The Woman Who Dared Part 9

Rachel, obey Miss Percival. Be quick To shun all evil. Fly from heedless playmates.

Close your young eyes on all impurity.

Cast out all naughty thoughts by holy prayer.

Love only what is good. Ah! darling child, I hoped to s.h.i.+eld you up to womanhood, But G.o.d ordains it otherwise. May He Amid the world's thick perils be your Guide!

There! Do not cry, my darling. All is well.

Sing us some pious hymn, Miss Percival."

And Linda, with wet eyelids, sang these words.

I.

Be of good cheer, O Soul!

Angels are nigh; Evil can harm thee not, G.o.d hears thy cry.

II.

Into no void shalt thou Spring from this clay; His everlasting arm Shall be thy stay.

III.

Day hides the stars from thee, Sense hides the heaven Waiting the contrite soul That here has striven.

IV.

Soon shall the glory dawn Making earth dim; Be not disquieted, Trust thou in Him!

"O, thank you! Every word is true--I know it.

Sense hides it now, but has not always hid.

Remember, Rachel, that I say it here, Weighing my words: I know it all is true.

G.o.d bless you both. I'm very, very happy.

My pain is almost gone. I'll sleep awhile."

Rachel and Linda sat an hour beside him, Silently watching. Linda then arose And placed her hand above his heart: 'twas still.

Tranquilly as the day-flower shuts its leaves And renders up its fragrance to the air, From the closed mortal senses had he risen.

One day the tempter sat at Linda's ear: Sat and discoursed--so piously! so wisely!

She held a letter in her hand; a letter Signed Jonas Fletcher. Jonas was her landlord; A man of forty--ay, a gentleman; Kind to his tenants, liberal, forbearing; Rich and retired from active business; A member of the Church, but tolerant; A man sincere, cordial, without a flaw In habits or in general character; Of comely person, too, and cheerful presence.

Long had he looked on Linda, and at last Had studied her intently; knew her ways, Her daily occupations; whom she saw, And where she went. He had an interest Beyond that of the landlord, in his knowledge; The letter was an offer of his hand.

Of Linda's parentage and history He nothing knew, and nothing sought to know.

He took her as she was; was well content, With what he knew, to run all other risks.

The letter was a good one and a frank; It came to Linda in her pinch of want, Discouragement, and utter self-distrust.

And thus the tempter spoke and she replied:

"You're getting thin; you find success in art Is not a thing so easy as you fancied.

Five years you've worked at what you modestly Esteem your specialty. Your specialty!

As if a woman could have more than one,-- And that--maternity! I do not speak Of the six years you gave your art before You strove to make it pay. Methinks you see Your efforts are a failure. What's the end Of all your toil? Not enough money saved For the redemption of your p.a.w.ned piano!

Truly a cheerful prospect is before you: To hear your views would edify me greatly."

"Yes, I am thinner than I was; but then I can afford to be--so that's not much.

As for success--if we must measure that By the financial rule, 'tis small, I grant you.

Yes, I have toiled, and lived laborious days, And little can I show in evidence; And sometimes--sometimes, I am sick at heart, And almost lose my faith in woman's power To paint a rose, or even to mend a stocking, As well as man can do. What would you have?"

"Now you speak reason. Let me see you act it!

Abandon this wild frenzy of the hour, That would leave woman free to go all ways A man may go! Why, look you, even in art, Most epicene of all pursuits in life, How man leaves woman always far behind!

Give up your foolish striving; and let Nature And the world's order have their way with you."

"Small as the pittance is, yet I could earn More, ten times, by my brush than by my needle."

"Ah! woman's sphere is that of the affections.

Ambition spoils her--spoils her as a woman."

"Spoils her for whom?"

"For man."

"Then woman's errand Is not, like man's, self-culture, self-advancement, But she must simply qualify herself To be a mate for man: no obligation Resting on man to qualify himself To be a mate for woman?"

"Ay, the man Lives in the intellect; the woman's life Is that of the affections, the emotions; And her anatomy is proof of it."

"So have I often heard, but do not see.

Some women have I known, who could endure Surgical scenes which many a strong man Would faint at. We have had this dubious talk Of woman's sphere far back as history goes: 'Tis time now it were proved: let actions prove it; Let free experience, education prove it!

Why is it that the vilest drudgeries Are put on woman, if her sphere be that Of the affections only, the emotions?

_He_ represents the intellect, and _she_ The affections only! Is it always so?

Let Malibran, or Mary Somerville, De Stael, Browning, Stanton, Stowe, Bonheur, Stand forth as proof of that cool plat.i.tude.

Use other arguments, if me you'd move.

Besides, I see not that your system makes Any provision for that numerous cla.s.s To whom the affections are an Eden closed,-- The women who are single and compelled To drudge for a precarious livelihood!

What of _their_ sphere? What of the sphere of those Who do not, by the sewing of a s.h.i.+rt, Earn a meal's cost? Go tell them, when they venture On an employment social custom makes Peculiarly a man's,--that they become Unwomanly! Go make them smile at that,-- Smile if they've not forgotten how to smile."

"I see that you're befogged, my little woman, Chasing this ignis fatuus of the day!

Leave it, and settle down as woman should.

What has been always, must be to the end.

Always has woman been subordinate In mind, in body, and in power, to man.

Let rhetoricians rave, and theorists Spin their fine webs,--bow you to holy Nature, And plant your feet upon the eternal fact."

"The little lifetime of the human race You call--eternity! The other day One of these old eternal wrongs was ended Rather abruptly; yet good people thought 'Twas impious to doubt it was eternal.

Because abuses have existed always, May we not prove they are abuses still?

If for antiquity you plead, why not Tell us the harem is the rule of nature, The one solution of the woman problem?"

"Does not St. Paul--"

"Excuse me. Beg no questions.

St. Paul to you may be infallible, But Science is so unaccommodating, If not irreverent, she'll not accept His ipse dixit as an axiom.

Here, in our civilized society, Is an increasing host of single women Who do not find the means of livelihood In the employments you call feminine.

What shall be done? And my reply is this: Let every honest calling be as proper For woman as for man; throw open all Varieties of labor, skilled or rough, To woman's choice and woman's compet.i.tion.

Let _her_ decide the question of the fitness.

Let her rake hay, or pitch it, if she'd rather Do that than scrub a floor or wash and iron.

And, above all, let her equality Be barred not at the ballot-box; endow her With all the rights a citizen can claim; Give her the suffrage;[7] let her have--by right And not by courtesy--a voice in shaping The laws and inst.i.tutions of the land.

And then, if after centuries of trial, All shall turn out a fallacy, a failure, The social scheme will readjust itself On the old basis, and the world shall be The wiser for the great experiment."