful for her 
 years; and this is one reason why she is always beau- 
 tiful, because always in harmony. Besides, she has 
 very many good points, many positive charms still 
 left. Her fio;ure is still ffood — not slim and slender 
 certainly, but round and soft, and with that slower, 
 riper, lazier grace which, quite different from the 
 antelope-like elasticity of youth, is in its own Avay as 
 lovely. If her hair has lost its maiden luxuriance 
 she makes up with crafty arrangements of lace, 
 which are more picturesque than the fashionable 
 wisp of hay-like ends tumbling half-way to the waist. 
 She has still her white and shapely hands with their 
 pink filbert-like nails ; still her pleasant smile and 
 square small teeth — those one or two new, matching 
 so perfectly with the old as to be undiscoverable ! 
 Her eyes are bright yet, and if the upper muscles are 
 a little shrunk, the consequent apparent enlargement 
 of the orbit only makes them more expressive ; her 
 lips are not yet withered ; her skin is not wrinkled. 
 Undeniably, when well-dressed and in a favourable 
 lioiit, the mature siren is as beautiful in her own 
 way as the girlish belle ; and the world knows it 
 and acknowledges it. 
 
 That mature sirens can be passionately loved. 
 
MATURE SIRENS. 209 
 
 even when very mature, history gives us more than 
 one example ; and the first name that naturally 
 occurs to one's mind is that of the too famous Ninon 
 de I'Enclos. And Ninon, if a trifle mythical, was 
 yet a fact and an example. But not gomg quite to 
 Ninon's age, we often see women of forty and upwards 
 who are personally charming, and whom men love 
 with as much warmth and tenderness as if they were 
 in the heyday of life — women who count their ad- 
 mirers by dozens, and who end by making a superb 
 marriage, and having quite an Indian summer of 
 romance and happiness. The young laugh at this 
 idea of the Indian summer for a bride of forty-five ; 
 but it is true ; for neither romance nor happmess, 
 neither love nor mental youth, is a matter of years ; 
 and after all we are only as old as we feel, and cer- 
 tainly no older than we look. 
 
 All women do not harden by time, nor wither, 
 nor yet corrupt. Some merely ripen and mellow and 
 get enriched by the passage of the years, retaining the 
 most delicate womanliness — we had almost said girl- 
 ishness — into quite old age, blushing as swiftly under 
 their grey hairs, while shrinking from anything coarse 
 or vulgar or impure as sensitively, as when they were 
 girls. La femme a quaranfe ans is the French term for 
 the opening of the great gulf beyond which love can- 
 not pass ; but human history disproves this date, and 
 shows that the heart can remain fresh and the person 
 lovely long after the age fixed for the final adieu 
 to admiration — that the mature siren can be adored 
 
 VOL. I. P 
 
210 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 by her own contemporaries when the rismg genera- 
 tion regard her as nothing better than a chimney- 
 corner fixture. Mr. TroUope recognized the claims 
 of the mature siren in his Orley Farm and il//.s6' 
 Mackenzie ; and no one can deny the intense natural- 
 ness of the characters and the interest of the stories. 
 
 Another point which tells with the mature woman 
 is, that she is not jealous nor exacting. She knows 
 the world,, and takes what comes with that philosophy 
 which springs from knowledge. If she be of an en- 
 joying nature — and she cannot be a siren else — she 
 accepts such good as floats to the top, neither look- 
 ing too deep into the cup nor speculating on the time 
 when she shall have drained it to the dregs. Men 
 feel safe with her. If they have entered on a tender 
 friendship with her, they know that there will be no 
 scene, no tears, no upbraidings, when an inexorable 
 fate comes in to end their pleasant little drama, with 
 the inevitable wife as the scene -shifter. The mature 
 siren knows so well that fate and the wife must break 
 in between her and her friend, that she is resigned 
 from the first to what is foredoomed, and thus accepts 
 her bitter portion, when it comes, with dignity and in 
 silence. Where younger women would fall into 
 hysterics and make a scene, perhaps go about the 
 world taking their revenge in slander, the middle- 
 ao-ed woman holds out a friendly hand and takes the 
 back seat gallantly, never showing by word nor look 
 that she has felt her deposition. She becomes the 
 best friend of the new household ; and if any one is 
 
MATURE SIRENS. 211 
 
 jealous, ten to one it is the husband who is jealous of 
 her love for his wife. Of course it may be the wife 
 herself, who cannot see what her husband can find to 
 admire so much m Mrs. A , and who pouts at his 
 extraordinary predilection for her, though of course 
 she would scorn to be jealous — as, indeed, she has no 
 cause. For even a mature siren, however delightful 
 she may be, is not likely to come before a young wife 
 in the heart of a young husband. Though the French 
 paint the love of a woman of forty as pathetic, be- 
 cause slightly ridiculous and certainly hopeless, yet 
 they arrange their theory of social life so that a 
 youth is generally supposed to make his first love 
 of a married woman many years his elder, while a 
 mature siren finds her last love in a youth. 
 
 We have not come to this yet in England, either 
 in theory or practice ; and it is to be hoped that we 
 never shall come to it. Mature sirens are all very 
 well for men of their own age, and it is pleasant to 
 see them still loved and admired, and to recognize in 
 them the claims of women to something higher than 
 mere personal passion ; bttt the case would be very 
 difierent if they became ghoulish seducers of the 
 young, and kept up the habit of love by entanglmg 
 boyish hearts and blightmg youthful lives. As they 
 are now, they form a charmmg element in society, 
 and are of mtinite use to the world. They are the 
 ripe fruit in the garden where else everything wotild 
 be green and immature — the last days of the golden 
 summer set against the disappointing backwardness 
 
 p 2 
 
212 . SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 of spring and before the chills of autumn have come. 
 They contain in themselves the advantages of two 
 distinct epochs, and while possessing as much per- 
 sonal charm as youth, possess also the gains which 
 come by experience and maturity. They keep things 
 together as the young could not do ; and no gather- 
 ing of friends is perfect which has not one or two 
 mature sirens to give the tone, and prevent ex- 
 cesses. They soften the asj)erities of high-handed 
 boys and girls, which else would be too biting ; and 
 they set people at ease, and make them in good 
 humour with themselves, by the courtesy with which 
 they listen to them and the patience with which they 
 bear with them. Even the very girls who hate them 
 fiercely as rivals love them passing well as half 
 maternal, half sisterly, companions ; and the first per- 
 son to whom they would carry their sorrows would 
 be a mature siren, quite capable for her own part of 
 having caused them. 
 
 It would be hard indeed if the loss of youth did 
 not bring with it some compensations ; but the ma- 
 ture siren suff*ers less from that loss than any other 
 kind of woman. Indeed, she seems to have a private 
 elixir of her own which is not quite drained dry when 
 she dies, beloved and regretted, at threescore years 
 and ten ; leaving behind her one or two old friends 
 who were once her ardent lovers, and who still cherish 
 her memory as that of the finest and most fascinating 
 woman they ever knew — something which the present 
 generation is utterly incapable of repeating. 
 
213 
 
 PUMPKINS. 
 
 Pumpkins are among the most imposing of all ground- 
 ling growths. They have fine showy flowers, hand- 
 some leaves, roving stems, and they bear solid4ooking 
 fruit of a goodly size and gorgeous colour. To see 
 them spreading over their domain with such rapid 
 luxuriance, one would imagine them among the best 
 things growing ; but a critical examination proves 
 their flesh to be about three parts water, while as for 
 their stalks, they are of so pithless a nature that they 
 can only creep along the earth, unable to stand upright 
 without support ; — which tells somethmg against the 
 pumpkin's claim for extra consideration. Still, their 
 showy largeness attracts the eye, and not a few of us 
 believe in pumpkins, and admire both their mode of 
 growth and the fruit resulting. In like manner the 
 liuman pumpkins — those beings of imposing presence 
 and loud self-assertion — get themselves believed in 
 by the simple ; and, as occasions by which their 
 watery and fibreless nature is revealed do not arise 
 every day, they are for the most part acce]3ted for 
 the substantialities they assume to be, and the world 
 is deceived by appearances as it ever has been. 
 
214 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 These human pumpkins aboun i everywhere. In 
 all states and professions, and in both sexes, we find 
 them flourishing magnificently on the face of the earth, 
 taking the lead in their society and setting them- 
 selves out as the finest fellows to be found in their 
 respective gardens. Among them are the men of the 
 Bombastes type, so dear to the older playwrights ; 
 brao^o'adocios of the kill 'em and eat 'em school, who 
 were such terrible fellows to look at and listen to, 
 though only pumpkms of a singularly innocuous na- 
 ture when stoutly squeezed and analyzed ; fire-eaters 
 of the juggling kind, with special care taken that the 
 fire shall be harmless and that the danger shall lie 
 only in the fear of the spectators. Now that duelling 
 has gone out of fashion, and discharged captains who 
 have signalized themselves in war are rare, our old 
 swashbuckler type of pumpkins has gone out both in 
 fact and fiction, on the stage and ofi* it. To be sure 
 we have a few travellers of slightly apocryphal cou- 
 rage, and more than doubtful accuracy, whose books 
 of perilous adventure and breathless dangers are to 
 us what Bombastes and Bobadil were to our fathers ; 
 and we have Major Wellington de Boots with his 
 military swagger and his hare's heart. But he is a 
 very weak imitation of the old fire-eater ; and, on the 
 whole, this special family of the pumpkins has dwin- 
 dled into insignificance, and their place knows them 
 no more. 
 
 Then there is the pumpkin after the cut of the 
 Prince Regent — the man of deportment, big, hand- 
 
PUMPKINS. 215 
 
 some, showy, and specially noticeable for a loud 
 voice, a broad chest, and an indescribable air of su- 
 periority and command ; the man who has studied 
 bowino' as one of the fine arts, who walks with a 
 swagger, and even now tips his curly-brimmed hat 
 slightly to the side. This is the kind of man who 
 influences women. Bombastes frightens the nervous 
 and inexperienced of his own sex, but the man of de- 
 portment partly fascinates and partly overawes the 
 other. They take him at his own valuation, and 
 have not skill enough to find out the flaw in the 
 summing up until perhaps it is too late, when they 
 have come so near to him that they are able to ap- 
 praise him for themselves, and have learnt by bitter 
 experience of what unsound materials he is made. 
 And then let him look out. There is nothing women 
 resent so much as pumpkin manhood — nothing which 
 humiliates them more in their own esteem than to 
 discover that they have been taken in by appearances, 
 and that what they had believed in as solid wood 
 turns out to be only squash. 
 
 Women like to rely on men, and dread nothing 
 so much as weakness and vacillation in their male 
 protectors ; save indeed those grim and bulky fe- 
 males in whom Hood so much delighted, who take 
 small men vi et armis, and subjugate them body and 
 soul, like two-legged poodles trained to fetch and 
 carry at the word of command. But these are excep- 
 tions ; the average woman prizing strength rather 
 than poodle-like docility. The pumpkin of the Prince 
 
216 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 Regent cut is generally notorious for laying down the 
 law on all points. His voice is so loud and his manner 
 of speech so dictatorial, that no one dreams of doubt- 
 ing still less of contradicting him, but everybody 
 takes him as he represents himself to be — a man of 
 prompt decision, of boundless resources, a granitic 
 tower of strength to be leant against in all emergen- 
 cies without the slightest fear of failure ; a man who 
 is not only sufficient for himself but strong enough 
 to bear the weaknesses of others. He is famous for 
 giving advice — advice of a vague, rapid, sprawling 
 kmd, never quite exact to the circumstances, never 
 quite practical nor to the point — large advice, general 
 in scope but wonderfully positive in tone, and, until 
 you analyze, grandly imposing in effect. Nail him 
 to the point ; ask his advice seriously on any ques- 
 tion where the responsibility of counsel will rest with 
 him ; place yourself in his hands where the conse- 
 quences of failure will touch him as well as you ; and 
 then see to what meagre dimensions your goodly 
 gourd will shrink. The confident assertion drops 
 into a weak hesitation ; the arrogant dictum melts into 
 a timid refusal to take such a serious responsibility 
 on himself ; you have pricked your windbag, bisected 
 your pumpkin, and henceforth you know the precise 
 weight of substance remaining. Yet mankind sees 
 him exactly where he was before, and he will go 
 about the world in his large, loud way, saying to 
 every one that if you had followed his advice you 
 would have succeeded — supposing you have failed ; 
 
PUMPKINS. 217 
 
 or, if you have succeeded, he will take all the credit 
 to himself, and say it was he who guided you and 
 showed you how to go in and win. For himself, and 
 his own affairs, he has no more moral stamina than 
 he had leadership for you and yours. The least re- 
 verse knocks him over. Care or sorrow, when it 
 touches him, shrivels him up as completely as frost 
 shrivels up the pumpkin. In every circumstance re- 
 quiring promptitude, coolness, keen perception, just 
 decision, our swaggering man of froth fails ignomi- 
 niously ; and one hour of real pressure proves incon- 
 testably that he was only a pumpkin of imposing- 
 presence, good neither as meat nor staff when the 
 time of trial came. 
 
 Yery often the pumpkin has a wife whose fibre is 
 as close as his is loose, and whose nature is as tough 
 as his is soft ; a hard -eyed, thin-lipped, tenacious 
 woman, who speaks little and boasts not at all, but 
 who does all she wishes to do, and whose iron will 
 pins her pumpkin to the wall as the spear of the 
 Bushman pins the elephant or the rhinoceros. It is 
 very curious to see how a blatant blustering man 
 who is so loud and confident abroad, knocks under 
 at home ; and how the high- crested deportment 
 which carries things with such a lofty bearing out of 
 doors droops into the meek submission of the hen- 
 pecked husband so soon as the house-door closes on 
 him, and he is subjected to the pitiless analysis of 
 home. There is no question of flourish then ; and if 
 by chance the ambitious crest should make an effort 
 
218 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 to display itself, the wife knows how to lower it by 
 a few decisive words of a keen-edged kind, and her 
 pumpkin is made to feel sharply enough the difference 
 existing between fibre and pulp. It is almost melan- 
 choly to see one of these fine flourishing fellows so 
 subdued. Pumpkin as he may be, it is not pleasant 
 to see him so cut down in his pride ; and invo- 
 luntarily one's sympathies go with him rather than 
 with that tenacious, hard-mouthed wife of his, who 
 would be none the worse perhaps for a little of her 
 husband's essential softness and with less than her 
 own hardness. 
 
 How often too, these big fellows have no physical 
 stamina as well as but very shaky moral fibre ! A 
 small, wiry light-weight will do twice as much as 
 they ; not, of course, where muscle only is wanted, 
 but where the question is of endurance. Large heavy 
 men knock up far sooner than the light-weights ; and 
 though size and weight count for something at certain 
 times and on occasions, fibre and tenacity go for more 
 in the long run. In the Crimea, the men who first 
 dropped ofi' from exposure and privation were the 
 magnificently -built Guardsmen — men apparently bred 
 and fed to the highest point of physical perfection ; 
 while the undersized little liners, who had nothing to 
 be admired in them, stood the strain gamely, and 
 were brisk and serviceable when the others were 
 either dead or in hospital. So far as we ha^^e gone 
 yet, we have not solved the problem of how to com- 
 bine toughness and bigness, solidity and size, but for 
 
PUMPKINS. 219 
 
 the most part fail in the one in proportion as we snc- 
 ceed in the other. 
 
 Many of the dark-skinned races are what we may 
 call emotional pumpkins. Their flashing black eyes 
 and swarthy skins seem to be instinct with passion ; 
 they look like living furnaces filled with flames and 
 molten metal, terrible fellows, dangerous to meddle 
 with and almost impossible to subdue. But nine times 
 out of ten we find them to be marvellously meek 
 persons, timid, amenable to law, unable to give of- 
 fence and incapable of taking it — lambs masquerad- 
 ing in tiger-skins. A fair-faced Anglo-Saxon, with 
 his sensitive blush, good-humoured smile and light 
 blue eyes, has more pluck and pith in him than a 
 whole brigade of certain of these dark-skinned men. 
 He has less ferocity perhaps than they when they are 
 thoroughly roused, though our good-humoured An- 
 glo-Saxon is by no means destitute of ferocity on 
 occasions when his blood is up ; but his is ferocity of 
 the quarter- stafl' and bludgeon stand-up fight kind — 
 the ferocity of strength fairly put out against an adver- 
 sary, not the tigerish cruelty which is almost always 
 found when moral weakness and physical submission 
 have a momentary trium23h and reaction. Cowardly 
 men are like women in their revenge when once they 
 get the upper hand ; and their revenge is more cruel 
 than that of the habitually brave man who, after a 
 fair fight, overthrows his opponent. Some of the 
 dark-skinned races look the very ideal of the melo- 
 dramatic ruffian — operatic brigands painted with 
 
220 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 broad black lines, and up to an}^ amount of deeds of 
 daring and of crime ; but they are only pumpkins at 
 the core. We need not go so far as Calcutta to find 
 them ; we get examples nearer home, both m Hounds - 
 ditch and in Rome ; for both Jews and Italians are 
 soft-cored men in spite of their passionate outsides, 
 and both would be better for an extra twist and 
 toughness in their fibres. 
 
 Intellectual pumpkins are as common as those of 
 the more specially physical kind. You meet with 
 philosophers and ' thmkers ' — perhaps they are poets, 
 perhaps politicians — ^who flourish out a vague big 
 declamation which, when you reduce it to its essence, 
 you find to be a platitude worth nothing ; whipped 
 cream, without any foundation of solid puddmg. If 
 they are of the philosophic sort, they quote you Fichte 
 and Hegel, to the bewilderment of your brains unless 
 you have gone into the metaphysical maze on your 
 own account ; but they might have put all they have 
 said into half a dozen words of three letters, like a 
 child's first readmg lesson. The flourish imjDoses, 
 and people who cannot analyze take the whipped 
 cream for solid puddmg, and think that platitudes 
 dressed in the garb of Fichte and Hegel are utterances 
 worthy of deep respect and admiring wonder. 
 
 All the professions which talk, either by word of 
 mouth or in print, are specially given to this mani- 
 festation of pumpkinhood. Preachers and authors 
 sprawl and flourish over their small inheritance with 
 a tremendous assumption of vital force and vigorous 
 
PUMPKINS. 22l 
 
 growth ; and weak liancls, with weaker heads, find 
 support and shelter in their foliage. Poets too, with 
 a knack for turning oat large moulds in which they 
 have run very small ideas, are pumpkins dear to the 
 feminine mind. Have we not our Tupper ? had we 
 not our ' Satan ' Montgomery? and a few others whom 
 we might catalogue if we cared for the task, each with 
 his multifarious female following and his spiritual 
 harem of ardent admirers ? All artists — that is, the 
 men who create, or rather who assume to create — are 
 liable to be proved pumpkins when called on to show 
 themselves solid wood. They talk grandly enough, 
 but when they have to translate their words into 
 deeds, too often the noble aims and immortal efforts 
 they have been advocating tail off into pulp and 
 water, and we have botches and pot-boilers instead 
 of masterpieces and high art. Perhaps we may take 
 it as a rule that all doers who talk much and boast 
 grandly are of the pumpkin order, and that art, like 
 nature, elaborates best in silence. 
 
 Strong-visaged women are often pure pumpkins 
 with a very rough and corrugated outside. It is as- 
 tonishing how soon they break down, and for all their 
 stern and powerful looks sink under burdens under 
 which a frail little creature, as light as thistledown, 
 will glide along quite easily. Women with l)lack 
 brows and harsh voices — brigandesses by appearance, 
 or like the typical Herodias of unimaginative artists 
 — are often the gentlest and most pithless of their 
 sex, and may be seen acting quite compassionately 
 
222 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 towards their infants, or vindicating their womanhood 
 by meekly sewing on their husbands' buttons and 
 weepmg at their rebukes ; while a fair, silver-tongued, 
 languid lady, as soft as if she were made of nothing 
 harder than the traditional cream and rose-leaves, will 
 give up her babies as a prey to unfeeling nurses and 
 let her husband go buttonless and in rags, while she 
 lounges before the fire indifferent to his wrath and 
 callous to his wrongs. There is many a house mis- 
 tress who looks as if she could use her fists when 
 annoyed, who is absolutely afraid of her servants ; 
 and the maid is always the mistress when the one is 
 fibre and the other pulp. 
 
 Heaven be praised that the strong- visaged women 
 are not ' clear grit ' all through. If they were as 
 hard as they look, the world would go but queerly, 
 and society would have to make new laws for the 
 protection of its weaker male members. But nature 
 is merciful as well as sportive, and while she amuses 
 herself by creating pumpkins of formidable aspect, 
 takes care that the core shall not always correspond 
 to the rind. Like the Athenian images of the satyr 
 which enclosed a god, the black-browed brigandesses 
 and the men of magnificent deportment are some- 
 times impostors of a quite amiable kind ; and when 
 you have once learnt by heart the false analogies 
 of form, you will cease to fear your typical He- 
 rodias, to be impressed by your copy of the Prince 
 liegent, or to be influenced by your wordy Hegelian 
 talking platitudes in the philosophic dialect. 
 
123 
 
 WIDOWS, 
 
 There are widows and Avidows ; there are those 
 who are bereaved and those who are released ; those 
 who lose their support and those whose chains are 
 broken ; those who are sunk in desolation and those 
 who wake up into freedom. Of the first we will not 
 speak. Theirs is a sorrow too sacred to be publicly- 
 handled even with sympathy ; but the second de- 
 mand no such respectful reticence. The widow who 
 is no sooner released from one husband than she 
 plots for another, and the widow who leaps into 
 liberty over the grave of a gaoler, not a lover, are fair 
 game enough. They have always been favourite 
 subjects whereon authors may exercise their wits ; 
 and while men are what they are — laughing animals 
 apt to see the humour lying in incongruity, and with 
 a spice of the devil to sharpen that same laughter into 
 satire — they will remain favourite subjects, tragic as 
 the state is when widowhood is deeper than mere 
 outward condition. 
 
