Ginger Snaps Part 4

I would like to write a book on some kinds of legal murder; that is if really _good_ people had not such moons.h.i.+ne notions about "delicacy."

This cla.s.s are really the drags on the wheel of reform. I don't say that sometimes it is not necessary, and even right, to drive rough-shod right over them, if they will persist in walking in such a narrow path; but one does it after all with regret, because they so sincerely believe themselves to be in the "path of duty," as they call it. Dear me! if there ever was a perverted phrase, this is one! It makes me sick to hear it.

What do I mean by "legal murders"? Well, if a woman is knocked on the head with a flat-iron by her husband and killed, or if a.r.s.enic is mixed with her food, or if a bullet is sent through her brain, the law takes cognizance of it. But what of the cruel words that just as surely kill, by constant repet.i.tion? What of the neglect? What of the diseased children of a pure, healthy mother? What of the ten or twelve, even healthy children, "who come," one after another, into the weary arms of a really good woman, who yet never knows the meaning of the word _rest_ till the coffin-lid shuts her in from all earthly care and pain? Is the self-sacrifice and self-abnegation all to be on one side? Is the "weaker" always to be the stronger in this regard? I could write flaming words about "the inscrutable Providence which has seen fit to remove our dear sister in her youth from the bosom of her young family," as the funeral prayer phrases it.

Providence did nothing of the sort. Poor Providence! It is astonis.h.i.+ng how busy people are making up bundles to lay on _His_ shoulders! I imagine Providence meant that women, as well as men, should have a right to their own lives. That they, equally with men, should rest when they can go no further on the road without dying. That while the father sits down to smoke the tobacco which "Providence" always seems to furnish him with, although his family may not have bread to eat, his wife should not stagger to her feet, and try to shoulder again her family cares and expenses.

Sometimes--nay, often--in view of all this, I rejoice in regarding the serene Mrs. Calla-Lily. _She_ goes on just like a man. When she is tired she lies down, and stays there till she is rested, and lets the domestic world wag. If she don't feel like talking, she reads. If the children are noisy, she sweetly and cunningly gets out of the way, on that convenient male pretext, "putting a letter in the post-office."

She don't "smoke," but she has her little comforts all the same, and at the right time, although the heavens should fall, and little Tommy's shoes give out. She looks as sleek and smooth and fair as if she were _really_ a lily; and everybody says, "What a delightful person she is! and how bright and charming at all times!"

Now this spectacle soothes me, after seeing the long procession of bent, hollow-eyed, broken-spirited women who are _legally_ murdered.

I exclaim, Good! and think of the old rhyme:

"Look out for thyself, And take care of thyself, For n.o.body cares for thee."

Of course this is very "unamiable" in me, but amiability is not the only or the best quality in the world. I have seen people without a particle of it, as the phrase is often understood, who were the world's real saviours; and I have seen those human oysters, "amiable"

people, till sea-sickness was not a circ.u.mstance to the condition of my mental and moral stomach.

What a millennial world this would be, if every one were placed in the niche for which he or she were best fitted. Now I know a capital architect who was spoiled, when he became a minister. A dreadful mess he makes of it working on the spiritual temple, as pastor of a country church; whose wors.h.i.+ppers each insist upon shaping every brick and lath to their minds before he puts them together; and then they doubt if his cement will do. Poor man!--I know of a merchant, helplessly fastened to the yardstick, who should be an editor. I know of a lawyer, who has _peace_ written all over him, and yet whose life is one interminable fight. I know scores of bright, intelligent women, alive to their finger-tips to everything progressive, good and n.o.ble, whose lives, hedged in by custom and conservatism, remind me of that suggestive picture in all our Broadway artist-windows, of the woman with dripping hair and raiment, clinging to the fragment of rock overhead, while the dark waters are surging round her feet. I know little sensitive plants of children, who are no more understood by those who are daily in their angel presence, than the Saviour was by his crucifiers. Children who, mentally, morally, and physically, are being tortured in their several Gethsemanes to the death; and I know sweet and beautiful homes, where plenty, and intelligence, and Christianity dwell, where no little child's laugh has ever been heard, and no baby smile shall ever fill it with blessed suns.h.i.+ne. I know coa.r.s.e-natured men and women who curse the earth with their presence, whose thoughts and lives are wholly base and ign.o.ble, and yet who fill high places; and I know heaven's own children--patient, toiling, hopeful--sowing seeds which coa.r.s.e, hurrying feet trample in the earth as they go, little heeding the harvest which shall come after their careless footsteps.

