{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_58496/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_58496","id":"gutenberg_58496","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58496","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Gender & Sexuality Studies","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Sociology","Women -- Social and moral questions"],"text":"Produced by Chris Curnow, Wayne Hammond and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This\nfile was produced from images generously made available\nby The Internet Archive)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Transcriber\u2019s Note:\n\nText delimited by equal signs is bold.\n\nText delimited by underscores is italic.]\n\n\n\n\nREVOLTED WOMAN\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration:\n\nEMANCIPATED!]\n\n\n\n\n  REVOLTED WOMAN\n\n  PAST, PRESENT, AND TO COME\n\n  BY\n\n  CHARLES G. HARPER\n\n  AUTHOR OF \u2018THE BRIGHTON ROAD,\u2019 \u2018DRAWING FOR REPRODUCTION,\u2019\n  \u2018THE MARCHES OF WALES,\u2019 &C., &C.\n\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n\n  London:\n  ELKIN MATHEWS\n  VIGO STREET\n  1894\n\n  _LONDON:\n  Printed by_ STRANGEWAYS AND SONS,\n  _Tower St., Cambridge Circus, W.C._\n\n    I am ashamed, that women are so simple\n    To offer war, where they should kneel for peace;\n    Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,\n    When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.\n\n    _Taming of the Shrew._\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: PREFACE]\n\n\n_It might have been supposed, having in mind her first and most\nstupendous_ faux pas, _that Woman would be content to sit, for all\ntime, humbly under correction, satisfied with her lot until the crack\nof doom, when man and woman shall be no more; when heaven and earth\nshall pass away, and pale humanity come to judgment._\n\n_But it is essentially feminine, and womanlike (and therefore of\nnecessity illogical) that she should be forgetful of the primeval\ncurse which Mother Eve brought upon the race, and that she should,\ninstead of going in sackcloth and ashes for her ancestor\u2019s\ndisobedience, seek instead, not only to be the equal of man, but,\nin her foremost advocates--the strenuous and ungenerous females who\nperiodically crucify the male sex in sexual novels written under manly\npseudonyms--aspire to rule him, while as yet she has no efficient\ncontrol over her own hysterical being._\n\n_Humanity is condemned by the First Woman\u2019s disobedience to earn a\nprecarious livelihood by the sweat of its brow. All the toil and\ntrouble of this work-a-day world proceed from her sex; and yet the\ncant of \u2018Woman\u2019s Mission\u2019 fills the air, and the New Woman is promised\nus as some sort of a pedagogue who shall teach the \u2018Child-Man\u2019 how\nto toddle in the paths of virtue and content. How absurd it all is,\nwhen the women who write these things pander to the depraved palate\nwhich gained Holywell Street a living and an unenviable notoriety\nyears ago; when they obtain three-fourths of their readers from their\nfellow-women who read their productions hopeful of indecency, and\nconceive themselves cheated if they do not find it. Let us, however,\ndo these women writers, or \u2018Literary Ladies,\u2019 as they have labelled\nthemselves--margarine masquerading as \u2018best fresh\u2019--the justice to\nacknowledge that they do not halt half-way on the road to viciousness,\nthough to reach their goal they wade knee-deep in abominations. Here,\nindeed, they are no cheats, and it remains the unlikeliest sequel that\nyou close their pages and yet do not find Holywell Street outdone._\n\n_Consider: If morals are to be called into question, can it be\ndisputed that, as compared with Woman, Man is the moral creature, and\nhas ever been, from the time of Potiphar\u2019s wife, up to the present?_\n\n_Woman is the irresponsible creature who cannot reason nor follow an\nargument to its just conclusion--who cannot control her own emotions,\nnor rid herself of superstition. What question more pertinent, then, to\nask than this: If mankind is to be led by the New Woman, is she, first\nof all, sure of the path?_\n\n  _CHARLES G. HARPER._\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n  I.\n\n                                                                  PAGE\n\n  WOMAN UP TO DATE                                                   1\n\n\n  II.\n\n  THE DRESS REFORMERS                                               28\n\n\n  III.\n\n  WOMAN IN ART, LITERATURE, POLITICS, AND\n  SOCIAL POLITY                                                     45\n\n\n  IV.\n\n  SOME OLD-TIME TERMAGANTS AND ILL-MADE\n  MATCHES OF CELEBRATED MEN                                         61\n\n\n  V.\n\n  DOMESTIC STRIFE                                                  107\n\n\n  VI.\n\n  WOMEN IN MEN\u2019S EMPLOYMENTS                                       130\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nILLUSTRATIONS.\n\n\n  EMANCIPATED!                                         _Frontispiece._\n\n                                                                  PAGE\n\n  THE BLOOMER COSTUME                                               33\n\n  THE RATIONAL DRESS                                                41\n\n  ELIZABETH, COUNTESS OF SHREWSBURY                                 67\n\n  ANN CLIFFORD, COUNTESS OF DORSET, PEMBROKE, AND MONTGOMERY,\n      AGED 18                                                       71\n\n  ANN CLIFFORD, COUNTESS OF DORSET, PEMBROKE, AND MONTGOMERY,\n      AGED 81                                                       75\n\n  SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH                                     79\n\n  LADY HESTER STANHOPE                                              91\n\n  THE STRUGGLE FOR THE BREECHES                                    109\n\n  MAN MASTERED                                                     118\n\n  A JUDICIAL DUEL                                                  119\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: REVOLTED WOMAN]\n\n\n\n\nI.--WOMAN UP TO DATE.\n\n\u2018Certain Women also made us astonished.\u2019--_Luke_, xxiv. 22.\n\n\nShe is upon us, the Emancipated Woman. Privileges once the exclusive\nrights of Man are now accorded her without question, and, clad in\nRational Dress, she is preparing to leap the few remaining barriers\nof convention. Her last advances have been swift and undisguised,\nand she feels her position at length strong enough to warrant the\nproclamation that she does not merely claim equal rights with man, but\nintends to rule him. Such symbols of independence as latch-keys and\nloose language are already hers; she may smoke--and does; and if she\ndoes not presently begin to wear trousers upon the streets--what some\ndecently ambiguous writer calls bifurcated continuations!--we shall\nassume that the only reason for the abstention will be that womankind\nare, generally speaking, knock-kneed, and are unwilling to discover the\nfact to a censorious world which has a singular prejudice in favour of\nsymmetrical legs.\n\nSociety has been ringing lately with the writings and doings of\nthe pioneers of the New Woman, who forget that Woman\u2019s Mission is\nSubmission; but although the present complexion of affairs seems to\nhave come about so suddenly, the fact should not be blinked that in\nreality it is but the inevitable outcome, in this age of toleration\nand _laissez faire_, of the Bloomerite agitation, the Women\u2019s Rights\nfrenzy, the Girl of the Period furore, and the Divided Skirt craze,\nwhich have attracted public attention at different times, ranging from\nover forty years ago to the present day.\n\nSeveral apparently praiseworthy or harmless movements that have\nattracted the fickle enthusiasm of women during this same period have\nreally been byways of this movement of emancipation. Thus, we have had\nthe almost wholly admirable enthusiasm for the Hospital Nurse\u2019s career;\nthe (already much-abused) profession of Lady Journalist; the Woman\nDoctor; the Female Detective; the Lady Members of the School Board;\nand the (it must be allowed) most gracious and becoming office of Lady\nGuardian of the Poor.\n\nSide by side, again, with these, are the altogether minor and trivial\naffectations of Lady Cricketers, the absurd propositions for New\nAmazons, or Women Warriors, who apparently are not sufficiently\nwell read in classic lore to know what the strict following of the\nAmazons\u2019 practice implied; nor can they reck aught of the origin of the\nCaryatides.\n\nAgain, the Political Woman is coming to the front, and though she may\nnot yet vote, she takes the part of the busybody in Parliamentary\nElections, and already sits on Electioneering Committees.\n\nIn this connexion, it should not readily be forgotten that Mrs. Brand\nearned her husband the somewhat humiliating reputation of having been\nsung into Parliament by his wife at the last election for Wisbech,\nand thus gave the coming profession of Women Politicians another\npush forward. The dull agricultural labourers of that constituency\ngave votes for vocal exercises on improvised platforms in village\nschool-rooms, nor thought of aught but pleasing the lady who could sing\nthem either into tears with the cheap sentimentality of _Auld Robin\nGrey_, melt them with the poignant pathos of _\u2018Way down the Swanee\nRiver\u2019_, or excite their laughter over the equally ready humour of\nthe latest _soi-disant_ \u2018comic\u2019 song from the London Halls. Think\nupon the most musical, most melancholy prospect thus opened out before\nour prophetic gaze! What matter whether you be Whig or Tory, Liberal\nor Conservative, Rotten-Tim-Healeyite, or a member of Mr. Justin\nMacCarthy\u2019s tea-party, so long as your wife can win the rustics\u2019\napplause by her singing of such provocations to tears or laughter as\n_The Banks of Allan Water_ or _Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay_, or whatever may be\nthe current successor of that vulgar chant?\n\nBut the so-called \u2018New Purity\u2019 movement, and novel evangels of that\ndescription, most do occupy the attention of the modern woman who is in\nwant of an occupation.\n\nWe smile when we read of the proceedings of Mrs. Josephine Butler and\nher following of barren women who are the protagonists of the New\nPurity; for woman has ever been the immoral sex, from the time of\nPotiphar\u2019s wife to these days when the Divorce Courts are at once the\nhardest worked in the Royal Courts of Justice, and the scenes of the\nmost frantic struggles on the part of indelicate women, who, armed with\nopera-glasses and seated in the most favourable positions on Bench or\namong counsel, gloat over what should be the most repellent details in\nthis constant public washing of dirty private linen, and survey the\nco-respondents with delighted satisfaction. The intensity of the joy\nshown by those who are fortunate enough to obtain a seat in court on\na more than usually loathsome occasion is only equalled at the other\nextreme by the poignancy of regret exhibited by those unhappy ladies\nwho have been unsuccessful in their scheming to secure places.\n\nAnd, again, the reclamation of corrupt women, if not impossible, is\nrarely successful, for \u2018woman is at heart a rake,\u2019 and, as Ouida\nsays, who has, one might surmise, unique opportunities of knowing,\nshe is generally \u2018corrupt because she likes it.\u2019 Thus, throughout the\nwhole range of history, Pagan or Christian, courtesans have never\nbeen to seek. They have, these _filles de joie_, always succeeded in\nattracting to themselves wealth and genius, luxury and intellect;\nand through their paramount influence, Society at the present day is\ncorrupt to extremity. The Evangelists of the New Purity, who hold\nthat the innate viciousness of man is the cause of woman\u2019s subjection\nand inferiority, can have no reading nor any knowledge of the world\u2019s\nhistory while they continue to proclaim their views; or else they know\nthemselves, even as they preach, for hypocrites. For woman has ever\nbeen the active cause of sin, from the Fall to the present time, and\ndoubtless will so continue until the end. It is not always, as they\nwould have you believe, from necessity that the virtuous woman turns\nher back upon virtue, but very frequently from choice and a delight in\nsin and wrong-doing. How then shall the New Purity arise from the Old\nCorruption?\n\n\u2018Who can find a virtuous woman?\u2019 asks Solomon (Prov. xxxi. 10), and\ngoes on to say that her price is far above rubies: doubtless for the\nsame reason that rubies are so highly valued--because they are so\nscarce.\n\nThe trade of courtesan has always been numerous and powerful, and has\nbeen constantly recruited from every class. Vanity, of course, is the\ngreat inducement; love of dress and power, and greed of notoriety,\nare other compelling forces; and a joy in outraging all decency and\npropriety, of defying conventions of respectability and religion, is\nanswerable for the rest.\n\nThis kind of woman makes all mankind her prey, and has no generous\ninstincts whatever. Everything ministers to her vanity and lavish\nwaste. It is a matter of notoriety that men of light and leading are\ndrawn after her all-conquering chariot, and that in three out of every\nfour plays she is the heroine.\n\nShe is cruel as the grave, heartless as a stone, and extravagant beyond\nmeasure. Her kind have utterly wasted the patrimony of thousands of\ndupes, and having reduced them to beggary the most abject and forlorn,\nhave sought fresh victims of their insatiable greed.\n\nThey have ruined kingdoms, like the mistresses of Louis XIV. and XV.\nof France; they have brought shame and dishonour upon nations, like\nthe dissolute women of Charles the Second\u2019s court, who toyed with\nhis wantons at Whitehall while the Dutch guns thundered off Tilbury;\nthey have risen, like Madame de Pompadour, to a height from which\nthey looked down upon diplomatists of the Great Powers of Europe--and\nscorned them; and the blood shed during many sanguinary wars has been\nshed at their behest. Courtesans have married into the peerage of\nEngland, and, indeed, some of the oldest titles--not to say the bluest\nblood--of the three kingdoms derive from the king\u2019s women: Nell Gwynne,\nwhose offspring became Duke of Saint Albans; Louise de Querouaille,\ncreated Duchess of Portsmouth; Barbara Palmer, made Duchess of\nCleveland; and others. Lais and Phryne belong not to one period, but to\nall eras alike; Aspasias and Fredegondas are of all countries and of\nevery class.\n\nBut \u2018pretty Fanny\u2019s ways\u2019 are many and diverse. It may be that she\nis incapacitated or restrained from living as full and as free a\nlife as she could wish. Very well: then she becomes a New Puritan,\nwhose self-appointed functions are to those privy cupboards in which\nrepellent skeletons are concealed; to the social sewers; and, in fine,\nto all those places where she can gratify the morbid curiosity which\nactuates the New Puritanical mind, rather than the hope of, or belief\nin, achieving anything for the benefit of the race.\n\nIf she has no wish to become a New Puritan, there be many other modern\nfads in which she may fulfil a part. She may, as a New Traveller, show\nus the glory of the New Travel, in the manner of that greatly daring\nlady, the intrepid Mrs. French-Sheldon, who, travelling at the heels\nof the masculine explorers of African wilds (carried luxuriously in\na litter, accompanied with cases of champagne and a large escort of\nZanzibari porters), went forth to study the untutored savage in his\nnative wilds. But when the untutored presented themselves before\nthis up-to-date traveller _unclothed_ as well as unread, that very\nproperly-tutored lady screamed, and distributed loin-cloths to these\nhappy and yet unabashed primitives. She delivered an address before\nthe British Association on her return from that unnecessary and futile\nexpedition, in which she tickled the sensibilities of the assembled\n_savants_ by describing how she kept her hundred and thirty Zanzibari\ncoolies in order with a whip. She told the members of the Association\nthat \u2018she went into Africa with all delicacy and womanliness.\u2019\nPossibly; but judging her out of her own mouth, she must have left a\ngoodly portion of those qualities behind her in the Dark Continent.\n\nOther women travellers--of the type of Miss Dowie, for instance--are\nmore unconventional, if less adventurous. She, a true exemplar of the\nwomen who would forget their sex--and make others forget it--if they\ncould, climbed the Karpathian mountains in search of a little cheap\nnotoriety, clad in knickerbockers, jacket, and waistcoat, and redolent\nof tobacco from the smoking of cigarettes. Her adventures added nothing\nto the gaiety of readers, nor to the world\u2019s store of science; but we\nwere the richer by one more spectacular extravaganza.\n\nThis is that somewhat repellent type, the mannish woman, who is not\ncontent to charm man by the grace and sweetness of her femininity,\nbut must aspire to be a poor copy of himself. The type is common\nnowadays, and the individuals of it have gone through several phases\nof their singular craze. These are they who walk with the guns of a\nshooting party; who tramp the stubble and arouse the ill-humours of\nthat creature of wrath and impatience, the sportsman who is eager for\na drive at the birds. These women, not dismayed by the butchery of\nthe _battue_, look on, and even carry a gun themselves; but they are\nthe nuisances of the party, and flush covey after covey by showing\nthemselves to the wary birds when they should be crouching down beside\nsome windy hedge, in a moist and clammy October ditch.\n\n\u2018Let us be unconventional, or we die!\u2019 is the unspoken, yet very\nevident, aspiration of the Modern Woman; and, really, the efforts made\nin the direction of the unconventional are so uniformly extravagant\nthat we almost, from sheer weariness and disgust, begin to wish she had\ngone some way toward adopting the alternative.\n\nThe New Woman will know naught of convention, nor submission. Her\nadvocates do not hail from Altruria; they are aggressive, and devoured\nwith a zeal for domination, in revolt from the \u2018centuries of slavery\u2019\nto which, according to themselves, they have been compelled by Man.\n\u2018Man,\u2019 shrieks one, \u2018is always in mischief or in bed.\u2019 But she will\nhave this changed; not, indeed, in the present generation of vipers,\nwhich is stubborn and stiff-necked in its wicked ways; but she will\nsee, and urges her fellow-women to see also, that proper principles are\nspanked into the coming generations. Considering, however, that the\nnursery has ever been the woman\u2019s peculiar province, surely the blame,\nif blame there be, must rest with her for the past and present faulty\nupbringing of the race. If \u2018proper principles\u2019 have not already had\ntheir part in the education of man, surely that must be owing solely to\nwoman\u2019s flagrant dereliction of duty.\n\nInstances, neither few nor far between, may be urged of wives and\nmothers, possibly also sisters and maiden aunts, who have raised men\nto action and dragged them from a disgraceful sloth to an honourable\nindustry. True, indeed, it were an altogether unjustifiable heresy to\ndeny their influence and its beneficent effects; but to use it as an\nargument for placing women on an equality with men would be a _non\nsequitur_ of the most absurd description. The influence wielded by\nthose good women was so powerful for good because they were true to\nthemselves and their sex; because they were, in a word, so womanly.\nThe influence of the New Woman upon the man is, and shall be, _nil_,\nbecause the spirit of antagonism between the sexes is being aroused by\nher pretensions, and comradeship becomes impossible when woman and man\nfight for supremacy.\n\nWomen\u2019s advocates come and go like summer flies, provoking to wrath by\ntheir insistent buzzing, but, when caught and examined, proving to be\ninsignificant enough. They have their little day, and cease to be. Who,\nfor instance, now remembers Mrs. Mona Caird, that unconventional person\nwho floated into publicity on the \u2018Marriage a Failure\u2019 correspondence\nof the _Daily Telegraph_, some few years ago, and, in the heyday of\nher notoriety, wrote and published that weak and ineffectual novel,\n_The Wing of Azrael_? Other women, more advanced in shamelessness, have\ntaken her place, and capped the freedom of her views with outlooks of\ngreater licence.\n\nAnd so the game proceeds: each woman daring a little further than her\nfellow-adventurer into the muddy depths of free selection; of freedom\nin contracting marriages and licence in dissolving them; each newcomer\nshocking the sensibilities of women readers with delightful thrills\nfrom the impropriety, expressed or implied, that runs through her pages\nas inevitably as the watermark runs through \u2018laid\u2019 paper.\n\nIt is amusing to note that, following the lead of the late lamented\nGeorge Eliot, the greater number of these women writers of sexual\nnovels scribble under manly pseudonyms. What, then! doth divinity\nafter all hedge a man so nearly that to masquerade as a \u2018John Oliver\nHobbes,\u2019 or a \u2018George Egerton,\u2019 is to draw an admiring crowd of women\nworshippers where, as plain Miss or Mrs., your immortal writings would\nfall flat? What a deplorable _caco\u00ebthes imprimendi_ this is, to be\nsure, that seizes upon the palpitating authoresses of _Yellow Asters_,\n_Dancing Fawns_, _or Heavenly Twins_; and how depraved the taste for\nindelicate innuendo and theories of licence that renders these books\npopular!\n\nThis manner of thing destroys all the respect for home life upon\nwhich English society was, until late years, so broadly based, and\ndomesticity in consequence is become an old-fashioned virtue among\nwomen. They are only the older generation of matrons who practise it\nnow, and when their race is run, and the New Woman shall have become\nsole mistress, the sweet domesticity of the Englishman\u2019s home will have\nvanished.\n\nFor the New Woman is not womanly, except in the physiological sense,\nand there she cannot help herself. She will inevitably be the mother\nof the coming generation, but beyond that function imposed upon her by\nNature, she is not feminine. She is rather what Mr. Frederic Harrison\ndescribes as the \u2018advanced woman who wants to be abortive man,\u2019 and\nshe holds the fallacy that what man may do woman may do also--and more!\n\nDirectly a woman marries, she considers that she has full licence;\nalthough, goodness knows! the unmarried girls of to-day are\nlatitudinarian enough, and do, unreproved, things that thirty years ago\nwould have branded them with an ineffaceable mark of shame.\n\nThe pretty girl of to-day, who has earned her right to wear a\nwedding-ring, has no sooner returned from her honeymoon than she sets\nout upon a campaign of conquests. Smart men, who hate to be bored with\nthe unmarried girl, before whom they must be either silent or discreet,\nhang around the young matron at garden parties and dances, or flirt\nshamefully in the semi-rusticity of the country house or shooting-box,\nand discuss with her the latest veiled obscenity of Mr. Oscar Wilde\u2019s,\nor enlarge upon the ethics of a second Mrs. Tanqueray with an\nunblushing frankness that argues long acquaintance with and study of\nthese putrescent topics. The young matron has full licence at this day,\nand the divorce courts afford some faint inkling of how she uses it.\nShe aspires to be the boon companion of the men; she plays billiards\nwith the manly cue, and not infrequently she can give the average male\nbilliard-player points, and then beat him.\n\nIt seems but a few years since when women who smoked cigarettes were\nvoted fast: to-day, the smoking-room of the country house is not sacred\nto the male sex, and the \u2018good stories\u2019 of that sometime exclusively\nmasculine retreat are now not alone the property of the men. She has\nnot annexed the cigar and the pipe yet--not because she lacks the\nwill, but her physique is not yet equal to them; but she can roll\na cigarette, can take or offer a light with the most practised and\ninveterate smoker who ever bought a packet of Bird\u2019s Eye or Honey Dew,\nand she wears--think of it, O Mrs. Grundy, if, indeed, you are not\ndead!--a smoking-jacket.