 There are many varieties of the widow and all 
 are not beautiful. For one, there is the widow who 
 is bent on re-marrying whether men like it or not ; 
 
^24 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 that thing of prey who goes about the world seeking 
 whom she may devour ; that awful creature who 
 bears down on her victims with a vio-our in her 
 assaults which puts to flight the popular fancy about 
 the weaker sex and the natural distribution of power. 
 No hawk poised over a brood of hedge birds, no 
 shark cruising steadily towards a shoal of small fry, 
 no piratical craft sailing under a free flag and account- 
 able to no law save success, was ever more formidable 
 to the weaker things pursued than is the hawk 
 widow to men when she is bent on re-marrying. She 
 knows so much ! — there is not a manoeuvre by which 
 a victory can be stolen that she has not mastered and 
 she is not afraid of even the most desperate measures. 
 AVhen she has once struck, he would be a clever man 
 and a strong one who should escape her. Generally 
 left but meagrely provided for in worldly goods — else 
 her game would not be difficult — she makes up for 
 her financial poverty by her wealth of bold resources, 
 and by the courage with which she takes her own 
 fortunes in hand and, with her own, those of her 
 more eligible masculme associates. She is a woman 
 of purpose and lives for an end ; and that end is re- 
 marriage, with the most favourable settlement that 
 can be obtained by her lawyer from his. If fate has 
 dealt hardly by her — though, may be, compassionately 
 by her successive spouses — and has landed her in the 
 widowed state twice or thrice, she is in nowise daunted 
 and as little abashed. She merely refits after a certain 
 time of anchorage, and goes out into the open again 
 
WIDOWS. 225 
 
 for a repetition of her chance. She has no notion 
 of a perpetuity of weeds, and, though she may have 
 cleared her half century with a margin besides, thinks 
 the suggestive orange-blossoms of the bride infinitely 
 more desirable than the fruitless heliotrope of the 
 widow. If one husband is taken, she remembers the 
 old proverb, and reflects on the many, quite as good, 
 who are left potentially subject to her choice. And 
 somehow she manages. It has been said that any 
 woman can marry any man if she determines to do 
 so, and follows on the line of her determination with 
 tenacity and common-sense. 
 
 The hawk widow exemplifies the truth of this 
 saying. She determines upon marriage ; and she 
 usually succeeds ; the question being one of victim 
 only, not of sacrifice. One has to fall to her share ; 
 there is no help for it ; and the whole contest is, 
 which shall it be ? which is strongest to break 
 her bonds ? which craftiest to slip out of them ? 
 which most resolute not to bear them from the 
 beginning ? This the straggling covey must settle 
 among themselves the best way they can. When 
 the hawk pounces down upon its quarry, it is sauve 
 qui pent \ But all cannot be saved. One has to be 
 caught ; and the choice is determined partly by chance 
 and partly by relative strength. When the widow 
 of experience and resolve bears down on her prey, 
 the result is equally certain. Floundering avails no- 
 thing ; struggling and splashing are just as futile ; 
 one among the crowd has to come to the slaughter, 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
226 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 like Mrs. Bond's ducks, and to assist at his own 
 immolation. The best thing he can do is to make 
 a handsome surrender, and to let the world of men 
 and brothers believe he rather likes his position than 
 not. 
 
 But there are pleasanter types of the re-marr3^ing 
 widow than this. There is the widow of the Wad- 
 man kind, who has outlived her grief and is not dis- 
 inclined to a repetition of the matrimonial experiment, 
 if asked humbly by an experimenter after her own 
 heart. But she must be asked humbly that she may 
 grant in a pretty, tender, womanly way — if not quite 
 so timidly as a girl, yet as becomingly in her degree, 
 and with that peculiar fascination which nothing but 
 the combination of experience and modesty can give. 
 The widow of the Wadman kind is no creature of 
 prey, neither shark nor hawk ; at the worst she is but 
 a cooing dove, making just the sweetest little noise 
 in the world, the tenderest little call to indicate her 
 whereabouts, and to show that she is lonely and feels 
 a-cold. She sits close, waiting to be found, and does 
 not ramp and dash about like the hawk sisterhood ; 
 neitlier does she pretend that she is unwilling to be 
 found, still less deny that a soft warm nest, well 
 lined and snugly sheltered, is better than a lonely 
 branch stretching out comfortless and bare into the 
 bleak wide world. She, too, is almost sure to get 
 what she wants, with the advantage of being volun- 
 tarily chosen and not unwillingly submitted to. 
 
 This is the kind of woman who is always mildly 
 
WIDOWS. 227 
 
 but thoroughly happy in her married life ; unless in- 
 deed her husband should be a brute, which heaven 
 forefend. She lives in peace and bland contentment 
 while the fates permit, and when he dies she buries 
 him decently and laments him decorously ; but she 
 thmks it folly to spend her life in weeping by the 
 side of his cold grave, when her tears can do no good 
 to either of them. Rather she thinks it a proof of 
 her love for him, and the evidence of how true was 
 her happiness, that she should elect to give him a 
 successor. Her blessed experience in the past has 
 made her trustful of the future ; and because she 
 has found one man faithful she thinks that all are 
 Abdiels. As a rule, this type of woman does find 
 men pleasant ; and by her own nature she ensures do- 
 mestic happiness. She is always tenderly, and never 
 passionately, in love, even with the husband she has 
 loved the best. She gives in to no excesses to the 
 right nor to the left. Her temperament is of that 
 serene moonlight kind which does not fatigue others 
 nor wear out its possessor. Without ambition or 
 the power to fling herself into any absorbing occupa- 
 tion, she lives only to please and be pleased at home ; 
 and if she be not a wife, wearing her light fetters 
 lovingly and proud that she is fettered, she is 
 nothing. As some women are born mothers and 
 others are born nuns, so is the Wadman woman a 
 born wife, and shines in no other character nor 
 capacity. But in this she excels ; aud knowing 
 
 d 2 
 
228 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 this, she sticks to her role^ how frequently so ever 
 the protagonist may be changed. 
 
 There are widows, however, who have no thought 
 nor desire for remaining anything but widows — who 
 have gained the worth of the world in their condi- 
 tion, ' Jeune, riche, et veuve — quel bonheur ! ' 
 says the French wife, eyemg ' mon mari ' askance. 
 Can the most exacting woman ask for more ? And 
 truly such a one is in the most enviable position 
 possible to a woman, supposing always that she 
 has not lost in her husband the man she loved. If 
 she has lost only the man who sat by right at the 
 same hearth with herself — perhaps the man who 
 quarrelled with her across the ashes— she has lost 
 her burden and gained her release. 
 
 The cross of matrimony lies heavy on many a 
 woman who never takes the world into her con- 
 fidence, and who bears in absolute silence what she 
 has not the power to cast from her. Perhaps her 
 husband has been a man of note, a man of learn- 
 ing, of elevated station, a political or a philanthropic 
 power. She alone knew the fretfulness, the petty 
 tyranny, the miserable smallness at home of the man 
 of large repute whom his generation conspired to 
 honour, and whose public life was a mark for the 
 future to date by. When he died the press wrote 
 his eulogy and his elegy ; but his widow, when 
 she put on her weeds, sang softly in her own heart 
 a paean to the great King of Freedom, and whis- 
 pered to herself Laudamus with a sigh of unut- 
 
WIDOWS. 229 
 
 terable relief. To such a woman widowhood has no 
 sentimental regrets. She has come into possession 
 of the goods for which perhaps she sold herself; 
 she is young enough to enjoy the present and to pro- 
 ject a future ; she has the free choice of a maid and 
 the free action of a matron, as no other woman has. 
 She may be courted and she need not be chaperoned, 
 nor yet forced to accept. Experience has mellowed 
 and enriched her ; for though the asperities of her 
 former condition were sharp while they lasted, they 
 have not permanently roughened nor embittered her. 
 Then the sense of relief gladdens, while the sense of 
 propriety subdues, her ; and the delicate mixture of 
 outside melancholy, tempered with internal warmth, 
 is wonderfully enticing. Few men know how to 
 resist that gentle sadness which does not preclude 
 the sweetest sympathy with pleasures in which she 
 may not join — with happiness which is, alas ! denied 
 her. It gives an air of such profound unselfishness ; 
 it asks so mutely, so bewitchingly, for consolation ! 
 
 Even a hard man is moved at the sight of a pretty 
 young widow in the funereal black of her first grief, 
 sitting apart with a patient smile and eyes cast meekly 
 down, as one not of the world though in it. Her 
 loss is too recent to admit of any thought of repara- 
 tion ; and yet what man does not think of that time of 
 reparation ? and if she be more than usually charm- 
 ing in person and well dowered in purse, what man 
 does not think of himself as the best repairer she 
 could take ? Then, as time goes on and she glides 
 
230 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 gracefully into the era of mitigated grief, how beauti- 
 ful is her whole manner, how tasteful her attire ! 
 The most exquisite colours of the prismatic scale 
 look garish beside her dainty tints, and the untem- 
 pered mirth of happy girls is coarse beside her 
 subdued admission of moral sunshine. Greys as 
 tender as a dove's breast ; regal purples which have 
 a glow behind their gloom ; stately silks of sombre 
 black softly veiled by clouds of gauzy white or 
 brightened with the ' dark light ' of sparkling jet — 
 all speak of passing time and the gradual bloommg 
 of the spring after the sadness of the winter ; all 
 symbolize the flowers which are growing on the sod 
 that covers the dear departed ; all hint at a melting 
 of the funereal gloom into the starlight of a possible 
 bridal. She begins too to take pleasure in the old 
 familiar things of life. She steals into a quiet back 
 seat at the Opera ; she just walks through a quad- 
 rille ; she sees no harm in a fete or flower-show, if 
 properly companioned. Winter does not last for 
 ever ; and a life -long mourning is a wearisome pro- 
 spect. So she goes through her degrees in accurate 
 order, and comes out at the end radiant. 
 
 For when the faint shadows cast by the era of 
 mitigated grief fade away, she is the widow par 
 excellence — the blooming widow, young, rich, gay, 
 free ; with the world on her side, her fortune in 
 her hand, the ball at her foot. She is the freest 
 woman alive ; freer even than any old maid to be 
 found. Freedom, indeed, comes to the old maid 
 
WIDOWS. 231 
 
 when too late to enjoy it ; at least in certain direc- 
 tions ; for while she is young she is necessarily in 
 bondage, and when parents and guardians leave her 
 at liberty, the world and Mrs. Grundy take up the 
 reins and hold them pretty tight. But the widow is 
 as thoroughly emancipated from the conventional 
 bonds which confine the free action of a maid as she 
 is from those which fetter the wife ; and only she 
 herself knows what she has lost and gained. She 
 bore her yoke well while it pressed on her. It galled 
 her but she did not wince ; only when it was removed, 
 did she become fully conscious of how great had been 
 the burden, from her sense of infinite relief through her 
 freedom. The world never knew that she had passed 
 under the harrow ; probably therefore it wonders at 
 her cheerfulness, with the dear departed scarce two 
 years dead ; and some say how sweetly resigned she 
 is, and others how unfeeling. She is neither. She 
 is simply free after having lived in bondage ; and she 
 is glad in consequence. But she is dangerous. In 
 fact, she is the most dangerous of all women to men's 
 peace of mind. She does not want to marry again 
 — does not mean to marry agam for many years to 
 come, if ever; granted; but this does not say that 
 she is indifferent to admiration or careless of men's 
 society. And bemg without serious intentions her- 
 self, she does not reflect that she may possibly mislead 
 and deceive others who have no such cause as she 
 has to beware of the pleasant folly of love and its 
 results. 
 
232 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 In the exercise of her prerogative as a free woman, 
 able to cultivate the dearest friendships with men and 
 fearlessly using her power, she entangles many a 
 poor fellow's heart which she never wished to engage 
 more than platonically, and crushes hopes which she 
 had not the sUghtest intention to raise. Why cannot 
 men be her friends ? she asks, with a pretty, plead- 
 ing look — a tender kind of despair at the wrong- 
 headedness of the stronger sex. But, tender as she 
 is, she does not easily yield even when she loves. 
 The freedom she has gone through so much to gain 
 she does not rashly throw away ; and if ever the day 
 comes when she gives it up into the keeping of 
 another — and for all her protestations it comes some- 
 times — the man to whom she succumbs may con- 
 gratulate himself on a victory more flattermg to his 
 vanity, and more complete in its surrender of ad- 
 vantages, than he could have gained over any other 
 woman. Belle or heiress, of higher rank or of greater 
 fame than himself, no unmarried woman could have 
 made such a sacrifice in her marriage as did this 
 widow of means and good looks, when she laid her 
 freedom, her joyous present and potential future, in 
 his hand. He will be lucky if he manages so well 
 that he is never reproached for that sacrifice — if his 
 wife never looks back regretfully to the time when 
 she was a widow — if there are no longing glances 
 forward to possibilities ahead, mingled with sighs 
 at the difficulty of retracing a step when made. On 
 the whole, if a woman can live without love, or with 
 
WIDOWS. 233 
 
 nothing stronger than a tender sentimental friend- 
 ship, widowhood is the most blissful state she can 
 attain. But if she be of a loving nature and fond of 
 home, finding her own happiness in the happiness of 
 others and indiiFerent to freedom — thinking, indeed, 
 that feminine freedom is only another word for deso- 
 lation — she will be miserable until she has doubled 
 her experience and carried on the old into the new. 
 
234 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 DOLLS, 
 
 The love of dolls is instinctive with girl children ; 
 and a nursery without some of these silent simulacra 
 for the amusement of the little maids is a very lifeless 
 affair. But outside the nursery door dolls are stupid 
 thmgs enough ; and, whether improvised of wisped- 
 up bundles of rags or made of the costhest kind of 
 composition, they are at the best mere pretences for 
 the pastime of babies, not living creatures to be loved 
 nor artistic creations to be admired. Certainly they 
 are pretty in their own way, and some are made to 
 simulate human actions quite cleverly; and one of 
 thek charms with children is that they can be treated 
 like sentient beings without a chance of retaliation. 
 They can be scolded for being naughty ; put to bed 
 in broad daylight for a punishment ; seated in the 
 corner with their impassive faces turned to the wall, 
 just as the little ones themselves are dealt with; 
 the doll all the time smilmg exactly as it smiled 
 before, its round blue beads staring just as they 
 stared before ; neither scolding nor cornering making 
 more impression on its sawdust soul than do little 
 missy's sobs and tears when nurse is cross and 
 
DOLLS. 235 
 
 dolly is her only friend. But the child has had its 
 hour of play and make-believe sentiment of com- 
 panionship and authority ; and so, if the doll can do 
 no good of itself, it can at least be the occasion of 
 pleasantness to others. 
 
 Now there are women who are dolls in all but 
 the mere accident of material. The doll proper is a 
 simple structure of wax or wood, 'its knees and 
 elbows glued together;' and the human doll is a 
 complex machine of flesh and blood. But, saving 
 such structural differences, these women are as essen- 
 tially dolls as those in the bazaar which open and 
 shut their eyes at the word of command enforced by 
 a wire, and squeak when you pinch them in the 
 middle. There are women who seem born into the 
 world only as the playthings and make-believes of 
 human life. As impassive as the waxen creatures in 
 the nursery, no remonstrance touches them and no 
 experience teaches them. Their final cause seems to 
 be to look pretty, to be always in perfect drawing- 
 room order, and to be the occasions by which their 
 friends and companions are taught patience and self- 
 denial. And they perfectly fulfil their destmy ; which 
 may be so much carried to their credit. A doll 
 woman is hopelessly useless and can do nothing with 
 her brains or her hands. In distress or sickness she 
 can only sit by you and look as sorrowful as her 
 round smooth face will permit ; but she has not a 
 helping suggestion to make, not a fraction of practical 
 power to put forth. 
 
236 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 When a man has married a doll wife he has 
 assigned himself to absolute loneliness or a double 
 burden. He cannot live with his pretty toy in any 
 more reality of sympathy than does a child with 
 her puppet. He can tell her nothing of his affairs, 
 nothing of his troubles nor of his thoughts, because 
 she can impart no new idea, even from the woman's 
 point of view, not from want of heart but from 
 want of brains to understand another's life. Is she 
 not a doll ? and does not the very essence of her 
 dollhood lie in this want of perceptive faculty both 
 for things and feelings? What are the hot flushes of 
 passion, the bitter tears of grief, the frenzy of despair, 
 to her ? She sees them ; and she wonders that people 
 can be so silly as to make themselves and her so 
 uncomfortable ; but of the depth of the anguish they 
 express she knows no more than does her waxen 
 prototype when little missy sobs over it in her arms 
 and confides her sorrows to its deaf ears. Whatever 
 anxieties oppress her husband, he must keep them to 
 himself, he cannot share them with her ; and the last 
 shred of his credit, like the last effort of his strength, 
 must be employed in maintaining his toy wife in the 
 fool's paradise where alone she can make her habi- 
 tation. Many a man's back has broken under the 
 strain of such a burden ; and many a ruined fortune 
 might have been held together and repaired when 
 damaged, had it not been for the exigencies and 
 necessities of the liviug doll, who had to be spared 
 all want or inconvenience at the cost of everything 
 
DOLLS. 237 
 
 else. How many men are groaning in spirit at this 
 moment over the infatuation that made them sacrifice 
 the whole worth of life for the sake of a pretty face 
 and a plastic manner ! 
 
 The doll woman is as helpless practically as she 
 is useless morally. If she is in personal danger, she 
 either faints or becomes dazed, according to her 
 physiological conditions. Sometimes she is hyste- 
 rical and frantic, and then she is actively trouble- 
 some. In general, however, she is just so much dead 
 weight on hand, to be thought for as well as pro- 
 tected; a living corpse to be carried on the shoulders 
 of those who are struggling for their own lives. She 
 can foresee no possibilities, measure no distances, 
 think of no means of escape. Never quick nor ready, 
 pressure paralyzes such wits as she possesses ; and it 
 is not from selfishness so much as from pure incapa- 
 city to help herself or to serve others that the poor 
 doll falls down in a helpless heap of self- surrender, 
 and lets her very children perish before her eyes 
 without making an effort to protect them. 
 
 As a mother indeed, the doll woman is perhaps 
 more unsatisfactory than in any other character. She 
 gives up her nursery into the absolute keeping of her 
 nurse, and does not attempt to control nor to interfere. 
 This again, is not from want of affection, but from 
 want of capacity. In her tepid way she has a heart, 
 if only half- vitalized like the rest of her being ; and 
 she is by no means cruel. Indeed, she has not force 
 enough to be cruel nor wicked anyhow ; her worst 
 
238 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 offence being a passive kind of selfishness, not from 
 greed but from inactivity, by which she is made 
 simply useless for the general good. As for her 
 children, she understands neither their moral nature 
 nor their physical wants ; and beyond a universal 
 ' Oh, naughty ! ' if the little ones express their lives 
 in the rampant manner proper to young things, or 
 as a universal ' Oh, let them have it ! ' if there is a 
 howl over what is forbidden or unwise, she has no 
 idea of discipline or management. If they teaze her, 
 they are sent away; if they are naughty, they are 
 whipped by papa or nurse ; if they are ill, the doctor 
 is summoned and they have medicine as he directs ; 
 but none of the finer and more intimate relations 
 usual between mother and child exist in the home of 
 the doll mother. The children are the property of 
 the nurse only ; unless indeed the father happens to 
 be a specially afi*ectionate and a specially domestic 
 man, and then he does the work of the mother — at 
 the best clumsily, but at the worst better than the 
 doll could have done it. 
 
 Very shocking and revolting are all the more 
 tragic facts of human life to the smooth- skinned easy- 
 going doll. When it comes to her own turn to bear 
 pain, she wonders how a good God can permit her 
 to suffer. Had she brains enough to think, the great 
 mystery of pain would make her atheistical in her 
 angry surprise that she should be so hardly dealt 
 with. As dolls have a constitutional immunity from 
 suffering, her first initiation into even a minor amount 
 
DOLLS. 239 
 
 of anguish is generally a tremendous affair; and 
 though it may be pain of a quite natural and uni- 
 versal character, she is none the less indignant and 
 astonished at her portion. She invariably thinks 
 herself worse treated than her sisters, and cannot be 
 made to understand that others suffer as much as, 
 and more than, herself As she has always shrunk 
 from witnessing trouble of any kind, and as what 
 she may have seen has passed over her mind without 
 leaving any impression, she comes to her own sorrows 
 totally inexperienced ; and one of the most pitiable 
 sights in the world is that of a poor doll woman 
 writhing in the grasp of physical agony, and broken 
 down or rendered insanely impatient by what other 
 women can bear without a murmur. 
 
 When she is in the presence of the moral tra- 
 gedies of life, she is as lost and bewildered as she 
 is with the physical. All sin and crime are to her 
 odd and inexplicable. She cannot j)ity the sinner, 
 because she cannot understand the temptation ; and 
 she cannot condemn from any lofty standpoint, 
 because she has not mind enough to see the full 
 meaning of iniquity. It is simply something out of 
 the ordinary run of her life, and the doll naturally 
 dislikes disturbance, whether of habit or of thought. 
 Yet if a noted criminal came and sat down by her, 
 she would probably whisper to her next friend, 
 *How shocking!' but she would simper when he 
 spoke, and perhaps in her heart feel flattered by the 
 attention of even so doubtful a notoriety. If she be 
 
240 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 a doll with a bias towards naughtiness, the utmost 
 limit to which she can go is a mild kind of curiosity 
 about the outsides of things — the mere husk and 
 rind of the forbidden fruit — such as wondering how 
 such and such people look who have done such 
 dreadful things ; and what they felt the next morn- 
 ing ; and how could they ever come to think of such 
 horrors ! She would be more interested in hearing 
 about the dress and hair and eyes of the female 
 plaintiff or defendant in a famous cause than many 
 other women would be; but she would not give 
 herself the trouble to read the evidence, and she 
 would take all her opinions secondhand. But whether 
 the colour of the lady's gown was brown or blue, 
 and whether she wore her hair wisped or plaited, 
 would be matters in which she would take as mtense 
 an interest as is possible to her. 
 
 The utmost limit to which enthusiasm can be 
 carried with her is in the matter of dress and 
 fashion ; and the only subject that thoroughly 
 arouses her is the last new colour, or the latest 
 eccentricity of costume. Talk to her of books, and 
 she will go to sleep ; even novels, her sole reading, 
 she forgets half an hour after she has turned the 
 last page ; while of any other kind of literature she 
 is as profoundly ignorant as she is of mathematics ; 
 but she can discuss the mysteries of fashion with 
 something like animation, these being to her what 
 the wire is to the eyes of the dolls in the bazaar. 
 Else she has no power of conversation. At the head 
 
DOLLS. 241 
 
 of her own table she sits like a pretty waxen dummy, 
 and can only simper out a few commonplaces, or 
 simper without the commonplaces, satisfied if she is 
 well appointed and looks lovely, and if her husband 
 seems tolerably contented with the dinner. She is 
 more in her element at a ball, where she is only asked 
 to dance and not wanted to talk ; but her ball-room 
 days do not last for ever, and when they are over 
 she has no available retreat. 
 