_Life's discipline!_ That is all we can say of it.

How any one with eyes to see all this, can doubt Immortality, and yet bear their life from one day to another, I cannot tell. How persons can say, in view of all these cross-purposes, I am satisfied with _this_ life, and--had I my way--would never leave it, is indeed, a mystery. It must be that the soul were left out of them.

But this doleful talk wont do--will it? I should not dispel illusions--should I? Now, that last is a question I can't settle: whether it were better, if you see a friend crossing a lovely meadow, rejoicing in the b.u.t.terflies, and flowers, and lovely odors, to warn him that there is a ditch between him and the road, into which he will presently fall; or to let him enjoy himself while he can, and plump into it, without antic.i.p.atory fears? What do you think? Anyhow, it is no harm to _wish_ you all a happy summer.

Would it not be well for those who report the "dress" of ladies at a public dinner to instruct themselves in advance as to _color_? One can always tell whether a man or a woman is the reporter, by the blunders of the former in mistaking blue for green, lilac for rose, and black for pink. The world moves on, to be sure, in either case; but since reporting must be done on such infinitesimal matters, it were better it were well done. A lady who studiously avoids flashy apparel does not care to read in the morning paper that "she appeared in a yellow gown trimmed with pink." Perhaps the avoidance of the "flowing bowl"

by male reporters would conduce to greater correctness of millinery statement.

_THE FLY IN THE OINTMENT._

I do not know who writes the editorials on the "Woman Question" in its various aspects, in our more prominent New York papers. I read them from day to day, with real disappointment at their immaturity, their flippancy, their total lack of manliness, and respect for, or appreciation of, true womanhood. I say this in no spirit of bitterness, but of real sorrow, that men stepping into the responsible position they hold on those papers, have not better considered the subjects of which they treat. That the writers are not known outside the office, seems to me a very unmanly reason for their misrepresentations. Every morning I ask, over my coffee, Have these men mothers, sisters, wives, who so persistently misrepresent the doings of self-respecting, self-supporting, intelligent women? Does _Congress_ make no mistakes, that women should be expected, in their pioneering, to have arrived at absolute perfection? Is there no heat, in debate, on _its_ floor; no uncourteousness of language? Did not one member, a short time since, call out there to have another member "spanked"? Does the speaker's mallet never call to order, men selected by their const.i.tuents, because supposed most intelligently to represent the various local and other interests of the country? Does the cut of a man's hair or coat injuriously or approbatively affect his speech upon the floors? Does anybody care what color it is, or how worn? I ask myself these questions when I read reports of "strong-minded women's meetings," as they are sneeringly termed, which consist mainly on the absence of a "long train" to their dresses, or the presence of it; on the straightness of their hair, or the frizzing of it; on the lack of ornamentation, or the redundance of it. This mocking, Mephistopheles-dodging of the real questions at issue, behind flimsy screens, seems to me not only most unworthy of these writers, but most unworthy of, and prejudicial to, the prominent journals in which they appear.

If they think that women make such grave mistakes,--mistakes prejudicial to the great interests they seek publicly to promote, the great wrongs they seek to right,--would it not be kinder and more manly, courteously to point them out, if so be that they themselves know "a more excellent way"? Among all these women, are there _none_ who are intelligent, intellectual, earnest, _and modest withal_? Have the editors of these very papers in which these attacks appear, never gladly employed just such, to lend grace, wit, and spirit to their own columns, that they have only sneers and taunts for the cause they espouse, and never a brave, kind, sympathetic recognition of their philanthropic efforts? Is the cause so utterly Quixotic, espoused by such women, who make their own homes bright with good cheer, neatness, taste, and wholesome food, that they cannot gallantly extend a manly hand after it and help them _over_ those bright thresholds, and out into a world full of pain and misery, to lift the burden from their less favored sisters?

