Daybreak; A Romance of an Old World Part 34

"Even in these dark days individuals of our s.e.x rose out of the general degradation and showed that they were fitted by nature for a higher position. But sin and ignorance kept the ma.s.s of them under the heel of their masters. As civilization advanced there came some mitigation of their lot, and where pure religion gained a foothold women began to receive recognition; but their state was deplorable indeed among all those peoples whose religion was only gross superst.i.tion and idolatry.

"In the process of time Christ came and brought the light of heaven to this dark world, and from that hour woman can well say that her day began to dawn. One of the sweetest strains in her song of salvation is that evoked by the memory of her resurrection from misery and abas.e.m.e.nt to a position of honor among the children of men. The change, however, was very gradual, for Christianity itself was slow in gaining ground; but the gospel was ever the friend of woman, as of all the oppressed, lifting her up where she could influence the world and begin to fulfill her destiny. As fast as the nations shook off barbarism and became in any degree enlightened, the unnatural burdens were lifted from the shoulders of woman, although for a long time she was compelled to perform more than her share of severe toil even among people who thought themselves civilized.

"Then came a time when, in nations of some refinement, there was such a reaction against the injustice and degradation to which woman had so long been subjected that she suddenly became an object of sentimental regard among courtly men. Her n.o.ble qualities were exaggerated far beyond their merit, and she was set on a pedestal, to receive homage and all the outward forms of respect from those whom she so recently served as a menial. Being so poorly fitted by her long training in serfdom for such exaltation, what wonder is it that her head was turned by the flattery, and that her recovery was slow and difficult? The insincere and superfluous manners of that period remained for ages a vexation to our growing intelligence and a hindrance to our true progress; and, from what you have said, I am inclined to think you of the earth are now going through some such experience as ours.

"After that epoch had been pa.s.sed, woman never fell back to her former condition, although she did not yet for a long time reach a position that was at all enviable, except as compared with the dark days of her bondage. But she was now where she could take advantage of the general uplifting of the race, and though kept in the background by man as much as was possible, she was constantly growing and learning, preparing herself for a future of which she would then dare not even to dream.

"And now I am coming, in this rapid sketch, to that period of activity and change which Thorwald has described to you in its industrial features. In portraying some of the evils of those days, arising from our almost ineradicable selfishness, he was obliged to make his picture a somber one, a necessity under which, happily, I am not placed. Looking at the times, not as compared with the present era but with what had gone before, which was the only comparison the people of that day could make, there was much room for encouragement. It was, in truth, a bright day, whose beauty, however, consisted not so much in the realization of happiness as in the promise of still brighter days to come. Material prosperity abounded, education flourished, and religion was beginning to creep down from men's heads into their hearts. Wrongs were righted, justice enthroned, and philanthropy sprang into being. Even while there was so much evil, and while some men seemed to be trying all they could to keep back the breaking dawn, the day was surely coming. The brotherhood of man, long preached as a settled principle, now became a living force, showing itself in a mult.i.tude of devices for relieving distress, lessening pain, alleviating poverty, and for the general betterment of society.

"Surrounded by such a universal spirit of improvement, woman felt the impulse of new life, and heard the call to a higher service to humanity than she had ever yet rendered. As men's minds broadened and their hearts grew more tender, and as their sympathies reached out to the weak and down-trodden of every cla.s.s, it was not possible that their ancient prejudice against woman could much longer survive. Her rise from this time forward was rapid. Let us examine the position which, under the influence of this kindly feeling, she soon came to occupy. Protected by many special laws, guarded by all the legitimate forces of society, but exempt from military and police service, honored for her high and n.o.ble qualities, respected by all whose regard was of value, and loved with a true affection which scorned the question of individual rights, her lot seemed indeed a happy one. s.h.i.+elded from the severe struggles of life, freed from the cares of business, released in a great measure from uncongenial work and from the dangers attending exacting labor, with the disagreeable things in life kept from her as much as possible, always seeing the best of every man's character and manners, and, more than all, being supreme in her natural domain, the home, with none to dispute her right, what more could she ask?"

"What, indeed?" I remarked, as Zenith paused a moment after her question. "The picture you have drawn looks so bright, beside your description of her former lot, that I have no doubt she was now contented and happy."

"So you think that shelter and protection and the love of husband and children and the serenity of home ought to be enough to satisfy one who was created with a spirit as restless, a brain as active, an individuality as marked, and hands as clever as those of man?"

As Zenith threw this question at me and waited for me to answer, I realized that I had been caught by her former inquiry, and found not that Zenith was about to take advanced ground on the subject before us. Wis.h.i.+ng I had not drawn her attention so squarely to my personal opinions, and yet feeling obliged to stand up for my position, I said:

"It seems to me that woman's surest path to honor and happiness is that marked out for her by nature, a path which she adorns because so well fitted for it, and that to forsake the home and compete with man for the thousand places in the work of the world would be to cast aside the charm of her womanliness and all that makes her what she is, a solace and comfort to all the world. If she seeks for a pleasurable life, where can she find such keen and lasting pleasure as among the duties of home, and if she is ambitious to lift the world to a higher plane, where is it possible for her to have so much influence as in the nurture of the young?"