 If a rich doll woman is a mistake, a poor one who 
 has been rich is about the greatest infliction that can 
 be laid on a sufFerinsf household. Not all the teach- 
 ing of experience can make wax and glue into flesh 
 and blood, and nothing can train the human doll into 
 a dignified or a capable womanhood. She still dresses 
 in faded finery — which she calls keeping up appear- 
 ances ; and still has pretensions which no ' inexorable 
 logic of facts' can destroy. She spends her money 
 on sweets and ribbons and ignores the family need 
 for meat and calico; and she sits by the fireside 
 dozing over a trashy novel, while her children are in 
 rags and her house is given over to disorder. But 
 then she has a craze for the word ' lady-like,' and thinks 
 it synonymous with ignorance and helplessness. She 
 abhors the masculine-minded woman who helps her 
 — sister, cousin, daughter — so far as she can abhor 
 anything ; but she is glad to lean on her strength, 
 despite this abhorrence, and, while grumbling at her 
 masculinity, does not disdain to take advantage of 
 her power. The doll is only passively disagreeable 
 VOL. I. K 
 
242 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 though ; and for all that she carps under her breath, 
 will rem am in any position in which she is placed. 
 She will not act, but she will let you act unhindered ; 
 which is something gained when you have to deal 
 with fools. 
 
 This quiescence of hers passes with the world for 
 plasticity and amiability; it is neither; it is simply 
 indolence and want of originating force. While she 
 is young, she is nice enough to those who care only 
 for a pretty face and a character founded on negatives ; 
 but when a man's pride of life has gone, and he has 
 come into the phase of weakness, or under the harrow 
 of affliction, or into the valley of the shadow of death, 
 then she becomes in sorrowful truth the chain and 
 bullet which make him a galley-slave for the re- 
 mainder of his days, and which sign him to drudgery 
 and despair. 
 
 As an old woman the doll has not one charm. 
 She has learned none of that handiness, come to none 
 of that grand maternal power of helping others, which 
 should accompany maturity and age and has still to 
 be thought for and protected, to the exclusion of the 
 younger and naturally more helpless, as when she 
 was young herself, and beautiful and fascinating, and 
 men thought it a privilege to suffer for her sake. 
 Nine times out of ten she has lost her temper as well 
 as her complexion, and has become peevish and un- 
 reasonable. She gets fat and rouges ; but she will 
 not consent to get old. She takes to false hair, dyes, 
 padded stays, arsenic or ' anti-fat,' and to artful con- 
 
DOLLS. 243 
 
 trivances of every description ; but alas ! there is no 
 'dolly's hospital' for her as there used to be for her 
 battered old prototype in the nursery lumber- closet ; 
 and, whether she likes it or not, she has to succumb 
 to the inevitable decree, and to become faded, worn 
 out, unlovely, till the final coup de grace is given 
 and the poor doll is no more. Poor, weak, frivolous 
 doll ! it requires some faith to believe that she is of 
 any good whatsoever in this overladen life of ours ; 
 but doubtless she has her final uses, though it would 
 puzzle a Sanhedrim of wise men to discover them. 
 Perhaps in the great readjustment of the future she 
 may have her place and her work assigned to her in 
 some inter-stellar Phalansterie ; when the meaning of 
 her helpless earthly existence shall be made manifest 
 and its absurd uselessness atoned for by some kind of 
 celestial ' charing.' 
 
 R 2 
 
244 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 CHARMING WOMEN. 
 
 There are certain women who are invariably spoken 
 of as charming. We never hear any other epithet 
 applied to them. They are not said to be pretty, nor 
 amiable, nor clever, though they may be all three, but 
 simply charming ; which we may take as a kind of 
 verbal amalgam — the concentration and concretion of 
 all praise. The main feature about these charming 
 women is their intense feminality. There is no blur- 
 ring of the outlines here ; no confusion of qualities 
 admirable enough in themselves but slightly out of 
 place considering the sex; no Amazonian virtues 
 which leave one in doubt as to whether we have not 
 before us Achilles in petticoats rather than a true 
 Pyrrha or a more tender Deidamia. 
 
 A charming woman is woman all over — one who 
 places her glory in being a woman and has no desire 
 to be anything else. She is a woman rather than a 
 human being, and a lady rather than a woman. One 
 of her characteristics is the exquisite grace of her 
 manner which so sweetly represents the tender nature 
 within. She has not an angle anywhere. If she were 
 to be expressed geometrically, Hogarth's Line of 
 
CHARMING WOMEN. 245 
 
 Beauty is the sole figure that could be used for her. 
 She is flowing, graceful, bending in mind as in body ; 
 she is neither self- asserting nor aggressive, neither 
 rigid nor narrow ; she is a creature who glides grace- 
 fully through life, and adjusts herself to her company 
 and her circumstances in a manner little less than 
 marvellous ; working her own way without tumult 
 or sharpness ; creeping round the obstacles she can- 
 not overthrow, and quietly wearing down more friable 
 opposition with that gentle persistency which does so 
 much more than turmoil and disturbance. 
 
 Even if enthusiastic— which she is for art, either 
 as music, as painting, or yet as poetry — she is en- 
 thusiastic in such a sweet and graceful way that no 
 one can be offended by a fire which shines and does 
 not burn. There is no touch of scorn about her and 
 no assumption of superior knowledge. She speaks to 
 you, poor ignorant Philistine, with the most flattering 
 conviction that you follow her in all her flights ; 
 and when she comes out, quite naturally, with her 
 pretty little bits of recondite lore or professional tech- 
 nicalities, you cannot be so boorish as to ask for an 
 explanation of these trite matters which she makes 
 so sure you must understand. Are you not an 
 educated person with a soul to be saved? can you 
 then be ignorant of things with which every one of 
 culture is familiar ? She discourses confidentially 
 of musicians and painters unknown to fame, and 
 speaks as if she knew the secret doings of the Con- 
 servatoire and the R.A. council -chamber alike. The 
 
246 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 models and the methods, the loves and the hates, of 
 the artistic world are to her things of everyday life, 
 and you cannot tell her that she is shooting her 
 delicate shafts wide of the mark, and that you know 
 no more of what she means than if she were talking: 
 in the choicest Arabic. 
 
 If she has been abroad — and she generally has 
 been more or less — she will pour out her tender 
 little rhapsodies about palazzi and musei of which 
 you have never heard, but every room of which she 
 assumes you know by heart ; and she will speak 
 of out-of-the-way churches, and grim old castles 
 perched upon vine- clad mounts, as if you were as 
 well acquainted with them as with your native ham- 
 let. She will bring into her discourse all manner of 
 Italian technicalities, as if you understood the sub- 
 ject as well as she herself understands it ; though 
 your learning is limited to a knowledge of how much 
 has been done in jute and tallow this last half year, 
 or how many pockets of hops went off in the market 
 last week. If she has a liking for high life and titles 
 — and what charming woman has not? — she will 
 mention the names of all manner of counts and dukes 
 and monsignori unknown to English society, as 
 though they were her brothers ; but if you were to 
 interrupt the gentle ripple of her speech with such 
 rude breakwaters as ' who ?' and ' what ?' the charm- 
 ing woman would thmk you a horrid bore — and no 
 man would willingly face that humiliation. One may 
 be a rhinoceros in one's own haunts, but, as the fable 
 
CHARMING WOMEN. 247 
 
 tells us, even rhinoceroses are ashamed of their 
 parentage when among gazelles. 
 
 Never self-asserting, never contradictory, only 
 sweetly and tenderly putting you right when you 
 blunder, the charming woman nevertheless always 
 makes you feel her superiority. True, she lays her- 
 self as it were at your feet and gives you a thousand 
 delicate flatteries — indeed among her specialities is 
 that of being able to set you on good terms with 
 yourself by her art of subtle flattery ; but despite 
 her own self-abasement and your exaltation you 
 cannot but feel her superiority; and, although she is 
 too charmino; to acknowleds^e what would wound 
 your pride, you know that she feels it too, and tries 
 to hide it. All of which has the effect of snaking 
 you admire her still more for her gTace and tact. 
 
 The charming woman is generally notoriously in 
 love with her husband, who is almost always inferior 
 to her in birth, acquirements, manner, appearance. 
 This TitaniaJike affection of hers only shows her 
 feminine qualities of sacrifice and wifely devotion to 
 greater advantage, and makes other men envy more 
 ferociously the lucky fellow who has drawn such a 
 prize. The husband of a charming woman is indeed 
 lucky in the world's esteem ; no man more so. Though 
 he may be one of the most ordinary, perhaps unplea- 
 sant, fellows you know, with a sour face, an underbred 
 air, and by no means famous in his special sphere, 
 his wife speaks of him enthusiastically as so good, so 
 clever, so delightful ! No one knows how good he 
 
248 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 is, she says ; though of course he has his little 
 peculiarities of temper and the rest of it, and perhaps 
 every one would not bear with them as she does. But 
 then she knows him, and knows his wonderful worth 
 and value ! If they are not seen much together, that 
 comes from causes over which they have no control, 
 not from anything like disinclination to each other's 
 society. Certainly, for so happy a marriage, it is a 
 little surprising how very seldom they are together ; 
 and how all her friends are hers only and not his, and 
 how much she goes into society without him. On 
 the whole, counting hours, they live very much more 
 apart than united ; but that is the misfortune of his 
 career, of his health, or of hers — a misfortune due to 
 any cause but that of diversity of tastes, inharmoni- 
 ousness of pursuits, or lack of love. 
 
 Full of home affection and the tenderest sentiment 
 as she is, the charming woman does sometimes the 
 oddest-looking things, which a rough little domestic 
 creature without graceful pretensions would not dream 
 of doing. Her child is lying dangerously ill, perhaps 
 dying, and she appears at the grand ball of the season, 
 subdued certainly — how well that sweet melancholy 
 becomes her ! — but always graceful, always thought- 
 ful for others, and attentive to the minutest detail 
 of her social duties. And though indeed, she Avill 
 tell you, she does not know how she got dressed 
 at all, because of the state of cruel anxiety in which 
 she is, yet she is undeniably the best dressed woman 
 in the room and the most carefully appointed. It 
 
CHARMING WOMEN. 249 
 
 is against her own will that she is there, you may 
 be sure ; but she has been forced to sacrifice herself, 
 and tear herself away for an hour. The exigencies of 
 society are so merciless ! — the world is such a terrible 
 Juggernaut ! she says, raising her eyes with plaintive 
 earnestness to yours in the breathing- times of the 
 waltz. 
 
 She has another trial if her husband is ordered 
 out to Canada or the West Indies. Dearly as she 
 loves him, and though she is heart-broken at the idea 
 of the separation, yet her health cannot stand the 
 climate ; and she must obey her doctor's orders. She 
 is so delicate, you know — all charming women are 
 delicate— and the doctor tells her she could not live 
 six months either in Toronto or Port Royal. If her 
 lord and master had to go on diplomatic service to 
 St. Petersburg or Madrid, she might be able to stand 
 the climate then; but that is different. A dull 
 station, without any of her favourite pleasures, would 
 be more than she could bear ; so she remains behind, 
 goes out into society, and writes her husband tender 
 and amusing letters once a month. 
 
 The charming woman is the gentlest of her sex. 
 She would not do a cruel tiling nor say an unkind word 
 for the world. When she tells you the unpleasant 
 things which ill-natured people have said of your 
 friends or hers, she tells them in the sweetest and 
 dearest way imaginable. She is so sure there is not a 
 syllable of truth in it all ; and what a shame it is that 
 people should be so ill-natured ! In the gentle tone 
 
250 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 of sympathy and deprecation peculiar to her, she gives 
 you all the ugly and uncomfortable reports which have 
 come to her, and of which you have never heard a 
 breath until this moment. Yet it is you who are 
 stupid, not she who is initiative, for she tells them 
 to you as if they were of patent notoriety to the 
 whole world ; only she does not believe them, re- 
 member! She takes the most scrupulous care to 
 deny and defend as she retails, and you cannot 
 class her with the tribe of the ill-natured whom she 
 censures, setting, as she does, the whole strength of 
 her gentle words and generous disbelief in opposi- 
 tion to these ugly rumours. Yet you wish she had 
 not told you. Her disclaimers spring so evidently 
 from the affectionate amiability of her own mind, 
 which cannot bear to think evil, that they have not 
 much effect upon you. The excuse dies away from 
 your memory, but the ill- savoured report roots ; and 
 you feel that you have lost your respect for your 
 former friends for ever ; or, if they were only hers, 
 then, that nothing should tempt you to know them. 
 There is no smoke without some fire, you think ; and 
 the charming woman cannot possibly have kindled the 
 flame herself out of sticks and leaves and rubbish of 
 her own collecting. But how sweet and charitable 
 she was when she told you ! how much you love her 
 for her tenderness of nature! what a guileless and 
 delightful creature she is ! 
 
 The charming woman is kind and graceful, but 
 she does not command the stronger virtues. She 
 
CHARMING WOMEN. 251 
 
 flatters sweetly, but, it must be confessed, she fibs as 
 sweetly. She sometimes owns to this, but only to 
 fibs that do more good than harm — fibs into the 
 utterance of which she is forced for the sake of peace 
 and to avoid mischief It is a feminine privilege, she 
 says ; and men agree with her. Truth at all times — 
 bold, uncompromising, stern-faced truth — is coarse 
 and indelicate she says ; a masculine quality as little 
 fitted for women as courage or great bodily strength. 
 Her husband knows that she fibs ; her friends at 
 tiuies find her out too ; but though the women throw 
 it at her as an accusation, the men accept it as a 
 quality without which she would be less the charming 
 woman that she is ; and not only forgive it, but like 
 her the better for the grace and tact and suppleness 
 she displays in the process of manufacture. Hers are 
 not the severer virtues, but the gentler, the more 
 insinuating ; and absolute truth — truth at any price 
 and on all occasions — does not come into the list. 
 
 Charming women, with their plastic manners and 
 non-aggressive force, always have their own way in 
 the end. They are the women who influence by 
 unseen methods and who shrink from any open dis- 
 play of power. They know that their metier is to 
 soothe men, to put them on good terms with them- 
 selves, and so to get the benefit of the good humour 
 they induce ; and they dread nothing so much as a 
 contest of wills. They coax and flatter for their 
 rights, and consequently they are given privileges in 
 excess of their rio-hts ; whereas the women who take 
 
252 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 their rights, as things to which they are entitled 
 without favour, lose them and their privileges together. 
 This art of self-abasement for future exaltation is one 
 which it is given only to few to carry to perfection, 
 but no woman is really charming without it. In fact 
 it is part of her power ; and she knows it. Though 
 charming women are decidedly the favourites with 
 men, they are careful to keep on good terms with 
 their own sex ; and in society you may often see 
 them almost ostentatiously surrounded by women 
 only, whom they take pains to please or exert them- 
 selves to amuse, but whom they throw into the shade 
 in the most astonishing way. 
 
 Whatever these really charming women are, or do, 
 or wear, is exactly the right thing ; and every other 
 woman fails in proportion to the distance she is 
 removed from this model. When a charmino^ woman 
 is dressed richly, the simpler costumes of her friends 
 look poor and mean ; when she is a la bergere, the 
 Court dresses about her are vulgar ; when she is gay, 
 quietness is dullness ; when she is quiet, laughter is 
 coarse. And there is no use in trying to imitate her. 
 She is the very Will-o'-the-wisp of her circle, and no 
 sooner shows her light here than she flits away there ; 
 she has no sooner set one fashion, which her admiring 
 friends have adopted with infinite pains and trouble, 
 than she has struck out a new one which renders all 
 the previous labour in vain. This is part of her very 
 essence ; and the originality which is simply perfec- 
 tion that cannot be repeated, and not eccentricity that 
 
CHARMING WOMEN. 253 
 
 no one \vill imitate, comes in as one of the finest and 
 most potent of her charms. When she lends her 
 patterns to her friends, or tells them this or that little 
 secret, she laughs in her heart, knowing that she has 
 shown them a path they cannot possibly follow and 
 raised up a standard to which they cannot attain. 
 And even should they do either, then she knows that, 
 by the time they have begun to get up to her, she will 
 be miles away, and that no art whatever can approxi- 
 mate them to her as she is. What she was she tosses 
 among them as a worn-out garment ; what she is they 
 cannot be. She remains still the unapproachable, the 
 inimitable, the charming woman par excellence of her 
 set, whom none can rival. 
 
254 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 APRON-STRimS, 
 
 Among other classifications, the world of men and 
 women may be divided into those who wear aprons 
 and those who are tied to the strings thereof — those 
 who determine the length of the tether and those 
 who are bound to browse within its circuit — those 
 who hold the reins and those who go bitted. All 
 men and women are fond of power, but there is a 
 wide difference in the ways in which they use it. 
 To men belong the grave political tyrannies at which 
 nations revolt and history is outraged, to women the 
 small conventional laws framed against individual 
 liberty by Mrs. Grundy and society ; men rule with 
 rods of iron and drive with whips of steel, women 
 shorten the tether and tie up close to apron-strings ; 
 men coerce, women forbid. In fact, the difference 
 is just that which lies between action and negation, 
 compulsion and restraint ; between the masculine 
 jealousy of equality and the feminine fear of excess. 
 If men debar women from all entrance into their 
 larger sphere, women try to dwarf men's lives to 
 their own measure, and not a few hold themselves 
 aggrieved when they fail. They think that every- 
 
APRON-STRINGS. 255 
 
 thing which is impossible to them should be forbidden 
 to others, and they maintain that to be a lamentable 
 extreme which is simply in excess of their own 
 powers. Not content with supremacy in the home 
 which is their own undisputed domain, nor satisfied 
 with binding on men the various rules distinguishing 
 life in the drawing-room, the dining-room and the 
 breakfast-parlour, they would, if they could, carry 
 their code outside, and sweep into its narrow net 
 the club-house and the mess-table, the billiard-room 
 and the race-course, and wherever else men congregate 
 together — delivered from the bondage of feminine 
 conventionalities . 
 
 For almost all women have an uneasy feeling 
 when their men are out of sight, enjoying them- 
 selves in their own way. They fear on all sides — 
 both bodily harm and moral evil ; and regard men's 
 rougher sports and freer thoughts as a hen regards 
 her wilful ducklings when they take to the water 
 in which she would be drowned, and leave her hisrh 
 and dry lamenting their danger and self-destruc- 
 tion. The man they love best for his manliness 
 they would, in their loving cowardice, do their ut- 
 most to make effeminate ; and, while adoring him 
 for all that makes him bold and strong in thought 
 as well as in frame, they would tie him up to their 
 apron-strings, and keep him there till he became as 
 soft and narrow as themselves. Not that they would 
 wish to do so ; if you asked them they would tell 
 you quite the contrary. But this would be the 
 
256 SATURDAY MOENINGS. 
 
 result if they had their own way, their love being 
 at all times more timid than confident. 
 
 To home-staying women, a brilliant husband 
 courted by the world and loving what courts him, 
 is a painful cross to bear, however much he may be 
 beloved — the pain, in fact, being proportionate to the 
 love. Perhaps no life exemplifies this so much as 
 Moore's. Poor "Bessy" sufiered many things be- 
 cause of the looseness of the apron- string by which 
 her roving husband was tied, and the length of the 
 tether which he allowed himself. Farfallone amoroso 
 as he was, his incessant flutterings out of range and 
 reach caused her many a sad hour ; and in after 
 years she was often heard to say that the happiest 
 time of her life was when his mind had begun to fail, 
 for then she had him all to herself and no one came 
 in between them — no great world swept him away 
 to be the idol of a salon^ and left her alone at home 
 casting up her accounts Avith life and love, and quak- 
 ing at the result that came out. When the brilliancy 
 and the idolatry came to an end, then her turn began ; 
 and she tied up her dulled and faltering idol close to 
 her side for ever after, and was happier to have him 
 there helpless, affectionate, dependent and imbecile 
 than when he was at his brightest — and a rover. 
 
 Many a wife has felt the same when sickness has 
 broken down the strong man's power to a weakness 
 below her own, and made her, so long the inferior, 
 now the more powerful of the two, and the supreme. 
 She gathers up the reins with that firm, tight hand 
 
APRON-STRINGS. 257 
 
 peculiar to women, and ties her master to her apron- 
 string so that he cannot escape. It is quite a matter 
 of pride with her that she has got him into such good 
 order. He obeys her so implicitly about his medi- 
 cines, and going to bed early, and wrapping himself 
 up, and avoidance of draughts and night-air, that 
 she feels all the reflected glory of one who has con- 
 quered a hero. The Samson who used to defy the 
 elements and break her careful strings like bands of 
 tow, has at last laid his head in her lap and suffered 
 himself to be covered by her apron. It is worth 
 while to have had the anxiety and loss of his illness 
 for the sake of the submission resulting ; and she 
 generally ends by gaining a hold over him which he 
 can never shake off again. 
 
 It is pitiful though, to see the stronger life thus 
 dwarfed and bound. But women hke it ; and while 
 the need for it lasts men must submit. The danger 
 is lest the habit of the apron- string should become 
 permanent ; for it is so perilously pleasant to be 
 petted and made much of by women, that few 
 men can resist the temptation when it offers ; and 
 many have been rumed for the remainder of their 
 days by an illness which gave them up into the 
 keeping of wife and sisters — those fireside Armidas 
 who wiU coddle all the real manliness out of their 
 finest heroes, if they are let. If this kind of thing 
 occurs at the break of life, the mezzo cammino 
 between maturity and age, it is doubly difficult 
 to throw off; and many a man who had good 
 VOL. I. S 
 
258 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 years of vigour and strength before him if he had 
 been kept up to the mark, sinks all at once into 
 senility because his womankmd got frightened at that 
 last small attack of his, and thought the best way to 
 preserve him from another was to weaken him by 
 over- care out of all wish for dangerous exposure. 
 