If they have the misfortune not to know such women among "the strong-minded," would it not be well to seek them out, and better inform themselves on the subjects upon which they daily write?

The pioneer women who have bravely gone forward, and still keep "marching on," undaunted in the face of this unmanly and ungenerous dealing, have, doubtless, counted the cost, and will not be hindered by it. I do not fear that; but I _do_ regret that any editor of a prominent paper in New York should belittle it and himself, by allowing any of his employes to keep up this boyish pop-gun firing into the air.

The other night, I attended a lecture, the proceeds of which were to be devoted to a charitable inst.i.tution for women.

Now here was a man willing to do this for the particular women's charity to be benefited by it, but he couldn't do it without stepping out of his way to sneer at female suffrage and kindred movements which are advocated and engineered by pure, intelligent, cultivated, earnest women, or fixing his seal of approbation on this particular branch of philanthropy, as the only remedy for all the ills that come of an empty purse and a grieved heart.

And just here is the fly in all these philanthropic ointments. Mix your medicines in _my_ shop, or they will turn out poisons. That is the spirit. Now I don't believe that one society, or one man or woman, is the pivot on which this universe turns; and wis.h.i.+ng well, as I do every progressive, humanitarian movement, I deplore that its leaders will not keep this fact in mind. I don't say that I wish _women_ would keep it in mind, for I am a diligent reader of newspapers, and I see men every day ignoring this broad foundation of civilization. I see them making mouths at each other over a political bone or religious fence; or I hear naughty names called, because one man grabbed a bit of news for his paper, and scampered off with it to the dear public, before his editorial neighbor got scent of it. Oh, women don't do all the gossip and slander and back-biting in the world. They don't make all the silly or stupid speeches either. Nor do they "rush into print," any oftener than certain unquiet male spirits, "thirsting for notoriety," as the phrase goes, who think they know when a colt is a horse, and _vice versa_, better than any other man, because they studied Greek at Oxford. Humbug is not always a female, but when humbug _is_ a female, she generally hails from the top round of the ladder! I am happy to say that, though I may be putting a stone into the hands of mine adversary by the admission!

Human nature might be improved, even in the year 1869. How glad the pop-gun clergyman of a small parish is, when some clerical big-gun is supposed to make a false move on the sacerdotal chequer-board! How he rushes publicly to "deplore" that his "dear brother in Christ should lay himself open to the world's censure in this manner"! His "dear brother's" popularity and big salary were not the animus of _that_ criticism--oh, no! Now I'm not one of those who believe that "a minister" is certainly a saint, above his fellows; or that Christianity is benefited by refusing to admit the shortcomings of church-members. I once heard Rev. Dr. Hall preach a sermon on this subject, every word of which was pure gold and ought to be printed in pamphlet form and placed in the pews of all our churches.

"Mix your medicines in my shop, or they will be poisons"! How sick I am of it! There is so much elbow room in the world, why fight only for one corner? But men, set us "weak women" such a terrible example, fighting and squabbling about straws, and whining when they are defeated. Now, if instead of wasting their time this way, or idling it away as fas.h.i.+onable loungers,--I speak after the manner of the New York--to women,--if instead of belonging to useless up-town clubs, where with the heads of their canes in their mouths, they sit in the day-time, measuring pa.s.sing female ankles, or drinking and talking male scandal, or betting;--if instead they would--each b.u.t.ter-fly son of them--take some good, interesting book, and finding some tenement house, sit down of an evening and amuse some laboring man, who would else flee from the discomforts of such a place to the nearest grog-shop, how n.o.ble would this male b.u.t.terfly of Fifth Avenue then appear! In fact, this particular form of benevolence commends itself to me as the only one that could rescue him from the b.u.t.terfly existence of up-town clubs.