"So spoke the men of our race in the era I am describing to you,"

replied Zenith. "It seems as if you must have been reading some of our old writers, so closely do you follow the ideas then prevalent. I have read and reread those histories until I am quite familiar with them, and you shall hear how such views as you have expressed soon became very old-fas.h.i.+oned."

"I am sure your account will closely concern us," I said, "for the age of which you are now speaking must be that corresponding to our own times on the earth. The woman question is attracting special attention, and seems bound to remain with us indefinitely; but I am frank to say I think our women are making a mistake in trying to elbow their way into man's domain, whatever may have been the result of the movement in this favored world."

"I suppose you would have them stay at home where they belong,"

said Zenith, with a good-natured laugh, which sounded as if she were confident enough of her ability to meet any possible argument.

"Yes," I replied, "out of pure kindness to them. It is an astonis.h.i.+ng thing to me that they can think of gaining anything by giving up all that is distinctive in their nature and becoming more like us. I am not so much in love with my own s.e.x as to enjoy seeing our sisters and our wives and daughters trying to make themselves over into men."

I now felt that I had said enough, and so expressed myself to Zenith, but she replied pleasantly that she was glad I had told my thoughts, as it gave her an opportunity to say some things that might not otherwise have been called for.

"You seem to think," she continued, "that woman's supreme happiness is to be gained by self-effacement. I suppose her custom is with you, as it formerly was here, to renounce her own name at the marriage altar."

"It is," I replied.

"And from that hour," resumed Zenith, "she makes every effort to bury herself, to deny her personality, and to lay aside whatever individual desires and aspirations she may have had; that is, if she is what you would call a true woman. If she objects to this renunciation and attempts to make an independent career suited to her talents, then she is strong-minded and is trying to uns.e.x herself. With the world full of work waiting for her nimble fingers and loving heart, she is compelled to suppress all secret hope of doing something to impress her own character on that world, because her only duty is in the home. A man is also called upon to be a good husband and father, but that by no means comprises all he is expected to be and do. To him it is given to strike out into untrodden fields, and, without reproach, to make a name for himself if possible.

"You say work is hard and disagreeable, but is it all dull and uninteresting? Are there not sweet moments of hope in every work, and then the joy of achievement when it is over? Do not men find this joy and the rewards of labor amply sufficient? The more difficult the task, the greater the satisfaction when it is accomplished. Business is perplexing and uncertain, you say, but what of the triumphs of success?

Would any man refuse to undertake an enterprise because success was not certain? The very uncertainty adds zest to the business, and makes hope possible. From all this striving and achieving, and from all the satisfying rewards which come with success, woman is debarred. Then there are the professions and the wide range of occupations which require education and special training. What a variety for man to choose from, while you would confine woman to one; and a great many women, not being born good cooks or good housekeepers, cannot fill that one with any credit to themselves. So what can life be to them compared with what it ought to be? Think of the opportunities they might have in these higher occupations of competing for the prizes of life--honor, fame, position, riches, and, above all, the consciousness of doing some good in the world. Oh, it is impossible for you to realize anything of the longing in woman's heart to be someone, to do something, and so to be relieved from the everlasting monotony of the treadmill, which, if men were obliged to submit to it, would make the majority of them insane.

"You see I have put myself in the place of one of my s.e.x in that olden time, and have spoken as she felt when to express her feelings would have been almost a shame to her.

"What I desire to show you is that woman had not then received all that was due her, although men seemed to think she was fully emanc.i.p.ated. But events moved rapidly in that stirring age, and this great question could not be kept in the background in a day when every abuse and injustice was allowed a hearing and reform was in the very air. Even the dumb beasts had such powerful advocates that cruelty and unkindness were greatly checked. What wonder then, as men's sensibilities and consciences became quickened, that they should begin to see, what they could not see before, that a fuller liberty ought to be accorded to woman? But this vision came not without help. Sometimes in our history we have known of a race being deprived of their freedom, and so benumbed by their condition that they desired nothing better, and so perforce waited for a movement for their enfranchis.e.m.e.nt to come from without. It was not so in this case. Women themselves cried out against their lot. They were not so enraptured with the calm and quiet of their conventional life but that they felt the stirrings of ambition for something different, and they did not fear to raise their voice for more liberty."

"Liberty!" I echoed. "Were they really deprived of liberty?"

"Yes, liberty to choose a calling that would suit their individual tastes and satisfy their growing ambition."

"Excuse me," I again interrupted, "but were not these women who exhibited so much restlessness unattached--that is, without many family ties? And were not the great majority so contented in the shelter of home and so engrossed in the care of husband and children that they were entire strangers to any such disturbing fancies, or ambitions as you call them? And, again, did not this large cla.s.s of happy and busy wives and mothers resent the action of those self-appointed liberators who were fighting for an image of straw and crying themselves hoa.r.s.e over imaginary wrongs?"