\n\nAt the more \u2018advanced\u2019 houses, amongst the \u2018smartest\u2019 sets, the women\ndo not retire to the drawing-room at the conclusion of dinner--they sit\nwith the men, not infrequently; and if the usual not over-Puritanical\ntalk that was wont to follow upon the ladies\u2019 withdrawal is not\nindulged in so openly, at least the conversation is sufficiently\nunconventional.\n\nSlang and swearing are the commonest--in two senses--accompaniments and\nunderlinings of the smart woman\u2019s speech: any little disappointment\nthat would have been \u2018annoying\u2019 to her mother is to the modern and\nup-to-date woman a \u2018condemned nuisance,\u2019 if not more than that; and\n\u2018damns\u2019 fall as readily from her lips as the mild \u2018dear me!\u2019 of a\ngeneration ago. For the first cause of this unlovely change we must\nlook to the theatre and music-hall stages, whose women have in some\nfew instances married the eldest sons of peers, and have succeeded to\ntitles upon their husbands\u2019 heirship being fulfilled. Their husbands\u2019\ntitles have given them rank and precedence, whose mothers toiled at\nthe wash-tub in some public laundry, or disputed not unsuccessfully\nwith the most foul-mouthed of Irish viragoes on the filthy stairs of\nsome rotten tenement in the purlieus of Saint Giles\u2019s. The symmetry\nof their legs and the voluptuousness of their persons captivated\nthe callow youths who night by night occupied the front rows of the\nstalls at the Gaiety Theatre, and who--under the well-known nickname\nof \u2018Johnnies\u2019--fed the Sacred Lamp of Burlesque with a stream of\nhalf-guineas. These heirs to wealth and hereditary honours kept the\nchorus-girls and skipping-rope dancers in broughams and villas _orn\u00e9es_\nin the classic Cyprian suburb of St. John\u2019s Wood, and, when they were\nmore than usually foolish, married them.\n\nSociety is become, through them, quite _demimondaine_, and it is not\nuncommon to have pointed out to you in the Row titled women who have\nnotoriously been under the protection of more than one man before they,\nby some lucky or unlucky chance, caught their coronets. Nearly all\nSociety is free to-day to these whited sepulchres; only the Queen\u2019s\nCourt--that last bulwark of virtue and decency--holds out against them.\nElsewhere they are more than tolerated; it is scarcely too much to say\nthat they are admired by _fin-de-si\u00e8cle_ womanhood, who are notoriously\nand obviously Jesuitical. If the adaptation of their _outr\u00e9s_ manners\nis proof enough of admiration, then you shall find sufficient\nwarranty for this statement, for the slangy girl or young married\nwoman is rather the rule than the exception in this year of grace, and\ntheir manners are arrived at that complexion which would make their\ngrandmothers turn in their graves, could that cold clay become sentient\nagain for the smallest space of time.\n\nThis decay of decency began with the advent of that loathsome\namalgam of vanity and reckless extravagance in dress and speech, the\nProfessional Beauty, whose profession first became recognised about the\nyear 1879. You will not find that \u2018profession\u2019 entered under \u2018Trades\u2019\nin the _Post-Office Directory_; but if logic ruled the world, then the\nshameless women whose photographs for years filled the shop-windows of\ntown would find their trade recognised on the same commercial standing\nwith any one of the thousand and one ways of getting a living shown\nin that volume. They would be on precisely the same moral level with\nthe _quasi_ milliners of London, had necessity brought about their\nflaunting pervasion of Society, but, seeing that merely the love of\nadmiration and notoriety induced their careers, it is difficult to find\na depth sufficiently deep for them.\n\nBut indignation is apt to melt into a scornful pity when we see the\nProfessional Beauty of sixteen years ago, who left her husband for the\nquestionable admiration of great Personages and the envy of London\nSociety, a faded and struggling woman of the world, who, without a\nshred of histrionic ability, has taken to the stage, relying upon the\nmagnificence of her diamonds and the _abandon_ of her dress for an\napplause which had never been hers for her acting or her elocution. A\njust resentment fades into melancholy commiseration for a woman like\nthis, who has sunk so low that scandal can no longer harm her; who\nessays the _r\u00f4le_ of \u2018beauty\u2019 when her years are rapidly totting up to\nfifty.\n\nThese are the tawdry careers which, appealing to woman\u2019s innate love\nof admiration, bid her go and do likewise. The contempt with which all\nright-thinking men regard the spotted and fly-blown records of the\nProfessional Beauties is hidden from them by the glare of publicity,\nand vanity still bids them adventure out from the home before the eye\nof the world.\n\nOne does not find the New Women justified of their sex, for cosmetics\nhave no commerce with common sense, and high heels are not conducive to\nlofty thinking; rouge, violet powder, tight-lacing, or an inordinate\nlove of jewellery, are not earnest of brain-power; and yet these are\nthe commonest adjuncts to, or characteristics of, a woman\u2019s life.\n\nThe sight of many diamonds at Kimberley impressed Lord Randolph\nChurchill mightily awhile ago, and the contemplation of those\nglittering objects of feminine adornment led to the historic\npronouncement that \u2018whatever may have been the origin of man,\u2019 he is\n\u2018coldly convinced that womankind are descended from monkeys.\u2019 However\nthat may be, certain it is that imitation is, equally with the simians,\nher _forte_. Men originate almost everything; even the fashions are set\nand controlled by M. Worth, and women follow his lead, both dressmakers\nand clients.\n\nAnd Woman is a consistent and inveterate _poseur_, from the time of her\nleaving the cradle, through girlhood, young-womanhood, and matron-hood,\nto her last gasp. That tale of the old lady, dying from extreme age and\ndecay of nature, who had her face rouged over against the arrival of\nher doctor, so that she should receive him to the best effect as she\nlay on her death-bed, is characteristic of her sex. Vanity, thy name is\nwoman!\n\nCould we but see her without her \u2018side\u2019! But we cannot. All the world\u2019s\na stage to her, and all the time she plays a part with an ineffable\nartistry of diplomacy beyond the understanding of a Richelieu or a\nMachiavelli. A statesman can frequently anticipate the ruses of a\nrival diplomat and thus check his schemes--because, being men, they\nboth reason from a given point and can understand very accurately the\nworkings of each other\u2019s minds; but how shall one understand woman\nor predicate her actions when she does not understand herself or her\nfellow-feminines, and acts on the moment upon unreasoned impulse and\npure caprice?\n\nYou may point to this and that feminine figure which has made an\nequable and logical course throughout her career, and exclaim\ntriumphantly, \u2018Here is the natural woman, without guile or\nself-consciousness: a logical and close-reasoning creature.\u2019 Well, you\nare welcome to your opinion, pious, or derived from what shall seem to\nyou as evidence sufficient for your contention. Hold it, nor inquire\nmore narrowly, nor seek proselytes to your faith. The natural woman? My\ndear sir, how should your matter-of-fact and obvious nature distinguish\nthe excellently-fashioned and well-assumed mask from the natural face?\n_Summum ars_---- you know the rest. Ponder it, nor prate glibly of\nnatures, good sir!\n\nConceive of the dreadfully unreal puppets the novelists have created\nand labelled with feminine names. How the machinery creaks and rattles\nwhen the puppets move! With what unreal stagger they pace the stage,\nand how deep below contempt is the unlikeness to womankind of their\nways and words.\n\nFor the nearest approach to an adequate portrayal of the feminine\ncharacter, commend me to the women of Mr. Thomas Hardy\u2019s novels, whose\nmental gyrations are set forth with a touch of inspiration: Bathsheba\nEverdene, Tess, Viviette, and the uncertain heroine of _The Trumpet\nMajor_. Their speech has the convincing _timbre_ of their sex; their\nwalk is the true gait, not the masculine tramp that echoes through the\npages of most men\u2019s novels; and how truly like nature their tongues say\n\u2018No,\u2019 when their hearts throb \u2018Yes, yes!\u2019\n\nThey live, these women and girls--they breathe and palpitate with the\nfull tide of life, and no other living novelist can so inform his\nfeminine creations with reality.\n\nBut turn to the academic heroines of Mr. Besant. If they were not\npresented with the subtle suavity of his literary style, I do not know\nhow we could endure the paragons of virtue and learning who occupy the\nforemost place in book after book that owns him author.\n\nPhillis, in _The Golden Butterfly_, came as a novelty, but the type\nperpetuated in each succeeding novel--now as Armorel Rosevean in\n_Armorel of Lyonesse_; again, as Angela Messenger in _All Sorts and\nConditions of Men_, and so onwards--is both monotonous and earnest of\na poverty of imagination. They would seem to be frankly unreal: an\nacknowledged Besantine convention--analogous to that early Christian\nart by which representations of saints, with attendant aureoles, and\nposing in impossible attitudes, were shown, not as portraitures, but\nas religious abstractions. These maidens are all sweet and severely\nproper; as learned as professors and as didactic as lecturers, and\nthey have haloes heavy with gilding. \u2018I cannot,\u2019 cries the novelist,\nin effect, \u2018show you the living woman. Consider: how unforeseen her\ncontradictory attitudes and consistent inconsistency.\u2019 And this, after\nall, is wisdom: to portray your ideal of the sweet girl graduate; to\nsketch woman as she might be, rather than to fashion an inadequate\npresentment of woman as she is.\n\nShe will have to develop very greatly before she becomes the equal\nof man, either in mind or muscle; and she will have to slough some\nsingular feminine characteristics if her incursions into masculine\nwalks of life are to be continued. At present she carries her purse\nin her hand along the most crowded streets, at the imminent risk of\nits being snatched away. Ask her why she does this, and she will tell\nyou that she has no pockets, or that they are difficult to reach, or\nelse that they are too easily reached by pickpockets. It never occurs\nto her that the devising of new pockets comes within the range of the\ndressmaker\u2019s craft. Not that it matters much; for the purse-snatcher\nobtains little result for his pains, and, beyond some postage-stamps,\nhalf a dozen visiting-cards, a packet of needles, and a few coppers,\nhis enterprise usually goes unrewarded.\n\nWoman does not date her correspondence. She has no \u2018views\u2019 on the\nsubject; she simply forgets. Sometimes, indeed, she will head her\nletters with the day of the week; but, as the weeks slip by, a letter\nwritten on any \u2018Wednesday\u2019 becomes rather vague in date.\n\nAlso, it is notorious that the gist of a woman\u2019s letter, the real\nreason of its being written, appears in a postscript.\n\nAgain, it surely does not behove the New Woman to throng the streets in\nfront of the establishments of Mr. Peter Robinson or Madame Louise,\nin admiring ecstasies over novel cuts and colours, bows and bonnets,\nand all the feminine accoutrements of fashion. Conceive of men crowding\nthe tailors\u2019 and the haberdashers\u2019 in like manner, and taking equal\ndelight in \u2018shopping!\u2019 This last occupation, or rather pastime, of\nwomen is a certain sign of mental inferiority. A woman will spend\na whole day \u2018shopping\u2019--that is to say, in the inspection of goods\nshe does not want and has no intention of buying--and will return\nhome when day is done and count her time well and profitably spent.\n\u2018Shopping,\u2019 as apart from any idea of purchasing, is a recognised\nform of feminine recreation, as tradesfolk know to their cost. Happy\nthe shopkeeper whose trade does not lend itself to \u2018shopping,\u2019 but\nwretched is he where the vice is rampant. For woman is pitiless and\nexacting, impervious either to criticism, sarcasm, irony, or innuendo,\non occasion; and the more logical the man with whom she contends, so\nmuch the more baffling is she to him. So, short of plain and possibly\noffensive speech (for none so readily or more causelessly offended than\nyour \u2018shopper\u2019), the unhappy victims of this mania have no redress,\nbut must continue to heap their counters with bales of cloth and rolls\nof silk for due examination, and must exhibit a Christian patience\nand forbearance when the \u2018shopper\u2019 departs without purchasing or\napologising.\n\nNo mere man could do this, for such assurance could only proceed from\nthe opposite sex.\n\nA perusal of the advertisement sheets which form the bulk of women\u2019s\nnewspapers and magazines makes for disillusionment and depression; and\nyou would need but little excuse if, after a course of these appeals to\nfeminine love of adornment, you rose from it with a settled conviction\nthat Woman is a Work of Art, padded here, pinched in there, painted,\ndyed, and carefully made up in every particular. He was, indeed, a\nphilosopher worthy the name (or perhaps it was a more than usually\ncandid woman!) who said that none of the consolations of religion or\nany pious ecstasies could equal the profound and solemn joy which\naccompanies a woman\u2019s conviction of her being well dressed and the envy\nof her fellows.\n\nHere, indeed, is another striking difference between the sexes. A man\nis happiest when circumstances permit him to don the old clothes which\nfor years have been his only wear in leisure hours: he would wear them\nwhile out and about on his business did the _convenances_ permit--so\neasy and comfortable is the old hat; so well adapted by long use is the\nold jacket to the form; so easy the bagged and misshapen trousers. But,\nalas! this may not be, for the world judges a man by his appearance,\nand it simply does not pay to appear in public otherwise than \u2018well\ndressed.\u2019 For dukes and millionaires \u2019tis another matter; they can\nafford to be \u2018shabby\u2019 and comfortable, and certainly, whether they\nmanage to attain comfort or not, they generally contrive to appear\nill-dressed and dowdy.\n\nWoman is altogether different from and inferior to man: narrow-chested,\nwide-hipped, ill-proportioned, and endowed with a lesser quantity\nof brains than the male sex. She will, when sufficiently open to\nconviction, allow that, mentally, she is not so well equipped as man,\nbut gives herself away altogether in insisting upon the \u2018instinct\u2019\nthat takes the place of reason in her sex; thereby tacitly placing\nherself on a level with other creatures--like the dog or cat--who act\nupon \u2018instinct\u2019 rather than upon reasoning powers. \u2018A woman\u2019s reason\u2019\nis a notoriously inadequate mental process; and, having once arrived\nat a conviction or a determination on any subject, it is of no use\nattempting to argue her out of it. That is widely acknowledged by the\npopular saying that \u2018it is useless to argue with a woman\u2019\n\n    \u2018If she will, she will, and there\u2019s an end on\u2019t:\n     If she won\u2019t, she won\u2019t, depend on\u2019t.\u2019\n\nThese qualifications, limitations, or defects, as you may variously\ncall them, according to your leanings, explain in great measure the\nreason why the Liberal and Radical parties in politics hesitate to give\nwomen the Parliamentary franchise. Party wirepullers are well aware,\nputting on one side the small but noisy section of unsexed females who\nclamour to be in the forefront of all political and social revolutions,\nthat the great majority of women are, by nature and tradition, Tories\nof the most thorough-going type. They know, also, how hopeless it would\nbe to drive new convictions into their heads, and so, being reasoning\ncreatures, they have hitherto declined to extend the franchise to the\nsex which would at once swamp their parties throughout the country. The\nConservative party, on the other hand, have for some time recognised\nhow useful the women would be in furthering their principles and\nputting a needful skid upon the wheels of Radical \u2018movements;\u2019 and they\nhave voted in favour of Woman Suffrage when that question has come up\nfor discussion from time to time. The wonderful success of the Primrose\nLeague, due almost entirely to the personal initiative and enthusiasm\nof the Dames, opened the eyes of the party to the value of woman as a\nfactor in politics, and if ever she obtains her vote the reform will be\nthe work of the Conservatives. Thus do party needs negative convictions\non either side of the House; for what, indeed, are convictions when\nweighed in the balance against self-interest?\n\nIt is a notorious fact among artists and physiologists that the Perfect\nWoman is of more rare occurrence than the Perfect Man; that it is a\nmatter of extreme difficulty to find a woman whose body is symmetrical\nand well knit in all its parts. A painter of the nude works, of\nnecessity, from several models, selecting one for her shapely arms,\nanother for her neck, and so on; and so the final work of art in\nsculpture or painting is always eclectic, and never a portraiture of\none woman.\n\nAnd yet man has always been ready to do battle for her, and to dare\ndeath and the Devil himself for her favour. She has, too, continually\npresumed upon her influence, like the fair lady in the days of\nchivalry, who threw her glove among the lions of an arena and boasted\nthat her knight would retrieve it for her sake. She did not overrate\nhis courage, but she strained his devotion beyond its strength; for,\nleaping among the wild beasts, the brave man picked up the glove, and,\ncoming back from the jaws of death, flung it in the woman\u2019s face.\n\nBut will men dare the death and slit one another\u2019s weasands for the\npossession of the New Woman as they have done for the women of the\npast? I think not. The contempt and incredulity of one sex for the\njudgment and discrimination of the other, which is chiefly a modern\ngrowth induced by woman\u2019s arrogance, is not compatible with suit and\nservice; and, in truth, the enmity between man and woman, shadowed\nforth in Genesis, is having another lease of life, owing to the fatuous\nfemales who cry to-day upon the house-tops.\n\nMr. Romanes wants us to \u2018give her the apple, and let us see what comes\nof it.\u2019 Heaven forbid: let her pluck it if she has the courage and the\npower, but let us not earn our own condemnation by inviting her to\ndo so. He is of opinion that \u2018the days are past when any enlightened\nman ought seriously to suppose that, in now again reaching forth her\nhand to eat of the tree of knowledge, woman is preparing for the human\nrace a second Fall.\u2019 There may be two opinions on this head. Women may\noccasionally surpass in learning the Senior Wrangler of as good a year\nas was ever known; they may exercise their brains and their muscles\nto their utmost tension; but let them not in those cases exercise\nthe natural function of woman and bring children into the world. For\nnature, which never contemplated the production of a learned or a\nmuscular woman, will be revenged upon her offspring, and the New Woman,\nif a mother at all, will be the mother of a New Man, as different,\nindeed, from the present race as possible, but _how_ different the\nclamorous females of to-day cannot suspect, or surely they would at\nonce renounce the platform and their prospects of the tribune\n\nBut it is not to be supposed that even the prospect of peopling the\nworld with stunted and hydrocephalic children will deter the modern\nwoman from her path, even though her modernity lead to the degradation\nand ultimate extinction of the race. She will raise the old,\nhalf-humorous query once more: \u2018Why trouble about posterity; what has\nposterity done for us?\u2019 and thus go her triumphant gait heedless of the\nsecond and greater Fall she is preparing for mankind.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nII.--THE DRESS REFORMERS.\n\n\u2018I do not like the fashion of your garments--you will say, they are\nPersian attire, but let them be changed.\u2019--_King Lear._\n\n\nModern dress-reform crusades have ever been allied with womanly revolts\nagainst man\u2019s authority. They proceeded originally from that fount\nof vulgarity, that never-failing source of offence--America. In the\nUnited States, that ineffable land of wooden nutmegs and timber hams,\nof strange religions, of jerrymandering and unscrupulous log-rollery,\nthe Prophet Bloomer first arose, and, discarding the feminine skirt,\nstood forth, unashamed and blatant, in trousers! The wrath of the\nBloomers (as the followers of the Prophet were termed) was calculated\nto disestablish at once and for ever the skirts and frocks, the gowns\nand miscellaneous feminine fripperies, that had obtained throughout\nthe centuries; and they conceived that with the abolishment of skirts\nthe long-sustained supremacy of man was also to disappear, even as\nthe walls of Jericho fell before the trumpet-sound of the Lord\u2019s\nown people. For these enthusiasts were no cooing doves, but rather\nshrieking cats, and they were both abusive and overweening. No more\nshould \u2018tempestuous petticoats\u2019 inspire a Herrick to dainty verse, but\nthe woman of the immediate future should move majestically through the\nwondering continents of the Old World and the New with mannish strides\nin place of the feminine mincing gait induced by clinging draperies.\nAway Erato and your sister Muses--if, indeed, your susceptibilities\nwould have allowed your remaining to behold the spectacle! For really,\nthat must have been a \u2018sight for sore eyes\u2019-- to adopt the expression\nof the period--the too-convincing vision of a middle-aged woman, proof\nagainst ridicule, consumed with all seriousness and an ineffable zeal\nfor converting all and sundry to her peculiar views in the matter\nof a becoming and convenient attire. And never was prophet less\njustified of his country than the Bloomer seer of hers; for nakedness,\neven to undraped piano-legs, was then a reproach in the country of\nthe Stars and Stripes, where legs are not legs, an\u2019t please you,\nbut \u2018extremities\u2019 or \u2018limbs;\u2019 where trousers are neither more than\n\u2018pantaloons\u2019 nor less than \u2018continuations.\u2019 In that Land of Freedom,\nwhere one would have outraged all modesty by the merest mention of\nlegs or feet--these last indispensable adjuncts being generally known\nas \u2018pedal extremities\u2019--it surely was illogical in the highest degree\nthat women should wear a species of trouser, and thereby proclaim the\nindelicate(!) fact to all the world of their possession of legs. Truly\nPudicitia is as American a goddess as Mammon is a god!\n\nFor the Bloomer costume was nothing else but a travesty of male\nattire. Aggressiveness is inseparable, it would seem, from all new\nideas, and the minor prophets of Bloomerism were aggressive enough,\nin all conscience. They were not content with wearing the breeches\nin the literal sense: they sought to convert all womankind to their\nfaith by the writing of pamphlets and the making of speeches on public\nplatforms. Mrs. Ann Bloomer was their fount of inspiration. She it\nwas who introduced the craze to America in 1849. Two years later it\nhad crossed the herring-pond, and that _Annus Mirabilis_, the year of\nthe Great Exhibition, witnessed a few of its enthusiasts--beldams in\nbreeches--clad in this hybrid garb, walking in London streets. But\nwomen refused to be converted in any large numbers, and only a few more\nthan usually impudent females went so far as to back their views by\nwearing the badges of the cult in public.\n\nBut although so few Englishwomen were converted to the new dress, and\nthough fewer still had the courage to wear it, the Bloomer agitation\nwas largely noticed in the papers and by the satirists of the time. It\nwas noticed, indeed, in a manner entirely disproportioned to its real\nimport, and the humorous papers, the ballad-mongers, and innumerable\nprivate witlings, had their fling at the follies of these early\ndress-reformers. The Bloomers--unlovely name!