 Perhaps the greatest misfortune that can befall a 
 man is to have been an only son brought up by a 
 timid widow mother. It is easy to see at a glance, 
 among a crowd of boys, who has been educated 
 under exclusively feminine influence. The long curled 
 shining hair, the fantastic tunic — generally a kind 
 of hybrid between a tunic and a frock — the lavish 
 use of embroidery, the soft pretty- behaved manner, 
 the clean unroughened hands, all mark the boy of 
 whom his mother has so often wished that he had 
 been a girl, and whom she has made as much like a girl 
 as possible. His intellectual education has been as 
 unboylike as his daily breeding. Mothers' boys are 
 taught to play the piano, to amuse themselves with 
 painting, or netting, or perhaps a little woolwork in 
 the evenings — anything to keep them quietly seated 
 by the family table, without an outbreak of boyish 
 restlessness or inconvenient energy ; but they are 
 never taught to ride, to hunt, to shoot, to swim, 
 to play at cricket, football, nor billiards, unless a 
 stalwart uncle happens to be about who takes the 
 reins in his own hand at times, and insists on having 
 a word to say to his nephew's education. 
 
 There is danger in all, and evil in some, of 
 
APRON-STRINGS. 259 
 
 these things ; and women cannot bear that those 
 they love should run the risk of either. Wherefore 
 their boys are modest and virtuous truly, but they 
 are not manly ; and when they go out into the 
 world, as they must sooner or later, they are either 
 laughed at for their priggishness, or they go to the 
 bad by the very force of reaction. The mother has 
 allowed them to learn nothing that will be of 
 solid use to them, and they enter the great arena 
 wholly unprepared either to fight or to resist, to push 
 their own way or to take their own part. They 
 have been kept tied up to the apron- string to the 
 last moment, and only when absolutely forced by the 
 necessity of events will she cut the knot and let 
 them go free. But she holds on to the last moment. 
 Even when the time comes for college-life and 
 learning, she often goes with her darling, and takes 
 lodgings in the town, that she may be near at hand 
 to watch over his health and morals, and continue 
 her careful labours for his destruction. 
 
 The chances are that a youth so brought up never 
 becomes a real man, nor worth his salt anyhow. He 
 is a prig if he is good, a debauchee of the worst kind 
 if he kicks over the traces at all. He is more likely 
 the first, carrying the mark of the apron- string round 
 his wrist for life. Like a tame falcon used to the 
 hood and the perch and the lure home, no matter 
 what the temptation of the quarry afield, he is essen- 
 tially a domestic man, at ease only in the society of 
 women ; a fussy man ; a small-minded man ; delicate 
 
 s 2 
 
260 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 in health; with a dread of strong measures, physical, 
 political, or intellectual ; a crotchety man given to 
 passing quackeries ; but not a man fit for man's 
 society nor for man's work. When there are many 
 boys, instead of only one, in a widow's family, the 
 opposite of all this is the case. So soon as they have 
 escaped from the nursery, they have escaped from all 
 control whatsoever ; and if one wants to realize a 
 puerile pandemonium of dirt, discomfort, noise and 
 general disorganization, the best place in the world 
 is the household of a feeble- spirited mother of many 
 sons where there is no controlling masculine in- 
 fluence. 
 
 Daughters, who are naturally and necessarily tied 
 up to the mother's apron- string, suffer occasionally 
 from too tight a strain ; though certainly it is not 
 the fault of the present day that girls are too closely 
 fettered, too home- staying or subdued. Still, every 
 now and then one comes across a matron who has 
 crushed all individuality out of her family, and whose 
 grown-up daughters are still children to her in moral 
 go-carts and intellectual leading-strings. They may be 
 the least attractive of their sex, but a mother of this 
 kind has one fixed delusion respecting them — namely, 
 that the world is full of wolves eager to devour her 
 lambs, and that they are only safe when close to the 
 maternal apron and browsing within an inch of the 
 tether stake. These are the girls who become hope- 
 less old maids. Men have an instinctive dread of the 
 maternal apron- string. They do not want to marry 
 
APRON-STBINGS. 261 
 
 a mother as well as a wife, and to live under a 
 double dominion and a reduplicated' opposition. 
 
 It is all very well to say that a girl so brought 
 up is broken in already, and therefore more likely to 
 make a good wife than many others, seeing that it 
 is only a transfer of obedience. That may do for 
 slaves who cannot be other than slaves whoever is 
 the master ; but it does not do for women who, seeing 
 their friends freer than themselves, reflect with grief 
 and longing that, had fate so ordered it, they might 
 have been free too. The chances here, as with the 
 mothers' boys, are, that the girl kept too close to the 
 apron- string during her spinsterhood goes all abroad 
 so soon as she gets on the free ground of matrimony, 
 and lets her liberty run into license. Or she keeps 
 her old allegiance to her mother intact, and her 
 husband is never more than the younger branch at 
 best. Most likely he is a usurper, whom it is her 
 duty to disobey in favour of the rightful ruler when 
 they chance to come into collision. 
 
 If women had their will, aU national enterprise 
 would be at an end. There would be no Arctic 
 Expeditions, no Alpine Clubs, no dangerous experi- 
 ments in science, no firearms at home, no volun- 
 teering — in their own family at least. All the danger 
 would be done by the husbands and brothers and 
 sons of other women, but each would guard her own. 
 For women cannot go beyond the mdividual ; and the 
 loss of one of their own, by misadventure, weighs 
 more with them than the necessity of keeping up 
 
262 SATURDAY I^[OflNINGS. 
 
 the courage and hardihood of the nation. Nor do 
 they see the diff^ence between care and coddling, 
 refinement and effeminacy ; consequently, men are 
 obliged to resist their influence, and many cut the 
 apron- string altogether, because delicate fingers will 
 tie the knots too tight. They do not remember that 
 the influence to which men yield as a voluntary act 
 of their own grace is a very different thmg from 
 obedience to the open denial, the undisguised inter- 
 ference and restramt, which some women like to show. 
 Men respect the higher standard of morality kept up 
 by women ; they obey the major and the minor laws 
 of refinement which are framed for home life and 
 for society ; and they confess that, without woman's 
 influence, they would soon degenerate into mere 
 savages and be no better than so many Choctaws 
 before a generation was over ; but they do not like 
 being pulled up short, especially in pubhc, and 
 hounded into the safe sheepfold for all the world to 
 see them run. And they resent the endeavour. And 
 the world resents it too, and feels that something is 
 wrong when a woman shows that she has the whip 
 hand, and that she can treat her husband like a petted 
 child or bully hun like a refractory one ; that she 
 has him tied to her apron-strings and tethered to the 
 stake of her will. But there is more of this kind of 
 thing in families than the world at large always 
 knows of; and many a fine, stalwart fellow who 
 holds his own among men, who is looked up to at 
 
ApnoN-STRmGs. 263 
 
 his club and respected in his office for his courage, 
 decision and self-reliance, sinks into mere poodledom 
 at home, where his wife has somehow managed to 
 get hold of the leading-strings, and has taught him 
 that the only way to peace is by submission and 
 obedience. 
 
264 SATUEDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 FINE FEELINGS. 
 
 There are people who pride themselves on the pos- 
 session of what it pleases them to call fine feelings. 
 Perhaps, if we were all diligent to call spades spades, 
 these same fine feelings would come under a less 
 euphemistic heading ; but, as thmgs are, we may as 
 well adopt the softening gloze that is spread over the 
 whole of our language, and call them by a pretty 
 name with the rest. People who possess fine feelings 
 are chiefly remarkable for the ease with which they 
 take oflPence ; it being indeed impossible, even for the 
 most wary of their associates, to avoid giving umbrage 
 in some shape, and generally when least intended and 
 most innocently minded. Nothing satisfies them. 
 No amount of attention, short of absolute devotion 
 and giving them the place of honour everywhere, 
 sets them at ease with themselves or keeps them in 
 good-humour. If you ask them to your house, you 
 must not dream of mixing them up with the rest. 
 Though you have done them an honour in askmg 
 them at all, you must give them a marked position 
 and bear them on your hands for the evening. They 
 must be singled out fi:om the herd and specially 
 
FINE FEELINGS. 2Qb 
 
 attended to ; introduced to the nicest people ; made 
 a fuss with and taken care of ; else they are offended, 
 and feel they have been slighted — their sensitiveness 
 or fine feelings being a kind of Chat Moss which will 
 swallow up any quantity of petits soins that may be 
 thrown in, and yet never be filled. If they are your 
 intimate friends, you have to ask them on every 
 occasion on which you receive. They make it a 
 grievance if they hear that you have had even a 
 dinner party without inviting them, though your 
 space is limited and you had them at your last 
 gathering. Still, if it comes to their ears that you 
 have had friends and did not include them, they will 
 come down on you to a dead certainty if they are 
 of the franker kind, and ask you seriously, perhaps 
 pathetically, how they have offended you ? If they 
 are of the sullen sort they will meet you coldly, 
 or pass you by without seeing you ; and will either 
 drift into a permanent estrangement or come round 
 after a time, according to the degree of acidity m their 
 blood and the amount of tenacity in their character. 
 They have lost their friends many times for no worse 
 offence than this. 
 
 They are as punctilious too, as they are exacting. 
 They demand visit for visit, invitation for invitation, 
 letter for letter. Though you may be overwhelmed 
 with serious work, while they have no weightier 
 burden strapped to their shoulders than their social 
 duties and social fineries, yet you must render point 
 for point with them, keeping an exact tally with not 
 
266 SATUKDAY- MOKNINGS. 
 
 a notch too many on their side, if you want to retain 
 their acquaintance at all. And they must be always 
 invited s]Decially and individually, even to your 
 open days ; else they will not come at all ; and their 
 fine feelings will be hurt. They sufi*er no liberties 
 to be taken with them and they take none with 
 others ; counting all frock-coat friendliness as taking 
 liberties, and holding themselves refined and you 
 coarse if you think that manners sans facon are 
 pleasanter than those which put themselves eternally 
 into stays and stifi* buckram, and are never in more 
 undress than a Court suit. They will not go into 
 your house to wait for you, however intimate they 
 may be ; and they would resent it as an intrusion, 
 perhaps an impertinence, if you went into theirs in 
 their absence. If you are at luncheon when they 
 call, they stiffly leave thefr cards and turn away ; 
 though you have the heartiest, j oiliest manner of 
 housekeeping going, and keep a kind of open house 
 for luncheon casuals. They do not understand 
 heartiness or a jolly manner of housekeeping ; open 
 houses are not in their line and they will not be 
 luncheon casuals ; so they turn away grimly, and if 
 you want to see them you have to send your servant 
 panting down the street after them, when, their 
 dignity being satisfied, their sensitiveness smoothed 
 down and their fine feehngs reassured, they will 
 graciously turn back and do what they might have 
 done at first without all this fuss and fume. 
 
 When people who possess fine feelings are poor, 
 
FINE FEELINGS. 267 
 
 their sensitiveness is indeed a cross both for them- 
 selves and their friends to bear. If yon try to show 
 them a kindness or do them a service, they fly ont at 
 you for patronizing them, and say you humiliate them 
 by treating them as paupers. You may do to your 
 rich acquaintances a hundred things which you dare 
 not attempt with your poor friends cursed with fine 
 feelings ; and little offices of kindness, which pass 
 as current coin through society, are construed into 
 insults with them. Difficult to handle in every phase, 
 they are in none more dangerous to meddle with 
 than when poor, though they are as bad if they have 
 become successful after a period of struggle. Then 
 your attention to them is time-serving, bowing to the 
 rising sun, worshipping the golden calf, &c. Else 
 why did you not seek them out when they were 
 poor ? Why were you not cap in hand when they 
 went bare-headed ? Why have you waited until they 
 were successful before you recognized then' value ? 
 
 It is fiinny to hear how bitter these sensitive folks 
 are when they have come out into the sunlight of 
 success after the dark passage of poverty ; as if it had 
 been possible to dig them out of their obscurity when 
 their name was still to make — as if the world could 
 recognize its prophets before they had spoken. But 
 this admission into the penetralia after success is a 
 very delicate point with people of fine feelings, sup- 
 posing always the previous struggle to have been hard ; 
 and even if there has been no struggle to speak of, then 
 there are doubts and misgivings as to whether they are 
 
268 SATURDAY MOENINGS. 
 
 liked for themselves or not, and morbid speculations on 
 the stability and absolute value of the position they 
 hold and the attentions they receive, and endless sur- 
 mises of what would be the result if they lost their 
 fame or wealth or political power or social standing — 
 or whatever may be the hook whereon their success 
 hangs, and their fine feelings are impaled. The act 
 of wisdom most impossible to be performed by these 
 self-torturers is the philosophic acceptance of life as it 
 is and of things as they fall naturally to their share. 
 
 Women remarkable for fine feelings are also 
 remarkable for that uneasy distrust, that insatiable 
 craving which continually requu^es reassuring and 
 allaying. As wives or lovers they never take a 
 man's love, once expressed and loyally acted on, as a 
 certainty, unless constantly repeated ; hence they are 
 always pouting or bemoaning their loveless condition, 
 getting up pathetic scenes of tender accusation or 
 sorrowful acceptance of coolness and desertion, which 
 at the first may have a certain charm to a man because 
 flattering to his vanity, but which pall on him after 
 a short time, and end by annoying and alienatmg 
 him; thus bringing about the very catastrophe which 
 was deprecated before it existed. 
 
 Another characteristic with women of fine feelings 
 is their inability to bear the gentlest remonstrance, 
 the most shadowy fault-finding. A rebuke of any 
 gravity throws them into hysterics on the spot ; but 
 even a request to do what they have not been in 
 the habit of doing, or to abstain from doing that 
 
FINE FEELINGS. 269 
 
 which they have used themselves to do, is more 
 than they can endure with dry-eyed equanimity. 
 You have to live with them in the fool's paradise 
 of perfectness, or you are made to feel yourself an 
 unmitigated brute. You have before you the two 
 alternatives of suffering many things which are dis- 
 agreeable and which might easily be remedied, or 
 of having your wife sobbing in her own room 
 and going about the house with red eyes and an 
 expression of exasperating patience under ill-treat- 
 ment, far worse to bear than the most passionate 
 retahation. Indeed women may be divided broadly 
 into those who cry and those who retort when they 
 are found fault with ; which, with a side section of those 
 wooden women who ^ don't care,' leaves a very small 
 percentage indeed of those who can accept a rebuke 
 good-temperedly, and simply try to amend a failing 
 or break off an unpleasant habit, without parade of 
 submission and sweet Griseldadom unjustly chastised, 
 but kissing the rod with aggravating meekness. 
 
 For there are women who can make their meek- 
 ness a more potent weapon of offence than any 
 passion or violence could give. They do not cry, 
 neither do they complain, but they exaggerate 
 their submission till you are driven half mad under 
 the slow torture they inflict. They look at you so 
 humbly ; they speak to you in so subdued a voice, 
 when they speak to you at all, which is rarely and 
 never unless first addressed ; they avoid you so 
 pointedly, hurrying away if you are going to meet 
 
270 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 them about the house, on the pretext of being hateful 
 to your sight and doing you a service by ridding you 
 of their presence ; they are so ostentatiously careftil 
 that the thing of which you mildly complained under 
 some circumstances shall never happen again imder 
 any circumstances, that you are forced at last out 
 of your entrenchments, and obliged to come to an 
 explanation. You ask them what is amiss ? or, 
 what do they mean by their absurd conduct ? and 
 they answer you ' Nothing,' with an injured au' or 
 affected suq^rise at your query. What have they 
 done that you should speak to them so harshly ? 
 They are sure they have done all they could to please 
 you, and they do not know what right you have to 
 be vexed with them agam. They have kept out of 
 your way and not said a word to annoy you ; they 
 have only tried to obey you and to do as you ordered, 
 and yet you are not satisfied ! ^Tiat can they do to 
 please you ? and why is it that they never can please 
 yoti whatever they do ? You get no nearer your end 
 by this kind of thing ; and the only way to bring 
 your Griselda to reason is by having a row : when 
 she will cry bittery, but finally end by kissing and 
 making up. You have to go through the process. 
 Xothing else, save a sudden disaster or an tmex- 
 pected pleasure of large dimensions, will save you 
 from it ; but as we cannot always command earth- 
 quakes nor godsends, and as the first are dangerous 
 and the last costly, the short and easy method 
 remaining is to have a decisive * understanding,^ 
 
FINE FEELINGS. 271 
 
 which means a scene and a domestic tempest with 
 smooth sailing till the next time. 
 
 Sometimes fine feelings are hurt by no greater 
 barbarity than that which is contained in a joke. 
 People with fine feelings are seldom able to take a 
 joke ; and you will hear them relating, with an in- 
 jured accent and as a serious accusation, the merest 
 bit of nonsense you flung off at random, with no more 
 intention of wounding them than had the merchant 
 the intention of putting out the Efreet's eye when he 
 flung his date-stones in the desert. As you cannot 
 deny what you have said, they have the whip-hand 
 of you for the moment ; and all you can hope for is 
 that the friend to whom they detail their grievance 
 will see through them and it, and understand the 
 joke if they cannot. Then there are fine feelings 
 which express themselves in exceeding irritation at 
 moral and intellectual diff'erences of opinion — fine 
 feelings bound up in questions of faith and sound- 
 ness of doctrine, having taken certain moral and 
 theological views under their especial patronage and 
 holding all diversity of judgment therefrom a personal 
 ofi'ence. The people thus afilicted are exceedingly 
 uncomfortable folks to deal with, and manage to 
 make every one else uncomfortable too. You hurt 
 their feelings so continually and so unconsciously, 
 that you might as well be living in a region of steel - 
 traps and spring-guns, and set to walk blindfold 
 among pitfalls and water-holes. You fling your 
 date-stone here too, quite carelessly and thinking no 
 
272 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 e\al, and up starts the Efreet who swears you have 
 injured him intentionally. You express an opinion 
 without attaching any particular importance to it, 
 but you hurt the fine feelings which oppose it, and 
 unless you wish to have a quarrel you must retract 
 or apologize. As the worst temper always carries 
 the day, and as fine feelings are only bad tempers 
 under another name, you very probably do apologize ; 
 and so the matter ends. 
 
 Other people show their fineness of feeling by 
 their impatience of pain and the tremendous griev- 
 ance they think it that they should suffer as others 
 — they say, so much more than others. These are 
 the people who are great on the theory of nervous 
 differences, and who maintain that their cowardice and 
 impatience of suffering means an organization like an 
 iEolian harp for sensibility. The oddest part of the 
 business is the sublime contempt which these sensi- 
 tives have for other persons' patience and endurance, 
 and how much more refined and touching they think 
 their own puerile sensibility. But this is a charac- 
 teristic of humanity all through ; the masquerading 
 of evil under the name of good being one of the 
 saddest facts of an imperfect nature and a confused 
 system of morals. If all things showed their faces 
 without disguise, we should have fine feelings placed 
 in a different category from that in which they stand 
 at this moment, and the world would be the richer by 
 just so much addition of truth. 
 
273 
 
 SPHINXES. 
 
 There are people to whom mystery is the very 
 breath of life and the main element of their exist- 
 ence. Without it they are insignificant nobodies ; 
 by its aid they are magnified into vague and perhaps 
 awful potentialities. They are the people who take 
 the Sphinx for their model, and like her, speak 
 darkly and in parables ; making secrets of every- day 
 matters which would be patent to the whole world 
 in their simplicity, but which, by the magic of enig- 
 matic handling, become riddles that the curious would 
 give their lives to unravel. 
 
 Nothing mth these people is confessed and above 
 board, and nothing is shown openly so that you may 
 look at it all round and judge for yourself what it is 
 like and what it is worth. The utmost they do is to 
 uncover just a corner of something they keep back m 
 the bulk, tantalizing you with glimpses that bewilder 
 and mislead ; or they will dangle before you the end 
 of a clue which they want you to take up and follow, 
 making you believe that you will be guided thereby 
 into the very heart of a mystery, and that you will 
 find a treasure hidden in the centre of the maze which 
 VOL. I. T 
 
274 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 will abundantly repay you for the trouble of hunting it 
 out. Nine times out of ten you will find nothing but a 
 scarecrow of no more value than the rags of which it 
 is composed — if even you find that. They are the 
 people who repeat to you the most trivial things you 
 may have said, and who remind you of the most 
 unimportant thuigs you may have done, years ago, 
 all of which you have totally forgotten; but they 
 will speak of them in a mysterious manner, as if 
 they had been matters of vital meanmg at the time 
 — things which would open, if followed up, a page 
 in your private history that it were better should be 
 forgotten. As it is a question of memory, you can- 
 not deny pomt- blank what they afiirm ; and as we 
 all have pages of private history which we would 
 rather not hear read aloud at the market-cross, you 
 are obliged to accept their highly suggestive recol- 
 lections with a queer feeling of helplessness and being 
 somehow in their power — not knowing how much 
 they are really acquainted with your secret afi*airs, 
 nor whether the signal they have flashed before your 
 eyes is a feint or a revelation. 
 
 Of the same sort, with a difference, are those who 
 are always going to tell you something some day — 
 people burdened with a perennial mystery which 
 never sees the light. You are for ever tormented 
 with these folks' possibilities of knowledge. You 
 turn over in your own mind every cu^cumstance that 
 you think they could have got hold of; you cun- 
 nino-ly subject all your common friends to crafty 
 
SPHINXES. 275 
 
 cross-examination ; yon go, link by link, through 
 the whole chain connecting you with them ; but you 
 can find nothins; that leads to the mere outskirts of 
 the mystery. You can make nothing of it ; and your 
 sphinx goes on to the end promising some day to tell 
 you something which dies with him untold. Your 
 only consolation is the inner conviction that there 
 was nothing to tell after all. 
 
 Then there are sphinxes of a more personal kind — - 
 people who keep their affairs a profound secret from 
 every one, who wash all their dirty linen scru- 
 pulously at home and double-lock the door of the 
 cupboard where the fanaily skeleton lives. They are 
 dungeons of silence, unfathomable abysses of reserve. 
 You never know more of them, mind nor estate, than 
 what you can learn from the merest outside of things. 
 Look back, and you cannot recollect that you have 
 ever heard them speak of their family or of their 
 early days ; and you are not acquainted with a living 
 soul with whom they are connected. You may visit 
 them for years without knowing that such and such 
 a friend is their cousin, or maybe their sister. If 
 they are unmarried men, they have no address save 
 at their club ; and neither you nor then* most inti- 
 mate friends have an idea where they sleep. For 
 all you know to the contrary they may be married, 
 with a fine flourishing family snugly stowed away in 
 some suburban villa, where perhaps they live under 
 another name, or with the omission or addition of a 
 title that effectually masks their real individuality. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 If this is their special manifestation of sphinxhood, 
 they take as many precautions against being identified 
 as a savage when out on a scouting expedition. They 
 obhterate all traces of themselves so soon as they 
 leave their office in the City, and take it as a terrible 
 misfortune if the truth is ever discovered; though 
 there is nothing disgraceful in their circumstances, and 
 their wives and children are healthy and presentable. 
 