A thought strikes me! As the "New York ----" remarks, when advising women to teach sewing to poor girls, "but perhaps these female b.u.t.terflies of Fifth Avenue don't know themselves how to sew." Alas!

should these male b.u.t.terflies of the Fifth Avenue club-houses not know how to read, when they get to the tenement house of their poor brother!

Now, to conclude, I see nothing antagonistic to a sewing-machine in a woman's vote, but the Editor of the New York ---- is always throwing a blanket over a woman's head, for fear she will see a ballot-box. You may make soup, my dear, graciously says he, for poor women; or flannel s.h.i.+rts for very little paupers, if you'll promise not to burn your fingers in politics. That never'll do, my dear! It is _not_ coa.r.s.e for you to scramble at a matinee for seats, and elbow and jostle, and push men's hats awry--oh, no! that's legitimate--but to subject yourself to this kind of thing at the ballot-box, would be to forfeit man's love, and soil both your skirts and reputation.

_WOMAN'S MILLENNIUM._

Hurrah for Ma.s.sachusetts! Read this:

"Chief Justice Bigelow, of Ma.s.sachusetts, made short work with a divorce case which came before him at Springfield a day or two ago. It was an application of a wife for a divorce from her husband, on the ground of extreme cruelty. It coming up in testimony that the woman had been beaten and otherwise ill-used by her husband, the Judge at once decided the case in her favor, taking occasion to remark that in case of any violence by a husband to the wife, he should not hear all the points before deciding in favor of the latter. The woman might forgive cruelty toward herself, but the court would not."

Now _that's_ what I call a righteous decision. Let all the wives with bruised shoulders, and arms, and backs, and eyes, (bruised _hearts_ are too common to talk about!) emigrate forthwith to this enlightened State. Here's a man who is _just_ to a woman. Think of the rarity of the thing! Compliments, and flattery, and gifts we can all have, till we get to be old women, and some of us afterwards; but _justice_, Messieurs! ah! that's quite another thing. Female eyes have grown dim looking for _that_, all through the ages. Men start up from their tobacco-torpor nowadays and ask, angrily, what means this present restlessness of American women? This wide and deep-spread discontent, which heaves to and fro, developing itself in a thousand different forms? _My_ grandmother was contented enough. _My_ aunt never looked beyond her own family. Are you quite sure of the first, and does the latter deserve praise or blame for the pin-measure view of the world to which she, the G.o.d-appointed instructor and guide of future men and women, chooses to limit herself? Has she a _right_ to launch them on the turbulent ocean of life, with only one poor miserable broken oar to paddle their way? Such women are not praiseworthy; no more than they who, busying themselves in public affairs, leave their children to "come up" as chance or accident dictates. Are you quite sure, too, that because only lately this "wail of discontent" has reached your ear, that it has not been stifled under thousands of tombstones? Ah, well I remember when too young to know what life _meant for a woman_, hearing one who I have since learned had suffered and forgiven much, murmur to herself as she wearily laid her head upon her pillow, "G.o.d be thanked for sleep and forgetfulness!" and yet not one who saw her smiling face, or heard her cheerful voice, or was charmed with her intelligent conversation, ever dreamed that she was not "a contented wife," as the phrase runs.

And just in this connection I would quote a remark which, for its truth, should be inscribed on the _pipe_ (for there he would oftenest meet it) of every man in the land.

"Only so far as a man is happily _married to himself_ is he fit for married life, and family life in general. Unless he has 'cleared himself up,' as the Germans say, he can at best but enter into ambiguous relations to another. When a man is discordant in himself, he makes all that he comes in contact with discordant."

Now, candidly I ask you, oughtn't that remark to be in the Holy Scriptures? Perhaps you ask if the same is not true of women? I am not such an idiot as to deny that, either; but what I marvel at is this--that it should be such a perfectly natural and eminently righteous thing for a _man_ to halloo to high heaven that _his_ mate is not to his mind, after he has compa.s.sed heaven and earth to get her, and such a crime for a woman to be "discontented and restless under similar circ.u.mstances".