--held meetings in London,\nattended, it must be owned, by crowds of ribald unbelievers; and they\neven went to the length of holding a \u2018Bloomer Ball,\u2019 a grotesque idea\nhailed with delight by a roaring crowd which assembled \u2018after the\nball,\u2019 and showed its prejudices by hooting the ridiculous women who\nhad come attired in jackets and trousers like those of the Turk. No\nTurk, indeed, so unspeakable as they. But the crowd did not stop at\nthis point. They had brought dead cats, decayed cabbages, rotten eggs,\nand all imaginable articles of offence with which to point their wit,\nand they used them freely, not only upon the women, but also upon the\nmen who accompanied them. For discrimination was not easy between the\nsexes in the badly lit streets, when both wore breeches, and at a time\nwhen men went generally clean-shaven; and so the rightfully breeched\nwere as despitefully used as the usurpers of man\u2019s distinctive dress.\n\nAnd so Bloomerism languished awhile and presently died out, but not\nbefore a vast amount had been written and printed in its praise or\nabuse. The satirical effusions which owe their origin to this mania are\nnone of them remarkable for reticence or delicacy. Indeed, the subject\ndid not allow of this last quality, and the broad-sheet verses issued\nfrom the purlieus of Drury Lane by the successors of Catnach are,\nsome of them, very frank. Perhaps the best and most quotable is the\nbroad-sheet, _I\u2019ll be a Bloomer_. The writer, not a literary man by any\nmeans, starts off at score, and his first verses, if models neither of\ntaste, rhyme, nor rhythm, are vigorous. It is when the inspiration runs\ndry, and he relies upon a slogging industry with which to eke out his\nbroad-sheet, that exhaustion becomes evident.\n\n\nI\u2019LL BE A BLOOMER.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE BLOOMER\n  COSTUME, 1851.\n]\n\n    Listen, females all,\n      No matter what your trade is,\n    Old Nick is in the girls,\n      The Devil\u2019s in the ladies!\n    Married men may weep,\n      And tumble in the ditches,\n    Since women are resolved\n      To wear the shirt and breeches.\n\n    Ladies do declare\n      A change should have been sooner,\n    The women, one and all,\n      Are going to join the Bloomers.\n    Prince Albert and the Queen\n      Had such a jolly row, sirs;\n    She threw off stays and put\n      On waistcoat, coat, and trousers.\n\n    It will be fun to see\n      Ladies, possessed of riches,\n    Strutting up and down\n      In Wellingtons and breeches.\n    Bloomers are funny folks,\n      No ladies can be faster:\n    They say \u2018tis almost time\n      That petticoats were master.\n\n    They will not governed be\n      By peelers, snobs, or proctors,\n    But take up their degree\n      As councillors and doctors.\n    No bustles will they wear,\n      Nor stocks, depend upon it;\n    But jerry hats and caps\n      Instead of dandy bonnet.\n\n    Trousers to their knees,\n      And whiskers round their faces;\n    A watch-chain in their fob,\n      And a pair of leather braces.\n    The tailors must be sharp\n      In making noble stitches,\n    And clap their burning goose\n      Upon the ladies\u2018 breeches.\n\n    Their pretty fingers will\n      Be just as sore as mutton\n    Till they have found the way\n      Their trousers to unbutton.\n    The Bloomers all declare\n      That men are sad deceivers;\n    They\u2019ll take a turn, and be\n      Prigs, dustmen, and coalheavers--\n    Members of Parliament,\n      And make such jolly fusses;\n    Cobble up old ladies\u2019 shoes;\n      Drive cabs and omnibuses.\n\n    Their husbands they will wop,\n      And squander all their riches;\n    Make them nurse the kids\n      And wash their shirts and breeches.\n    If men should say a word,\n      There\u2019d be a jolly row, sirs!\n    Their wives would make them sweat\n      And beat them with their trousers.\n\n    The world\u2019s turned upside down;\n      The ladies will be tailors,\n    And serve Old England\u2019s Queen\n      As soldiers and as sailors.\n    Won\u2019t they look funny when\n      The seas are getting lumpy,\n    Or when they ride astride\n      Upon an Irish donkey?\n\n    The ladies will be right;\n      Their husbands will be undone,\n    Since Bloomers have arrived\n      To teach the folks of London--\n    The females all I mean--\n      How to lay out their riches\n    In Yankee-Doodle-doos\n      And a stunning pair of breeches.\n\n    Female apparel now\n      Is gone to pot, I vow, sirs,\n    And ladies will be fined\n      Who _don\u2019t_ wear coats and trousers;\n    Blucher boots and hats,\n      And shirts with handsome stitches,--\n    Oh, dear! what shall we do\n      When women wear the breeches?\n\n    Now some will wear smock-frocks\n      And hobnail shoes, I vow, sirs;\n    Jenny, Bet, and Sal,\n      Cock\u2019d hat and woollen trousers.\n    Yankee-Doodle-doo,\n      Rolling in the ditches;\n    Married men prepare\n      To buy the women breeches!\n\n_Punch_ had, among other Bloomer skits, the following rather good\nexample:--\n\n\nMRS. GRUNDY ON BLOOMERISM.\n\n    Hoity-toity!--don\u2019t tell me about the nasty stupid fashion!\n    Stuff and nonsense!--the idea\u2019s enough to put one in a passion.\n    I\u2019d allow no such high jinkses, if I was the creatures\u2019 parent.\n    \u2018Bloomers\u2019 are they--forward minxes? I soon Bloomer \u2019em, I warrant.\n    I\u2019ve no patience nor forbearance with \u2018em--scornin\u2019 them as bore \u2019em;\n    What! they can\u2019t dress like their mothers was content to dress\n        before \u2019em,--\n    Wearing what-d\u2019ye-call-\u2019ems--Gracious! brass itself ain\u2019t half so\n        brazen;\n    Why, they must look more audacious than that what!s-a-name--Am\u00e0zon!\n    Ha! they\u2019ll smoke tobacco next, and take their thimblefuls of brandy,\n    Bringing shame upon their sex, by aping of the jack-a-dandy.\n    Yes; and then you\u2019ll have them shortly showing off their bold bare\n        faces,\n    Prancing all so pert and portly at their Derbys and their races.\n    Oh! when once they have begun, there\u2019s none can say where they\u2019ll be\n        stopping--\n    Out they\u2019ll go with dog and gun; perhaps a-shooting and a-popping.\n    Aye! and like as not, you\u2019ll see, if you\u2019ve a Bloomer for your\n        daughter,\n    Her ladyship, so fine and free, a-pulling matches on the water;\n    Sitting in a pottus tap, a-talking politics and jawing;\n    Or else a-reading _Punch_, mayhap, and hee-heeing and haw-hawing.\n    I can\u2019t a-bear such flighty ways--I can\u2019t abide such flaunty tast_es_.\n    And so they must leave off their stays, to show their dainty shapes\n         and waist_ses_!\n    I\u2019d not have my feet filagreed, for ever so, like these young women.\n    No; you won\u2019t see _me_, I\u2019ll be bound, dressed half-and-half, as a\n        young feller;\n    I\u2019ll stick to my old shawl and gownd, my pattens, and my umbereller.\n\nThe Bloomer agitation was but the beginning of a series of crazes for\nthe reform of women\u2019s dress, and the \u2018Girl of the Period\u2019 _furore_\nsucceeded it, after an interval of several years. True, the Girl of the\nPeriod was scarcely a dress-reformer, but her dress and manners were\nsufficiently pronounced, and certainly her vulgarity could not have\nbeen surpassed by the most fat and blowzy Bloomer that ever held forth\nupon a public platform.\n\nTo Mrs. Lynn Linton belongs the honour of having discovered the Girl,\nand she communicated her discovery to the _Saturday Review_ in 1868.\nThis it was that gave some point to the saying that the Girl of the\nPeriod was but the Girl of a Periodical.\n\nAnd certainly the vulgarity of the Girl of the Period was extremely\npronounced. It was a vulgarity that showed itself in bustles and\npaniers; the \u2018Grecian Bend;\u2019 skirts frilled and flounced and hung about\nwith ridiculous festoons, and short enough to display her intolerable\nBalmoral boots. An absurdly inadequate \u2018Rink\u2019 hat rendered her chignon\nall the more obvious, and ----. But enough! The Man of the Period\nwas her equal in absurdity. He cultivated a hateful affectation of\nlassitude and indifference; he affected a peculiarly odious drawl, and\nhe taxed his mind with an effort to sustain a constantly _nil admirari_\nattitude toward things the most admirable and happenings the most\nstartling. He wore the most ridiculous fashion of whiskers, compared\nwith which the perennial \u2018mutton-chop\u2019 and the bearded chin and\nclean-shaven upper lip of the Dissenter or typical grocer are things of\nbeauty and a satisfaction to the \u00e6sthetic sense.\n\nThis fashion was the \u2018Piccadilly-weeper\u2019 variety of adornment, known at\nthis day--chiefly owing to Sothern\u2019s impersonation of a contemporary\nlisping fop--as the \u2018Dundreary.\u2019 This creature was a fitting mate to\nthe Girl of the Period. He married her, and the most obvious results\nare the \u2018Gaiety-Johnnies,\u2019 the \u2018mashers,\u2019 and the \u2018chappies\u2019 of to-day,\nwhose retreating chins and foreheads afford subjects for the sad\ncontemplation of philosophers--to whom we will leave them.\n\nAs for their female offspring, they are, doubtless, the \u2018Lotties and\nTotties\u2019 of Mrs. Lynn Linton\u2019s loathing, who smoke cigarettes and ape\nthe dress and deportment of the ladies of the Alhambra or the Empire\npromenades.\n\nIt is at once singular and amusing to notice how surely all women\u2019s\ndress-reform agitations move in the same groove--that of a more or\nless close imitation of man\u2019s attire. Even fashions which are not\nostensible \u2018reforms\u2019 have a decided tendency to make for masculinity.\nThe girls who, some few years since, cut their hair short--like the\nboys; who wore bowler hats, shirt-fronts, men\u2019s collars and neckties;\nwho carried walking-sticks, or that extraordinary combination of\nwalking-stick and sunshade known facetiously as a \u2018husband-beater;\u2019\nwho affected tailor-made frocks, donned man-like jackets, and adopted\na masculine gait, were not accredited reformers with a Mission, but\nthey showed, excellently well, the spirit of the age, and if they\nwere wanting in thoroughness, why, Lady Harberton, with her \u2018divided\nskirts,\u2019 was a very Strafford for thoroughness in her particular line.\n\nDivided skirts were introduced to the notice of the public some ten\nyears ago by Viscountess Harberton and a Society of Dress Reformers,\ncalling themselves, possibly on _lucus a non lucendo_ principles,\nfirst a \u2018National\u2019 Society, and at a later period arrogating the\ntitle of \u2018Rational.\u2019 It may seem matter for ridicule that an obscure\ncoterie of grandams should adopt such a grandiose title as the first,\nor that they should, by using the \u2018Rational\u2019 epithet, be convicted of\nallowing the inference that they considered every woman irrational\nwho did not adhere to their principles; but, like all \u2018reformers,\u2019\nthey were without humour and consumed with a deadly earnestness. They\n(unlike the rest of the world) saw nothing for laughter in the public\ndiscussions which they initiated, by which they sought to show that\ncorsets were not only useless but harmful, and that the petticoat might\nadvantageously be discarded for trousers worn underneath an ordinary\nskirt, somewhat after the fashion that obtains in riding costumes.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  THE RATIONAL\n  DRESS.\n]\n\nBut, for all the pother anent divided skirts, they did not catch on;\nand a newer rival, another variety of \u2018Rational Dress,\u2019 now rules\nthe field, the camp, the grove, but more especially the road. For\nthe popular and widespread pastime of cycling has given this newest\ncraze a very much better chance than ever the Bloomer heresy or the\noriginal Divided Skirt frenzy obtained; and it is not too much to\nsay that, if the cycle had not been so democratic a plaything, this\nlatest experiment in dress reform would have been but little heard of.\nRational Dress, as seen on the flying females who pedal down the roads\nto-day, is only Bloomerism with a difference. That is to say, the legs\nare clothed in roomy knickerbockers down to the knees, and encased in\ncloth gaiters for the rest, buttoned down to the ankles. These in place\nof the Turk-like trousers, tied round the ankles and finished off with\nfrills, of over forty years ago. As for the attenuated skirts of the\nProphet Bloomer, Rational Dress replaces them with a species of frantic\nfrock-coat, spreading as to its ample skirts, but tightened round the\nwaist. A \u2018Robin Hood\u2019 hat, even as in the bygone years, crowns this\nconfection; and, really, the parallels between old-time schismatics\nand the modern revolting daughters are wonderfully close. Everything\nrecurs in this world in cycles of longer or shorter duration. The\nwhirligig of time may be uncertain in its revolutions, but it performs\nthe allotted round at last; and so surely as yesterday\u2019s sun will\nreappear to-morrow, as certainly will the crinolines, the chignons, and\nthe Bloomer vagaries of yester-year recur. You may call the recurrent\nfashions by newer names, but, by any name they take, they remain\npractically the same. The farthingale of Queen Bess\u2019s time is the\ncrinoline of the Middle Victorian period, and \u2018came in\u2019 once more as\nthe \u2018full skirt\u2019 of some seasons since. The chignon is resurrected as\nthe \u2018Brighton Bun,\u2019 and is as objectionable in its reincarnation as it\nwas in its previous existence; and we have already seen that Rational\nDress, Divided Skirts, and the Bloomer costume are but different titles\nfor one fad. The very latest development is not pretty: but there!\n\u2019tis \u2018pretty Fanny\u2019s way,\u2019 and so an end to all discussion.\n\n\n\n\nIII.--WOMAN IN ART, LITERATURE, POLITICS, AND SOCIAL POLITY.\n\n\nIn these days, when women begin to talk of their Work with all the zeal\nand religious fervour that characterises the attitude of the savage\ntowards his fetish, it behoves us to inquire what that Work may be\nwhich arouses so much enthusiasm and is the cause of the cool insolence\nwhich is becoming more and more the note of the New Woman. A very\nlittle inquiry soon convinces the seeker after the true inwardness of\nmodern fads and fancies that Woman\u2019s Work--so to spell it in capitals,\nin the manner dear to the hearts of the unsexed men and women who\nreckon Adam a humbug and Eve the most despitefully-entreated of her\nadorable sex--has nothing to do with the up-bringing of children or the\nmanagement of the home. Those traditional duties are nothing less, if\nyou please, than the slavery which man\u2019s tyranny has imposed upon the\nphysically weaker sex, and are not worthy of sharing the aristocratic\nprominence of capital letters which the desultory following of arts\nand sciences has arrogated. Modern _doctrinaires_ preach heresies which\nwould make miserable that very strong man, St. Paul, who constantly\nenjoined woman to silence and submission. _Place aux dames_ is the\ncentury-end watchword, in a sense very different from the distinguished\nconsideration which the dames of years bygone received. _Place aux\ndames_ is all very well, as some one has somewhere said--but then,\ndames in their place, which, with all possible deference to the\nfemininely-influenced philosophers of to-day, is not in politics, nor\nin any arts or sciences whatever.\n\nThose who so blithely advocate the throwing open of the professions\nto woman, and invite her to work with them, side by side, in works of\npractical philanthropy, base their arguments on false premises. They\nassume, at starting, that womankind has been throughout the centuries\nin an arrested condition. Her mental and bodily growth has, they say,\nbeen retarded by cunningly-devised restrictions; she has not been\npermitted to develop or to reach maturity--she is, in short, according\nto these views, undeveloped man, rather than a separate and fully\ndeveloped sex. Those views are, of course, merely fallacies of the most\nunstable kind. Woman\u2019s place and functions have been definitely fixed\nfor her by nature, and those functions and that place are to be the\nhandmaid of man (or the handmatron if you like it better), and to be\nthe mother of his children; and her place is the home. Her physical\nand mental limitations are subtly contrived by nature to keep woman\nin the home and engrossed in domestic matters; and, really, if abuse\nis needed at all, man does not deserve it, but to nature belongs\nthe epithet of tyrant, if an owner must be found for the unenviable\ndistinction.\n\nWoman is essentially narrow-minded and individualistic. Her time has\never been fleeted in working for the individual, and the community\nwould be badly off at this day had not the State been thoroughly\nmasculine for a time that goes back beyond the historians into the\nregions of myths and fairy tales. Small brains cannot engender great\nthoughts; which is but another way of saying that woman\u2019s brain is less\nthan man\u2019s. It is only recently that woman has organized her forces at\nall, and she would not have done so, even now, had she not a plentiful\nlack of anything to occupy her thoughts withal in these days of the\nsubdivision of labour and of extended luxury. And so, with plenty of\ntime to spare, she begins to ask if there is nothing that becomes her\nbetter than the \u2018suckling of fools and the chronicling of small beer.\u2019\nBut although Carlyle said in his wrath that men and women were mostly\nfools, yet there be children nourished with nature\u2019s food who have\ndeveloped a certain force of intellect; and as for the chronicles of\nsmall beer, gossip and scandal-mongering have never been compulsory in\nwomen, but only unwelcome features of their nature. Idleness, luxury,\nand the supreme consideration with which even the most foolish feminine\nmanifestations have been received, have always been fruitful sources of\nmischief, and this by-past consideration has favoured the development\nof vanity and the growth of the feminine Ego to its present proportions.\n\nWoman never becomes more than an ineffectual amateur in all the careers\nshe enters. Her practice in art and literature inevitably debases art\nand letters, for she is a copyist at most. In literature she never\noriginates, but appropriates and assimilates men\u2019s thoughts, and\nin the transcription of those thoughts seldom rises above the use\nof _clich\u00e9s_. But the Modern Woman desires most ardently to enter\nthose spheres of mental and technical activity, undeterred by any\ndisheartening doubts of her fitness for letters or government, of\nher capacity for organizing or originating. She points triumphantly\nfor confirmation of her sex\u2019s endowments to the lives and works of\nthe George Eliots, the Harriet Martineaus, the Elizabeth Frys, the\nAngelica Kauffmanns, or the women of the French political salons; but\nshe does not stop to consider that those distinguished women succeeded\nnot because, but in spite of, their sex, and that few of the women who\nhave made what the world terms successful careers had any of the more\ngracious feminine characteristics beyond their merely physiological\nattributes. Many of them were unsexed creatures whose womanhood was an\naccident of their birth.\n\nThe rush of women into the artistic and literary professions has always\nhad a singularly ill effect upon technique, for the woman\u2019s mind is\nnormally incapable of rising to an appreciation of the possibilities of\nany medium. They have not even a glimmering perception of style, and\nwould as cheerfully (if not, indeed, with greater readiness) acclaim\nDagonet a poet as they would the Swan of Avon, although the gulf that\ndivides Shakespeare from Mr. G. R. Sims is not only one formed by\nlapse of the centuries: to them the works of Miss Braddon appear as\nthe ultimate expression of the passions, and they would as readily\nlabel a painting by Velasquez \u2018nice\u2019 as they would call the productions\nof Mr. Dudley Hardy \u2018awfully jolly.\u2019 Subject rather than execution\nwins their admiration, and the nerveless handling of a painting whose\nsubject appeals to their imagination wins their praise while the\nhighest attainments of technique are disregarded. For them does Mr. W.\nP. Frith paint the _Derby Day_ and _So Clean_; for their delight are\nthe \u2018dog and dolly\u2019 pictures of Mr. Burton Barber, the _Can \u2019oo Talk?_\nthe \u2018peep-bo\u2019 and \u2018pussy-cat\u2019 stories in paint contrived; and for their\nultimate satisfaction are they reproduced as coloured supplements in\nthe summer and Christmas numbers of the illustrated papers.\n\nYou may count distinguished women artists upon the fingers of your\nhands, with some fingers to spare, and some of these achieved their\nfame by reason of their womanhood, rather than the excellence of\ntheir art. Angelica Kauffmann is a notable example. She attained the\nunique position of a female Royal Academician through Reynolds\u2019s\ninfatuation: she painted portraits and classical compositions\ninnumerable, but the portraits are poor and her classicism the most\nfutile and emasculate. Literature, too--although more women have made\nreputations with the pen than the brush--can show but a very small\nproportion of feminine genius; and (although the ultimate verdict of\nthe critics may yet depose these) Charlotte Bront\u00eb, Fanny Burney, and\nGeorge Eliot are the most outstanding names in this department. These\nfew names compare with an intolerable deal of mediocrity, cosseted\nand sheltered from the adverse winds of criticism in its little day;\nbut yet so constitutionally weak that it has withered and died out\nof all knowledge. The women who, like George Eliot, and her modern\nsuccessor, Mrs. Humphry Ward, adventure into ethical novels, are too\nexcruciatingly serious and possessed with too solemn a conviction\nof their infallibility for much patient endurance; and really, when\none remembers the spectacle of G. H. Lewis truckling to the critics,\nintriguing for favourable reviews, and endeavouring to stultify editors\nfor the sake of his George Eliot, in order that no breath of adverse\ncriticism and no wholesome wind from the outer world should come to\ndispel her colossal conceit, we obtain a curious peep into the methods\nby which the feminine Ego is nourished. But the spectacle is no less\npitiful than strange.\n\nIt is not often, however, that women writers present us with\nphilosophical treatises in the guise of novels. Their high-water\nmark of workmanship is the _Family Herald_ type of story-telling,\neven as crystoleum-painting and macram\u00e9-work exhaust the energies\nand imagination of the majority of women \u2018art\u2019 workers. What, also,\nis to say of the lady-novelists\u2019 heroes, of god-like grace and the\nmental attributes of the complete prig? What but that if we collate\nthe masculine characters of even the better-known, and presumably\nless foolish, feminine novels, we shall find woman\u2019s ideal in man\nto be the sybaritic Guardsman, the loathly, languorous Apollos who\nrecline on \u2018divans,\u2019 smoke impossibly fragrant cigarettes, gossip about\ntheir _affaires du c[oe]ur_, and wave \u2018jewelled fingers\u2019--repellent\ncombinations of braggart, prig, and knight-errant, with the thews and\nsinews of a Samson and the morals of a mudlark.\n\nPhilanthropy is a field upon which the modern woman enters with\nan enthusiasm that, unfortunately, is very much greater than her\nsense. Her care is for the individual, and she it is who encourages\nindiscriminate almsgiving, but cannot understand the practical\nphilanthropy which compels men to work for a wage, or organizes vast\nschemes of relief works. Her whole nature is individualistic, and we\nwould not have it otherwise, for it has, in many instances of womanly\nwomen, made homes happy and comfortable, and nerved men in the larger\nphilanthropy which succours without pauperising thousands. But she has\nno business outside the home.