 Most of us have been startled by the sudden 
 discovery, in our own circle of friends, of the wife 
 and children of some member of our society hitherto 
 supposed to be a bachelor and unshackled. All the 
 time that we have been joking him on his celibacy 
 and introducing him to various young ladies likely 
 to make good wives if properly taught, he has been 
 living in the holy estate a little way out of town, 
 where he is at last stumbled on by some CEdipus 
 who tells the secret to all the world and blows 
 the mystery to the winds. We may be very sure 
 that the officious OEdipus in question gets no 
 thanks for his pains, and that the sphinx he has 
 unmasked would rather have gone on living in con- 
 genial secrecy with his unacknowledged family in 
 that remote suburban villa, than be forced into pub- 
 licity and recognition. Leading two lives and per- 
 sonating two men— the one as imagined by his friends, 
 the other as known to his belongings — was a kind of 
 existence he liked infinitely better than the common- 
 place respectability of being en evidence throughout. 
 
 With certain sphinxes, no one but the officials 
 
SPHINXES. 277 
 
 concerned ever knows what they have done, where 
 they have served, what laurels they have gained. It 
 comes out quite by accident that they were in the 
 Crimea, where, like Jack Poyntz in School^ they were 
 heroes in their own way, though they don't talk 
 about it ; or that they performed prodigies of valour 
 in the Indian Mutiny and obtained the Victoria 
 Cross, which they never wear. This kind has at 
 least the merit of being unboastful ; keeping their 
 virtues hidden like the temple which the real sphinx 
 held between her paws, and to which only those had 
 access who knew the secret of the way. But though 
 it is hateful to hear a man blowing his own trumpet 
 in season and out of season, yet it is pleasant to 
 know the good deeds of one's neighbours, and to 
 have the power of admiring what is worthy of admi- 
 ration. Besides, modesty and mystery are not the 
 same things ; and there is a mean to be found between 
 the secrecy of a sphinx making riddles of common- 
 place matters, and the cackle of a hen when she has 
 laid an Qgg for the family breakfast. 
 
 The monetary or financial sphmx is one of 
 the oddest of the whole tribe and one of the most 
 mysterious. There are people who live on noto- 
 riously small incomes — such as the widows, say, of 
 naval or military men, whose pensions are printed 
 in blue-books and of whose yearly receipts the 
 world can take exact cognizance — yet who dress in 
 velvet and satin, perpetually go about in cabs and 
 hired carriages, and are never without money to 
 
278 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 spend, though always complaining of poverty. How 
 these financial sphinxes manage surpasses the under- 
 standing of every one ; and by what royal road they 
 arrive at the power of making two do the work of 
 four is hidden from the ordinary believers in Cocker. 
 You know their ostensible income ; indeed, they 
 themselves put it at so much ; but they keep up a 
 magnificent appearance on a less sum than that on 
 which you would go shabby and dilapidated. When 
 you ask them how it is done, they answer, ' by man- 
 agement.' Anything can be done by management, 
 they say, by those who have the gift ; which you feel 
 to be an utterance of the sphinx — a dark saying 
 the key to which has not yet been forged. 
 
 You calculate to the best of your ability, and 
 you know that you are sound in your arithmetic; 
 but, do what you will, you can never come to the 
 rule by which five hundred a year can be made to 
 compass the expenditure of a thousand. If you 
 whisper secret supplies, concealed resources, your 
 sphinx will not so much as wink her eyelid. How 
 she contrives to make her ostensible five hundred 
 do the work of a thousand- — how she gets velvet 
 and satin for the value of cotton and stufi", and 
 how, though always complaining of poverty, she 
 keeps unfailingly flush of cash — how all this is done 
 is her secret, and she holds it sacred. And you may 
 be quite sure of one thing — it is a secret she will 
 never share with you nor any one else. 
 
 The rapidly- working litlemteiir is another sphinx 
 
SPHINXES. 279 
 
 worth studying as a curiosity — we might say, in- 
 deed, a living miracle. There he stands, a jovial, 
 self-indulgent, enjoying man, out in society every 
 night in the week ; by no means abstinent from 
 champagne, and as little given to early rising as he 
 is to consumption of the midnight oil. But he gets 
 through a mass of work which would be respectable 
 in a mere copyist, and which is little less than 
 miraculous in an original producer. How he thinks, 
 when he finds time to make up his plots, to work out 
 his characters, even to correct his proofs, are riddles 
 unanswerable by all his friends. Taking the mere 
 mechanical act alone, he must write faster than any 
 living man has ever been known to write, to get 
 through all that goes under his name. And when is 
 it done ? Literary sphinxes of this kind go about 
 unchallenged ; indeed, they are very much about, 
 and to be beheld everywhere ; and one looks at them 
 with respect, not knowing of what material they are 
 made, nor of what mysterious gifts they are the 
 possessors. Novels, plays, essays, poems, come 
 pouring forth in never slackening supply. The rail- 
 way stations and all hoardings are made gorgeous 
 by the announcement of their feats set out in red 
 and blue and yellow. Xo sooner has one blaze 
 of triumph burnt itself out than another blaze of 
 triumph flares up ; and nothing but death or a rich 
 inheritance seems likely to stop their mysterious 
 fecundity. How is it done ? That is the secret of 
 the literary sphinx, to wliich the admiring and 
 
280 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 amazed brotherhood is anxiously seeking some ckie ; 
 but up to the present hour it has been kept jealously 
 guarded and no solution has been arrived at. 
 
 There is another form of the literary sphinx in the 
 Nobodies and Anons who speak from out the dark- 
 ness and let no man see whence the voice proceeds. 
 They are generally tracked to their lair sooner or 
 later, and the sphinx's head turns out to be only 
 a pasteboard mask behind which some well-known 
 Apuleian hid himself for a while, working much 
 amazement among the wondering crowd while the 
 clasps held good, but losing something of that fervid 
 worship when the reality became known. Others, 
 again, of these Anons have, like Junius, kept their 
 true abode hidden and their name a mystery still, 
 though there be some who swear they have traced 
 the footsteps and know exactly where the sphinx 
 lives, and what is the name upon his frontlet, and of 
 what race and complexion he is without his mask. 
 It may be so. But as every discoverer has a track 
 of his own, and as each swears that his sphinx is 
 the real one and no other, the choice among so 
 many becomes a sersdce of difficulty ; and perhaps 
 the wisest thing to do is to suspend judgment until 
 the literary sphinx of the day chooses to reveal him- 
 self by the prosaic means of a title-page, with his 
 name as author printed thereon and his place of 
 abode jotted down at the foot of the j)reface. 
 
!81 
 
 FLIRTING. 
 
 There are certain things which can never be accu- 
 rately described — things so shadowy, so fitful, so 
 dependent on the mood of the moment, both in the 
 audience and the actor, that analysis and representa- 
 tion are equally at fault. And flirting is one of them. 
 What is flirting ? Who can define or determine ? 
 It is more serious than talkino- nonsense and not so 
 serious as making love ; it is not chaff and it is not 
 feelino; ; it means somethino; more than indifference 
 and yet something less than affection ; it binds no 
 one ; it commits no one though it raises expectations 
 in the individual and sets society on the look-out for 
 results ; it is a plaything in the hands of the ex- 
 perienced but a deadly weapon against the breast of 
 the unwary ; and it is a thing so vague, so protean, 
 that the most accurate measurer of moral values 
 would be puzzled to say where it exactly ends and 
 where serious intentions begin. 
 
 But again we ask : What is flirting ? What con- 
 stitutes its essence ? What makes the difference 
 between it and chaff on the one hand, and it and 
 love-making on the other ? Has it a cumulative 
 
282 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 power, and, according to tlie old saying of many a 
 pickle making a mickle, does a long series of small 
 flirtings make up a concrete whole of love ? or is 
 it like an unmor tared heap of bricks, potential utilities 
 if conditions were chano-ed, but valueless as thino-s 
 are ? The man who would be able to reduce 
 flirting to a definite science, who could analyze its 
 elements and codify its laws, would be doing infinite 
 service to his generation ; but we fear that this is 
 about as difl&cult as finding the pot of gold under 
 the end of a rainbow, or catching small birds with a 
 pinch of salt. 
 
 Every one has his or her ideas of what con- 
 stitutes flirting ; consequently every one judges of 
 that pleasant exercise according to individual tem- 
 perament and experience. Faded flowers, who see 
 impropriety in everything they are no longer able 
 to enjoy, say with more or less severity that Henry 
 and Angelina are flirting if they are laughing while 
 whispering together in an alcove, probably the 
 most innocent nonsense in the world ; but the fact 
 that they are enjoying themselves in their own way, 
 albeit a silly one, is enough for the faded flower to 
 think they are after mischief, flirting being to her 
 mind about the worst bit of mischief that a fallen 
 humanity can perpetrate. The watchful mother, 
 intent on chances, says that dancing together oftener 
 than is necessary for good breeding and just the 
 amount of attention demanded by circumstances, is 
 flirting ; timid girls newly out, and not yet used to 
 
FLIRTING. 283 
 
 the odd ways of men, think they are being flirted 
 with outrageously if their partner fires off the 
 meekest little compliment at them, or looks at them 
 more tenderly than he would look at a cabbage ; but 
 bolder spirits of both sexes think nothing worthy of 
 the name which does not include a few questionable 
 familiarities, and an equivoke or two, more or less 
 risky. With some, flirting is nothing but the 
 passing fun of the moment ; with others, it is the 
 first lesson of the great unopened book and means 
 the beginning of the end ; with some, it is not even 
 angling with intent ; with others, it is deep-sea 
 fishing with a broad, boldly-made net, and taking all 
 fish that come in as good for sport if not for food. 
 
 Flirts are of many kinds as well as of all degrees. 
 There are quiet flirts and demonstrative flirts ; flirts 
 of the subtle sort whose practice is made by the eyes 
 alone, by the manner, by the tender little sigh, by 
 the bend of the head and fche wave of the hand, to 
 give pathos and point to the otherwise harmless 
 word ; and flirts of the open and rampant kind, who 
 go up quite boldly towards the point, but who never 
 reach it, taking care to draw back in time before they 
 fairly cross the border. This is the kind which, as 
 the flirt male, does incalculable damage to the poor 
 little fluttering dove to whom it is as a bird of 
 prey, handsome, bold, cruel ; but this is the kind 
 which has unlimited success, using as it does that 
 immense moral leverage we call ' tantalizing ' — for 
 ever rousing hopes and exciting expectations, and 
 
284 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 luring a woman on as an ignis fatuus lures us on 
 across the marsh, in the vain belief that it will bring 
 us to our haven at last. 
 
 Akin to this kind are those male flirts who are 
 great in the way in which they manage to insinuate 
 things without committing themselves to positive 
 statements. They generally contrive to give the 
 impression of some mysterious hindrance by which 
 they are held back from full and frank confession. 
 They hint at fatal bonds, at unfortunate attachments, 
 at a past that has burnt them up or withered them 
 up, at any rate that has prevented their future from 
 blossoming in the direction in which they would 
 fain have had it blossom and bear fruit. They 
 sketch out vaguely the outlines of some thrilling 
 romance ; a few, of the Byronic breed, add the 
 suspicion of some dark and melancholy crime as a 
 further romantic charm and personal obstacle ; and 
 when they have got the gu4's pity, and the love 
 that is akin to pity, then they cool down scientifically, 
 never creating any scandal, never making any ru|)- 
 ture, never coming to a moment when awkward ex- 
 planations can be asked, but cooling nevertheless, till 
 the thing drops of its own accord and dies out 
 from inanition ; when they are free to carry their 
 sorrows and their mysteries elsewhere. Some men 
 spend their lives in this kind of thing, and find 
 their pleasure in making all the women they know 
 madly or sentimentally in love with them ; and if by 
 chance any poor moth who has burned her wings 
 
FLIRTING. 285 
 
 makes too loud an outcry, the tables are turned 
 against her dexterously, and she is held up to public 
 pity — contempt would be a better word — as one who 
 has suffered herself to love too well and by no means 
 wisely, and who has run after a Lothario by no 
 means inclined to let himself be caught. 
 
 Then there are certain men who flirt only with 
 married women, and others who flirt only with 
 gMs ; and the two pastimes are as difl'erent as 
 tropical sunlight and northern moonshme. And 
 there are some who are ' brothers,' and some who 
 are ' fathers ' to their young friends — suspicious 
 fathers on the whole, not unlike Little Ked Riduao-- 
 hood's grandmother the wolf, with perilously bright 
 eyes, and not a little danger to Eed Ridinghood 
 in the relationship, how delightful soever it may be 
 to the wolf. Some are content with cousinship only 
 — which however breaks down quite suflicient fences ; 
 and some are 'dearest friends,' no more, and find that 
 an exceedingly useful centre from which to work 
 onward and outward. For, if any peg will do on 
 which to hang a discourse, so will any relationship or 
 adoption serve the ends of flirting, if it be so willed. 
 
 But what is flirting ? Is sittmg away in corners, 
 talking in low voices and looking personally 
 afl:ronted if any unlucky outsider comes withm 
 earshot, flirting ? Xot necessarily. It is just pos- 
 sible that Henry may be telling Angelina all about 
 his admiration for her sister Grace ; or Angelina may 
 be confessing to Henry what Charley said to her 
 
286 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 last night ; — which makes her lower her eyes as she 
 is doing now, and play with the fringe of her fan so 
 nervously. May be, if not likely. So that sittmg 
 away in corners and whispering together is not 
 necessarily flirting, though it may look like it. Is 
 dancino' all the ' round ' dances too-ether ? This 
 goes for decided flirting in the code of the ball-room. 
 But if the two keep well together ? If they are 
 really fond of dancing, as one of the fine arts com- 
 bmmg science and enjoyment, they would dance with 
 each other all night, though outside the ' marble 
 halls ' they might be deadly enemies — Montagues and 
 Capulets, with no echo of Komeo and Juliet to soften 
 their mutual dislike. So that not even dancmg 
 together oftener than is absolutely necessary is un- 
 mistakeable evidence, any more than is sitting away 
 in corners, seeing that equal skill and keeping well in 
 step are reasons enough for perjDetual partnership, 
 making all idea of flirtation unnecessary. In fact, 
 there is no outward sign nor symbol of flirting which 
 may not be mistaken and turned round, because 
 flirting is so entirely in the intention and not in the 
 mere formula, that it becomes a kind of phantasm, a 
 Proteus, impossible to seize or to depict with accuracy. 
 One thing however, we can say — taking gifts and 
 attentions, oflered with evident design and accepted 
 with tacit understanding, may be certainly held as 
 constituting an important element of flirting. But 
 this is flirting on the woman's side. And here you 
 are being continually taken in. Your flirt of the 
 
FLIRTING. 287 
 
 cunningly simple kind, who smiles so sweetly and 
 seems so flatteringly glad to see you when you come, 
 who takes all your presents and acted expressions of 
 love with the most bewitchino- PTatitude and effusion, 
 even she, so simple as she seems to be, slips the 
 thread and will not be caught if she does not wish to 
 be caught. At the decisive moment when you think 
 you have secured her, she makes a bound and is 
 away ; then turns round, looks you m the face, and 
 with many a tear and pretty asseveration declares 
 that she never understood you to mean what you say 
 you have meant all along ; and that you are cruel to 
 dispel her dream of a pleasant and harmless friend- 
 ship, and very wicked indeed because you press her 
 for a decision. Yes ; you are cruel, because you have 
 believed her honest ; cruel, because you did not see 
 through the veil of flattery and insincerity in which 
 she clothed her selfishness ; cruel, because she was 
 false. This is the flirt's logic when brought to book, 
 and forced to confess that her pretended love was 
 only flirting, and that she led you on to your de- 
 struction simply because it pleased her vanity to make 
 you her victim. 
 
 Then there are flirts of the open and rollickmg 
 kind, who let you go far, very far indeed, when sud- 
 denly they pull up and assume an offended air as if 
 you had wilfully transgressed known and absolute 
 boundaries — girls and women who lead you on, all in 
 the way of good fellowship, to knock you over when 
 you have got just far enough to lose your balance. 
 
288 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 That is their form of the art. They like to see how 
 far they can make a man forget himself, and how 
 much stronger their own delusive enticements are 
 than prudence, experience and common- sense. And 
 there are flirts of the artful and ' still waters ' kind, 
 somethmg like the male flirts spoken of just now ; 
 sentimental little pusses — perhaps pretty young wives 
 with uncomfortable husbands, whose griefs have by 
 no means soured nor scorched, but just mellowed and 
 refined, them. Or they may be of the sisterly class ; 
 creatures so very frank, so very sisterly and confiding 
 and unsuspicious of evil, that really you scarcely know 
 how to deal with them at all. And there are flirts of 
 the scientific kind ; women who have studied the art 
 thoroughly ; and who are adepts in the use of every 
 weapon known — using each according to circum- 
 stances and the nature of the victim, and using each 
 with deadly precision. From such may a kind Pro- 
 vidence deliver us ! As the tender mercies of the 
 wicked, so are the scientific flirts — the women and 
 the men who play at bowls with human hearts, for 
 the stakes of a whole life's happiness on the one side 
 and a few weeks of gratified vanity on the other. 
 
 It used to be an old schoolboy maxim that no 
 real gentleman could be refused by a lady, because 
 no real gentleman could presume beyond his line of 
 encouragement. A fortiori^ no lady would or could 
 give more encouragement than she meant. What are 
 we to say then of our flirts if this maxim be true ? 
 Are they really ' no gentlemen ' and ' no ladies,' 
 
FLIRTING. 289 
 
 accordino; to the famous formula of the kitchen ? 
 Perhaps it would be said so if gentlehood meant now, 
 as it meant centuries ago, the real worth and virtue 
 of humanity. For flirting with intent is a cruel, 
 false, heartless amusement ; and time was when 
 cruelty and falsehood were essentially sins which 
 vitiated all claims to gentlehood. And yet the 
 world would be very dull without that innocent kind 
 of nonsense which often goes by the name of flirting 
 — that pleasant something which is more than mere 
 acquaintanceship and less than formal loverhood — 
 that bright and animated intercourse which makes 
 the hours pass so easily, yet which leaves no bitter 
 pang of self-reproach — that indefinite and undefinable 
 interest by which the one man or the one woman 
 becomes a kind of microcosm for the time, the epi- 
 tome of all that is pleasant and of all that is lovely. 
 The only caution to be observed is : — Do not go too 
 far. 
 
 VOL. I. U 
 
290 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 SCRAMBLERS, 
 
 There are people who are never what Northern 
 housewives call ' straight ' — people who seem to have 
 been born in a scramble, who live in a scramble, and 
 who, when their time comes, will die in a scramble, 
 just able to scrawl their signature to a will that ought 
 to have been made years ago, and that does not 
 embody their real mtentions now. Emphatically the 
 Unready, they are never prepared for anything, 
 whether expected or unexpected ; they make no plans 
 more stable than good intentions ; and they neither 
 calculate nor foresee. Everything with them is hurry 
 and confusion ; not because they have more to do than 
 other people, but because they do it more loosely and 
 less methodically — because they have not learnt the 
 art of dovetailing nor the mystery of packing. Conse- 
 quently half their pleasures and more than half their 
 duties slip through their fingers for want of the knack 
 of compact holding ; and their lives are passed in try- 
 ing to pick up what they have let drop and in frantic 
 endeavours to remedy their mistakes. For scramblers 
 are always making mistakes and going through an 
 endless round of forgetting. They never remember 
 
SCRAMBLERS. 291 
 
 their engagements, but accept in the blandest and 
 frankest way imaginable two or more invitations for 
 the same day and hour, and assure you quite seriously 
 when, taught by experience, you push them hard and 
 probe them deep, that they have no engagement what- 
 ever on hand and are certain not to fail you. In an 
 evil hour you trust to them. When the day comes 
 they suddenly wake to the fact that they had accepted 
 Mrs. So-and-So's invitation before yours; and all you 
 get for your empty place and your careful arrange- 
 ments ruthlessly upset, is a hurried note of apology 
 which comes perhaps in the middle of dinner, perhaps 
 sometime next day, when too late to be of use. 
 
 If they forget their own engagements they also 
 ignore yours, no matter how distinctly you may have 
 tabulated them ; and are sure to come rattling to your 
 house on the day when you said emphatically you 
 were engaged and could not see them. If you keep 
 to your programme and refuse to admit them, more 
 likely than not you affront them. Engagements 
 being in their eyes moveable feasts, which it does not 
 in the least degree signify whether they keep on the 
 date set down or not, they cannot understand your 
 rigidity of purpose ; and were it not that as a tribe 
 they are good-natured, and too fluid to hold even 
 annoyance for any length of time, you would in all pro- 
 bability have a quarrel fastened on you because your 
 scrambling friends chose to make a calendar for them- 
 selves and to insist on your setting your diary by it. 
 
 As they ignore your appointed hours, so do they 
 
 TJ 2 
 
292 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 forget your street and number. They always stick to 
 your first card, though you may have moved many 
 times since it was printed, duly apprizing them of each 
 change as it occurred. That does not help you, for 
 they never note the changes of their friends' addresses, 
 but heep loyally to the first. It all comes to the same 
 in the end, they say, and the postman is cleverer than 
 they. But they do not often trouble their friends 
 with letters on their own account, for they have a 
 speciality for not answering such as are written to 
 them. When they do by chance answer them, they 
 never reply to the questions asked nor give the news 
 demanded. They do not even reply to invitations like 
 other people, but leave you to infer from their silence 
 the acceptance or rejection they are meditating. When 
 they in their turn invite you, they generally puzzle 
 you by mismatching the day of the week with the 
 date of the month, leaving you tormented with doubt 
 which you are to go by ; and they forget to give you 
 the hour. Besides this, they write an illegible hand ; 
 and they are famous for the blots they make and the 
 Queen's heads they omit. 
 