Nevertheless, I think woman's millennium is to come out of all this unquiet and chaos. Here's a remark made at a royal-literary-fund-dinner in England,--as true as I live, in _England_, and in London at that,--and by Charles Kingsley at that,--in response to a toast:

"As for imaginative literature," he said, "if the world continued to go on as it was proceeding, _ladies_ must be called upon to fulfil this duty. Where would they find among men such poets as Mrs.

Rossetti, Mrs. Jean Ingelow, or Miss A. Procter? Or who could write such works of prose fiction as the authors of 'John Halifax' or 'Romola'? In former times _men_ only dealt with literature, but the more delicate the weapon became, the more delicate were the hands which wielded it. If he could give any advice to young men how they might escape the trials and troubles that might beset their path in the literary profession--how escape Whitecross Street prison and the workhouse--it would be by marrying a literary lady, and setting himself down to the humble and chivalrous duty of reviewing his wife's books."

The picture of that sublime bit of majesty, a _British husband_, performing such a feat, is so impossible to contemplate, that I must stop, that my readers and myself may take breath.

I am inclined to believe that there are a great many kinds of women, both in England and America. This idea seems to be lost sight of, by the writers of both nations, who have lately undertaken to describe the feminine element, under such t.i.tles as "the Girl of the Period,"

or "The Woman of the Time;" presenting to our view monstrosities, which no doubt exist, but which are no more to be taken specimens of the whole, than is the Bearded Woman, or the Mammoth Fat Girl.

New York, for instance, is not wholly given over to the feminine devil. Angels walk our streets, discernible to eyes that _wish_ to see. n.o.ble, thoughtful, earnest women; sick of shams and pretence; striving each so far as in her lies, to abate both, and to diminish the amount of physical and moral suffering. Then, I never go into the country for a few weeks' summer holiday, that I do not find large-hearted, large-brained women, stowed away among the green hills, in little cottages, which are glorified inside and outside by their presence; women who, amid the press of house and garden work, find time for mental culture; whose little book-shelves hold well-read copies of our best authors. Women--sound physically, mentally, morally; women, whom the _Man of the Period_, who most surely exists, has never found. Now and then, some man, fit to be her mate, in his rambles in the sweet summer time, is struck as I am by these gems hidden amid the green hills, and appropriates them for his own. But for the most part, the more sensible a man is, the bigger the fool he marries. This is especially true of biographers! What a wrong, then, to the great army of sensible, earnest women in either country to pick out a b.u.t.terfly as the national type. Because a few men in New York and London and Paris wear corsets, and dye their whiskers and hair, and pad out their hollow cheeks and shrunken calves, it does not follow that Victor Hugo, and John Bright, and the great army of brave men who won our late victory, are all popinjays. For every female fool I will find you a male mate. So when the inventory of the former is taken, the roll-call of the latter might as well be voiced. Are women so "fond of gossip"? Pray, what is the staple of after-dinner conversation when the wine comes on and the women go off? Do women "lavish money on personal adornment"? How many men are there who would be willing to tell on what, and on whom, their money was worse than lavished? Do women "leave their nursery altogether to hirelings"? How many corresponding men are there, whose own children under their own roofs, are almost entire strangers to their club-frequenting fathers?

And yet what good, n.o.ble men are to be seen for the looking? Faithful to their trusts, faithful to themselves, unmoved by the waves of folly and sin that dash around them, as is the rock of Gibraltar.

I claim that justice be done by these writers on both sides of the water, to both s.e.xes. Fools, like the poor, we shall have always with us; but, thank G.o.d, the "just" man and the "just" woman "still live"

to redeem the race. Men worthy to be fathers, and large-brained women, who do not even in this degenerate day, disdain to look well after their own households.

It is but seldom that a child needs the rod, especially if taken from the time it is able to understand language, and firmly yet kindly treated, and given to know that No and Yes _mean_ No and Yes, without any shadow of turning. It is a question, too, whether those who have unfortunately _come up_, instead of being judiciously _brought up_, are ever made better by harshness, under the name of discipline.