\n\nPhilanthropy, of sorts, we have always with us, and the undeserving\nneed never lack shelter and support in a disgraceful idleness while\nthe tender-hearted or the hysterical amateur relieving-officers are\npermitted to make fools of themselves, and rogues and vagabonds of\nthe lazy wastrels who will never do an honest day\u2019s work so long as\na subsistence is to be got by begging. The fashionable occupation of\n\u2018slumming\u2019 made many more paupers than it relieved, and the \u2018Darkest\nEngland\u2019 cry of Mr. William Booth, whom foolish folk call by the\ntitle of \u2018General\u2019 he arrogates, is the most notorious exhibition\nof sentimentalism in recent years. That appeal to the charitable\nand pitiful folks of England was, like the Salvation Army itself,\nengineered by the late Mrs. Catherine Booth, and it captured many\nthousands of pounds wherewith to succour the unfit, the criminal,\nthe unwashed; the very scum and dregs of the race whom merciless\nNature, cruel to be kind, had doomed to early extinction. But mouthing\nand tearful sentimentality has interfered with beneficent natural\nprocesses, and the depraved and ineffectual are helped to a longer term\nof existence, that they may transmit their bodily and mental diseases\nto another generation, and so foul the blood and stunt the growth of\nthe nation in years to come.\n\nScience, anthropology, and economics have no meaning for the\nfemininely-influenced founders of Salvation Army doss-houses: the body\npolitic--society, in the larger sense--national life, are phrases that\nconvey no meaning to the sobbing philanthropists to whom the welfare of\nthe dosser is a creed and Darwinian theories rank blasphemy.\n\nThe tendency of sentimental philanthropy is to relieve all alike from\nthe consequences of their misdeeds, and to preserve the worst and the\n_un_fittest, and to enable the worst to compete at an advantage with\nthe best, and to freely propagate its rickety kind. Philanthropy of\nthis pernicious sort is essentially sentimental and feminine.\n\nBut the most disastrous interference, up to the present, of sentimental\nfanatics--women and femininely-influenced men--has been their\nsuccessful campaign against those beneficent Acts of Parliament, the\nContagious Diseases Acts, framed from time to time for the protection\nof Her Majesty\u2019s forces of the Army and Navy.\n\nThose Acts, applied to the garrison towns and the dockyard towns of\nAldershot, Chatham, Plymouth, Dover, Canterbury, Windsor, Southampton,\nand others, provided for the registration and compulsory periodical\nmedical examination of the public women who infest the streets of\nthose places. Horrible diseases, spread by these abandoned creatures,\ndecimated the regiments and the crews of the ships that put in at\ntheir ports; and thus, through them, the blood of future generations\nwas poisoned and contaminated. The women whose depravity and disease\nspread foul disorders among not only the soldiers and sailors, but\nalso amongst the civil populations of these garrison towns, were free,\nbefore the application of the C. D. Acts, to ply their trade no matter\nwhat might be their bodily condition; but the operation of those\nmeasures, at first providing for voluntary inspection and examination,\nand afterwards making those precautions compulsory, rendered it\na criminal offence for a woman registered by the police to have\nintercourse with men while knowing that she was suffering from disease.\nSuch an offence, or the offence of not presenting themselves at the\nexamining officer\u2019s station at the fortnightly period prescribed by the\nActs, rendered women of this class liable to imprisonment. If at these\nexaminations a woman was found to be healthy, a certificate was given\nher; if the medical officer certified her to be diseased, she was taken\nby compulsion to hospital, and detained there until recovery.\n\nPlymouth, Aldershot, and Chatham, in especial, were in a shocking\ncondition before the Acts came into force; but during the years in\nwhich they were administered by the police, a diminution of disease by\nmore than one-half was seen in the Army and Navy, and the registration\nof the women led to a very great falling-off of the numbers who\nobtained so shameful a living. Evidence given before the Royal\nCommission upon the Contagious Diseases Acts in 1872 proved this beyond\nquestion, and also proved that these women not only had no objection to\nthe medical examinations, but regarded them and the hospitals as very\ngreat benefits.\n\nThe shocking revelations as to the social condition of Plymouth,\nDevonport, and Stonehouse, afforded by the evidence of the police,\ncannot be more than hinted at in this place. It is sufficient to\nsay that over 2000 women were put upon the registers, either as\noccasionally or habitually living a loose life, and that all classes\nwere to be found in these documents, but especially girls employed\nbehind the counters of shops during the day. The police seem everywhere\nto have been conscientious in the execution of their duty, and to have\nperformed ungrateful and delicate tasks with great discretion. The\nregisters were private and strictly confidential official documents,\nand both the medical examinations and the police visits to suspected\nhouses were conducted with all possible secrecy, the police in the\nlatter case being plain-clothes men, and not readily to be identified\nby the public.\n\nAnd yet, in spite of the very evident benefits derived from the Acts\nand deposed to before the Commission by such unimpeachable authorities\nas the foremost medical officers of the Army and Navy, commanding\nofficers, clergymen of the Established Church, Wesleyan ministers,\nthe entire medical and nursing staffs of hospitals, and the police\nauthorities themselves, these Acts were repealed, in submission to\nthe outcries of the \u2018mules and barren women,\u2019 who, headed by the\nrancorous Mrs. Josephine Butler and the gushing sentimentalists from\nthe religio-radical benches of the House of Commons, called public\nmeetings, and shrieked and raved upon platforms throughout the country:\na chorus of shocked spinsters and \u2018pure\u2019 men, whose advocacy of what\nthey called, forsooth, \u2018the liberty of the subject\u2019 and the abolition\nof what they falsely termed the \u2018State licensing of vice,\u2019 has resulted\nin a liberty accorded these women to spread disease far and wide.\n\nThe nation, the men of Army and Navy, have reason abundant to curse the\nsentimental women, the maiden aunts, the _religieuses_, the gorgons\nof a mistaken propriety and a peculiarly harmful prudery, whose\ninterference with affairs which they were not competent to direct has\nwrought such untoward results.\n\nThis is what a writer says in the _Westminster Review_: \u2018The struggle\nfor the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts was an ordeal such as\nmen have never been obliged to undergo. It involved not merely that\nwomen should speak at public meetings, which was a great innovation,\nbut that they should discuss the most painful of all subjects, upon\nwhich, up to that time, even men had not dared to open their mouths.\nYet so nobly did the women bear their part all through those terrible\nyears of trial, that they raised a spirit of indignation which swept\naway the Acts, but never, by word or deed, did they deservedly incur\nreproach themselves.\u2019\n\nRubbish, every word of it! The women who spoke upon these painful\nsubjects were under no compulsion, legal or moral, to initiate or take\npart in the frenzy of wrong-headed emotion, which was exhibited upon\npublic platforms to the dismay and disgust of all right-thinking men\nand women. It cannot be conceded that the subject was painful to these\npersons, nor can the statement be allowed to go unchallenged that they\ndid not deserve reproach. Reproach of the most bitter kind was and\nis deserved by the prejudiced persons who distorted facts and gladly\nrelied upon any hearsay evidence that would seem to square with their\ntheories, and even refused to admit the weight of incontrovertible\nstatistics produced against their rash and windy statements. The\nexaminations of Mrs. Josephine Butler[1] and of those two ridiculous\npersons, the Unitarian pastor from Southampton and his wife, Mr.\nand Mrs. Kell, are damning indictments of their good faith and good\nsense. These are types of women and womanish men who take delight in\nthe investigation of pruriency, whose noses are in every cesspool and\ntheir hands in the nearest muck-heap. Their kind stop at nothing in\nthe way of unfounded statements, and are greedy of rumour rather than\nof accredited facts. Want of acquaintance with, or experience of, the\nsubjects they dogmatise upon deterred them as little then as now from\ncase-hardened obstinacy; and perhaps no one cut such a sorry figure\nbefore the Commission as that illogical and contradictory person,\nthe late John Stuart Mill, the femininely-influenced author of the\nnowadays somewhat discredited _Subjection of Women_. \u2018His chief ground\nfor objection to the system\u2019 (of the C. D. Acts) \u2018was on the score\nof the infringement of personal liberty\u2019 (_i.e._, the liberty to\nspread loathsome diseases); \u2018but he considered it also objectionable\nfor the Government to provide securities against the consequences of\nimmorality. It is a different thing to remedy the consequences after\nthey occur\u2019--as who should say, in the manner of the proverb, Lock the\nstable door when the horse has been stolen.\n\nThis sham philosopher and political economist of ill-argued theories,\nwho is to-day honoured by an uncomfortable and ungainly statue on the\nVictoria Embankment, forgot that England has not achieved her greatness\nby the study or practice of morality: and shall we fall thus late in\nthe day by a Quixotic observance of it?\n\nThe sooner the statue of this woman\u2019s advocate is cast into the Thames,\nor melted down, the better.\n\nWoman\u2019s influence and interference in these matters have proved an\nunmixed evil. It would be hopeless, however, to convince her of error:\nas well might one attempt to hustle an elephant.\n\nPolitical women are, fortunately, rare in England. A Duchess of\nDevonshire, a Lady Palmerston, and the politico-social Dames of the\nPrimrose League, these are all the chiefest and most readily-cited\nfemale politicians: and their interest was, and is, not so much in\nthe success or defeat of this party or the other as in the return of\ntheir favoured candidate or the failure of a pet aversion. Politics\nhave no real meaning for women: their natures do not permit of their\ncomprehension of national and international questions. What does Empire\nsignify to woman if her little world is distracted? and what is a\nrevolted province to her as against a broken plate?\n\nThe Fates preserve us from Female Suffrage; for give women votes and\npatriotism is swamped by the only women who would care to exercise the\nprivilege of voting: the clamorous New Woman, all crotchets, fads and\nRadical nostrums for the regeneration of the parish and the benevolent\ntreatment of subjugated races in an Empire won by the sword and\nretained by might.\n\n\n\n\nIV.--SOME OLD-TIME TERMAGANTS AND ILL-MADE MATCHES OF CELEBRATED MEN.\n\n\nThe \u2018strong-minded woman,\u2019 as the phrase goes, we have always with us\nnowadays; and as this species of strength of mind seems really to be\na violent and uncertain temper, there can be little doubt but that\nthe strong-minded woman has always been more frequent than welcome.\nCertainly shrewishness and termagancy have been too evident throughout\nthe ages, from the days of Xanthippe to the present time. That much we\nknow from the lives--or shall we say, under the painful circumstances,\nthe \u2018existences?\u2019--of public men who have been cursed with scolding\nwives. But what Asmodeus shall unveil the private conjugal tyrannies,\nthe hectorings, and the curtain-lectures that make miserable the\nundistinguished lives of men of no importance for good or evil in\nthe State? How many women, in fine, \u2018wear the breeches\u2019 through the\n\u2018strength of mind\u2019 which may be justly defined as readiness of that\nimpassioned invective which in its turn may be reduced (like a vulgar\nfraction) to its lowest common denominator of \u2018nagging.\u2019 Not a\npretty word, is it? And it is a practice even less pretty than that\ncross-grained definition would warrant. We cannot, however, lift the\nveil that hides the domestic infelicities of the lieges, but must be\ncontent to recount the troubles and oppressions that have befallen\nhistoric Caudles, who bulk a great deal larger in the history of\nEngland than they did, in their own homes, to their wives.\n\nSir Edward Coke, the great law officer of James the First\u2019s reign--the\nrevered \u2018Coke upon Lyttleton\u2019 of the law-student--was little enough of\nan authority in his own household after he had married his second wife,\nherself a widow--the \u2018relict,\u2019 in fact, of Sir William Newport-Hatton.\nHe married her but a few months after his wife\u2019s death, privately and\nin haste; probably urged to such an indecent speed by the necessity of\nforestalling the Lord Keeper Bacon in the lady\u2019s affections. But he\nhad not been wise in his haste; for affection--for him, at least--she\nhad none. She had probably buried all her kindly feelings in the grave\nwith Sir William Hatton, for she would never be known as Lady Coke, but\nalways as Lady Hatton, and, in truth, she led that distinguished and\nbitter lawyer the life of a dog. One wonders, indeed, why she married\nhim at all, who was old enough to be her father. It was not ambition,\nfor she was by birth a Cecil and daughter of the second Lord Burleigh;\nnor the want of money, nor the need of a protector, for she was very\nwell able to take care of herself, as Sir Edward presently discovered,\nand she was sufficiently wealthy. They quarrelled incessantly--about\nproperty, about the marriage of their daughter, about anything and\neverything. Sir Edward Coke was only suffered to enter her house\nin London by the back door, and she plundered his residence in the\ncountry. She sent her daughter away to Oatlands to prevent a marriage\nwith Sir John Villiers, which Sir Edward was pressing forward; and\nhe, \u2018with his sonne and ten or eleven servants, weaponed in violent\nmanner,\u2019 repaired thither, broke open the door, and took her away. Lady\nHatton intrigued at Court against the distracted Coke, who was already\nin disfavour at St. James\u2019s, and procured an interference by the Star\nChamber, which condemned his \u2018most notorious riot;\u2019 but Coke eventually\ngained the upper hand in this matter at least, and the girl was married\nto the man of his choice. This did not end the enmity. For years they\ncontended together until death parted them. But she survived him by ten\nyears.\n\nLegal subtlety and ability had no terrors for Lady Hatton, and martial\nprowess daunted the wife of Monk as little, for, in very truth, Lady\nAlbemarle, the famous Nan Clarges, wife of that General Monk who was\ncreated first Duke of Albemarle, was so awe-inspiring a termagant that\nher husband declared he would rather fight a battle than dispute with\nher, and that the roar of a whole park of artillery was not so terrible\nto him as her tongue loosened in floods of abuse. There is no doubt\nthat he regretted his union with the washerwoman\u2019s daughter whom he\nhad married, who was neither beautiful nor witty. Nan Clarges had all\nthe ancestry and upbringing that made for shrewishness. Her mother was\none of the five women barbers who gained notoriety by their vulgarity\neven in that age, and her father was a blacksmith and farrier, one\nJohn Clarges, who lived at the corner of Drury Lane and the Strand,\nover his forge. Her mother became afterwards a laundress, and she\nherself dabbled in the soapsuds before and after her marriage to Thomas\nRatford, whose father was also a farrier. This marriage took place in\n1632, and she and her husband occupied a shop in the New Exchange in\nthe Strand, where they sold gloves, powder, and cosmetics. Her parents\ndied in 1648, and she and her husband separated in the following year.\nThree years later she married Colonel Monk, whose laundress she had\nbeen. Although the tongue of scandal was not idle when one re-married\nwho was not a widow, the farrier never reappeared to claim his wife,\nand when the Restoration was accomplished (partly, it is said, owing to\nher Royalist sympathies), and General Monk became Duke of Albemarle,\nnone were found to question her title of Duchess. But she became the\nlaughing-stock of the Court and gave general disgust to Pepys, who\ncalls her in good faith \u2018a plain, homely dowdy,\u2019 and ironically \u2018that\nparagon of virtue and beauty.\u2019 On one occasion he \u2018found the Duke of\nAlbemarle at dinner with sorry company; some of his officers of the\nArmy; dirty dishes and a nasty wife at table, and bad meat.\u2019\n\nBut she was mildness itself compared with that \u2018she-devil,\u2019 Bess of\nHardwicke, who was wedded and a widow before her sixteenth year, and\nsaw four husbands into the grave. She was the daughter of a rich\nDerbyshire gentleman, who died and left her his sole heiress at an\nearly age. She fascinated and married a neighbour, the young and\ninvalid Mr. Barley, whose property ranged with her own. He lived but\na short while, and left her a charming widow with a great access of\nwealth.\n\nHer second venture was Sir William Cavendish, a Suffolk gentleman of\ngood family and great property, whom she married and constrained to\nsell his Suffolk lands and settle with her in Derbyshire. She ruled\nhim thoroughly, and he seems to have been little better than her chief\ndirector of works in the building operations that were a passion with\nthis singular woman through the whole of her long life. Her home was at\nHardwicke Hall; but she now began to build a very much more magnificent\nhouse at Chatsworth. She had not proceeded very far with this work\nbefore Sir William Cavendish, probably wearied out with being ruled in\nall things, followed her first husband to the grave. Lady Cavendish\nmourned him for a decent period, keeping her eye open the while for\nanother eligible, whom she presently found in the person of the\nwidower, Sir William Saint Lo, a captain in Queen Elizabeth\u2019s guard and\na gentleman of considerable property in the neighbourhood of Bath. But\nSir William had a family, and she could not think of wedding him until\nhe had made a settlement upon her of all his lands. He did so readily,\nthis bluff soldier; for he was absurdly fond of her, as his letters\nshow. He was, however, detained much in the service of the Queen, in\nLondon and at Windsor, and died very soon.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  ELIZABETH,\n  COUNTESS OF\n  SHREWSBURY.\n]\n\nLady Saint Lo was now become extremely wealthy, with her own fortune\nand the added wealth of three husbands deceased, but she was far from\ncontent. She was building incessantly, both terrestrial habitations\nand airy castles, and hungered both for more wealth and greater social\ndistinction. For some while she cast about for another partner, and at\nlength found a suitable quarry in George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury,\nanother widower with a grown-up family. Him she married, and from that\ntime he knew but little peace. True, the first year or so of their\nunion seems to have been comparatively mild, but the storms that ensued\nwere beyond anything. The Earl was for nineteen years the custodian of\nMary, Queen of Scots, and she seems to have aroused the jealousy of the\nCountess, for the unfortunate Talbot was surrounded with his wife\u2019s\nspies, and the espions whom the English Queen\u2019s suspicious nature also\nset around him made his life a misery. Poor Talbot! two queens and\na wife--and such a wife--to serve, guard, and pacify. How wretched\nhe must have been in that gorgeous palace of \u2018Chattysworth,\u2019 as the\nold-time spelling had it! His wife embittered his own sons against\nhim, while her family of Cavendishes hated him cordially, and, as he\nhad foolishly made over his property to her upon his marriage, he\nlived practically upon sufferance. Queen Elizabeth, in whose service\nhe continually expressed the greatest loyalty, took the part of his\nwife, and ordered him to be content with an allowance of 500_l._ per\nannum which the Countess vouchsafed him--\u2018to my perpetual infamy and\ngreat dishonour,\u2019 as he wrote, \u2018thus to be ruled and overranne by my\nwief, so bad and wicked a woman. But your Majesty shall see that I will\nobserve your commandments, though no curse or plage on earth colde be\nmore grievous to me.\u2019 Poor fellow! his faults were few, probably the\ngreatest of them being a weak amiability which led him to be reconciled\ntime and again to his wife, who used every reconciliation as a means to\nthe end of entreating him even more shamefully than before. He died at\nlength, wearied out with lawsuits, the ingratitude of his own children,\nand the bitter animosity of his wife. She survived him for many years,\nand died, aged eighty-eight, in the winter of 1607, during a hard frost\nwhich put a stop to the building works which she was carrying on here\nand there over all her possessions. She was passionately fond of bricks\nand mortar, or else was mindful of a prophecy that she should live\nso long as she continued building. That prophecy was fulfilled by the\nfrost, which rendered her workmen idle.\n\nAnn Clifford, Countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and Montgomery, was another\ninsatiate builder, and a woman of very great independence of character;\nnot a vindictive fiend, like old Bess of Hardwicke, but, all the same,\na woman who would have her way. She married the Earl of Dorset, as weak\nand vicious a man as she was a strong and virtuous woman, with whom she\nlived most unhappily. When he fortunately died, she declared that she\nwould not wed a man who was either a curser, a courtier, or a swearer,\nor who had children; and it so happened that in marrying Philip\nHerbert, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, she allied herself to a\nwidower with a family, who was both a courtier and a proficient in vile\nlanguage and fancy swearing. He, however, soon joined the majority, and\nhis widow took no more chances in the lottery of marriage. She busied\nherself in rebuilding her castles, which had been destroyed during\nthe Civil War, six of them throughout Cumberland and Westmoreland;\nand spent the remainder of her long life in journeying from one to\nanother, carrying with her the huge volumes in which she had collected\nthe records of the Clifford family and the memoirs of her own life.\nHers was the borough of Appleby, for which Sir John Williamson,\nSecretary of State, proposed a candidate. But the Countess, who had\ndespised Cromwell and loathed the viciousness of Charles the Second\u2019s\n_entourage_, replied, in a characteristic note, \u2018I have been bullied by\nan usurper; I have been neglected by a Court; but I won\u2019t be dictated\nto by a subject. Your man shan\u2019t stand.--ANN DORSET, PEMBROKE, AND\nMONTGOMERY.\u2019 She was a wonderful woman. She spoke five languages\nfluently, and was accomplished in many ways, and, according to Bishop\nRainbow, of Carlisle, who preached her funeral sermon, \u2018she had a clear\nsoul shining through a vivid body: her body was durable and healthful,\u2019\nhe continues; \u2018her soul sprightful and of great understanding and\njudgment faithful memory, and ready wit.\u2019 She was \u2018a perfect mistress\nof forecast and aftercast,\u2019 and, according to Doctor Donne, \u2018knew well\nhow to converse of all things, from predestination to slea-silk.\u2019 She\nwas no less great as a builder than Nimrod was mighty as a hunter, and\nBess of Hardwicke was scarce her equal in the piling up of bricks and\nmortar.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  ANN CLIFFORD, COUNTESS OF DORSET,\n  PEMBROKE AND MONTGOMERY,\n  AGED 18.\n]\n\nShe spent over 40,000_l._ in this way, and the good bishop who preached\nher funeral sermon took, as an apt text, \u2018Every wise woman buildeth her\nhouse.\u2019 She rebuilt the castles of Brougham, Appleby, Skipton, Bardon\nTower, Pendragon, and Brough; she restored the churches of Bongate,\nSkipton, and Appleby, and the chapels of Ninekirks, Brougham, Bongate,\nand Mallerstang; she erected a monument to Spenser in Westminster\nAbbey, another--on the old Penrith road--to her mother, the Dowager\nCountess of Cumberland, and another still to her tutor, Samuel Daniel,\nand she founded and restored almshouses besides.\n\nBut the first Duchess of Marlborough was a prize termagant, although in\nearly life a woman of winning ways. Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, was\nthe ruler of that great commander and military genius, John Churchill,\nfirst Duke of Marlborough, and victor of such hard-fought fields as\nBlenheim, Ramillies, and Malplaquet.