 A scrambling wife is no light cross to a man who 
 values order and regularity as part of his home life. 
 She may be, and probably is, the best- tempered 
 creature in the world — a peevish scrambler would be 
 too unendurable — but a fresh face, bright eyes and a 
 merry laugh do not atone for never-ending disorder 
 and discomfort. This kind of thing does not depend 
 on income and is not to be remedied by riches. The 
 
SCRAMBLERS. 293 
 
 households w^iere my lady has nothing to do but let 
 her maid keep her to the hours she herself has 
 appointed are just as uncomfortable in their way as 
 poorer establishments, if my lady is a scrambler, and 
 cannot be tauo^ht method and the value of holdino^ on 
 by the forelock. Sometimes my lady gets herself into . 
 such an inextricable coil of promises and engage- 
 ments, all crossing each other, that in despair she 
 takes to her bed and gives herself out as ill, and so 
 cuts what she cannot untie. People wonder at her 
 sudden indisposition, looking as she did only yester- 
 day in the bloom of health ; and they wonder at her 
 radiant reappearance in a day or two without a trace 
 of even languor upon her. They do not know that 
 her retirement was simply a version of the famous 
 rope trick, and that, like the Brothers Davenport, she 
 went into the dark to shake herself free of the cords 
 with which she had suffered herself to be bound. It 
 is a short and easy method certainly, but it has rather 
 too much of the echo of ' Wolf ' in it to bear frequent 
 repetition. 
 
 In houses of a lower grade, where the lady is 
 her own housekeeper, the habit of scrambling of 
 course leads to far greater and more manifest con- 
 fusion. The servants catch from the mistress the 
 trick of overstaying time ; and punctuality at last 
 comes to mean an elastic margin, where fixed duties 
 and their appointed times appear cometically at 
 irregular intervals. The cook is late with dinner ; 
 the coachman begins to put-to a little after the hour 
 
294 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 he was ordered to be at the door ; but they know 
 that, however late they are, the chances are ten to one 
 their mistress will not be ready for them, and that 
 in her heart she will be grateful to them for the shelter 
 their own unpunctuality affords her. This being so, 
 they take their time and dawdle at their pleasure ; 
 thus adding to the pressure which always comes at the 
 end of the scrambler's day, when everything is thrown 
 into a chaotic mass and nothins; comes out straio;ht 
 or complete. 
 
 Did any one ever know a scrambling woman 
 ready at the moment in her own house ? That 
 she should be punctual to any appointment out of 
 her house is, of course, not to be thought of ; but 
 she makes an awkward thing of it sometimes at 
 home. Her guests are often all assembled, and the 
 dinner hour has struck, before she has torn off one 
 gown and dragged on another. What she cannot tie 
 she pins ; and her pins are many and demonstrative. 
 She wisps up her hair, not having left herself time to 
 braid it ; and the consequence is that before she has 
 been half an hour in the room ends and tails are sure 
 to stray playfully from their fastenings and come 
 tumbling about her ears. Her jewels are mis- 
 matched, her colours ill-assorted, her belt is awry, 
 her bouquet falling to pieces. She rushes into the 
 drawing-room in her morning slippers, smiling and 
 good-tempered, with a patch- work look about her — ■ 
 something forgotten in her attire that makes her 
 whole appearance shaky and unfinished — fastening 
 
SCBAMBLEES. 295 
 
 her last button or clasping on her first bracelet. She 
 is full of regrets and excuses delivered in her joyous, 
 buoyant manner, or in a voice so winning, an accent 
 so coaxing, that you cannot be annoyed. Besides, 
 you leave the annoyance to her husband, who is sure 
 to have in reserve a pickle quite sufficiently strong 
 for the inevitable rod, as the poor scrambler knows 
 too well. All you can do is to accept her apologies 
 with a good grace, and to carry away with you a 
 vivid recollection of an awkward half-hour, a spoilt 
 dinner, and a scrambling hostess all abroad and out 
 of time, sweeping through the room very heated, very 
 good-tempered, only half-dressed and chronically out 
 of breath. 
 
 Scramblers can never learn the value of money, 
 neither for themselves nor for others. They are 
 famous for borrowing small sums which they forget 
 to return ; but, to do them justice, they are just as 
 willing to lend what they never dream of asking for 
 again. Long ago they caught hold of the fact that 
 money is only a circulating medium, and they have 
 added an extra speed to the circulation at which 
 slower folk stand aghast. To be sure, the practical 
 results of their theory are not very satisfactory, and 
 the confusion between the possessive pronouns which 
 distinguishes their financial catechism is apt to lead 
 to unpleasant issues. 
 
 Scrambling women are especially notorious for 
 the way in which they set themselves afloat with- 
 out sufficient means to carry them on; finding 
 
296 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 themselves stranded in mid-career because they have 
 made no calculations and have forgotten the rule 
 of subtraction. They find themselves at a small 
 Italian town, say, where the virtues of the British 
 banking system are unknown, and where their 
 letters of credit and circular notes are not worth 
 more tlian the value of the paper they are written 
 on. More than one British matron of respectable 
 condition and weak arithmetic has found herself 
 in such a plight as this, with her black -eyed land- 
 lord perfectly civil and well-bred, but as firm as 
 a rock in his resolution that the Signora shall not 
 depart out of his custody till his little account is 
 paid — a plight out of which she has to scramble the 
 best way she can, with the loss perhaps of a little 
 dignity and of more repute — at least in the locality 
 where her solid scudi gave out and her precious paper 
 could not be cashed. This is the same woman who 
 offers an omnibus conductor a sovereign for a three- 
 penny fare ; who gives the village grocer a ten-pound 
 note for a shilling's-worth of sugar ; and who, when 
 she comes up to London for a day's shopping, and has 
 got her last parcel made up and ready to be put into 
 her cab, finds she has not left herself half enough 
 money to pay for it — with a shopman whose faith 
 in human nature is by no means lively, and who only 
 last week was bitten by a lady swindler of undeniable 
 manners and appearance, and not very unlike herself. 
 She has been known too, to go into a confectioner's 
 and, after havino; made an excellent luncheon, to find 
 
SCRAMBLERS. 297 
 
 to her dismay that she has left her purse in the pocket 
 of her other dress at home, and that she has not six- 
 pence about her. In fact there is not an equivocal 
 position in which forgetfulness, want of method, want 
 of foresight, and all the other characteristics which 
 make up scrambling in the concrete, can place her, in 
 which she has not been at some time or other. But 
 no experience teaches her ; the scrambler she was 
 born, the scrambler she will die, and to the last will 
 tumble through her life, all her ends flying and 
 deprecating excuses on her lips. 
 
 Scramblers are notoriously great for making pro- 
 mises, and as notorious for not performing what they 
 promise. Kindhearted as they are in general, and 
 willing to do their friends a service — going out of 
 their way indeed to proiFer kindnesses quite beyond 
 your expectations and the range of their duties to- 
 wards you, and always undertaking works of super- 
 erogation ; which works in fact lead to more than half 
 their normal scramble — they forget the next hour the 
 promise on which you have based your dearest hopes. 
 Or, if they do not forget it, they find it is crowded 
 out of time by a multitude of engagements and prior 
 promises, of all of which they were innocently oblivi- 
 ous when they offered to do your business so frankly, 
 and swore so confidently they would set about it now 
 at once and get it out of hand without delay. The 
 oath and the off'er which you took to be as sure as 
 the best chain-cable, you will find on trial to be only 
 a rope of sand that could not bind so much as a 
 
298 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 bunch of tow together, still less hold the anchor of a 
 life ; and many a heart, sick with hope deferred and 
 wrung with the disappointment which might have' 
 been so easily prevented, has been half broken before 
 now from the anguish that has followed on the failure 
 of the kindhearted scrambler to perform the promise 
 voluntarily made, and the service earnestly pressed 
 on a reluctant acceptor. 
 
 This is the tragic side of the scrambler's career, 
 the shadow thrown by almost every one of the class. 
 For all the minor delinquencies of hurry and un- 
 punctuality in social affairs it is not difficult to find 
 full and ample forgiveness ; but when it comes to 
 un trustworthiness in graver matters, then the 
 scrambler becomes a scourge instead of only an in- 
 convenience. The only safe way of dealing with the 
 class is to take them when we can get hold of them, 
 and to accept them for what they are worth ; but not 
 to rely on them, and not to attempt any mortising 
 of our own affairs with their promises. They are 
 the froth and foam of society, pretty and pleasant 
 enough in the sunlight as they splash and splutter 
 about the rocks ; but they are not the deep waters 
 which bear the burden of our ships and by which 
 the life of the world is maintained. 
 
299 
 
 FLATTERY. 
 
 Nothing is so delightful as flattery. To hear and 
 believe pleasant fictions about oneself is a temptation 
 too seductive for weak mortals to resist, as the 
 typical legends of all mythologies and the private 
 histories of most individuals show ; in consequence 
 of which, home truths, to one used to ideal por- 
 traiture, come like draughts of ' bitter cup ' to the 
 dram-drinker. And flattery is dram-drinking ; and 
 yet not quite without good uses to balance its un- 
 deniable evil, if it be only exaggeration and not 
 wholly falsehood ; that is, if it assumes as a matter of 
 course the presence of virtues potential to your cha= 
 racter but not always active, and praises you for what 
 you might be if you chose to live up to your best. 
 Many a weak brother and weaker sister, and all 
 children, can be heartened into goodness by a little 
 dash of judicious praise or flattery where ponderous 
 exhortation and grave reproof would fail ; just as 
 a heavily-laden horse can be coaxed up-hill when 
 the whip and spur would lead to untimely jibbing. 
 If, on the contrary, the flattery is of a kind that 
 makes you believe yourself an exceptionally fine 
 
300 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 fellow when you are only ^ mean trash ' — a king of 
 men when you are nothing better nor nobler than a 
 moral nigger — making you satisfied with yourself 
 when at your worst — then it is an unmitigated evil ; 
 for it then becomes dram-drinking of a very poisonous 
 kind, which sooner or later does for your soul what 
 unlimited blue ruin does for your body. But this is 
 what we generally mean when we speak of flattery ; 
 and this is the kind which has such a deservedly bad 
 name from moralists of all ages. 
 
 The flatteries of men to women, and those of 
 women to men, are very diflferent in kind and direc- 
 tion. Men flatter women for what they are — for their 
 beauty, their grace, their sweetness, their charming- 
 ness in general ; while a woman will flatter a man for 
 what he does— for his speech in the House last night, 
 of which she understands little ; for his book, of 
 which she understands less ; or for his pleading, of 
 which she understands nothing at all. Not that this 
 signifies much on either side. The most unintellectual 
 little woman in the world has brains enough to look 
 up in your face sweetly, and breathe out something 
 that sounds like ' beautiful — charming — so clever,' 
 vaguely sketching the outline of a hymn of praise to 
 which your own vanity supplies the versicles. For 
 you must have an exceptionally strong head if you 
 can rate the sketch at its real value and see for your- 
 self how utterly meaningless it is. 
 
 You may be the most mystical poet of the day, 
 suggesting to your acutest readers grave doubts as 
 
FLATTERY. 301 
 
 to your own power of comprehending yourself , or 
 you may be the most subtle metaphysician, to follow 
 whom in your labyrinth of reasoning requires per- 
 haps the rarest order of brains to be met with ; 
 but you will nevertheless believe any narroAv- 
 browed, small-headed woman who tells you in a 
 low sweet voice, with a gentle uplifting of her eyes 
 and a suggestive curve of her lip, that she has 
 found you both intelligible and charm mg, and that 
 she quite agrees with you and shares your every 
 sentiment. If she further tells you that all her 
 life long she has thought in exactly the same way 
 but was wholly unable to express herself, and that 
 you have now supplied her want and translated into 
 words her vague ideas, and if she says this with a 
 reverential kind of eiFusiveness, you are done for, so 
 far as 3^our critical power goes ; and should some 
 candid friend, whom she has not flattered, tell you 
 with brutal frankness that your bewitching little 
 flatterer has neither the brains nor the education to 
 understand you, you will set him down as a slanderer, 
 spiteful and malignant, and call his candour envy 
 because he has not been so lucky as yourself. 
 
 The most subtle form of flatter}^ is that which 
 asks your advice with the pretence of needmg it — 
 your advice, particularly — yours above that of all 
 other persons, as the wisest, best, most useful to be 
 obtamed. This too is a form that belongs rather 
 to women in their relations with men than the con- 
 verse ; though sometimes men will pretend to want 
 
302 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 a woman's advice about their love affairs, and will 
 perhaps make-believe to be guided by it. Xot un- 
 frequently, however, asking one woman's opinion and 
 advice about another is a masked manner of love- 
 making on its own account ; though sometimes it 
 may be done for flattery only, when there are reasons. 
 Of course not all advice-asking is flattery ; but when 
 intended only to please and not meant to be genuine, 
 it is perhaps one of the most potent instruments of 
 the art to be met with. 
 
 But if seeking advice be the most subtle form 
 of flattery, the most intoxicatmg is that which pre- 
 tends to moral elevation or reform by your influ- 
 ence. The reformation of a rake is a work which no 
 woman alive could be found to resist if the rake 
 offered it to her as his last chance of salvation ; and 
 to lead a pretty sinner back to the ways of pictu- 
 resque virtue by his own influence only is a tempta- 
 tion to self-reliance which no man could refuse — a 
 flattery which not Diogenes nor Zeno himself could 
 see through. The pretensions of any one else would 
 be laughed at cruelly enough ; but this is one of the 
 things where personal experience and critical judg- 
 ment never go in harness together — one of the 
 manifestations of flattery which would overcome the 
 calmest and bewilder the wisest. 
 
 Priests of all denominations are especially open 
 to this kind of flattery ; not only from pretty sinners 
 who have gone openly out of the right line, but 
 from quite comely and respectable maids and ma- 
 
FLATTERY. 303 
 
 trons who have lived blamelessly so far as the 
 broad moral distinctions go, yet who have not lived 
 the Awakened Life until roused thereunto by this 
 peculiarly favoured minister. It is a tremendous 
 trial of a man's discernment when such flattery is 
 offered to him. How much of this pretended awaken- 
 ing is real ? How much of this sudden spiritual 
 insight is true, and not a mere phrasing, artfully 
 adopted for pleasantness only ? These are the cases 
 where we most want that famous spear of Ithuriel 
 to help us to a right estimate, for they are beyond 
 the power of any ordinary man to determine. 
 
 But if priests are subject to these delusions of flat- 
 tery on the one hand, they know how to practise them 
 on the other. Take away the flattery which, mingled 
 with occasional rebuke, forms the great ministerial 
 spur, and both Revivalism and Ritualism would flag 
 like flowers without ' the gentle dews.' Scolded for 
 their faults in dress, for their vanity, extravagance 
 and other feminine vices, are not women also flattered 
 as the favourites of heaven and of the Church ? Are 
 they not told that they are the lilies of the eccle- 
 siastical garden ? the divinely appointed missionaries 
 for the preservation of virtue and godly truth in the 
 world ? without whom the coarser race of men would 
 be given over to inconceivable spiritual evil, to infi- 
 delity and all immorality. We may be very sure of 
 this, that if humanity, and especially femmine hu- 
 manity, were not flattered as well as chastened, clerical 
 influence would not last for a day. 
 
;-i04 SATURDAY IMORNINGS. 
 
 There is one kind of flattery which is common to 
 both men and women, and that is the expressed pre- 
 ference of sex. Thus, when men want to flatter 
 women, they say how infinitely they prefer their 
 society to that of their own sex ; and women will 
 say the same to men. Or, if they do not say it, they 
 will act it. See a set of women congregated together 
 without the light of a manly countenance among 
 them. They may talk to each other certainly ; and 
 one or two will sit away together and discuss their 
 private afi*airs with animation ; but the great mass of 
 them are only half vitalized while waiting the advent 
 of the men to rouse them into life and the desire to 
 please. No man who goes up first from the dinner- 
 table, and earlier than he was expected, can fail to see 
 the change which comes over those wearied, limp, in- 
 difl*erent-looking faces and figures so soon as he enters 
 the room. He is like the prince whose kiss woke up 
 the Sleeping Beauty and all her court ; and can any 
 one say that this is not flattery of the most delightful 
 kind ? To be the Pygmalion even for a moment, and 
 for the weakest order of soul-giving, is about the 
 greatest pleasure that a man can know, if he be sus- 
 ceptible to the finer kinds of flattery. 
 
 Some women indeed, not only show their pre- 
 ference for men, but openly confess it, and confess 
 at the same time to a lofty contempt or abhorrence 
 for the society of women. These are generally 
 women who are, or have been, beauties ; or who 
 have literary and intellectual pretensions ; or who 
 
FLATTERY. 305 
 
 despise babies and contemn housekeeping, and profess 
 themselves unable to talk to other women because 
 of their narrowness and stupidity. But for the 
 most part they are women who, by their beauty or 
 their position, have been used to receive extra atten- 
 tion from men ; and thus their preference is not flat- 
 tery so much as exigence. Women who have been 
 in India, or wherever else they are in the minority 
 in society, are of this kind ; and nothing is more 
 amazing to them when they first come home than 
 tlie attentions which a certain style of Englishwoman 
 pays to men, instead of demandmg and receiving 
 attentions from them. 
 
 There are also those sweet, humble, caressing 
 women who flatter you with every word and look, 
 but whose flattery is nothing but a pretty dress 
 put on for show and taken ofl* when the show is done 
 with. Anything serves for an occasion with these 
 people. Why, the way in which certain unmarried 
 women will caress a child before you is an implied 
 flattery ; and they know it. If only they would be 
 careful to carry these pretty ante-nuptial ways into 
 the home where nothing is to be gained by them but 
 a humdrum husband's hapf)iness ! But too often the 
 woman whose whole attitude was one of flattering 
 devotion before her end was gained, gives up every 
 shred of that which she had in such profusion, when 
 she has attained her object, and lets the home go 
 bare of that which was so beautiful and seductive in 
 the ball-room and the flirtmg corner. 
 VOL. I. X 
 
306 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 Some men however, want more home flattery to 
 keep them tolerably happy and up to the mark than 
 any woman with a soul to be saved by truth can give. 
 Poets and artists are of this kind — men who literally 
 live on praise, without which they droop and can do 
 nothing. With them it is absolutely necessary that 
 the people with whom they are associated should be 
 of appreciative and sympathetic natures ; but the 
 burden comes heavy when they want, as they gene- 
 rally do, so much more than this. For, in truth, 
 they want flattery in excess of sympathy ; and if 
 they do not get it they hold themselves as the victims 
 of an unkind fate, and fill the world with the echo of 
 their woes. This is nine-tenths of the cause why 
 great geniuses are so often unhappy in married life. 
 They demand more incessant flattery than can be 
 kept up by one woman, unless she has not only an 
 exceptional power of love but also an exceptional 
 power of self-suj^pression. They think that by virtue 
 of their genius they are entitled to a Benjamin's mess 
 of devotion double that given to other men ; and 
 when they get only Judah's share, they cry out that 
 they are ill-used, and make the world think them ill- 
 used as well. 
 
 But though a little home flattery helps the home 
 life immeasurably, and greases the creaking domestic 
 wheels more than anythmg else can, a great deal is 
 just the most pernicious thing that can be offered. 
 The belief prevalent m some families that all the 
 very small and commonplace members thereof are the 
 
FLATTERY. 307 
 
 world's wonders and greater than any one else — that 
 no one is so clever as Harry, no one so pretty as Julia, 
 that Amy's red hair is of a more brilliant gold than 
 can be found elsewhere, and Edward's mathematical 
 abilities about equal to iSTewton's — this belief, nou- 
 rished and acted on, is sure to turn out an insufferable 
 collection of prigs and self- conceited damsels who have 
 to be brought down innumerable pegs before they 
 find their own level. But we often see this ; espe- 
 cially in country places where there is not much 
 society to give a standard for comparative measure- 
 ment ; and we know that those fond j)arents and 
 doting relations are blindly and diligently sowing- 
 seeds of bitterness for a future harvest of sorrow for 
 their darlings. These young people must be made to 
 suffer if they are to be of any good whatever in the 
 world ; and finding their level, after the exalted posi- 
 tion which they have been supposed to fill so long, 
 and being pelted with the unsavoury missiles of truth 
 in exchange for all the incense of flattery to which 
 they have been used, will be suffermg enough. But 
 it has to be gone through ; this being one of the 
 penalties to which the unwisdom of love so often 
 subjects its objects. 
 
 The flattery met with in society is not often very 
 harmful save to coarse or specially simple natures. 
 You must be either one or the other to be able to 
 believe it. Lady Morgan was perhaps the most un- 
 blushing and excessive of the tribe of social flatterers; 
 but that was her engine, the ladder by which she did 
 
 X 2 
 
308 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 a good part of her climbing. We must not confound 
 with this kind of flattery the impulsive expression of 
 praise or love which certain outspoken people indulge 
 m to the last. You may as well try to dam up 
 Niagara as to make some folks reticent of then' 
 thouoiits and feelino-s. And when one of this kind 
 sees anything that he or she likes, the praise has 
 to come out, with superlatives if the creature be 
 prone to exaggeration. But this is not flattery; it 
 is merely a certam childlike expansiveness which 
 lasts with some into quite old age. Unfortunately, 
 very few understand this childlike expansiveness 
 when they see it. Hence it subjects its possessor 
 to misrepresentation and unfriendly jibes, so soon as 
 his or her back is turned, and the explosion of 
 exaggerated but perfectly smcere praise is discussed 
 critically by the uninterested part of the audience. 
 
309 
 
 LA FEMME PASSES. 
 
 Without doubt it is a time of trial to all women, 
 more or less painful according to individual disposi- 
 tion, when they first begin to grow old and lose 
 their good looks. Youth and beauty make up so 
 much of their personal value, so much of their 
 natural final cause, that when these are gone many 
 feel as if their whole career were at an end, and as if 
 nothing were left to them now that they are no 
 longer young enough to be loved as girls are loved, 
 or pretty enough to be admired as mature sirens are 
 admired. For \7omen of a certain position have so 
 little wholesome occupation, and so little ambition 
 for anything save indeed that miserable thmg called 
 ' getting on in society,' that they cannot change 
 their way of life with advancing years. Hence they 
 do not attempt to find interest in tilings outside 
 themselves, and indej)endent of the personal attrac- 
 tiveness which in youth constituted their whole 
 pleasure of existence. 
 
 This is essentially the case with fashionable 
 women, who have staked their all on appearance, 
 and to whom good looks are of more account than 
 
310 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 noble deeds ; and, accordingly, the struggle to re- 
 main young is a frantic one with them, and as de- 
 grading as it is frantic. 
 