Zenith smiled again in that peculiar manner which told me, in the pleasantest possible way, that she was perfectly sure I was on the losing side, and with the smile she resumed:

"Your questions are so familiar to one who has studied this subject that they seem like another plagiarism, as it were, from our histories, but I will give you fair answers.

"It is true that the early protests came from the solitary women, unfortunately not a small cla.s.s at that day, who, being without legal protectors, felt the inequalities of the law and the unjust restraints put upon their s.e.x by society, but the truths they spoke came with added force because of their intimate acquaintance with their needs.

"You are wrong in your supposition that the ma.s.s of women were so shallow in mind as to know nothing of those longings for a fuller, more satisfying life. Deep in their nature, planted by the Creator himself, was the same lofty spirit with which man was endowed, and it could not be smothered by marriage. Taking a husband should not, and in reality does not now, change one's ambition or aim in life any more than taking a wife does, but in those benighted days men, after marriage, could go forward with their plans just as if nothing had happened, while the women were supposed to forget their high hopes and aspirations and confine themselves entirely to the trivial round of domestic duties.

The men, however, were much mistaken if they thought their wives were forgetting. They but bided their time.

"In your last question you are not altogether wrong, for there were a few unthinking ones who joined with some of the men in ridiculing the whole movement as unnecessary and foolish. But this cla.s.s had not much influence, and, in spite of such opposition as they offered, the reform made steady progress.

"As a help to obtain what she was striving for, woman asked for the right of suffrage, and thereupon had to undergo a fusillade of cheap criticism from those who would not understand her, and who supposed she wanted this privilege as an end and not as a means. Men were slow to grant the right to vote, but after much discussion suffrage began to be allowed in matters where the women were particularly interested. With the first concession, however, men realized that the force of all their arguments was broken, and before many years the full right was bestowed.

"And now, Thorwald, I am sure our good friends did not come so far from home to hear me talk all the time. The rest of the subject concerns your s.e.x as much as mine, and you had better take up the story at this point."

"Oh, no," replied Thorwald, "I shall not take the narrative away from you now, you may be sure, for what is left is just the part you can best relate. I shall enjoy it as much as our friends from the earth. But I propose that we hear the rest this afternoon, and that, in the meantime, we go out for a drive."

"A drive," I asked, "what do you drive?"

"You shall see," Thorwald answered, as he stepped to the telephone. I thought I should hear his message, but found the instrument had been further improved. In the use of the telephone as I had known it, everybody in the house was much surer of hearing what was said than the person at the other end of the line was, but here the one addressed was the only one to get a word of the communication.

Thorwald talked to us a short time about other matters, and then asked us all to prepare to go out. When we reached the door the doctor and I were surprised to see a beautiful and commodious carriage, to which were attached, with the lightest possible harness, four of the handsomest horses we had ever seen. There were, besides, two fine saddle-horses for the children, who were to accompany us.

Thorwald drove, but without rein or whip, the horses being guided perfectly and easily merely by word of mouth. The animals were also so large and strong that they seemed to enjoy the sport as much as we did.

"Do you mean to say," I inquired, "that such a turnout as this can be had for the asking?"

"Certainly. I just said through the telephone that I would like a carriage for four persons, and two saddle-horses. The man who has the care of the horses is a friend of mine who likes the work better than anything else."

"The horses appear to be well broken," the doctor remarked.

"Broken," said Zenith, "what do you mean by that, Doctor?"

"Why, it is an expression by which we mean that the high spirit with which they were born has been subdued, making it easy to train them to obedience."

"They must be wild, then," spoke Zenith again, "and you are obliged to tame them. The difference here is that the horses are born tame and do not need breaking, and though they have plenty of spirit, as you see, they are so intelligent and have such solidity of character that there is never any danger that they will become unmanageable."

"That must be so," said I, "or you could not be sure of being free from accidents. But tell us, Thorwald, how it happens that we have not seen others enjoying this delightful mode of traveling."

"It is not very singular that you have not seen any horses before," said Thorwald. "They have been entirely superseded in all kinds of business, you remember, by mechanical power, and even for pleasure-riding most people are too tender of heart to enjoy using them. They fear the horses will be fatigued, and they do not like to see them straining themselves in dragging a heavy load, when there is a force that has no feeling ready to do it a great deal better.

"But you can see these horses are not working very hard, and it is a good thing for us sometimes to give up a little sentiment. There is some danger that our sympathies may carry us too far. For instance, it is probably a real kindness to these horses to give them a little work, if we are only careful not to render their service galling to them; and yet there are many people who never drive, on account of the feeling they have for the beasts."

"It would be a good thing if we had more of that sentiment on the earth," said the doctor.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE HORSES ARE BORN TAME"]