\n\nThe rise of the Churchills reads like a romance, so constantly was\ntheir progress maintained for so many years. He was the son of an\nimpoverished country gentleman who had lost his all in a chivalric\nattachment to Charles the First, and gained little consideration for it\nwhen the Restoration brought Charles the Second to Dover, and the King\nenjoyed his own again. All the recompense the ruined Cavalier received\nwas the reception of his son, afterwards to become the most famous\nsoldier and general of his time, as a page in the service of the King\u2019s\nbrother, the Duke of York.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  ANN CLIFFORD, COUNTESS OF DORSET,\n  PEMBROKE, AND MONTGOMERY,\n  AGED 81.\n]\n\nMacaulay\u2019s Whiggish prejudices forbade him writing anything to the\ncredit of the Duke of Marlborough; and so he seized upon the gossip\nof the time, which has come down to us, and has stated as a fact that\nJohn Churchill owed this initiatory post to the interest of his sister\nArabella, who had become an acknowledged mistress of the Duke of\nYork. \u2018The young lady was not beautiful,\u2019 he says, in his _History of\nEngland_, \u2018but the taste of James was not nice, and she became his\navowed mistress. She was the daughter of a poor Cavalier knight who\nhaunted Whitehall, and made himself ridiculous by publishing a dull and\naffected folio, long forgotten, in praise of monarchs and monarchy. The\nnecessity of the Churchills was pressing, their loyalty was ardent, and\ntheir only feeling on Arabella\u2019s seduction seems to have been joyful\nsurprise that so plain a girl should have obtained such height of\npreferment.\u2019\n\nBut Churchill\u2019s good looks and gallant bearing stood him in better\nstead than this in that profligate court. He captivated the fancy\nof his distant cousin, Barbara Palmer, the most beautiful of the\nKing\u2019s mistresses, already created Duchess of Cleveland as the price\nof her dishonour. Buckingham afforded the King ocular proof of this\nattachment, and we are told that Churchill was sent into practical\nbanishment, but to an ostensible command in Tangier, or into the Low\nCountries. The Duchess of Cleveland made her kinsman a present of\n5000_l._, with which he promptly purchased an annuity of 500_l._, and\nso laid a foundation to his fortunes.\n\nEngland was for a time in close alliance with France, and it was\nthen and there that the young officer--he held a commission in the\nGuards--learned scientific warfare under those past-masters in the\nart of war, Cond\u00e9 and Turenne. He remained for five years in Flanders,\nand during that time distinguished himself at numerous places, more\nespecially at the siege of Maestricht, where \u2018the handsome Englishman,\u2019\nas Turenne called him, was thanked for his services by Louis XIV.\n\nReturning to England, he was married privately to Sarah Jennings, whose\nfamily, like his own, had suffered great misfortunes in the cause of\nthe Stuarts. She had been introduced to Court, and had obtained a\nposition there as maid-of-honour to James\u2019s second wife, the young and\nbeautiful Mary of Modena, by the interest of her elder sister, the\n\u2018_Belle Jennings_\u2019 of Grammont, who had held a similar post during the\nlifetime of the first Duchess of York. She and her sister were the only\nvirtuous women in all that court, and neither the cajoleries of the\nKing nor his brother availed anything to induce them to join the ranks\nof the Nell Gwynnes, the Barbara Palmers, or the Louise de Querouaille,\nwhose shame helped to swell the peerage.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  SARAH,\n  DUCHESS OF\n  MARLBOROUGH.\n]\n\nSarah Jennings was not the equal of her sister in beauty, of whom\nGrammont says \u2018she had a complexion of dazzling fairness, luxuriant\nhair of a light golden colour, an animated countenance, and the most\nbeautiful mouth in the world. Nature had adorned her with every charm,\nto which the Graces had added the finishing touches. She gave you\nthe idea of Aurora, or of the Goddess of Spring, as the poets depict\nthose divinities.\u2019 She did not quite come up to this standard,\nbut, if the judgment of her contemporaries and the truth of the\npainter\u2019s brush may be accepted on her behalf, she would have been\nthe foremost beauty at Whitehall or Saint James\u2019s had not her sister\nalready held that distinction. Kneller\u2019s portrait of her shows a face\nof considerable beauty, poised charmingly upon a graceful neck and\nfringed with flowing curls and with luxuriant hair as fine, one would\ndare contend, as that of her sister Frances, the theme of that French\ngossip. She has in all her portraits that piquant beauty which shines\nout of glancing eyes, full and luscious (eyes which the Churchills\nhave inherited to the present day); that comes of a departure from\nregularity of feature; which is exhibited most charmingly in the nose,\ntip-tilted ever so little, but destructive of all coldness and frigid\nhauteur of appearance; eyes eloquent, nose rebellious, chin a little\ncleft and firm; lips somewhat rich and ripe, and with a sensuousness\nthat must have been three parts the convention that obtained among the\ncourtly painters of the time. Do you wonder, looking at her counterfeit\npresentment, that she should have been the ultimate ruler of that\ngreat commanding officer; the scourge of Ministers of State; or that\nthe Queen--Anne, the most paltry puppet of a sovereign which modern\ntimes afford our astonished gaze--should have been for years entirely\nunder her thumb? She was a woman of imperious and ungovernable temper,\nshrewd withal, if not a little shrewish; accomplished and clever\nenough to have proved, for a time, a match for the intriguers who beset\nthe Throne during the last years of the seventeenth century and the\nfirst of the eighteenth. During a great part of Queen Anne\u2019s reign\nthe country, it has been truly said, was ruled by a Triumvirate: the\nDuchess of Marlborough ruled her mellifluous Mrs. Morley, the Queen;\nthe Duke had, in reality, fulfilled the kingly function of going forth\nto battle and defeating the enemies of the nation; while Godolphin\nruled the Parliament in his absence. But the greatest of these, in\ncouncil, was the Duchess. The Queen was a _quantit\u00e9 n\u00e9glig\u00e9able_, and\nMarlborough himself, very accurately, if contemptuously, described her\nin the Courts of Europe as \u2018a very good sort of a woman.\u2019 Anne reigned,\nbut did not govern, but \u2018Mrs. Freeman\u2019 had ambition enough, and very\nnearly the capacity, to govern everybody but herself; and there the\nwant of self-control and her woman\u2019s reckless tongue betrayed her.\n\nThere is no doubt that the Duchess was extremely fond of, and ambitious\nfor, her husband; and that the love was mutual may readily be gathered\nfrom the Duke\u2019s letters to his wife years after their marriage. He\nwrites after Ramillies: \u2018I did not tell my dearest soul in my last\nmy design of engaging the enemy if possible to a battle, fearing the\nconcern she has for me might make her uneasy.... If I could begin\nlife over again, I would devote every hour of it to you, but as God\nhas been pleased to bless me, I do not doubt but he will reward me\nwith some years to end my days with you.\u2019 This was twenty-eight years\nafter their marriage, and is eloquent of Churchill\u2019s rare constancy\nand faithful heart. But though he appears from his letters so uxorious\na husband, he exercised a judicious restraint upon his feelings on\noccasion, and his naturally equable, calm, and reserved temper stood\nhim in good stead when the Duchess was more than usually unreasonable\nand furious. Thus there is a story told of her, that once, in order to\nvex him who admired her beautiful hair so greatly, she cut off those\nshining tresses which Kneller has painted so well and laid them on the\nDuke\u2019s dressing-table. But, however much he was pained by this act of\nsingular spite, he showed nothing of it by his manner. He scarcely\nseemed to notice them, and when she came again to look for them they\nwere gone, and no word said. She had failed that time, and did not dare\nto mention the circumstance. But, after the Duke\u2019s death, in collecting\nhis papers, she found her hair which she had cut off years before\ntreasured up in a secret place among his most cherished possessions.\nShe was used to tell the tale herself, and when she came to this part,\nshe invariably broke down and \u2018fell a-crying\u2019 for shame and grief.\n\n\u2018The beauty of the Duchess of Marlborough,\u2019 says Horace Walpole, \u2018had\nalways been of the scornful and imperious kind, and her features and\nair announced nothing that her temper did not confirm; both together,\nher beauty and temper, enslaved her heroic lord.\u2019\n\nShe was pugnacious beyond all bounds, and commanded fear and respect,\neven when she was not loved, by her undoubted abilities. She had a\nson and four daughters. The son died in early youth; her daughters\nall became peeresses, and they and their daughters were harried by\nher continually. She affected to be fond of her granddaughter, the\nDuchess of Manchester, daughter of the Duchess of Montagu, her youngest\nchild. She said to her one day, \u2018Duchess of Manchester, you are a good\ncreature, and I love you mightily--but you _have_ a mother!\u2019 \u2018And _she_\nhas a mother,\u2019 replied the Duchess of Manchester. And she had, indeed,\nin a superlative degree.\n\n\u2018The great Sarah\u2019 was, in fact, never happy unless she had some quarrel\non hand. She was offended by her granddaughter, Lady Anne Egerton\u2019s\nconduct in arranging a marriage between her brother and a daughter\nof Lord Trevor. This alliance certainly could not fail to be galling\nto the widowed Duchess, who, now that her husband was dead, idolised\nhis memory and pursued with an unquenchable hatred all those who had\nopposed him in former years. For Lord Trevor had been one of the great\nDuke\u2019s bitterest enemies; and now for a grandson of Marlborough to\nmarry a daughter of one who had reviled him and had sat in the seat of\nthe scorner! It was too much. She had a portrait of her granddaughter\nbrought her, and, to show her hatred, painted the face black and wrote\nan inscription for it, \u2018She is much blacker within.\u2019\n\nHer temper had grown more furious with her advancing years, soured\nas she had been by the ultimate revolt of Anne against her imperious\nand insulting behaviour toward her Majesty in public. She had given\nthe Queen her gloves and fan to hold during State ceremonies, and\naffected not to hear when spoken to. Certainly no royal favourite had\never before held power by the uncompromising frankness with which the\nDuchess of Marlborough treated the Queen; and whatever else may be\nlaid to her charge, neither flattery nor a cringing attitude, fulsome\nadulation nor obsequious humility, can be attributed to her. All those\nqualities of the sycophant are to be found in the character of Abigail\nHill, the poor relation for whom the Duchess had found a small position\nin the royal nursery, and who managed by these meannesses to alienate\nthe affections of the weak and sullen Queen. Courts were different\nthen, and politics entered largely even into the doings and attention\nof the royal domestics. Abigail Hill, who had been engaged as a rocker\nof royal or princely cradles, exercised her influence, tutored as it\nwas by Mr. Secretary Harley, upon the Queen, who dismissed the Duchess\nof Marlborough from her office as Mistress of the Robes, and with the\ndismissal of the Duchess fell the Ministry of Marlborough and Godolphin.\n\nMarlborough, who was as able a diplomat as he was a soldier, who knew\nthe secrets of every European Court, was unconscious of the plottings\nand backstairs influences which were undermining his own power. The\nDuchess, too, knew nothing until their political ruin was accomplished,\nand then all was in vain. Although the conqueror of so many hard-fought\nfields and the crafty overreacher of astute statesmen might plead for\nthe reinstatement of his wife with all his eloquence, and even go on\nhis knees to implore the Queen\u2019s favour, the steadfast obstinacy of a\nstupid woman oppressed for years, and too weak for revolt until now,\nwas proof against all the matchless services and traditions of the man;\nand the position which the great Sarah\u2019s arrogance and folly had lost\nthem the Marlboroughs never regained.\n\n\u2018The Viceroy over the Queen,\u2019 as she had been termed, was no longer\nheard; even when she went in person to Kensington Palace, the Queen\nwould no longer listen to her. \u2018Dear Mrs. Morley\u2019 and \u2018Dearest Mrs.\nFreeman\u2019 were estranged for ever, and though six years later the Queen\ndied, and that commonplace dynasty the House of Hanover came to the\nthrone in the person of George I., neither the Duke nor the Duchess\nof Marlborough ever again held the power which had once been theirs.\nMarlborough died in 1720. His wife survived him for over twenty-four\nyears, dying at the advanced age of eighty-four. Age did not wither\nher resolution nor custom stale her pugnacity. She still panted, like\nthe war-horse in Job, for the fray; she sniffed contention from afar,\nand kept Death himself waiting an unconscionable time. A year before\nher death, when very ill and like to shuffle off this mortal coil,\nher physicians, in consultation over her bed, upon which she lay in\napparent unconsciousness, decided that she must either be blistered or\nshe must die. \u2018Must\u2019 was no word to utter in her presence; compulsion\nwas not to be thought of or applied to that proud spirit. \u2018I won\u2019t\nbe blistered, and I won\u2019t die,\u2019 she exclaimed, with her old fire and\nvehemence--and she did neither at that time.\n\nShe died, possessed of immense wealth, at Marlborough House, on October\n18th, 1744. She left an income of 30,000_l._ a year to her grandson,\nCharles, Duke of Marlborough, and the same to his brother; while her\nhatreds were shown in the legacies she bequeathed to Pitt (afterwards\nEarl of Chatham) and to the Earl of Chesterfield, in recognition of\ntheir opposition to one of her pet aversions, Sir Robert Walpole.\n\nThe mother of that doughty champion of the Church in the thirteenth\ncentury, Robert de Insula, Bishop of Durham from 1274 to 1283, must\nhave been the very ideal of a shrew. The Bishop rose to his high\nstation from quite a menial office in the monastery of Durham, and his\norigin was so lowly that he had no family name, but is supposed to\nhave assumed one from his birthplace of Holy Island, off the Durham\ncoast. The monkish chronicler of Waverley calls him Halieland, and the\nMonk of Lanercost dubs him \u2018Robertus de Coquin\u00e2,\u2019 from which it would\nseem that even these old historians had their prejudices. However that\nmay be, the Bishop was either not ashamed of his origin, or else had\nall the vanity of a \u2018self-made\u2019 man, for he was not slow to allude\nto the original meanness of his birth on occasion, as the following\nanecdote may show:--\u2018The Bishop was once at Norham, and the Lord of\nScremerston sent him a present of some country ale. The Bishop had\nlong been unused to such humble beverage, yet, from respect to the\ndonor, and also to the good report of the liquor, he tasted a cup of\nit--_et non sustinens statim a mensa surgens evomuit_. \u201cSee,\u201d said he,\n\u201cthe force of custom: you all know my origin, and that neither from my\nparents nor my country can I derive any taste for wine, and yet now my\ncountry liquor is rendered utterly distasteful to me.\u201d\u2019\n\nTo his mother the Bishop gave a train of male and female servants,\nand an honourable establishment, as befitted the parent of one come\nto such high dignity as to be Bishop Palatine of Durham. He visited\nher afterwards, and apparently found the dame in anything but a sweet\ntemper.\n\n\u2018What ails my sweet mother?\u2019 says he; \u2018how fares she?\u2019\n\n\u2018Never worse,\u2019 quoth she.\n\n\u2018And what ails thee, then, or troubles thee?\u2019 asks the good son. \u2018Hast\nthou not men and women and attendants sufficient?\u2019\n\n\u2018Yea,\u2019 quoth she, \u2018and more than enough. I say to one, \u201cGo,\u201d and he\nruns; to another, \u201cCome hither, fellow,\u201d and the varlet falls down on\nhis knee; and, in short, all things go on so abominably smooth that\nmy heart is bursting for something to spite me, and pick a quarrel\nwithal.\u2019 And with that she fell a-weeping.\n\nLady Hester Stanhope, daughter of Charles, third Earl Stanhope,\ngranddaughter of the great Earl of Chatham, and niece of William Pitt,\nwas a woman of unbounded vanity, arrogance, and ill-temper. A technical\ntermagant she could not be, for she was never married, and that was\nperhaps a better fate which met General Sir John Moore at Corunna\nthan would have been his had he survived his disastrous retreat, and\nreturned to England. For Hester Stanhope was his _fianc\u00e9e_; and if\nhe had married her, she could not have failed of keeping him in a\nlife-long subjection.\n\nShe was undoubtedly a clever woman, witty, and with some learning;\nbut all her doings were eccentric and fantastical beyond measure,\nand tinctured strongly with hereditary madness. For her father was\nsomething more than strange in his doings. He, too, had gifts, but they\nwere overlaid by a singular species of mental alienation. He was a\nfurious Republican, and it is related of him that, in accordance with\nthose principles, he caused his armorial bearings to be obliterated\nfrom his plate, his carriages, and from everything he possessed. He\nhalted only before the destruction of the iron gates of his house at\nChevening: having removed even the magnificent tapestry given to his\nancestor, the great Stanhope, by the King of Spain, for the reason that\nit was (to quote himself) \u2018damned aristocratical.\u2019 He sold all his\nSpanish plate, weighing six hundredweight, for the same whim, and was\nused to sleep at once with twelve blankets over him and his bedroom\nwindow wide open.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  LADY HESTER\n  STANHOPE.\n]\n\nTwo of a kind rarely agree together, and so it is not surprising to\nfind that Lady Hester Stanhope felt her father\u2019s society insupportable.\nShe left home and went to reside with her grandmother, the dowager\nLady Chatham, in Somersetshire; afterwards going to keep house for her\nuncle, William Pitt, in his retirement at Walmer. A year later, he\nbecame again Prime Minister, and she, acting as one of his assistant\nprivate secretaries, moved for a time in the centre of political and\nsocial turmoil. But when Pitt died, broken-hearted at the news of\nNapoleon\u2019s victory of Austerlitz, his niece suddenly lost the prestige\nthat had given her a factitious importance, and was fain to retire\nto the obscurity of Montagu Square, where for a time she kept house\nfor her two half-brothers who both held commissions in the army. War\nbreaking out, her occupation was gone, and, after a short retirement\nto Builth, she set out upon some extraordinary escapades in\ntravelling which finally landed her in Syria, where she lived until\n1839 in a rambling house--half monastery, half palace--on the slopes\nof Mount Lebanon, intriguing with or against the Porte, and the petty\nSheiks and Emirs of the surrounding country. She was in receipt of\na Government pension of 1200_l._ a year for a very long period, and\nhad considerable wealth besides, until her reckless extravagance\ndissipated all and brought her not only to poverty, but in debt to\nthe amount of 40,000_l._ She kept up a considerable household in her\nseclusion upon Mount Lebanon, and retained a physician all to herself.\nCertainly she never paid him anything, but he seems to have taken it\nout in a kind of posthumous vilification, acting as the Boswell to her\nJohnson, and publishing, some years after her death, three volumes of\nmemoirs, correspondence, and conversations. He was a poor, invertebrate\nsort of a creature, this physician, who was content to stay beside a\npatient--or rather an employer--who not only paid him nothing, but\nconsistently refused to follow his advice, and medicined herself with\nnostrums. It was sufficient for him to sit by her, to listen to her\nharangues--she made nothing of talking incessantly for twelve hours at\none sitting--and to endure the plentiful abuse of doctors in general,\nand himself in particular, which was the staple of her conversation:\nto have been at length sent away with the curt intimation that he \u2018had\nbetter take himself off,\u2019 seems to have aroused no resentment in this\nmuch-enduring man. Certainly, he mentions that he was, personally and\nprofessionally, subjected constantly to stinging insults, and that he\nsuffered from her tyranny; but it would not appear that he ever grew\nrestive under these repeated indignities.\n\nLady Hester was, indeed, no mealy-mouthed blue-stocking. She had\na rasping tongue, used on occasion language rather more free than\nwelcome, and had the voice of a drill-sergeant. Added to these\nqualifications, she possessed biceps of unusual development, and used\nher muscles with effect on the miserable men and women Arabs over whom\nshe ruled with the rigour of a Draco or a military martinet. She rather\nprided herself on the straight and forcible blows she could deliver,\nand lost no opportunity of demonstrating her prowess upon her trembling\nslaves. Her \u2018physician\u2019 remarks that \u2018from her manner towards people it\nwould have seemed that she was the only person in creation privileged\nto abuse and to command; others had nothing else to do but to obey and\nnot to think. She was haughty and overbearing, impatient of control,\nborn to rule, and more at her ease when she had a hundred persons to\ngovern than when she had only ten.... Never was any one so fond of\nwielding weapons, and of boasting of her capability of using them upon\na fit occasion, as she was.\u2019 She kept a kind of armoury in her bedroom,\nand slept with a steel mace beside her, a battle-axe and an assortment\nof daggers, poniards, and other murderous cutlery of that description\nlying within easy reach; and, if she did not actually use them upon\nthe cowering wretches with whom she was surrounded, was probably owing\nrather to their care in not giving offence to this terrible she-devil\nthan to any forbearance on her part. She stunned her _entourage_ by\nher unusual combination of masculine and feminine powers of offence\nand defence. She could storm and rage, could nag and scold with the\nmost proficient virago, and fists or mace were ready when those more\nwomanlike resources were exhausted.\n\nShe had the most excruciatingly ridiculous pride of birth and rank,\nand was vain of her personal appearance long after any such beauty\nas she ever possessed had fled. That beauty could only have been\nof complexion; for if her resemblance to her uncle, William Pitt,\nupon which she always insisted, was more than a fancy, her features\nmust have been mean and insignificant. Pitt was the object of her\nwhole-souled admiration, and the Pitt family--she was a Pitt on\nher mother\u2019s side--she apparently considered to be above all the\nordinary rules and restrictions of honour and probity which bind, or\nare supposed to bind, meaner mortals. Her physician tells us that\nshe had on an occasion asked him if such an one ought not to act in\na certain way. \u2018Undoubtedly,\u2019 said he; \u2018a person of principle would\nnot act otherwise.\u2019 \u2018Principle!\u2019 she exclaimed. \u2018What do you mean by\nprinciple? I am a Pitt!\u2019 Nothing was impossible after this.\n\nBut it seems likely that this, like most of her sayings and doings,\nwas merely a pose, meant to attract attention and make her notorious.\nIt was doubtless to the same end that she professed to dabble in\nmagic and astrology, and that she affected a belief in the proximate\ncoming of the Messiah. Awaiting His arrival, she kept two Arabian\nmares constantly saddled which had never been ridden, and these mares\nhad each a special attendant whose business was to keep everything\nready for the celestial visitor, who should ride thence in triumph to\nJerusalem with Lady Hester Stanhope as a kind of lady-guide!\n\nAnd so to end this galaxy of shining lights in the whole art and\nmystery of shrewishness and termagancy. Many more there be, but these\nare the most notorious of that unblessed company.\n\nTurn we now to the unhappy marriages of men of genius, whose careers in\nliterature and art are public property.