 With the ideal woman of middle age-^that 
 pleasant She with her calm face and soft manner, 
 who unites the charms of both epochs, retaining the 
 ready responsiveness of youth while adding the wider 
 sympathies of experience — ^with her there has been no 
 such struo^o^le to make herself an anachronism. Con- 
 sequently she remams beautiful to the last — far more 
 beautiful than all the pastes and washes in Madame 
 Rachel's shop could make her. Sometimes, if rarely 
 in these latter days, we meet her in society, where 
 she carries with her an atmosphere of her own — an 
 atmosphere of honest, wholesome truth and love, 
 which makes every one who enters it better and 
 purer for the time. All children and all young 
 persons love her, because she understands and loves 
 them. For she is essentially a mother — that is, a 
 woman who can forget herself; who can give without 
 asking to receive ; and who, without losing any of 
 the individualism which belongs to self-respect, can 
 yet live for and in the lives of others, and find her 
 best joy in the well-being of those about her. There 
 is no exaggerated sacrifice in this ; it is simply the 
 fulfilment of woman's highest duty — the expression 
 of that grand maternal instinct which need not 
 necessarily include the fact of personal maternity, 
 but which, with all women worthy of the name, must 
 find utterance in some line of unselfish action. 
 
LA FEMME PASSIVE. 311 
 
 The ideal woman of middle age understands the 
 young because she has lived with them. If a mother, 
 she has performed her maternal duties with cheer- 
 fulness and love. There has been no giving up 
 her nursery to the care of a hired servant who is 
 expected to do for so many pounds a year things 
 which the tremendous instinct of a mother's love 
 could not find strength to do. When she had 
 children, she attended to them in great part herself, 
 and learnt all about their tempers, their maladies, 
 and the best methods of management. As they grew 
 up she was still the best friend they had — the Provi- 
 dence of their young lives who gave them both care 
 and justice, both love and guidance. Such a manner 
 of life has forced her to forget herself. When her 
 child lay ill, perhaps dpng, she had no heart and no 
 time to think of her own appearance, and whether 
 this dressing-gown was more becoming than tliat ; 
 and what did the doctor thmk of her with her hair 
 pushed back from her face ? — and what a fright she 
 must have looked in the morning light after her 
 sleepless night of watching ! The world and all its 
 petty pleasures and paltry pains faded away in the 
 presence of the stern tragedy of the hour ; and not 
 th^ finest ball of the season seemed to be worth a 
 thought compared to the all-absorbing question of 
 whether her child slept after his draught and whe- 
 ther he ate his food with better appetite. And such 
 a life, in spite of all its cares, has kept her young as 
 well as unselfish ; we should rather say, young be- 
 
312 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 cause unselfish. As she comes into the room with 
 her daughters, her kindly face unpolluted by paint, 
 her dress picturesque or fashionable according to her 
 taste, but decent in form and consistent in tone with 
 her age, it is often remarked that she looks more like 
 the sister than the mother of her girls. This is 
 because she is in harmony with her age, and has not 
 therefore put herself in rivalry with them ; and har- 
 mony is the very keystone of beauty. Her hair is 
 thickly streaked with white ; the girlish firmness and 
 transparency of her skin have gone ] the pearly clear- 
 ness of her eye is clouded ; the slender grace of line 
 is lost — but for all that she is beautiful, and she is 
 intrinsically young. What she has lost in outside 
 material charm — in that mere heaute du diahle of 
 youth — she has gained in character and expression ; 
 and by not attempting to simulate the attractiveness 
 of a girl, she keeps what nature gave her — the attrac- 
 tiveness of middle age. And as every epoch has its 
 own beauty — if women would but learn that truth — 
 she is as beautiful now as a matron of fifty, because 
 in harmony with her years, as she was when a 
 maiden of sixteen. 
 
 This is the ideal woman of middle age, met with 
 even yet at tijnes in society — the woman whom all 
 men respect ; whom all women envy, and wonder 
 how she does it ; and whom all the young adore, and 
 wish they had for an elder sister or an aunt. And 
 the secret of it all lies in truth, in love, in purity, 
 and in unselfishness. 
 
LA FEMME PASSEE. 313 
 
 Standing far apart from this sweet and wholesome 
 idealization is la femme ijctssee of to-day — the reality 
 as we meet with it at balls and fetes and afternoon 
 At Homes, ever foremost in the mad chase after 
 pleasure, for which alone she seems to think she has 
 been sent into the world. Dressed m the extreme 
 of youthful fashion ; her thinnmg hair dyed and 
 crimped and fired till it is more like red- brown tow 
 than hair ; her flaccid cheeks ruddled ; her throat 
 whitened ; her bust displayed with unflinching 
 generosity— as if beauty is to be measured by cubic 
 inches ; her lustreless eyes blackened round the lids, 
 to give the semblance of limpidity to the tarnished 
 whites ; perhaps the pupils dilated by belladonna ; 
 perhaps a false and fatal brilliancy for the moment 
 given by opium, or by eau de cologne, of which she 
 has a store in her carriage, and drinks as she passes 
 from ball to ball ; no kindly drapery of lace nor of 
 gauze to conceal the breadth of her robust maturity, 
 to soften the dreadful shadows of her leanness — there 
 she stands, the wretched creature who will not con- 
 sent to grow old, and who still aiFects to be a fresh 
 coquettish girl when she is nothing but la femme 
 passee — la femme passee et ridicule into the bargain. 
 
 There is not a folly for which even the thought- 
 lessness of youth is but a poor excuse into which 
 she, in all the plenitude of her abundant expe- 
 rience, does not plunge. Wife and mother as she 
 may be, she flirts and makes love as if an honourable 
 issue were as open to her as to her young daughter ; 
 
314 SATURDAY MOENINGS. 
 
 or as if she did not know to what end (lirting and 
 making love lead in all ages. If we watch the career 
 of such a woman, we see how, by slow but very sure 
 degrees, she is obliged to lower the standard of her 
 adorers, and to take up at last with men of inferior 
 social position, who are content to buy her patronage 
 by their devotion. To the best men of her own 
 class she can give nothing that they value ; so she 
 barters with snobs, who go into the transaction with 
 their eyes open, and take the whole affair as a matter 
 of exchange, and quid ijro quo rigidly exacted. Or 
 she does really dazzle some very young and low-born 
 man who is weak as well as ambitious, and who 
 thinks the fugitive regard of a middle-aged woman of 
 high rank something to be proud of and boasted 
 about. That she is as old as his own mother — at 
 this moment selling tapes behind a village counter, 
 or gathering up the eggs in a country farm — tells 
 nothing against the association with him ; and the 
 woman who began her career of flirtation with the 
 son of a duke ends it with the son of a shopkeeper, 
 having between these two terms spanned all the 
 several degrees of degradation which lie between 
 givmg and buying. She cannot help herself ; for it 
 is part of the insignia of her artificial youth to have 
 the reputation of a love-affair, or the pretence of one, 
 even if the reality be a mere delusion. When such a 
 woman as this is one of the matrons, and conse- 
 quently one of the leaders of society, what can we 
 expect from the girls? What worse example could" 
 
LA FEMME PASSES. 315 
 
 be given to the young ? When we see her with her 
 own daughters we feel instinctively that she is the 
 most disastrous adviser they could have ; and when 
 in the company of girls or young married women 
 not belonging to her, we doubt whether we ought 
 not to warn their natural guardians against allowing 
 such association, for all that her standing in society 
 is undeniable, and not a door is shut against her. 
 
 What good in life does this kind of woman do ? 
 All her time is taken up, first in trying to make 
 herself look twenty or thirty years younger than she 
 is, and then in trymg to make others believe the 
 same. She has neither thought nor energy to spare 
 from this, to her, far more important work than is 
 feeding the hungry or nursing the sick, rescuing 
 the fallen or soothing the sorrowful. The final 
 cause of her existence seems to be the impetus she 
 has given to a certain branch of trade manufacture — 
 unless we add to this, the corruption of society. For 
 whom, but for her, are the ' little secrets ' which are 
 contmually being advertised as woman's social salva- 
 tion — regardless of grammar ? The ' eaux noire, 
 brun, et chatain, which dyes the hair any shade in 
 one minute ; ' the ' kohhl for the eyelids ; ' the 
 ' blanc de perle,' and 'rouge de Lubin ' — which does 
 not wash off ; the ' bleu pour les veines ; ' the ' rouge 
 of eight shades/ and ' the sympathetic blush,' which 
 are cynically offered for the use and adoption of our 
 mothers and daughters, find their chief patroness in 
 the femme passee who makes herself up — the middle- 
 
316 SA.TURDAY MOENINGS. 
 
 aged matron engaged in her frantic struggle against 
 time, and obstinately refusing to grow old in spite of 
 all that nature may say or do. Bad as the Girl of 
 the Period is, this horrible travesty of her vices 
 in the modern matron is even worse. Indeed, were 
 it not for her, the girls would never have gone to 
 such lengths as those to which they have gone ; for 
 elder women naturally have immense mfluence over 
 younger ones, and if mothers were resolutely to set 
 their faces against the follies of the day, daughters 
 would and must give in. As it is, some go even 
 ahead of the young, and, by example on the one hand 
 and rivalry on the other, sow the curse of corruption 
 broadcast where they were meant to have only a pure 
 influence and to set a wise example. Were it not for 
 those who still remain faithful — women who regard 
 themselves as the trustees for humanity and virtue — 
 the world would go to ruin forthwith ; but so long 
 as the five righteous are left we have hope and a 
 certain amount of security for the future, when the 
 present disgraceful madness of society shall have 
 passed away. 
 
sn 
 
 SPOILT WOMEN. 
 
 Like cliildren and all soft things, women are soon 
 spoilt if subjected to an wholesome conditions. Some- 
 times the spoilmg comes from over-harshness, some- 
 times from over-indulgence ; what we are speaking 
 of to-day is the latter condition — the spoiling which 
 comes from being petted and given way to and 
 indulged, till they think themselves better than 
 everybody else, and living under laws made spe- 
 cially for them. Men get spoilt too in the same 
 manner ; but for the most part there is a tougher 
 fibre in them which resists the flabby influences of 
 flattery and exaggerated attention better than can the 
 morale of the weaker sex ; besides, even arbitrary 
 men meet with opposition in certain directions, and 
 the most self- contented social autocrat knows that 
 his adherents criticize though they dare not oppose. 
 
 A man who has been spoilt by success and a 
 gratified ambition, so that he thmks himself a small 
 Alexander in his own way and able to conquer any 
 obstacles which may present themselves, has a certain 
 high-handed activity of will about him that does not 
 interfere with his duties in life ; he is not made fretful 
 
318 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 and impatient and exigeant as a woman is — as if he 
 alone of all mankind ought to be exempt from mis- 
 fortunes and annoyances ; as if his friends must never 
 die, his youth never fade, his circumstances run always 
 smooth, protected by the care of others from all un- 
 toward hitch; as if time and tide, which wait for 
 no one else, are bound to him as humble servants 
 dutifully observant of his wishes. The useful art of 
 finding his level, which he learnt at school and in 
 his youth generally, keeps him from any very weak 
 manifestation of being spoilt ; save indeed, when he 
 has been spoilt by women at home, nursed up by an 
 adoring wife and a large circle of wife's sisters almost 
 as adormg, to all of whom his smallest wishes are 
 religious obligations and his faintest virtues godly 
 graces, and who vie with each other which of them 
 shall wait upon him most servilely, flatter him most 
 outrageously, coax and coddle him most entirely, and 
 so do him the largest amount of spiritual damage, 
 and unfit him most thoroughly for the worth and 
 work of masculine life. A man subjected to this 
 insidious injury is simply ruined so far as any real 
 manlmess of nature goes. He is made into that 
 sickening creature, ' a sweet being,' as the women 
 call him — a woman's man with sesthetic tastes and a 
 turn for poetry ; full of highflown sentiment and 
 morbid sympathies ; a man almost as much woman 
 as man, who has no backbone of useful ambition in 
 him, but who puts his whole life into love, and who 
 becomes at last emphatically not worth his salt. 
 
SPOILT WOMEN. 319 
 
 Bad as it is for men of the world to be kow- 
 towed to by men, it is not so bad, because not so 
 weakening, as the domestic idolatry which sometimes 
 goes on when one man is the centre of a large family 
 of women, and the only object upon which the natural 
 feminine instinct can expend itself. No greater damage 
 can be done to a man than is done by this kind of 
 domestic idolatry. But, in truth, the evil is too 
 pleasant to be resisted ; and there is scarcely a man 
 so far master of himself as to withstand the subtle 
 intoxication, the sweet and penetrating poison, of 
 woman's tender flattery and loving submission. To 
 a certain extent he holds it so entirely the right 
 thing, because it is natural and instinctive, that it 
 is difficult to draw the line and map out exactly the 
 division between right and wrong, pleasantness and 
 harmfulness, and where loving submission ends and 
 debasing slavishness begins. 
 
 Spoilt women are spoilt mauily from a like cause : 
 over- attention from men. A few certainly are to 
 be found, as pampered daughters, with indulgent 
 mammas and subservient aunts given up to ruining 
 their young charges with the utmost despatch pos- 
 sible ; but this is comparatively a rare form of the 
 disease, and one which a little wholesome matrimonial 
 discipline would soon cure. For it is seldom that a 
 petted daughter becomes a spoilt wife — human affairs 
 havino- that marvellous power of equation, that in- 
 evitable tendency to readjust the balance, which pre- 
 vents the continuance of a like excess under different 
 
320 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 forms. Besides, a spoilt daughter generally makes 
 such a supremely unpleasant wife that the husband 
 has no inducement to continue the mistake, and there- 
 fore either lowers her tone by a judicious exhibition 
 of snubbing, or, if she be aggressive as well as un- 
 pleasant, leaves her to fight with her shadows in the 
 best way she can, glad for his own part to escape the 
 strife she will not forego. 
 
 The spoilt woman is impatient of anything like 
 rivalry. She never has a female friend — certainly not 
 one of her own degree, and not one at all in the true 
 sense of the word. Friendship presupposes equality ; 
 and a spoilt woman knowns no equality. She has been 
 so long accustomed to consider herself as lady-para- 
 mount that she cannot iniderstand it if any one steps in 
 to share her honours and divide her throne. To praise 
 the l)eauty of any other woman, to find her charming, 
 and to pay her the attention due to a charming woman, 
 is to msult our spoilt darling, and to slight her past 
 forgiveness. If there is only one good thing, it must 
 be given to her — the first seat, the softest cushion, the 
 most protected situation ; and she looks for the best 
 of all things as if naturally consecrated from her birth 
 to the sunshine of life, and as if the ' cold shade ' which 
 may do for others were by no means the portion 
 allotted to her. 
 
 It is almost impossible to make the spoilt woman 
 understand the grace or the glory of sacrifice. By 
 rare good fortune she may sometimes be found to 
 possess an indestructible germ of conscience which 
 
SPOILT WOMEN. 321 
 
 sorrow and necessity can develope into active good ; 
 but only sometimes. The spoilt woman j^ar excellence 
 understands only her own value, only her own merits 
 and the absolutism of her own requirements ; and 
 sacrifice, self-abnegation, and the whole class of virtues 
 belonging to unselfishness, are as much unknown 
 to her as is the Decalogue m the original, or the 
 squaring of the circle. The spoilt woman, as the 
 wife of an unsuccessful husband or the mother of 
 sickly children, is a pitiable spectacle. If obhged 
 to sacrifice her usual luxuries, to make an old gown 
 serve when a new one is desired, to sit up all night 
 watching by the sick-bed, to witness the painful details 
 of illness, perhaps of death, to meet hardship face to 
 face and to bend her back to the burden of sorrow, 
 she is at the first absolutely lost. Not the tiling to 
 be done, but her own discomfort in doing it, is the one 
 master idea — not others' needs, but her own pain in 
 supplying them, is the great grief of the moment. 
 Many are the hard lessons set us by life and fate, but 
 the hardest of all is that given to the spoilt woman 
 when she is made to think for others rather than for 
 herself, and is forced by the exigencies of circum- 
 stances to sacrifice her own ease for the greater 
 necessities of her kind. 
 
 All that large part of the true woman's nature 
 which expresses itself in serving is an unknown 
 function to the spoilt woman. She must be waited 
 on, but she cannot in her turn serve even the one she 
 loves. She is the woman who calls her husband from 
 
 VOL. T. ' Y 
 
322 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 one end of the room to the other to put down her cup, 
 rather than reach out her arm and put it down for 
 herself; who, however weary he may be, will bid him 
 get up and ring the bell, though it is close to her 
 own hand, and her longest walk during the day has 
 been from the dining-room to the drawmg-room. It 
 is not that she cannot do these small offices for her- 
 self, but that she likes the feeling of bemg waited 
 on ; and it is not for love, and the amiable if weak 
 pleasure of attracting the notice of the beloved, but 
 it is for the vanity of being a little somebody for the 
 moment, and of pla3mig off the small regality involved 
 in the procedure, that she claims his attention. She 
 would not return that attention. Unlike the Eastern 
 women, who wait on their lords hand and foot, and 
 who place their highest honour in their lowliest ser- 
 vice, the spoilt woman of Western life knows notliing 
 of the natural grace of womanly serving for love, for 
 grace, or for gratitude. 
 
 This kind of thing is peculiarly strong among the 
 demi-monde of the higher class, and among women 
 who are of the demi-monde by nature. The respect 
 they cannot command by their virtues they demand 
 in the simulation of manner ; and perhaps no women 
 are more tenacious of the outward forms of deference 
 than those who have lost their claim to the vital 
 reality. It is very striking to see the difference be- 
 tween the women of this type, the petites mattresses 
 ayIio require the utmost attention and almost ser- 
 vility from man, and the noble dignity of service 
 
SPOILT WOMEN. 323 
 
 wliich the pure woman can afford to give — which 
 she finds indeed, that it belongs to the very purity 
 and nobleness of her womanhood to give. It is the 
 old story of the ill- assured position which is afraid of 
 its own weakness, and the security which can afford 
 to descend — the rule holding good for other things 
 besides mere social place. 
 
 Another characteristic of the spoilt woman is the 
 changeableness and excitability of her temper. All 
 suavity and gentleness and delightful gaiety and 
 perfect manners when everything goes right, she 
 startles you by her outburst of petulance when the 
 first cross comes. If no man is a hero to liis valet, 
 neither is a spoilt woman a heroine to her maid ; and 
 the lady who has just been the charm of the drawing- 
 room, upstairs in her boudoir makes her maid go 
 through spiritual exercises to which walking among 
 burning ploughshares is easy-going. A length of 
 lace unstarched, a ribbon unsewed, a flower set awry, 
 anything that crumples one of the myriad rose-leaves 
 on which she lies, and the spoilt woman raves as 
 much as if each particular leaf had become suddenly 
 a bunch of thorns. If a dove were to be trans- 
 formed to a hawk the change would not be more 
 complete, more startling, than that which occurs when 
 the spoilt woman of well-bred company manners puts 
 ofi* her mask to her maid, and shows her temper over 
 trifles. Whoever else may sufi'er the grievances of 
 life, she cannot understand that she also must be at 
 times one of the sufferers with the rest; and if by 
 
 T 2 
 
324 SATUEDAY MOHNINGS. 
 
 chance the bad moment comes, the person accom- 
 panying it has a hard time of it. 
 
 There are spoilt women also who have their 
 peculiar exercises in thought and opinion, and who 
 cannot suffer that any one should think differently 
 from themselves, or find those things sacred which 
 to them are accursed. They will hear nothing but 
 what is in harmony with themselves ; and they take 
 it as a personal insult when men or women attempt 
 to reason with them, or even hold then' own without 
 flinching. This kind is to be found specially among 
 the more intellectual of a family or a circle — women 
 who are pronounced clever by their friends, and who 
 have been so long accustomed to think themselves 
 clever that they have become spoilt mentally as others 
 are personally, and fancy that minds and thoughts 
 must follow m their direction, just as eyes and 
 hands must follow and attend their sisters. The 
 spoilt woman of the mental kind is a horrid nuisance 
 generally. She is greatly given to large discourse. 
 But discourse of a kind that leans all to one side, 
 and that denies the right of any one to criticize, 
 doubt, or contradict, is an intellectual Tower of Pisa 
 under the shadow of which it is not pleasant to live. 
 
;25 
 
 DOVECOTS. 
 
 Times must be very bad indeed if a faithful few are 
 not still left to keep the sources of society sweet and 
 wholesome. When corruption has gone through the 
 whole mass and all classes are bad alike, everything 
 comes to an end, and there is a general overthrow of 
 national life ; but while some are left pure and un- 
 spotted, we are not quite undone, and we may rea- 
 sonably hope for better days in the future. In the 
 midst of the reign of the Girl of the Period, with her 
 slang and her boldness — of the fashionable woman, 
 with her denial of duty and her madness for plea- 
 sure — we come every now and then upon a group of 
 good girls of the real old English type ; the faithful 
 few growing up silently among us, but none the less 
 valuable because they are silent and make no public 
 display ; doves who are content with life as they 
 have it in the dovecot, and have no desire to be either 
 eagles dwelling on romantic heights, or peacocks dis- 
 playing their pride in sunny courts. We find these 
 faithful few in town and country alike ; but they are 
 rifest in the country, where there is less temptation 
 to go wrong than there is in the large towns, and 
 
326 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 where life is simpler and the moral tone undeniably 
 higher. The leading feature of these girls is their 
 love of home and of their own family, and their power 
 of making occupation and happiness out of apparently 
 meagre materials. If they are the elders, they find 
 amusement and interest in their little brothers and 
 sisters, whom they consider immensely funny and 
 to whom they are as much girl-mothers as sisters ; if 
 they are the youngers, they idolize their baby nephews 
 and nieces. For there is always a baby going on some- 
 where about these houses — babies being the great ex- 
 citement of home-life, and the antiseptic element among 
 women which keeps everything else pure. They are 
 passionately attached to papa and mamma, whom they 
 think the very king and queen of humanity, yet whom 
 they do not call by even endearing slang names. It 
 has never occurred to them to criticize them as ordi- 
 nary mortals ; and as they have not been in the way 
 of learning the prevailing accent of disrespect, they 
 have not shaken off that almost religious veneration 
 for their parents which all young people naturally 
 feel, if they have been well brought up and are not 
 corrupted. 
 