\n\nThe instances are so numerous in which men of genius or great mental\nactivity have embittered their lives by marriages which have proved\nfruitful of discord and strife, that the proposition, \u2018Should Genius be\nmated?\u2019 might well be negatived in discussion.\n\nWarning examples, from Socrates with his shrewish Xanthippe, to the\nmorose and bearish Thomas Carlyle, who rendered his wife\u2019s existence\nmiserable with his acerbity and ill-humours, are frequent throughout\nthe centuries, and sufficient, one might think, to deter Genius from\nmating with Common-sense, or to hinder Common-sense from running the\nrisks of a lifelong companionship with Genius. And yet artists and\nliterary men, musicians and philosophers, marry after the repeated\nfailures of their predecessors to secure domestic happiness; and women,\nin their ambition to marry men who show evidences of successful careers\nin intellectual occupations, have no hesitancy in risking a martyrdom\nof mental solitude and loneliness that is certainly less directly\npainful and agonising than the fate of those stalwarts who died for\nconscience sake, but which is drawn out indefinitely in years of\napparent neglect and obvious aloofness from all the interests of their\nhusbands\u2019 lives.\n\nBut, in considering the unhappy relations that have often existed\nbetween the men of genius who have married women of ordinary, or less\nthan ordinary, mental capacity, the indictment must fall far heavier\nupon the women, because--as will be shown--the active ill-humours and\nspiteful opposition of their wives have far outweighed the indifference\nor want of thought of which these men of parts may have been\nunconsciously guilty in their homes. It is, and has always been, the\nespecial attribute or misfortune of genius that it should be mentally\nisolated and solitary, impatient of and uncaring for petty domestic\ndetails and the sordid cares of housekeeping. Pegasus is a brute\ntranscended beyond the dray-horse that pounds the earth with vibrant\nhoofs. He soars above the mountain-tops and breathes the rarefied air\nof the most Alpine heights. He does not go well in double harness and\nso has no companion on his journeys.\n\nThe wives of great geniuses, of the inspired among poets, painters,\nmusicians, or _litterateurs_, cannot accompany them in their\nexaltations of thought or help them in technique; nor, to do those\nladies the merest justice, have they often essayed the feat; having\nbeen, like the wife of Racine, content to regard their husbands as\njourneymen who earned their living and kept the household going by the\nproduction of so much painted canvas or so many written sheets of paper\nfor which incomprehensible people absurdly gave large sums of money.\nRacine\u2019s wife made it a stupid boast that she had never read a line\nof her husband\u2019s verse; Heine\u2019s Parisian grisette never attempted to\nunderstand her great man\u2019s genius; and many other wives of genius have\nremained incapable of understanding the merits or demerits of their\nhusbands\u2019 work. But these comparatively harmless freaks of stupidity\nand silly lack of appreciation, though mortifying to one\u2019s vanity,\nwere nothing in comparison with such active revolts and exhibitions of\ntermagancy as were indulged in by the wife of Young, author of the\n_Night Thoughts_, who threw her husband\u2019s manuscripts on the fire, or\nby Dante\u2019s wife--he had better have remained in celibacy, mourning\nBeatrice all his life--who gave him some sort of insight to an earthly\n_Inferno_. She had no notion of allowing him to have his own way in\nanything, and \u2018he had to account for every sigh which he heaved.\u2019\nBanishment could not really have harmed him, since his wife remained\nbehind.\n\nSir Thomas More was another unhappy Benedick, if we are to believe the\ngossips. His first marriage was peaceful enough; but his second, when\nhe married a widow, one Alice Middleton, was all strife and contention.\nPerhaps, he wrote his _Utopia_, \u2018A fruteful and pleasaunt Worke of the\nbeste State of a publyque Weale, and of the newe yle called Utopia,\u2019 as\na welcome relief from domestic broils. His conscience would not allow\nhim to recognise the validity of Henry the Eighth\u2019s marriage with Anne\nBoleyn, and he was cast into the Tower for his pains, presently to\nbe executed on that spot rich in the blood of martyrs for all manner\nof adequate and inadequate causes--Tower Hill. His wife, with the\nessentially Jesuitical feminine mind, came daily to where he lay in\nthe Tower and abused him soundly for not giving in his adherence to\nthe King\u2019s wishes. \u2018Thou mightest,\u2019 said she, \u2018be in thine own house,\nhadst thou but done as others:\u2019 and I am not sure but what she was in\nthe right; for life is pleasant and self-preservation the whole duty\nof man. An unruly conscience has been the sole undoing of many a worthy\nman, both before and since the time of Sir Thomas More.\n\nThey say that Shakespeare\u2019s was an unhappy wedded life. Ann Hathaway--\n\n    \u2018She hath a will, she hath a way\u2019--\n\nwas twenty-six when he married her, while he was but eighteen. How\neloquent, then, this excerpt from _Twelfth Night_--\n\n                        \u2018Let the woman take\n    An elder than herself: so wears she to him;\n    So sways she level in her husband\u2019s heart:\n    For, boy (however we do praise ourselves),\n    Our fancies are more giddy and infirm,\n    More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn,\n    Than women\u2019s are.\n    Then let thy love be younger than thyself,\n    Or thy affection cannot hold the bent.\u2019\n\nBut do not put too much faith in the biographical value of literary\nexpression, nor assume that these views have much bearing upon\nShakespeare\u2019s married life. His sonnets breathed love and passion\nfor ladies dark or fair, and very various; but then \u2019twas his trade\nto assume what he did not feel, and to trick it out in glowing pages\nof dainty poesy. I, for one, would not regard them nor their like as\narguments or evidence in favour of divorce. So, in all charity to\nsweet Will, let us scout the suggestion of a writer who wrote some\nyears since on the unhappy marriages of men of genius, even as I do\nhere, that \u2018we have the internal evidence of his sonnets that he was\nnot a faithful husband.\u2019 We had far better keep to the scanty facts\nwhich have come down to us respecting Shakespeare\u2019s life. We know, for\ninstance, that he left Stratford-on-Avon and settled in London but four\nyears after his marriage. It cannot be said with certainty whether\nor not his wife came up with him from Warwickshire, but it is likely\nenough that she did not. And yet can we reasonably blame any one less\nimpersonal than Thalia or Melpomene for his leaving his wife behind him\nin that old town beside the Avon? I would suppose that Ann Hathaway\nwas uncongenial to him in so far that, and because she had no sort of\nappreciation of, nor any love of, the medium of words in which her\nhusband worked.\n\nIt was not until he had reached his forty-eighth year that Shakespeare\nreturned to his native town. He lived there with his wife and his\ndaughter Judith for four years, and then died.\n\nDryden\u2019s wife must have been, no less than Carlyle, \u2018gey ill to live\nwi\u2019.\u2019 He married, in his thirty-third year, the Lady Eliza Howard,\ndaughter of the Earl of Berkshire, a woman whose intellect was as\ncloudy as her reputation, and whose violence ofttimes caused the\npoet to wish her dead. He wrote an epitaph in anticipation of that\nconsummation he most devoutly wished; but she survived him, and,\nsingularly enough, the epitaph which was never used has survived them\nboth to the present day. He said--\n\n    \u2018Here lies my wife; here let her lie;\n     Now she\u2019s at rest--and so am I.\u2019\n\nAnd so they are.\n\nWycherley, too, had his connubial infelicities. He married the widowed\nCountess of Drogheda, whom Macaulay describes as ill-tempered,\nimperious, and extravagantly jealous. Nothing is more likely than that\nshe had due cause for jealousy, for Wycherley was no saint. But she\nmanaged to keep him under restraint, and only permitted him to meet his\ncronies under her surveillance. That is, he was suffered to entertain\nhis fellow-dramatists in a room of the tavern that stood opposite their\nhouse, whence she could observe him through the open windows, and\nassure herself that no woman was of the company.\n\nWycherley had, doubtless, himself to blame for this espionage and\nsuspicion; but jealousy is, perhaps, as frequently unfounded as\ndeserved. Berlioz, for instance, who married the charming Henrietta\nSmithson, an Irish operatic singer, was driven, through his wife\u2019s\nunreasonable jealousy, to elope with the first pretty girl he met. He\nhad been madly infatuated with her, and she seems to have wed him, not\nfrom affection, but because of his importunity; and, even so, she did\nnot comply until after an accident had unfitted her for the stage,\nand she was fain to retire. But indifference changed to an acute\njealousy after marriage. She so wearied the musician with her baseless\nsuspicions, that at last he felt the absurdity of bearing the odium\nof sin without having experienced its pleasures. So, one fine day, he\npacked a portmanteau and sped to Brussels in company with \u2018another,\u2019 to\nspeak in the manner of the lady novelists.\n\nComte, the founder of the Positivist religion, and the defender of\nmarriage, led a wretched married life. Hooker, the \u2018judicious,\u2019 seems\nnot to have deserved that epithet in so far as his choice of a domestic\ntyrant was concerned. Sir Richard Steele should not have married a\nsecond time; he might have known that the good fortune of his first\nchoice militated against the chance of equal luck on another occasion.\nMontaigne--good soul--declared that he would not marry again after his\nuntoward experiences; no, not if he had the choice of wisdom incarnate.\n\nMan who has once been wed deserves the consolations of heaven,\naccording to the story in which a soul (masculine) comes to the gates\nof Paradise and knocks. Peter catechises him, but finds his record\ninadequate, and is about to turn him away. \u2018Stay, though,\u2019 says the\nsaint; \u2018have you been married?\u2019 \u2018Yes,\u2019 replies the soul. \u2018Enter, then,\u2019\nrejoins the janitor, compassionately; \u2018you have deserved much from your\nsufferings on earth!\u2019 \u2018Ah!\u2019 cries the spirit, enlarging upon its claims\nto present bliss from past ills; \u2018I have been married twice!\u2019 \u2018Twice?\u2019\nshouts Peter, indignantly; \u2018away with you. Paradise is not for fools!\u2019\n\nHow little, then, did Milton deserve the Paradise of which he wrote,\nfor he was married no less than three times, and that, too, after the\nunpleasant experiences of his first alliance. Mary Powell, his first\nwife, was a shrew. She was the daughter of an Oxfordshire Royalist,\nand, disgusted and alarmed at the severity with which Milton, who was\nthen a dominie, treated the boys under his charge, she left him after\nthe honeymoon and returned home. For three years she kept apart, paying\nno attention to his requests for her to return, and she only rejoined\nhim after Naseby, when, the Royalist hopes being shattered, it seemed\nadvisable that she and her people should seek the shelter that the roof\nof so uncompromising a Puritan afforded. He received her, and for the\nremaining fifteen years she made his life miserable.\n\nAddison made a great social triumph for eighteenth-century literature\nwhen he married the widowed Countess of Warwick, but in doing so he\nsowed the whirlwind for his own reaping. Her arrogance was monumental,\nand she made her stately house at Kensington so unbearable to him, that\nhe was used to fly her presence and take refuge in a little country\ntavern that stood in those days on the high road to London, at the\ncorner of a lane which is now the Earl\u2019s Court Road. Domestic strife\ndrove him to the bottle, and the \u2018Spectator\u2019 died \u2018like a Christian,\u2019\nindeed, but with an intellect clouded by drink.\n\nIn more recent times, the marriages of Byron, Bulwer-Lytton, and\nDickens were notoriously unhappy; but, certainly, these three men of\ngenius must have been almost insufferable husbands. Dickens had as\ngood a conceit of himself as ever Scot desired or prayed for--and\ngenius that can usurp the functions of the critics and calculate the\ncandle-power of its effulgence to a ray more or less must needs be\nintolerable either at the club or in the home. Byron took advantage of\nthat independence of moral laws which is supposed to be the especial\nattribute of genius--and indeed (although one need not have any absurd\nprejudices in favour of morality) he was but a sordid scamp, with a bee\nin his bonnet and a fluent facile gift of versification. His person,\nhis title, and (above all) his reputation for immorality made his fame\nand sold his works: and what unholy trinity more powerful than this for\npopularity?\n\nBulwer-Lytton was an odious fellow, a \u2018curled darling,\u2019 jewelled,\nscented, and self-centred. He wrote, presumably of himself: \u2018Clever\nmen, as a rule, do choose the oddest wives. The cleverer a man is the\nmore easily, I believe, a woman can take him in.\u2019 That, doubtless, was\na piece of special pleading on behalf of his own extreme cleverness,\nfor he was the victim of a virago who was the more terrible for being a\nlittle less than sane and more than eccentric. He bought her off with\nan annuity of 400_l._, but lawsuits directed against him afforded a\nspice to her life, and persecutions in the form of novels written \u2018with\na purpose\u2019--the purpose of abusing him--and of public altercations,\nrendered Lytton\u2019s marriage with Rosina Wheeler one of the most bitterly\nregretted actions of his life. \u2018There were faults on both sides\u2019--to\nadopt the saying of the gossips: he was irritable and violent, and she\nwas--violent and irritable! Nor was she readily put aside. For years\nafter their separation she never wearied of drawing attention to her\nwrongs, and it was in 1858, during Lytton\u2019s candidature for Hertford,\nthat she appeared before the hustings on which he was preparing to\naddress the free and enlightened voters, and burst upon his vision, an\nexcited female, dressed in yellow satin and flourishing an umbrella,\nwhile she denounced him at the top of her voice as a perjured villain.\nShe was no meek and uncomplaining martyr: she proclaimed her wrongs\n_urbi et orbi_, and compelled attention.\n\nHad Coleridge such a wife, his digestion would have been a great deal\nmore disordered than it was used to be in the conjugal difficulties\nthat led him to leave his home. Had Romney been wed to so strenuous\na shrew, he had not deserted his wife for over thirty years without\nsome public scandal; and had Tommy Moore espoused any but the most\neasy-going and long-suffering of wives, his amorous verse would have\npurchased him many a wigging, I warrant. That modern Anacreon wrote\na poem on the origin of woman which would have been impossible to the\nuxorious, and is sufficient to set the Modern Woman shrieking with\nindignation. And yet the women of his time delighted in his society!\nThose verses are, for some unexplained reason, not to be found in the\nlater editions of his works. In them he versifies the Rabbinical theory\nof woman\u2019s origin--that Adam had a tail, and it was cut off to make\nEve. This legend may be found by those who understand Hebrew, and would\nlike to read the original version, in the Talmud; but these are Moore\u2019s\nlines--\n\n    \u2018They tell us that woman was made of a rib\n       Just picked from a corner so snug in the side;\n     But the Rabbins swear to you that this is a fib,\n       And \u2019twas not so at all that the sex was supplied.\n\n    \u2018The old Adam was fashioned, the first of his kind,\n       With a tail like a monkey, full yard and a span;\n     And when Nature cut off this appendage behind,\n       Why, then woman was made of the tail of the man.\n\n    \u2018If such is the tie between women and men,\n       The ninny who weds is a pitiful elf;\n     For he takes to his tail, like an idiot, again,\n       And makes a most damnable ape of himself.\n\n    \u2018Yet, if we may judge as the fashion prevails,\n       Ev\u2019ry husband remembers the original plan,\n     And, knowing his wife is no more than his tail,\n       Why, he leaves her behind him as much as he can.\u2019\n\nAnd certainly Moore left _his_ wife as much as possible, while he\nhob-nobbed with princes and was the lion of London salons.\n\nBut search the ranks of married men who have achieved fame, and\nfew shall you find who found, and wed, their affinity. Affinities,\nit should seem, are rare when once you come to brains of more than\nordinary calibre: your dull dog more readily finds his match than\nwits or witlings, and the community of the commonplace is an easier\nconsummation than the happy combination of the unconventional.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: THE STRUGGLE FOR THE BREECHES.]\n\nV.--DOMESTIC STRIFE.\n\n\nMarried life is one long series of compromises--when, indeed, it is\nnot a state of open warfare. The \u2018mere man\u2019 must be a little less than\njust, and more than a little selfish, who would assure himself of\nretaining his authority over the (more or less) \u2018pleasing partner of\nhis heart;\u2019 for woman, be she never so sweet and gracious, is always\ngreedy of power and domination, and though with \u2018sweet Nellie,\u2019 your\n\u2018heart\u2019s delight,\u2019 the wish to rule may be possibly but a harmless\nand altogether amiable eccentricity, and your abandonment to her\nhumours the wearing of golden and purely ornamental fetters, yet in\nprocess of time your benevolent despot may become more despotic and\nless benevolent, and your chains transmuted to more sordid guise. But\nwith imperious Julia or haughty Georgina \u2019tis another matter from\nthe first; your initial complaisance spells infirmity of purpose, and\nhaving once abdicated your authority, you are undone for always, and\nmay for ever tarry in attendance upon the good lady\u2019s whims and \u2018ways,\u2019\nwhile acquaintances sit in the seat of the scorner and opine that not\nyou but the woman \u2018wears the breeches.\u2019\n\nO! most miserable and ineffectual of men; you who have the will-power\nof a jelly-fish and the courage of a cockroach! The \u2018better half\u2019 is\nnot yourself; your partner has achieved her own \u2018betterment,\u2019 and your\ncompensation is all to seek for the \u2018worsement\u2019 that remains your\nportion.\n\nLife is compact of compromise, but keep it outside the home and rule\nabsolute beneath your roof-tree. Then shall one have satisfaction and\nthe other be convinced of orthodoxy in observing apostolic precepts.\nCompromise, as Captain de Valabr\u00e8que found, is pleasing to neither\nside. A friend discovered him dressing for dinner at an unusual hour,\nand, in reply to the friend\u2019s inquiry, he said: \u2018It suits my wife to\ndine at four, and it is convenient for me to dine at six; and so we sit\ndown to table at five, which suits neither of us.\u2019\n\nDual control, in fact, works smoothly neither socially nor politically,\nand though there may be wisdom in a multitude of counsellors, folly\nabides in divided authority everywhere, and nowhere more certainly than\nin domestic matters.\n\nThe New Women--female gendarmes, censors of morals, and would-be\ndomestic tyrants--are quite alive to these objections against the\ndivision of authority, but their agreement goes no further. \u2018Woman\nought to be and shall be\u2019 the head of the family, they say, and no\nstatement is too rash for woman on the war-path to make or subscribe.\nWoman has ever been a religious animal, and even the modern woman\ndiffers little from her forbears in this respect; but do just remind\nher of St. Paul\u2019s views on the silence and subjection of her sex, and\nyou learn that the militant saint was an ass--no less! And yet Paul\nremains the patron saint of the foremost diocese in Christendom. See\nto it, O New Woman! Disestablish him, and erect some more complaisant\nsaint in his stead. Certainly his opinions and teaching flout the\nfeminine Ego.[2]\n\n\u2018No sensible woman,\u2019 wrote one of the most sensible of her sex,[3]\n\u2018objects to acknowledging what is the fact, that she is physically and\nmentally inferior to man.... The position of woman has always been, and\nwill be, a subject one.... The man has always been, and will continue\nto be, the head of the family, and the position of the woman, to my\nmind, is perfectly summed up in the words, \u201cHer desire shall be to her\nhusband, and he shall rule over her.\u201d\u2019\n\nFor women to claim supremacy comes somewhat too late in the day to be\neffectual. There is a very pretty paradox concealed in the fact that\ntheir numbers constitute their weakness, for numerical preponderance is\nusually found to be an increase of strength; but the converse is the\ncase where women are concerned. A wife may be had for the mere asking\nby any man, so great is the excess of women, and still so widespread\nthe old-fashioned and right-minded notion that marriage rounds off and\ncompletes a woman\u2019s life. Scarce a man so ill-formed in mind or body,\nor so ill-found in worldly estate but could become a Benedick on the\nmorrow, an he chose. Man\u2019s supremacy must infallibly last while he\nremains in a minority. He is already perfectly conscious that there are\nnot enough of him to go round, and that this fact puts a premium upon\nhis sex; and he can afford to smile at the women who have theories and\nair them so persistently. For himself there is no occasion to protest\nso loudly, while nature continues to endow him with a larger quantity\nand a superior quality of brains: gives him greater bodily strength,\nand--best boon of all--keeps him in a minority.\n\nAnd yet, although women are inferior to men in such important matters\nas intellect and strength, the \u2018hen-pecked husband\u2019 has ever been\ncommon, and the \u2018wearing of the breeches\u2019 by the wife has been a\nphrase, time out of mind, to denote\n\n    \u2018She who with furious blows and loud-tongued noise\n     Doth tempests in her quiet household raise.\u2019\n\n\u2018There is a proverbial phrase to signify that the wife is master\nin the household, by which it is intimated that \u201cshe wears the\nbreeches.\u201d\u2019 The phrase is, it must be confessed, an odd one, and is\nonly half-understood by modern explanations; but in medi\u00e6val story we\nlearn how \u2018she\u2019 first put in her claim to wear this particular article\nof dress, how it was first disputed and contested, how she was at times\ndefeated; but how, as a general rule, the claim was enforced. There\nwas a French poet of the thirteenth century, Hugues Piancelles, two of\nwhose _faiblaux_, or metrical tales, entitled the _Faiblau d\u2019Estaumi_\nand the _Faiblau de Sire Hains et de Dame Anieuse_, are preserved in\nmanuscript, and have been printed in the collection of Barbazan. The\nsecond of these relates some of the adventures of a medi\u00e6val couple,\nwhose household was not the best regulated in the world. The name\nof the heroine of this story, Anieuse, is simply an old form of the\nFrench word _ennuyeuse_, and certainly Dame Anieuse was sufficiently\n_ennuyeuse_ to her lord and husband. \u2018Sire Hains,\u2019 her husband, was, it\nappears, a maker of \u2018cottes\u2019 and mantles, and we should judge, also, by\nthe point on which the quarrel turned, that he was partial to a good\ndinner. Dame Anieuse was of that disagreeable temper that, whenever\nSire Hains told her of some particularly nice thing which he wished her\nto buy for his meal, she bought instead something which she knew was\ndisagreeable to him. If he ordered boiled meat, she invariably roasted\nit, and further contrived that it should be so covered with cinders and\nashes that he could not eat it. \u2018This,\u2019 observes Mr. Wright, \u2018would\nshow that people in the Middle Ages, except, perhaps, professional\ncooks, were very unapt at roasting meat.\u2019 This state of things had gone\non for some time, when one day Sire Hains gave orders to his wife to\nbuy him fish for his dinner. The disobedient wife, instead of buying\nfish, provided nothing for his meal but a dish of spinach, telling\nhim falsely that all the fish stank. This led to a violent quarrel,\nin which, after some fierce wrangling, especially on the part of the\nlady, Sire Hains proposes to decide their difference in a novel manner.\n\u2018Early in the morning,\u2019 he said, \u2018I will take off my breeches and lay\nthem down in the middle of the court, and the one who can win them\nshall be acknowledged to be master or mistress of the house.\u2019\n\n    \u2018_Le matinet sans contredire_\n     _Voudrai mes braies deschaucier,_\n     _Et enmui nostre cort couchier;_\n     _Et qui conquerre les porra,_\n     _Par bone reson monsterra_\n     _Qu\u2019il est sire ou dame du nostre._\u2019\n\nDame Anieuse accepted the challenge with eagerness, and each prepared\nfor the struggle. After due preparation, two neighbours, friend Symon\nand Dame Aupais, having been called in as witnesses, and the breeches,\nthe object of dispute, having been placed on the pavement of the court,\nthe battle began, with some slight parody on the formalities of the\njudicial combat.\n\nThe first blow was given by the Dame, who was so eager for the fray\nthat she struck her husband before he had put himself on his guard; and\nthe war of tongues, in which at least Dame Anieuse had the best of it,\nwent on at the same time as the other battle. Sire Hains ventured a\nslight expostulation on her eagerness for the fray, in answer to which\nshe only threw in his teeth a fierce defiance to do his worst. Provoked\nat this, Sire Hains struck at her, and hit her over the eyebrows so\neffectively that the skin was discoloured; and, overconfident in the\neffect of this first blow, he began rather too soon to exult over\nhis wife\u2019s defeat. But Dame Anieuse was less disconcerted than he\nexpected, and recovering quickly from the effect of the blow, she\nturned upon him and struck him on the same part of his face with such\nforce, that she nearly knocked him over the sheepfold. Dame Anieuse, in\nher turn, now sneered over him, and while he was recovering from his\nconfusion, her eyes fell upon the object of contention, and she rushed\nto it, and laid her hands upon it to carry it away. This movement\nroused Sire Hains, who instantly seized another part of the article\nof his dress of which he was thus in danger of being deprived, and\nbegan a struggle for possession, in which the said article underwent\nconsiderable dilapidation, and fragments of it were scattered about\nthe court. In the midst of this struggle the actual fight recommenced,\nby the husband giving his wife so heavy a blow on the teeth, that\nher mouth was filled with blood. The effect was such that Sire Hains\nalready reckoned on the victory, and proclaimed himself lord of the\nbreeches.\n\n    \u2018_Hains fiert sa fame enmi les denz_\n     _Tel cop, que la bouche dedenz_\n     _Li a toute emplie de sancz_\n     _\u201cTien ore,\u201d dist Sire Hains, \u201canc_\n     _Je cuit que je t\u2019ai bien atainte,_\n     _Or t\u2019ai-je de deux colors tainte--_\n     _J\u2019aurai les braies toutes voies.\u201d_\u2019\n\nBut the immediate effect on Dame Anieuse was only to render her more\ndesperate. She quitted her hold on the disputed garment, and fell\nupon her husband with such a shower of blows that he hardly knew\nwhich way to turn. She was thus, however, unconsciously exhausting\nherself, and Sire Hains soon recovered. The battle now became fiercer\nthan ever, and the lady seemed to be gaining the upper hand, when\nSire Hains gave her a skilful blow in the ribs, which nearly broke\none of them, and considerably checked her ardour. Friend Symon here\ninterposed, with the praiseworthy aim of restoring peace before further\nharm might be done, but in vain, for the lady was only rendered more\nobstinate by her mishap; and he agreed that it was useless to interfere\nbefore one had got a more decided advantage over the other. The fight\ntherefore went on, the two combatants having now seized each other by\nthe hair of the head, a mode of combat in which the advantages were\nrather on the side of the male. At this moment one of the judges,\nDame Aupais, sympathising too much with Dame Anieuse, ventured some\nwords of encouragement, which drew upon her a severe rebuke from her\ncolleague, Symon, who intimated that if she interfered again there\nmight be two pairs of combatants instead of one. Meanwhile, Dame\nAnieuse was becoming exhausted, and was evidently getting the worst\nof the contest, until at length, staggering from a vigorous push, she\nfell back into a large basket which lay behind her. Sire Hains stood\nover her exultingly, and Symon, as umpire, pronounced him victorious.\nHe thereupon took possession of the disputed article of raiment, and\nagain invested himself with it, while the lady accepted faithfully the\nconditions imposed upon her, and we are assured by the poet that she\nwas a good and obedient wife during the rest of her life.\n\n[Illustration: MAN MASTERED.\n\n[_From a rare print after Van Mecken._]]\n\nIn this story, which affords a curious picture of medi\u00e6val life, we\nlearn the origin of the proverb relating to the possession and the\nwearing of the breeches. Hugues Piancelles concludes his _faiblau_ by\nrecommending every man who has a disobedient wife to treat her in the\nsame manner; and medi\u00e6val husbands appear, to have followed his device\nwithout fear of laws against the ill-treatment of women.\n\nVan Mecken, a Flemish artist who flourished in the fifteenth century,\nhas left a record of domestic strife in an engraving which shows the\nwife as victor in the struggle for the breeches; and an ungenerous\nvictor she would seem to have been, judging from the picture, where\nshe is seen engaged at once in putting on the hard-won garments and\nstriking her husband on the head with a distaff. He, poor fellow, is\nfollowing, under compulsion, some merely feminine occupation, and seems\nto find it uncongenial.\n\n[Illustration: A JUDICIAL DUEL.\n\n[_From an old German MS._]]\n\nIn Germany, during medi\u00e6val times, domestic differences were settled\nby judicial duels between man and wife, and a regular code for their\nproper conduct was observed. \u2018The woman must be so prepared,\u2019 so\nthe instructions run, \u2018that a sleeve of her chemise extend a small\nell beyond her hand like a little sack: there indeed is put a stone\nweighing iii pounds; and she has nothing else but her chemise, and that\nis bound together between the legs with a lace. Then the man makes\nhimself ready in the pit over against his wife. He is buried therein up\nto the girdle, and one hand is bound at the elbow to the side.\u2019\n\nThe seventeenth century seems to have been prolific of domestic broils,\nfor an unusual number of pamphlets exist which have as their subject\nthe attempts of women to obtain the upper hand over their husbands.\nOne there is, called _Women\u2019s Fegaries_, which is especially bitter. A\nspirited woodcut on the cover shows a man and woman struggling for a\npair of breeches, which certainly would be no gain to either of them,\nexcept as a trophy of victory, so immensely large are they. The woman\nwields a ladle; the man brandishes something that may be either a sword\nor a cudgel, and both seem in deadly earnest. The contents of this\ncounterblast to women\u2019s efforts are extravagant and amusing; but you\nshall judge for yourself:--\n\n\u2018The proverb says, \u201cThere is no wit like the woman\u2019s wit,\u201d especially\nin matters of mischief, their natures being more prone to evil than\ngood; for, being made of a knobby crooked rib, they contain something\nin their manners and dispositions of the matter and form of which they\nwere created, as may be instanced in several examples, of which we\nshall in this sheet of paper give you some of them.\n\n\u2018At a town called _Stocking Pelham_, in the county [_sic_] of England,\nnot long ago there happened a terrible fray betwixt the man of the\nhouse on one side, and his wife and his maid on the other side, and\nthough two to one be great odds at football, yet, by the strength\nof his arm, and a good crab-tree cudgel, they felt by their bruised\nsides that he had gotten the victory. Now, though the man\u2019s name was\n_William_, yet the wife for a great while did want her _Will_--I mean,\nhow to be revenged upon him--until at last she effected, by policy,\nwhat she could not compass by strength; for he, putting his head out\nof a window that had neither Glass nor Lettice belonging to it, but\nonly a riding shutter, he having no eyes behind him, she nimbly stept\nto the shutter, and ran it up close to his neck, so that he was locked\nfast, as in a Pillory; where, whilst the one kept him in, the other\nwith a great washing-beetle, belaboured his body, as your Seamen do\nstock-fish. The maid-servant, a strong-docht wench, with both her hands\nlaying on, and at every blow saying:--\n\n    \u2018\u201c_Remember how you beat my dame:_\n     _Now look for to be served the same._\u201d\n\n\u2018The poor man, to be rid of his tormentors, was glad to pray, crave,\nand entreat, and promise whatsoever they would have him, vowing never\nafter to use Crab-tree Cudgel again, nor so much as to eat of Mustard,\nif it were made of Verjuice, out of detestation to Crabs and Crab-trees.\n\n    \u2018_Thus, women, you may learn a ready way_\n     _To make resisting husbands to obey:_\n     _Although to baste your sides their fingers itches,_\n     _You may, by policy, obtain the breeches._\n\n\u2018It is in the memory of man, since in _Black-Fryers_ a Taylor and his\nWife fell out about superiority. The Taylor fretted, and his Wife\nscolded, whereupon this ninth part of a man challenged her out into\nthe street to try the conquest, having provided broom-staves there\nfor that purpose. Being both entered the lists, the woman thought it\nbest policy to begin first, and, catching up a Ram\u2019s Horn, which lay\nat her foot, she threw it at her husband, which by chance lighted on\nhis forehead at the great end, and stuck there as fast as ever it grew\nupon the Ram\u2019s head; which, having done, she ran in at the door again.\nThe Taylor, being mad to be served so, went to run after her, but,\nmaking more haste than good speed, he ran his horn into the staple\nof the door, where he was so entangled by his brow antlers, that he\ncould stir no further, which the woman perceiving, she got up one of\nthe broom-staves, and so belaboured poor _Pilgarlick_, that, in great\nhumility, he asked her forgiveness, and resigned the right of the\nbreeches up to her.\n\n\u2018\u2019Twas in the sound of _Clerkenwell_ bells, and therefore of long\nstanding, that a Plaisterer had gotten a most damnable Scold to his\nwife, who used to fetch him from the Ale-house. One night, coming\nhome three-quarters drunk, she acted the part of _Zantippe_, and made\nthe house to Ring with her scolding. This music was so untunable in\nher Husband\u2019s Ears, that, getting a cudgel in his hands, he fell to\nbelabouring her until he made her to ask him for forgiveness, and\npromise never to scold so again. Having thus, as he thought, got an\nabsolute conquest over her tongue, he went quietly to bed, where he\nslept soundly, whilst she lay awake studying of mischief. In the\nmorning, before he awaked, she examined his pockets for money (the\ncommon tricks of a good many women), but found nothing in them, save\nonly some lath nails; these did she take and set upright all about the\nroom, which done, she gets a Pail of Water in her hands, and, calling\naloud, commanded him to rise, which he refused to do; whereupon she\nthrows the pail of water upon the bed. This so vexed him that, starting\nsuddenly up, he went to run after her; when his naked feet lighting\nupon the lath nails, he was forced to slacken his pursuit, being so\nmortified with them that he could neither stand nor walk. Whereupon\nhis wife, taking the same cudgel he had beaten her withall the night\nbefore, told him that _what was sauce for a Goose was sauce for a\nGander_, and so be-rib-roasted him, that with great penitency he now\nasked her forgiveness, resigning the whole right and title of the\nBreeches unto her, and that though he was superior to her in strength,\nyet he was inferior to her in policy.\u2019\n\n    \u2018_When as that women do themselves apply_\n     _To mischief, they perform it readily._\n     _Nothing will serve them when their fingers itches_\n     _Until such time they have attained the breeches._\n     _Be it to scold, to brangle, scratch, or fight,_\n     _Their hands are heavy though their tails are light._\n\n\u2018In that part of _Albion_ which is called _Veal Country_, there\nformerly lived a merry saddler who had gotten a scolding carrion to\nwife that would frequent the ale-house almost every day, from which\nhe was forced to fetch her home at night, where he would bestow some\nrib-roast upon her to give her a breathing that she might not grow\nfoggy with drinking so much ale. However, the woman did not take it\nso kindly but that she vowed to be revenged upon him for it; and to\nput her determination into practice, one day she asked two of her boon\ncompanions to get her husband to the ale-house and make him drunk,\nwhich they performed according to her desire, leading him home about\nten o\u2019clock at night, and placing him in a chair with a good fire\nbefore him, where he presently fell fast asleep: now had the woman\na fit opportunity to put her design into practice, when pulling out\nhis feet towards the fire, and the fire so near towards them as it\nalmost touched them, she went to bed, when quickly his shoes began\nto fry, and his feet were mortified with the burning, so that he made\na most sad, dolorous noise. She, knowing the fish was caught that she\nhad laid wait for, went down with a good ashen wand in her hand. \u201cYou\nill-conditioned slave,\u201d quoth she, \u201cmust you come home drunk and make\nsuch a noise that one cannot rest in quiet for you? I will make you to\nroar for something,\u201d and thereupon fell on him with as much Fury as a\nPyrat doth on a Merchant\u2019s bark. The poor Sadler was forced to endure\nall, for he could not help himself; but, desiring her to be merciful,\nhe resigned up the breeches to her, she tryumphing in her double\nconquest, first paying him who used to pay her, and, secondly, bringing\nhim into that condition that for three-quarters of a year afterwards he\ndid not stir out of doors to fetch her from the ale-house:--\n\n    \u2018_Women, like pismires, have their sting,_\n     _And several ways to pass their ends do bring._\n     _Their tongues are nimble, nor their hands crazy,_\n     _Although to work, each limb they have is lazy._\n\n\u2018Many other examples might we instance of the imperiousness of women,\nand what stratagems they have invented for gaining the Breeches from\ntheir Husbands, but these I think may suffice for one single sheet of\npaper, and, indeed, as many as can well be afforded for four Farthings;\nbut least any one should complain of a hard pennyworth, to make him\namends, I will afford him a song into the bargain:--\n\n\u2018THE SONG.\n\n    \u2018_When women that they do meet together,_\n     _Their tongues do run all sorts of weather,_\n     _Their noses are short, and their tongues they are long,_\n     _And tittle, tittle, tattle is all their song._\n\n\u2018Now that women (like the world) do grow worse and worse, I have read\nin a very learned authour, viz., _Poor Robin\u2019s Almanack_, how that\nabout two hundred and fifty years ago (as near as he could remember)\nthere was a great sickness almost throughout the whole world, wherein\nthere dyed Forty-five millions, eight hundred, seventy-three thousand,\nsix hundred and ninety-two good women, and of bad women only three\nhundred, forty and four; by reason whereof there hath been such a\nscarcity of good women ever since: the whole breed of them being almost\nutterly extinct.\u2019\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd so an end. But the author of this pamphlet is not alone in his\nsatires of domestic infelicity. Here you shall see, in _The Woman to\nthe Plow_, how these things struck our forbears. He has good ideas,\nthis seventeenth-century versifier, but his gifts in the matter of\nrhyme and rhythm are all too slight:--\n\n\nTHE WOMAN TO THE PLOW AND THE MAN TO THE HEN-ROOST;\n\nOR, A FINE WAY TO CURE A COT QUEAN.\n\n    Both men and women, listen well,\n    A merry jest I will you tell,\n    Betwixt a good man and his wife\n    Who fell the other day at strife.\n    He chid her for her huswivery,\n    And she found fault as well as he.\n\nHe says:--\n\n    \u2018Sith you and I cannot agree,\n    Let\u2019s change our work\u2019--\u2018Content,\u2019 quoth she.\n    \u2018My wheel and distaff, here, take thou,\n    And I will drive the cart and plow.\u2019\n    This was concluded \u2019twixt them both:\n    To cart and plow the good wife goeth.\n    The good man he at home doth tarry,\n    To see that nothing doth miscarry.\n    An apron he before him put:\n    Judge:--Was not this a handsome slut?\n    He fleets the milk, he makes the cheese;\n    He gropes the hens, the ducks, and geese;\n    He brews and bakes as well\u2019s he can;\n    But not as it should be done, poor man.\n    As he did make his cheese one day\n    Two pigs their bellies broke with whey:\n    Nothing that he in hand did take\n    Did come to good. Once he did bake,\n    And burnt the bread as black as a stock.\n    Another time he went to rock\n    The cradle, and threw the child o\u2019 the floor,\n    And broke his nose, and hurt it sore.\n    He went to milk, one evening-tide,\n    A skittish cow, on the wrong side--\n    His pail was full of milk, God wot,\n    She kick\u2019d and spilt it ev\u2019ry jot:\n    Besides, she hit him a blow on th\u2019 face\n    Which was scant well in six weeks\u2019 space.\n    Thus was he served, and yet to dwell\n    On more misfortunes that befell\n    Before his apron he\u2019d leave off,\n    Though all his neighbours did him scoff.\n    Now list and mark one pretty jest,\n    \u2019Twill make you laugh above the rest.\n    As he to churn his butter went\n    One morning, with a good intent,\n    The cot-quean fool did surely dream,\n    For he had quite forgot the cream.\n    He churned all day with all his might,\n    And yet he could get no butter at night.\n    \u2019Twere strange indeed, for me to utter\n    That without cream he could make butter.\n    Now having shew\u2019d his huswivery,\n    Who did all things thus untowardly,\n    Unto the good wife I\u2019ll turn my rhyme,\n    And tell you how she spent her time.\n    She used to drive the cart and plow,\n    But do\u2019t well she knew not how.\n    She made so many banks i\u2019 th\u2019 ground,\n    He\u2019d been better have given five pound\n    That she had never ta\u2019en in hand,\n    So sorely she did spoil the land.\n    As she did go to sow likewise,\n    She made a feast for crows and pies,\n    She threw away a handful at a place,\n    And left all bare another space.\n    At the harrow she could not rule the mare,\n    But bid one land, and left two bare:\n    And shortly after, well-a-day,\n    As she came home with a load of hay,\n    She overthrew it, nay, and worse,\n    She broke the cart and kill\u2019d a horse.\n    The goodman that time had ill-luck;\n    He let in the sow and killed a duck,\n    And, being grieved at his heart,\n    For loss on\u2019s duck, his horse and cart,\n    The many hurts on both sides done,\n    His eyes did with salt water run.\n    \u2018Then now,\u2019 quoth he, \u2018full well I see,\n    The wheel\u2019s for her, the plow\u2019s for me.\n    I thee entreat,\u2019 quoth he, \u2018good wife,\n    To take my charge, and all my life\n    I\u2019ll never meddle with huswivery more.\u2019\n\n    The goodwife she was well content,\n    And about her huswivery she went;\n    He to hedging and to ditching,\n    Reaping, mowing, lading, pitching.\n\nAnd let us hope that, like the Prince and Princess in the fairy tale,\nthey lived happily ever afterwards. But I have my doubts.\n\n\n\n\nVI.--WOMEN IN MEN\u2019S EMPLOYMENTS.\n\n\nThat Woman\u2019s true profession is marriage is a fact commonly blinked\nin these times when, owing to their greater numbers, it is become\ninevitable that many women must go through life as spinsters. Not\nevery woman may become the mistress of a home in these days when the\nproportion of females to males is growing larger and more evident\nyear by year: not all the women and girls can attain to that ideal\nof marriage which they so ardently desire, now that women outnumber\nthe men in Great Britain and Ireland alone by nearly a million; and\nso, to cover their failure in life, the unmarried have started the\nheresy that woman\u2019s mission is domination rather than submission; that\nwoman\u2019s sphere of action and influence is not properly confined to the\nhome, but is rightly universal, and that marriage is an evil which\ndestroys their individuality. These failures, rightly to call those who\ncannot achieve legalised coverture, are, of course, of all classes,\nbut chiefly and equally of course, they belong to the wage-earning\nclass, and must seek employment wherewith to support their existence\nin an undesired spinsterhood. The growing competition of women with\none another in feminine employments, the higher education of modern\ngirls, the increasing tendency of men to defer marriage, or to remain\nbachelors altogether--all these causes have led to woman\u2019s turning\nfrom the long-since overstocked markets for woman\u2019s work to the more\nhighly-paid functions fulfilled by men. Then, also, the new employments\nand professions evolved from the increasingly complex civilisation of\nthis dying nineteenth century, have been almost exclusively feminised\nby the _femmes soles_ who are occupied nowadays as clerks, shorthand\nwriters, journalists, type-writers--_vulgo_ \u2018typists\u2019--doctors,\ndentists, telephonists, telegraphists, decorators, photographers,\nflorists, and librarians. A lower social stratum takes to such\nemployments as match-box making, printers\u2019 folding and bookbinding,\nand a hundred other crafts. Where deftness of manipulation comes into\nrequest these wage-earning women have proved their right to their new\nplaces; but in the occupations of clerks, cashiers, telephonists,\ntelegraphists, and shorthand writers they have sufficiently\ndemonstrated their unfitness, and only retain their situations by\nreason of the lower wages they are prepared to accept, in competition\nwith men, and through the sexual sentimentality which would rather\nhave a pretty woman to flirt with in the intervals of typewriting\nthan a merely useful and unornamental man. It may be inevitable,\nand in accordance with the inexorable law of self-preservation,\nthat women will continue to elbow men from their stools; but woman\ncannot reasonably expect, if she competes with man in the open market,\nto receive the old-time deference and chivalric treatment--real or\nassumed--that was hers when woman remained at home, and when the title\nof spinster was not an empty form. She must be content to forego much\nof the kindly usage that was hers before she became man\u2019s competitor;\nand if she fails in market overt, where chivalry has no place, why, she\nhas no just cause of complaint. If the time is past when women were\nregarded as a cross between an angel and an idiot it is quite by her\nown doing, and if she no longer receives the deference that is the due\nof an angel, nor the compassionate consideration usually accorded an\nidiot, no one is to blame but herself.\n\nIf she would be content to earn her wages in those manly employments\nshe has poached, and to refrain from the cry of triumph she cannot\nforbear, she would be a much more gracious figure, and, indeed,\nentitled to some sympathy; but foolish women are clamorously greedy\nof self-glorification, and still instant, in and out of season, in\nreviling the strength and mental agility of men which surpass their\nown and forbid for ever the possibility of female domination. And yet\nwomen, one might reasonably suppose, have no just cause of complaint\nin the matter of their mental and physical inferiority. The feminine\nquality of cunning has ever stood them in good stead, and by its aid\nthey have grasped advantages that could not have been theirs by right\nof their muscles or their reason. Cunning has taught them to use their\nshortcomings as claims for consideration, and to urge courtesy as\ntheir due in order to handicap men in the race. In the same manner Mr.\nGladstone was wont, when all reasonable arguments had failed him, to\nurge his age as a claim to attention and a compliance with his policy;\nand, whenever a cricket match is played between an eleven of gentlemen\nand a corresponding number of ladies, the men must fain tie one hand\nbehind their backs and fend as best they may with the other, and use a\nstump in place of a bat. Again, when gloves are wagered on a race, who\never heard of pretty Fanny paying when her wager was lost? You shall\nsee an instance of feminine unreasonableness in competition with man in\nthis tale of a race:--Mrs. Thornton, the wife of a Colonel Thornton,\nrode on horseback, in 1804, a match with a Mr. Frost, on the York\nracecourse. The course was four miles, and the stakes were 500 guineas,\neven. The race was run before an immense concourse, and eventually\nthe lady lost! She could not, of course, considering her sex, contain\nherself for indignation, and her letter to the _York Herald_ which\nfollowed made complaint against Mr. Frost for having been lacking\nin courtesy in \u2018distancing her as much as he could.\u2019 She challenged\nthat discourteous sportsman to another match, but he very rightly\nconsidered that sport is masculine, and did not accept.\n\nMany thousands of girls and unmarried women live nowadays upon their\nearnings in a solitary existence. They are of all grades and classes;\nthey have entered the professions, and even invention is numbered among\ntheir occupations, although the inability of women to originate is\nnotorious. According to a statement in the _Times_ of December, 1888,\n\u2018out of 2500 patents issued to women by the Government of the United\nStates, none reveal a new principle.\u2019\n\nWe have not many women inventors in these islands. Women have not had\nsufficient courage or rashness for dabbling in applied science, or\nmeddling with mechanics. They owe even the sewing-machine, and all the\nimprovements upon its crude beginnings, to man, and would have been\ncontent to wield the needle in slow and painful stitches for all time\nbut for his intervention.\n\nIt was left for the Government to bring the employment of women\nforward, and successive Postmasters-General have sanctioned their\nintroduction to post-offices; but as post-office clerks they have\nfailed to give satisfaction. They readily assume official insolence,\nand carry it to an extent unknown even to Foreign Office male clerks,\nwho were, before the introduction of women into the Civil Service,\nsupposed to have attained the utmost heights of \u2018side\u2019 and official\noffensiveness. Many have been the bitter letters addressed to the\n_Times_--that first resort of the aggrieved--upon the neglect and\ncontumely heaped upon the public by the Postmaster-General\u2019s young\nladies. But this neglect and studied insolence has, it must be owned,\nbeen chiefly shown by these Jacquettas in office to their own sex; and\nladies have been observed to wait, with rage and vexation, for the\ntardy pleasure of female post-office clerks in condescending to notice\ntheir presence.\n\nAt one time the business of post-offices became served almost entirely\nby women. This was due not to any Governmental delusions upon the score\nof their merits, but was owing entirely to a cheeseparing economy which\nemployed inferior wits at a lower wage than would have been acceptable\nto men. Even such extremely busy offices as those of Ludgate Circus\nand Lombard Street were filled with women, who elbowed men from their\nstools, and became so \u2018flurried\u2019 in the press of business that they\nfrequently gave either too much change or too little over the counter,\nor committed such vagaries as giving ten shillings\u2019 worth of stamps\nfor half-a-crown; or were incapable of weighing letters and parcels\nproperly, so that the Post-office revenues were increased by packages\nbeing more than sufficiently stamped, or else were augmented by the\nfines levied upon addressees in cases where their inherent inability\nto juggle with figures had caused inadequate prepayment. Indeed,\nthe woman who can reason from cause to effect, or can employ the\nmultiplication-table accurately (except under circumstances in which\ntime is no object) is as much a \u2018sport\u2019--as Professor Huxley might\nsay--as a white raven or a cat born with six legs.\n\nThe storm of indignation was so great over these unbusinesslike doings,\nthat even that elephantine creature--the Postmaster-General--was\nmoved,[4] and the chiefest of the City post-offices are served now by\nmen.\n\nBut the pert miss of the suburban post-office, and the establishments\njust beyond the City, is still very much in evidence. It is she who,\nwith a crass stupidity almost beyond belief, misreads the telegrams\nhanded in, and despatches the most extraordinary and extravagant\nmessages that bear no sort of resemblance to their original draughts,\nand it is her sister at the other end of the wire who cannot interpret\nthe dot and dash of the Morse system aright, and so further complicates\naffairs. The marvels and conveniency of telegraphy have been praised,\nand not beyond their due, but the other side of the medal has to be\nshown in the extraordinary and disquieting \u2018blunders,\u2019 perpetrated\nchiefly by female telegraphists, which spread dismay and consternation\nthrough such vital substitutions as \u2018father is dead,\u2019 for the original\nmessage of \u2018father is bad\u2019; \u2018all going well: a little fire at 7 o\u2019clock\nthis morning,\u2019 in which \u2018fire\u2019 is transmitted instead of \u2018girl\u2019; and\nthe appalling error \u2018Come at once: mother much _diseased_,\u2019 in which\nthe word \u2018diseased\u2019 usurps the place of \u2018distressed.\u2019\n\nThe absurd way in which people have been summoned by telegraph to meet\nfriends at places that not only did those friends not contemplate, but\nwhich either do not exist at all, or, at least, not in the situations\nsome of these erring telegrams assign them, is within the experience\nof almost every one who is in the way of frequently receiving these\npink missives at the post-office. \u2018Meet me 5 o\u2019clock Saint Mary Abbots\nChurch, Kensington,\u2019 has been rendered, \u2018Meet me 5 o\u2019clock Saint Mark\nAbchurch, Kennington.\u2019 The substitution of \u2018Piccadilly\u2019 for \u2018Pevensey\u2019;\nthe omission of the second word in the address of \u2018Manchester Square,\u2019\nand similar vagaries are common.\n\nOf course this is not to say that they are only the women telegraph\nclerks who fall into these errors, but the greater percentage\noriginates with them. The woman-clerk who receives a message through\nthe wire cannot follow the telegraphic instrument with the attention\nthat makes all the difference between accuracy and some dreadful\nblunder. Thus it is that in the domain of the electric telegraph the\nineradicable tendency of her sex to argue from false premises, and\nher capacity for jumping to erroneous conclusions are admirably well\nshown; and the system by which telegrams are sent lends itself in\nthe most complete and remarkable way to her errors of anticipation.\nThe telegraphic alphabet now universally in use--known as the Morse\nsystem--consists of a series of dots and dashes; and a message is\nspelled out by a laborious ticking of the magnetic needle at the office\nin receipt of the telegram. The message is read, tick by tick, from\nthe needle\u2019s rapid oscillations:--\u2018Your sister di----\u2019 \u2018Oh,\u2019 says the\nfemale telegraphist to herself, disregarding the next few movements of\nthe needle, \u2018died, of course,\u2019 and so finishes the word. The needle\ncontinues ticking and the next words are spelled out, \u2018with us last\nnight, undertake----\u2019 The telegraphist adds an \u2018r\u2019 to that word to make\nit fit her first guess, and reads off the remainder of the message, \u2018to\nbring her up to-morrow,\u2019 and so despatches an alarming telegram, which\nshould have read harmlessly enough, \u2018Your sister dined with us last\nnight. Undertake to bring her up to-morrow.\u2019\n\nThese things are sufficiently dreadful, and leave little room for\nexaggeration; but one must scan more than doubtfully that tale of a\ntelegram which when handed in read, \u2018I tea with Mr. Smith in Dover\nStreet. Stay for me,\u2019 but which was changed into \u2018I flee with Mrs.\nSmith to Dover straight. Pray for me.\u2019\n\nAs for journalism, women have invaded the newspaper offices to some\npurpose, and it is owing to them that the modern newspaper is usually\nan undistinguished farrago of wild and whirling words, ungrammatical\nat best, and at its worst a jumble of more or less malicious gossip,\nwithout sequence or thread of reason. The \u2018lady journalist\u2019 is no\nrespecter of persons or institutions, and an easy impudence is\nnatural to her contributions, whether her subject be peer or peasant.\nProportion is in no sense her gift or acquirement: the death of a\nmember of the \u2018submerged tenth\u2019 in a court off Fleet Street is more\nthrilling to her senses than the fall of a statesman from office; the\ncut of a dress or the shade of a ribbon wears an importance in her eyes\nthat the rise and progress of trades can never win; and the babble of\nSocial Science Congresses, or the lecturing of University Extensionists\ntranscends the Parliamentary debater in her mind. \u2018Actuality\u2019 is her\nshibboleth and gush her output; and the heart actuates her pen rather\nthan the head.\n\nThe journalist of years bygone was a very different being. His--for\nthe old-time journalist was always masculine--his knowledge of frocks\nand flounces was _nil_; his habitat was generally a pothouse, and his\nspeech was as often as not thick and husky with potations; but however\nconfused his talk, and however objectionable his personality, his\nutterances in the press were apt and luminous and he took no bribes.\nIn this last respect the name and trade of a \u2018lady journalist\u2019 are\nsomewhat stale and blown upon of late, and she has been revealed as the\ndebaucher of newspaper morality, who, in league with the advertisement\ndepartment, praises the shoddy goods of the advertising tradesman,\nwhile he who relies not upon _r\u00e9clame_ but on excellence of workmanship\nis dismissed with faint praise, or mentioned not at all. Worse than\nthis unscrupulous fending for her employer--editor or advertising\nmanager--she stoops to gifts in coin and kind from eager shopkeepers,\npanting to gain the ear and open the purse of the public, and when\nshe has a fancy for any \u2018particular\u2019 article, she begs it with an\nassurance born of the knowledge that her wishes will not be refused by\nthe tradesman who has that article in his gift. He dare not do so, for\nhis puff would be missing from the \u2018organ\u2019 that would otherwise have\nproclaimed the excellence of his wares to a gulled and gullible world.\n\nCertainly, in all the man\u2019s employments she has invaded, in no other is\nwoman so powerful for ill as in journalism.\n\n\n_FINIS._\n\n\n_LONDON:_\n\n_Printed by Strangeways & Sons, Tower Street, Cambridge Circus, W.C._\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n_WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR._\n\n\n ENGLISH PEN ARTISTS OF TO-DAY: Examples of their Work, with some\n Criticisms and Appreciations. Super royal 4to. \u00a33 3_s._ net.\n\n THE BRIGHTON ROAD: Old Times and New on a Classic Highway. With 95\n Illustrations by the Author and from Old Prints. Demy 8vo. 16_s._\n\n FROM PADDINGTON TO PENZANCE: The Record of a Summer Tramp. With 105\n Illustrations by the Author. Demy 8vo. 16_s._\n\n A PRACTICAL HAND-BOOK OF DRAWING FOR MODERN METHODS OF REPRODUCTION.\n Illustrated by the Author and Others. Demy 8vo. 7_s._ 6_d._\n\n THE MARCHES OF WALES: The Welsh Borders, from the Severn Sea to the\n Sands o\u2019 Dee. With 114 Illustrations by the Author, and from Old-time\n Portraits. Demy 8vo. 16_s._\n\n THE PORTSMOUTH ROAD: Annals of an Ancient Turnpike. With 100\n Illustrations by the Author, and from other sources. Demy 8vo.\n\n  [_In the Press._\n\n\n\n\nELKIN MATHEWS\u2019S PUBLICATIONS.\n\n\n ABBOTT (DR. C. C.). TRAVELS IN TREE-TOP. 200 copies. Crown 8vo. 5_s._\n net.\n\n ---- THE BIRDS ABOUT US. With upwards of 70 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo.\n 5_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\n  [_Shortly._\n\n\n BINYON (LAURENCE). LYRIC POEMS With title-page by SELWYN IMAGE. Square\n 16mo. 5_s._ net.\n\n\n BOURDILLON (F. W.). A LOST GOD. A Poem, with Illustrations by H. J.\n FORD. 500 copies, 8vo. 6_s._ net.\n\n  [_Very few remain._\n\n\n ---- AUCASSIN AND NICOLETTE. Edited in Old French and rendered in\n Modern English by F. W. BOURDILLON. Fcap. 8vo. 7_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\n  [_Transferred by the Author to the\n  present Publisher._\n\n\n CARMAN (BLISS) AND RICHARD HOVEY. SONGS FROM VAGABONDIA. With\n Decorations by T. METEYARD. Fcap. 8vo. 5_s._ net.\n\n\n CHAPMAN (ELIZABETH RACHEL). A LITTLE CHILD\u2019S WREATH: A Sonnet\n Sequence. 350 copies. Square 16mo. 3_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\n\n COLERIDGE (HON. STEPHEN). THE SANCTITY OF CONFESSION. A Romance. 2nd\n Edition, crown 8vo. 3_s._ net.\n\n  [_A few remain._\n\n\n CROSSING (WM.). THE ANCIENT CROSSES OF DARTMOOR. With 11 plates. 8vo.\n cloth. 4_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\n  [_Very few remain._\n\n\n DAVIES (R. R). SOME ACCOUNT OF THE OLD CHURCH AT CHELSEA, AND OF ITS\n MONUMENTS.\n\n  [_In preparation._\n\n\n DE GRUCHY (AUGUSTA). UNDER THE HAWTHORN, AND OTHER VERSES.\n Frontispiece by WALTER CRANE. 300 copies, crown 8vo. 5_s._ net. Also\n 30 copies on Japanese vellum. 15s. net.\n\n  [_Very few remain._\n\n\n DIVERSI COLORES SERIES. The Series of Books begun in \u2018DIVERSI COLORES\u2019\n by Mr. HERBERT P. HORNE, will continue to be published by Mr. ELKIN\n MATHEWS.\n\n The intention of the Series is to give in a collective perfected form,\n Poems and Essays by various writers, which have appeared from time to\n time in the _Hobby Horse_. The Series will be edited by Mr. HORNE, and\n will contain:--\n\n No. II.--CAROLS AND POEMS. By SELWYN IMAGE.\n\n No. III.--ESSAYS UPON MATTHEW ARNOLD. By ARTHUR GALTON.\n\n No. IV.--POEMS. By ERNEST DOWSON.\n\n No. V.--THE LETTERS AND PAPERS OF ADAM LEGENDRE.\n\nEach volume will contain a new title-page and ornaments, designed by\nthe Editor; and will be uniform with \u2018Diversi Colores.\u2019\n\nDOWSON (ERNEST). A VOLUME OF SHORT STORIES.\n\n  [_In preparation._\n\n\n---- A VOLUME OF POEMS.\n\n  [_In preparation._\n\n\nFIELD (MICHAEL). SIGHT AND SONG (Poems on Pictures). 400 copies, fcap.\n8vo. 5_s._ net. [_Very few remain._\n\n\n---- STEPHANIA: A TRIALOGUE IN THREE ACTS. 250 copies, pott 4to. 6_s._\nnet.\n\n  [_Very few remain._\n\n\n---- A QUESTION OF MEMORY, A PLAY IN FOUR ACTS. 8vo. 5_s._ net.\n\n  [_Very few remain._\n\n\nGALTON (ARTHUR). ESSAYS UPON MATTHEW ARNOLD.\n\n  [_In preparation._\n\n\nHALLAM (ARTHUR HENRY). THE POEMS, together with his Essay \u2018On some\nof the Characteristics of Modern Poetry, and on the Lyrical Poems\nof Alfred Tennyson.\u2019 Edited, with an Introduction, by RICHARD LE\nGALLIENNE. 550 copies, fcap. 8vo. 5_s._ net.\n\n  [_Very few remain._\n\n\nHAMILTON (COL. IAN). THE BALLAD OF HADJI, AND OTHER POEMS. Etched\nfrontispiece by WM. STRANG. 550 copies, 12mo. 3_s._ net.\n\n  [_Transferred by the Author to the\n  present Publisher._\n\n\nHARPER (C. G.). REVOLTED WOMAN: Past, Present, and to Come. With\nnumerous Illustrations by the Author. Demy 8vo. 5_s._ net.\n\n\nHEMINGWAY (PERCY). OUT OF EGYPT: Stories from the Threshold of the\nEast. With cover-design by GLEESON WHITE. Crown 8vo. 3_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\n\n---- THE HAPPY WANDERER. With title-design by H. P. HORNE. 16mo. 5_s._\nnet.\n\n  [_In preparation._\n\n\nHICKEY (EMILY). VERSE TALES, LYRICS, AND TRANSLATIONS. 300 copies. Imp.\n16mo. 5_s._ net.\n\n\nHINKSON (KATHARINE). LOUISE DE LA VALLI\u00c8RE, AND OTHER POEMS. Small 8vo.\n3_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\n  [_A few remain._\n\n\n---- A VOLUME OF IRISH STORIES.\n\n  [_In preparation._\n\n\nHORNE (HERBERT P.). DIVERSI COLORES. Poems, with ornaments by the\nAuthor. 250 copies. 16mo. 5_s._ net.\n\n\nIMAGE (SELWYN). CAROLS AND POEMS, with decorations by H. P. HORNE. 250\ncopies. 5_s._ net.\n\n  [_In preparation._\n\n\nJOHNSON (EFFIE). IN THE FIRE, AND OTHER FANCIES. Frontispiece by WALTER\nCRANE. 500 copies, imp. 16mo. 3_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\n\nJOHNSON (LIONEL, Author of _The Art of Thomas Hardy_). POEMS, with\ntitle-design by H. P. HORNE. Square crown 8vo. 5_s._ net.\n\n  [_In preparation._\n\n\nLE GALLIENNE (R.).--_See HALLAM._\n\n\nLETTERS TO LIVING ARTISTS. 500 copies fcap. 8vo. 3_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\n  [_Very few remain._\n\n\nMARSTON (PHILIP BOURKE). A LAST HARVEST: LYRICS AND SONNETS FROM THE\nBOOK OF LIFE. Edited by LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON. 500 copies post 8vo.\n5_s._ net. Also 50 copies on large paper, hand-made. 10_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\n  [_Very few remain._\n\n\nMARTIN (W. WILSEY). QUATRAINS, LIFE\u2019S MYSTERY, AND OTHER POEMS. 16mo.\n2_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\n  [_Very few remain._\n\n\nMURRAY (ALMA). PORTRAIT AS BEATRICE CENCI. With critical notice,\ncontaining four letters from ROBERT BROWNING. 8vo. wrapper. 2_s._ net.\n\n\nNOEL (HON. RODEN). POOR PEOPLE\u2019S CHRISTMAS. 750 copies. 16mo. 1_s._ net.\n\n  [_Very few remain._\n\n\nOLIVER (DR. GEORGE). AN INDEX TO THE LIVES OF THE BISHOPS OF EXETER.\nCompiled by J. S. ATTWOOD. 8vo. 2_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\n\nPINKERTON (PERCY). GALEAZZO: a Venetian Episode, and other Poems.\nEtched frontispiece, 16mo. 5_s._ net.\n\n  [_Very few remain.\n  Transferred by the Author to the present\n  Publisher._\n\n\nPROBYN (MAY). A NEW VOLUME OF POEMS.\n\n  [_In preparation._\n\n\nRADFORD (DOLLIE). A LIGHT LOAD.\n\n  [_Out of print._\n\n\n---- SONGS. A New Volume of Verse.\n\n  [_In preparation._\n\n\nRADFORD (ERNEST). CHAMBERS TWAIN. Frontispiece by WALTER CRANE. 250\ncopies. Imp. 16mo. 5_s._ net. Also 50 copies large paper. 10_s._ 6_d._\nnet.\n\n  [_Very few remain._\n\n\nRHYMERS\u2019 CLUB, THE SECOND BOOK OF THE. With contributions by E. DOWSON,\nE. J. ELLIS, G. A. GREENE, A. HILLIER, L. JOHNSON, R. LE GALLIENNE, V.\nPLARR, E. RADFORD, E. RHYS, T. W. ROLLESTON, A. SYMONS, J. TODHUNTER,\nand W. B. YEATS. 500 copies (400 for sale). Sq. 16mo. 5_s._ net. Also\n50 copies large paper, 10_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\n\nROTHENSTEIN (WILL). OCCASIONAL PORTRAITS. With Comments on the\nPersonages by various Writers.\n\n  [_In preparation._\n\n\nSCHAFF (DR. P.): LITERATURE AND POETRY: Papers on Dante, &c. Portrait\nand Plates. 100 copies only. 8vo. 10_s._ net.\n\n\nSYMONDS (JOHN ADDINGTON). IN THE KEY OF BLUE, AND OTHER PROSE ESSAYS.\nCover-design by C. S. RICKETTS. 2nd Edition. Thick crown 8vo. 8_s._\n6_d._ net.\n\n\nTENNYSON.--_See HALLAM--VAN DYKE._\n\n\nTODHUNTER (JOHN). A SICILIAN IDYLL. Frontispiece by WALTER CRANE. 250\ncopies. Imp. 16mo. 5_s._ net. Also 50 copies on hand-made large paper,\nfcap. 4to. 10_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\n  [_Very few remain._\n\n\nTYNAN (KATHARINE).--_See MRS. HINKSON._\n\n\nVAN DYKE (HENRY). THE POETRY OF TENNYSON. 3rd Edition, enlarged. Crown\n8vo. 5_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\nThe late Laureate himself gave valuable aid in correcting various\ndetails.\n\n\nWEDMORE (FREDERICK). PASTORALS OF FRANCE--RENUNCIATIONS. A volume of\nStories. Title-page by JOHN FULLEYLOVE, R.I. 3rd Edition. Crown 8vo.\n5_s._ net.\n\n_A few of the large paper copies of Renunciations (1st Edition)\nremain._ 10_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\n\nWICKSTEED (P. H.). DANTE: SIX SERMONS. 3rd Edition. Crown 8vo. 2_s._\nnet.\n\n\nWYNNE (FRANCES). WHISPER. A Volume of Verse. With Memoir by Mrs.\nHINKSON, and Portrait. Fcap. 8vo. buckram. 2_s._ 6_d._ net.\n\n  [_Transferred by the Author to the\n  present Publisher._\n\n\nYEATS (W. B.). THE SHADOWY WATERS.\n\n  [_In preparation._\n\n\n---- THE WIND AMONG THE REEDS. A new Volume of Poems.\n\n  [_In preparation._\n\n\nLONDON: ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] \u2018She kept no notes or records. She desired to forget what she had\ndone.\n\n\u2018Many ladies try to benefit these women in different ways; not many\nreceive them into their houses.\n\n\u2018A sufficient number of private persons doing this work would obviate\nthe necessity for Government machinery.\n\n\u2018Witness would wish to keep clear of Government aid, because Government\nwould then assume a right to control. The work was too delicate for the\nState to meddle with.\n\n\u2018She knew nothing of the garrison towns: knew most of the north:\ndeclined to give an opinion as to the operation of the Acts: had no\ninterest in them.\n\n\u2018Reminded that she had given her opinion pretty freely at meetings\nand in publications, the witness stated that that was merely in\nillustration of her views on the constitutional and moral part of the\nsubject.\n\n\u2018No alteration in the Acts could reconcile her to them. She would be\nsatisfied with nothing but entire repeal.\n\n\u2018Witness remembered addressing the Secretary at War with reference to a\ngirl named Hagar. She thought her letter to Mr. Cardwell was a private\none. She had apologised to Mr. Cardwell for having written in warmth of\nfeeling.\n\n\u2018She was aware that therein she made a charge of gross misconduct\nagainst a policeman: was not satisfied that she had been entirely\nmistaken. She reported the case on the authority of Mr. and Mrs.\nHeritage and of the mother and girl.\n\n\u2018She was aware that the Secretary of State ordered an inquiry, and that\nthe inspector of hospitals came to the conclusion that there was not a\nword of truth in what the woman and girl said. She believed the woman\nand girl in preference to Dr. Sloggett. She did not know the nature of\nthe evidence on which Dr. Sloggett reported to the Secretary of State,\nand was still disposed to believe the woman and girl.\n\n\u2018Her speeches had often been incorrectly reported. She did say at\nNottingham that the promoters of the Acts did not dare to ask the Queen\nto sign such a measure during the life of Prince Albert; but did not\nsay, as reported, that Her Majesty signed the Act believing it to be a\nCattle Bill.\n\n\u2018She considered any reformations under the Acts accidental, and doubted\nwhether, as brought about by the Acts, reformation was a benefit.\n\n\u2018She would take no legal measures for prevention of the infection of\ninfants by diseased parents; only moral means.\u2019\n\n[2] \u2018Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.\nFor the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head\nof the Church ... therefore, as the Church is subject unto Christ,\nso let the wives be to their own husbands in everything\u2019 (Ephes. v.\n22-24). \u2018Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit\nin the Lord\u2019 (Col. iii. 18). \u2018Let the woman learn in silence, with all\nsubjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority\nover the man, but to be in silence\u2019 (1 Tim. ii. 11, 12). \u2018But I would\nhave you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of\nthe woman is the man.\u2019 \u2018Every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with\nher head uncovered dishonoureth her head.\u2019 \u2018For a man, indeed, ought\nnot to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God;\nbut the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman;\nbut the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman;\nbut the woman for the man\u2019 (1 Cor. xi. 3, 5, 7-9). \u2018Let your women keep\nsilence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak:\nbut they are commanded to be under obedience\u2019 (1 Cor. xiv. 34).\n\n[3] Lady Jeune.\n\n[4] An amusing tale was told (which may or may not have been true)\nshortly after the introduction of women into the Postal Service, by\nwhich it would seem that a noble Postmaster-General, calling casually\ninto a post-office, was refused information by two of his _employ\u00e9es_.\n\n\n[Transcriber\u2019s Note:\n\nObvious printer errors corrected silently.\n\nInconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]","title":"Revolted Woman: Past, present, and to come","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":31543}