 The yoke in most middle class country-houses is 
 one fitting very loosely round all necks ; and as they 
 have all the freedom they desire or could use, the 
 girls are not fretted by undue pressure, and are con- 
 tent to live m peace under such restraints as they 
 have. They adore their elder brothers who are from 
 home just beginning the great battle of life for them- 
 
DOVECOTS. 327 
 
 selves, and confidently believe them to be the finest 
 fellows going, and the future great men of the day if 
 only they care to put out those splendid talents of 
 theirs, and take the trouble of plucking the prizes 
 within then' reach. They may have a slight reserva- 
 tion perhaps, in favour of the brother's friend, whom 
 they place on a pedestal of almost equal height. But 
 they keep their mental architecture a profound secret 
 from every one, and do not suffer it to grow into too 
 sohd a structure unless it has some surer foundation 
 than their own fancy. For, though doves are loving, 
 they are by no means lovesick, and are too healthy 
 and natural and quietly busy for unwholesome dreams. 
 If one of them marries, they all unite in loving the 
 man who comes in among them. He is adopted as 
 one of themselves, and leaps into a family of idolizing 
 sisters who pet liim as their brother — with just that 
 subtle little difference in their petting, in so much 
 as it comes from sisters unaccustomed, and so has the 
 charm of novelty without the prurient excitement of 
 naughtiness. But this kind of thing is about the 
 most dangerous to a man's moral nature that can 
 befall him. Though pretty to see and undeniably 
 pleasant to experience, and though perfectly innocent 
 in every way, still, nothing enervates him so much as 
 this idolatrous submission of a large family of women. 
 In a widow's house, where there are many daughters 
 and no sons, and where the man who marries one 
 marries the whole family and is worshipped accord- 
 ingly, the danger is of course increased tenfold ; but 
 
328 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 if there are brothers and a father, the sister's hus- 
 band, though affectionately cooed over, is not made 
 quite such a fuss with, and the association is all the 
 less hurtful in consequence. 
 
 These girls lead a by no means stupid life, though 
 it is a quiet one, -and without any spasmodic events 
 or tremendous cataclysms. They go a great deal 
 among the village poor, and they teach at the 
 Sunday-school, and attend the mothers' meetings and 
 clothing- clubs and the like, and learn to get interested 
 in their humbler friends, who after all are Christian 
 sisters. They read their romances in real life instead 
 of in three-volume novels, and study human nature 
 as it is — in the. rough certainly, but perhaps in more 
 genuine form than if they learnt it only in what is 
 called society. Then they have their pleasures, 
 though they are of an unexciting kmd and what fast 
 girls would call awfully slow. They have their 
 horses and their croquet parties, their lawn tennis 
 and their archery meetings ; they have batches of 
 new music, and a monthly box from Mudie's — and 
 they know the value of both ; they go out to tea, 
 and sometimes to dinner, in the neighbourhood ; and 
 they enjoy the rare county balls with a zest un- 
 known to London girls who are out every night 
 in the week. They have their village flower-shows, 
 which the great families patronize in a free-and-easy 
 kind of way, and which give occupation for weeks 
 before and subject for talk for weeks after ; their 
 school feasts, where the pet parson of the district 
 
DOVECOTS. 329 
 
 comes out with his best anecdotes, and makes mild 
 jokes at a long distance from Sydney Smith ; their 
 periodical missionary meetings, where they have 
 great guns from London, and where they hear 
 unctuous stories about the saintliness of converted 
 cannibals, and are required to believe m the power of 
 change of creed to produce an ethnological miracle ; 
 they have their friends to stay with them — school- 
 girl friends — with whom they exchange deep con- 
 fidences, and go back over the old days — so old 
 to their youth ! — their brothers come down in the 
 summer, and their brothers' friends come with them, 
 and do a little spooning in the shrubbery. But there 
 is more spooning done at picnics than anywhere else ; 
 and more offers are made there under the shadow of 
 the old ruin, or in the quiet leafy nook by the river 
 side, than at any other gathering time of the country. 
 And as we are all to a certain extent what we are 
 made by our environment, the doves take to these 
 pleasures quite kindly and gratefully, as being the 
 only ones known to them, and enjoy themselves in a 
 simplicity of circumstances which would give no 
 pleasure at all to girls accustomed to more highly- 
 spiced entertainments. 
 
 Doves know very little of evil. They are not in 
 the way of learning it ; and they do not care to 
 learn it. The few villagers who are supposed to lead 
 ill lives are spoken of below the breath, and carefully 
 avoided without being critically studied. When the 
 railway is to be carried past their quiet nest, there is an 
 
330 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 immense excitement as tlie report goes that a knot of 
 strange men have been seen scattering themselves over 
 the fields with their little white flags and theodolites, 
 their measuring lines and levels. But when the army 
 of navvies follows after, the excitement is changed to 
 consternation, and a general sense of evil to come 
 advancing ruthlessly towards them. The clergy of 
 the district organize special services, and the scared 
 doves keep religiously away from the place where the 
 navvies are hutted. They think them little better 
 than the savages about whom the Deputation tell 
 them once or twice a year ; and they create almost as 
 much terror as an encampment of gipsies. They 
 represent the lawless forces of the world and the 
 unknown sins of strong men ; and the wildest story 
 about them is not too wild to be believed. The 
 railway altogether is a great offence to the neighbour- 
 hood, and the line is assumed to destroy the whole 
 scenic beauty of the place. There are lamentations 
 over the cockneys it will bring down ; over the high 
 prices it will create, the immorality it will cause. 
 Only the sons who are out in the world and have 
 learnt how life goes on outside the dovecot, advocate 
 keeping pace with the tunes ; and a few of the stronger 
 minded of the sisters listen to them with a timid 
 admiration of their breadth and boldness, and think 
 there may be two sides to the question after all. 
 When the dashing captain and his fast wife suddenly 
 appear in the village — as often happens in these 
 remote districts — the doves are in a state of great 
 
DOVECOTS. 66 i 
 
 moral tribulation. They are scandalized by Mrs. 
 Highflyer's costume and complexion, and think her 
 manners odd and doubtful ; her slang shocks them ; 
 and when they meet her in the lanes, talking so 
 loudly and laughing so shrilly with that horrid- 
 looking man in a green cutaway, they feel as fluttered 
 as their namesakes when a hawk is hovering over the 
 farmyard. The dashing captain, who does not use 
 a prayer-book at church, who stares at all the girls 
 so rudely, and who has even been seen to wink at 
 some of the prettier cottage girls, and his handsome 
 wife with her equivocal comj)lexion and pronounced 
 fashions, who makes eyes at the curate, are never 
 heartily adopted by the local magnates, though 
 vouched for by some far-away backer ; and the doves 
 always feel them to be strange bodies among them, 
 and out of their rightful element somehow. If things 
 go quietly without an explosion, well and good ; but 
 if the truth bursts to the surface in the shape of a 
 London detective, and the Highflyers are found to be 
 no better than they should be, the consternation and 
 half- awed wonderment at the existence of so much 
 efi*rontery and villany in their atmosphere create an 
 impression which no time efl*aces. The first clash of 
 innocence with evil is an event in the life of the 
 innocent the efi*ect of which nothing ever destroys. 
 
 The dovecot is rather dull in the winter, and the 
 doves are somewhat moped ; but even then they 
 have the church to decorate, and the sentiment of 
 Christmas to enliven them. The absent ones of the 
 
332 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 family too, return to the old heartln while they can ; 
 and as the great joy of the dovecot lies in the family 
 union that is kept up, and in the family love which 
 is so strong, the visits of those who no longer live at 
 home bring a moral summer as warm and cheering as 
 the physical sunshine. But they do not all assemble. 
 For many of the doves marry men whose work lies 
 abroad ; these quiet country-houses being the favourite 
 matrimonial hunting-grounds for colonists and Anglo- 
 Indians. So that some are always absent whose 
 healths are drunk in the traditional punch, while 
 eyes grow moist as the names are given. Doves are 
 not disinclined to marry men who have to go abroad, 
 for all the passionate family love common to them. 
 Travel is a golden dream to them in their still homes ; 
 but travel properly companioned. For even the 
 most adventurous among them are not independent, 
 as we mean when we speak of independence in 
 women. They are essentially home-girls, family- 
 girls, doves who cannot exist without a dovecot, 
 however humble. The family is everything to them ; 
 and they are utterly unfit for the solitude which so 
 many of our self-supporting women can accept quite 
 resignedly. Not that they are necessarily useless even 
 as breadwmners. They could work, if pushed to it ; 
 but it must be in a quiet womanly way, with the 
 mother, the sister, the husband as the helper — with 
 the home as the place of rest and the refuge. Their 
 whole lines are laid in love and quietness ; not by 
 any means in inaction, but all centred within the 
 
DOVECOTS. 333 
 
 home circle. If they marry, they find the love of 
 their husband enough for them, and have no desire 
 for other men's admiration. Their babies are all the 
 world to them, and they do not think maternity an 
 infliction, as so many of the miserably fashionable 
 thuik it. They like the occupation of housekeeping, 
 and feel pride in their fine linen and clean service, in 
 their well-ordered table and neatly-balanced accounts. 
 They are kind to their servants, who generally come 
 from the old home, and whose families they therefore 
 know ; but they keep up a certain dignity and tone 
 of superiority towards them in the midst of all their 
 kindness, which veiy few town-bred mistresses can 
 keep to town-bred maids. They have always been 
 the aristocracy in their native place ; and they carry 
 thi'ough life the meffaceable stamp wliich being ' the 
 best ' gives. 
 
 Doves are essentially mild and gentle women ; 
 not queens of society even when they are pretty, 
 because not caring for social success and therefore 
 not laying themselves out for it ; for if they please 
 at home that is all they care for, holdmg love before 
 admiration, and the esteem of one higher than the 
 praise of many. If a fault is to be found with them 
 it is that they have not perhaps quite enough 
 salt for the general taste, used as it is to such 
 highly-seasoned social food ; but do we really want 
 our women to have so very much character ? Do 
 not our splendid passionate creatures lead madly 
 wretched lives and make miserably uncomfortable 
 
334 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 homes ? and are not our glorious heroines better in 
 pictures and in fiction than seated by the domestic fire, 
 or checking the baker's bill ? No doubt the quiet 
 home -staying doves seem tame enough when we 
 think of the gorgeous beings made fiimiliar to us by 
 romance, and history, which is more romantic still ; 
 but as our daily lives run chiefly in prose, our doves 
 are better fitted fi)r things as they are ; and to men 
 who want wives and not playthings, and who care for 
 the jDcace of family life and the dignity of home, they 
 are beyond price when they can be fomid and secured. 
 So that, on the whole, we can dispense with the 
 sj)lendid creatures of character and the magnificent 
 queens of society sooner than with the quiet and unob- 
 trusive doves. And though they do spoil men most 
 monstrously, they know where to draw the line, and 
 while petting their own at home they keep strangers 
 abroad at a distance, and make themselves respected 
 as only modest and gentle women are respected by 
 men. 
 
335 
 
 BORED HUSBANDS, 
 
 The curtain fiills on joined hands when it does not 
 descend on a tragedy ; and novels for the most part 
 end with a wreath of orange-blossoms and a pair of 
 high-stepping greys, as the last act that claims to be 
 recorded. For both novelists and playwrights assume 
 that with marriage all the great events of life have 
 ceased, and that, once wedded to the beloved object, 
 there is sure to be smooth sailing and halcyon seas 
 to the end of time. It sounds very cynical and 
 shocking to question this pretty belief ; but unfor- 
 tunately for us who live in the world as it is and 
 not as it is supposed to be, we find that even a union 
 with the beloved object does not always ensure per- 
 fect contentment in the home, and that bored hus- 
 bands are by no means rare. 
 
 The ideal honeymoon is of course an Elysian 
 time, during which nothing works rusty nor gets out 
 of joint; and the ideal marriage is only a life-long 
 honeymoon, where the happiness is more secure and 
 the love deeper, if more sober ; but the prose reality 
 of one and the other has often a terrible dash of 
 weariness in it, even under the most favourable con- 
 
336 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 clitions. Boredom begins in the very honeymoon 
 itself. At first starting in married life there are many 
 dangers to be encountered, not a shadow of which 
 was seen in the wooing. There are odd freaks of 
 temper turmng up quite unexpectedly ; there is the 
 sense, so painful to some men, of being tied for life, 
 of never being able to be alone again, never free and 
 without responsibilities ; there are misunderstandings 
 to-day and the struggle for mastery to-morrow^ — 
 the cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, which may 
 prove to be the tempest that will destroy all ; there 
 is the unrest of travelling, and the awkwardness of 
 unusual association, to help in the general discom- 
 fort ; or, if the happy pair have settled down in a 
 vale and a cottage for their month, there is the ' sad 
 satiety ' which all men feel after a time when they 
 have had one companion only, with no outside diver- 
 sion to cause a break. Bat the honeymoon at last 
 draws to a close, and the relieved bridegroom gets 
 back to his old haunts, to his work, his friends, and 
 his club ; and though he takes to all these things 
 again with a difference, still they are helps and 
 additions. This is the time of trial to a woman. If 
 she gets over this pinch, and is sensible enough to 
 understand that human nature cannot be kept up at 
 high pressure, even in love, and that a man must 
 sooner or later come down from romance to work-a- 
 day prose, from the passionate lover to the cool and 
 sober husband — if she can understand this, and 
 settle into his pace, without fretting on the one hand 
 
BOEED HUSBANDS. 337 
 
 or casting about for unliealtliy distractions on the 
 other — she will do well, and will probably make a 
 pleasant home, and thereby diminish the boredom of 
 life. But unfortunately, not every woman can do 
 this ; and it is just during this time of the man's 
 transition from the lover to the friend that so many 
 women begin to make shipwreck of their own happi- 
 ness and his. They think to keep him a romantic 
 wooer still, by their tears at his prosaic indifference 
 to the little sentimentalities once so eagerly accepted 
 and offered ; they try to hold him close by their 
 flattering but somewhat tiresome exactions ; their 
 jealousies — very pretty perhaps, and quite as 
 flattermg — are infinite, and as baseless as they are 
 infinite ; all of which is very nice up to a certain 
 point and in the beginning of things, but all of 
 which gets wearisome as tune goes on, and a man 
 wants both a little change and a little rest. But 
 women do not see this ] or seeing it, they cannot 
 accept it as a necessary condition of things ; where- 
 fore they go on in their fatal way, and by the very 
 unwisdom of their own love bore their husband out 
 of his. Or they grow substantially cold because 
 he is superficially cooler, and thmk themselves 
 justified in ceasing to love him altogether because 
 he takes their love for granted, and so has ceased to 
 woo it. 
 
 If they are jealous, or shy, or unsocial, as so 
 many women are, they make life very heavy by their 
 exclusiveness, and the monastic character they give 
 
 VOL. I. Z 
 
338 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 the home. A man married to a woman of this kind 
 is, in fact, a house prisoner, whose only free spaces 
 lie beyond the four walls of home. His bachelor 
 friends are shut out. They smoke ; or entice him to 
 drink more than his wife thinks is good for him ; 
 or they induce him to bet on the Derby ; or to 
 play for half-crowns at whist or billiards ; or they 
 lead him in some other way of offence abhorrent 
 to women. So the bachelor friends are shouldered 
 out ; and when the husband wants to entertain them, 
 he must invite them to his club — if he has one — 
 and pay the penalty when he gets home. In a few 
 years' time his wife will be glad to encourage her 
 sons' young friends to the house, for the sake of the 
 daucfhters on hand ; but husbands and sons are in a 
 different category, and there are few fathers who do 
 not learn, as time goes on, how much the mother 
 will allow that the wife refused. 
 
 If bachelor friends are shouldered out of the house, 
 all female friends are forbidden anything like an 
 intimate footing, save those few whom the wife 
 thinks specially devoted to herself and of whom she 
 is not jealous. And these are very few. There are 
 perhaps no women in the world so exclusive in their 
 dealinf^rs with their husbands as are Eno;lishwomen. 
 A husband is bound to- one woman only, no doubt ; 
 but the average wife thinks him also bound to have 
 no affection whatever outside her and perhaps her 
 family. If he meets an intelligent woman, pleasant 
 to talk to, of agreeable manners and ready wit, and 
 
BORED HUSBANDS. oo'J 
 
 if he talks to her in consequence with anything like 
 persistency or interest, he offends against the un- 
 written law ; and his wife, whose utmost power of 
 conversation consists in putting in a yes or no with 
 tolerable accuracy of aim, thinks herself slighted and 
 ill-used. She may be young and pretty, and dearly 
 loved for her own special qualities ; and her husband 
 may not have a thought towards his new friend, or 
 any other woman, in the remotest degree trenching 
 on his allegiance to her ; but the fact that he finds 
 pleasure, though only of an intellectual and aesthetic 
 kind, in the society of any other woman, that he feels 
 an mterest in her life, chooses her for his friend, or 
 finds community of pursuits or sympathy in ideas, 
 makes his wife by just so much a victim and aggrieved. 
 And yet what a miserably monotonous home is 
 that to which she would confine him ! He is at his 
 office all day, badgered and worried with various 
 business complications, and he comes home tired, 
 perhaps cross — even well-conducted husbands have 
 that way sometimes. He finds his wife tired and 
 cross too ; so that they begin the evening together 
 mutually at odds, she irritated by small cares and 
 he disturbed by large anxieties. Or he finds her 
 preoccupied and absorbed in her own pursuits, and 
 quite disinclined to make any diversion for his sake. 
 He asks her for some music ; she used to be ready 
 enough to smg and play to him in the old love- 
 making days ; but she refuses now. Either she has 
 some needlework to do, which might have been done 
 
340 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 during the day when he was out, or baby is asleep in 
 the nursery, and music in the drawing-room would 
 disturb him — at all events she cannot sing or play 
 to-night ; and even if she does — he has heard all her 
 pieces so often ! If he is not a reading-man, those 
 long, dull, silent evenings are very trying. She 
 works, and drives him wild with the click of her 
 needle ; or she reads the last new novel, and he 
 hates novels, and gets tired to death when she 
 insists on telling him all about the story and the 
 characters ; or she chooses the evening for letter- 
 writing, and if the noise of her pen scratching over 
 the paper does not irritate him, perhaps it sends him 
 to sleep, when at least he is not bored. But dull, 
 objectless, and vacant as their evenings are, his wife 
 would not hear of any help from without to give just 
 that little fillip which would prevent boredom and 
 not create ceremony. She would think her life had 
 gone to pieces, and that only desolation was before 
 her, if he hinted that his home was dull, and that 
 though he loves her very dearly and wants no other 
 wife but her, yet that her society onl}; — toujours 
 Ijerdrix^ without change or addition — is a Uttle 
 stupid, however nice the partridge may be, and that 
 things would be bettered if Mrs. or Miss So-and-So 
 came m sometimes, just to brighten up the hours. 
 And if he were to make a practice of bringing home 
 his men friends, she would probably let all parties 
 concerned feel pretty distinctly that she considered 
 the home her special sanctuary, and that guests 
 
BOKED HUSBANDS. 341 
 
 whom she did not mvite were intruders. She would 
 perhaps go willingly enough to a ball or crowded 
 soiree^ or she might like to give one ; but that 
 intimate form of society, which is a mere enlarge- 
 ment of the home life, she dreads as the supplement- 
 ing of deficiencies, and thinks her married happiness 
 safer in boredom than in any diversion from herself 
 as the sole centre of her husband's pleasure. 
 
 Home life stagnates in England ; and in very 
 few families is there any mean between dissipation 
 and this stagnation. We can scarcely wonder that 
 so many husbands think matrimony a mistake as we 
 have it in our insular arrangements ; that they look 
 back regretfully to the time when they were unfet- 
 tered and not bored ; or that their free friends, who 
 watch them as wild birds watch their caged com- 
 panions, curiously and reflectively, share their 
 opinion. Wife and home, after all, make up but 
 part of a man's life ; they are not his all, and do not 
 satisfy the whole of his social instinct ; nor is any one 
 woman the concentration of all womanhood to a man, 
 leaving nothmg that is beautiful, nor in its own un- 
 conjugal way desirable, on the outside. Besides, when 
 with his wife a man is often as much isolated as when 
 alone, for any real companionship there is between 
 them. Few women take a living interest in the lives 
 of men, and fewer still understand them. They expect 
 the husband to sympathize with them in the kitchen 
 gossip and the nursery chatter, the neighbours' doings 
 and all the small household politics ; but they are 
 
342 SATURDAY MORNINGS. 
 
 utterly unable to comprehend his pleasures, his 
 thoughts, his duties, the responsibilities of his pro- 
 fession, or the bearings of any public question in 
 which he takes a part. 
 
 Even if this were not so, and granting that they 
 could enter fully into his life and sympathize with 
 him as intelligent equals, not only as compassionate 
 saints .or loving children, there would still be the 
 need of novelty, and still the certainty of boredom 
 without it. For human life, like all other forms of 
 life, must have a due proportion of fresh elements 
 continually added to keep it sweet and growing, else 
 it becomes stagnant and stunted. And daily inter- 
 course undeniably exhausts the moral ground. After 
 the close companionship of years no one can remain 
 mentally fresh to the other, unless indeed one or both 
 be of the rarest order of mind and of a practically 
 inexhaustible power of acquiring knowledge. Save 
 these exceptional instances, we must all of necessity 
 get worn out by constant intercourse. We know 
 every tiiought, every opinion, and almost every 
 square inch of information possessed ; we have heard 
 the old stories again and again, and know exactly 
 what will lead up to them, and at what point they 
 will begin ; we have measured the whole sweep of 
 mind, and have probed its depths ; and though we 
 may love and value what we have learnt, yet we want 
 something new — fresh food for interest, though not 
 necessarily a new love for the displacement of the old. 
 But this is what very few Englishwomen can under- 
 
BORED HUSBANDS. 343 
 
 stand or will allow. They hold so intensely by the 
 doctrine of unity that they are even jealous of a man's 
 pursuits, if they think these take up any place in his 
 mind which might also be theirs. They must be 
 good for every part of his life ; and the poorest of 
 them all must be his only source of interest, suffering 
 no other woman to share his admiration nor obtain 
 his friendship, though this would neither touch his 
 love nor interfere with their rights. Friendship is a 
 hard saymg to them, and one they cannot receive. 
 Wherefore they keep a tight grasp on the marital 
 collar, and suffer no relief of monotony by judicious 
 loosening, nor by generous faith in integral fidelity. 
 The practical result of which is that most men are 
 horribly bored at home, and that the mass of them 
 really suffer from the domestic stagnation to which 
 national customs and the exclusiveness of women 
 doom them so soon as they become family men. It 
 mast however, in fairness be added, that in general 
 they obtain some kind of compensation j and that 
 very few walk meekly in their bonds without at 
 times slipping them off, with or without the con- 
 currence of their wives. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 S. & H, 
 
 LOSDON : PRINTED BY 
 
 SrOTTISWOODE AND CO . NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET