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DATE DUE

 
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VWotlo

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VAGO
W OMAN
UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME,

And by the same Author,

LOVE (L’AMOU R).

One Vol., 12mo. Muslin. Price $1 00.
WOMAN

(La Fenrwe.)

From the French of
M. J. MICHELET,

OF THE FACULTY OF LETTERS, CHIEF IN THE HISTORICAL SECTION OF THE NATIONAL
ARCHIVES, AUTHOR OF “A HISTORY OF FRANCE,” “HISTORY OF THE ROMAN
REPUBLIO,” “ MEMOIRS OF LUTHER,” “INTRODUCTION TO UNIVERSAL
HISTORY,” “LWINBECTE,” “L'OISEAU,” “L'AMOUR,”

ETO., ETO,, ETC.

Translated from the last Paris Edition, by

J. W. Pautmer, M.D.
Author of “ The New and the @lv,” “Ap and Down the Errawaddi,” ete.

LS ;

VWNtE Edgy
Way Wy ity,
(28

ely Pia 6
wt Bot oat ot

NEW YORK:
Rupp & CarLetTon, 130 GRanp STREET,
PARIS: L. HACHETTE ET Cie,

M DCCC LX.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by
RUDD & CARLETON,

in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern
District of New York.

B. ORAIGHEAD,

Stereotyper and Electrotyper,
Carton Building,

81, 83, and 85 Centre Street,

¥
‘TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.

IN THE AUTHOR'S OWN WORDS.

“Tats book omits two subjects, the introduction of which
in L’ Amour has been so much censured—adultery and pros-
titution. I concluded to leave.their discussion to the litera-
ture of the day—which is inexhaustible on both those
themes. I have demonstrated my problems by straight
lines, and left to other writers the complicated illustration
by curves. In their books they elaborately pursue the by-
paths of love, but never once strike out on its grand and
fertile highway—that impregnation which in more elevated
passions endures even unto death. Our clever novelists
are in the identical fog that in former times enyeloped the
casuists, who were, moreover, great analysers. Escobar and
Busenbaum, who met with the same success as Balzac—
fifty editions each, of their works—forgot only one thing
in their subtile researches; but that was the very founda-
tion of their doctrine. So the writers of to-day lose sight
of marriage, and lay down rules for libertinism.
VI Preface.

“This book differs no less from the serious romances of
our great Utopians—Saint-Simon, Fourier, and the rest.
They invoke nature, but a very low order of it, in sympa-
thy with the degradation of the times; and at once they
put their trust in passional attraction, in our very inclina-
tion towards that debased nature. In this age of stupen-
dous effort, of heroic creation, they have tried to suppress
effort; but with such a being as man, an energetic creator,
an artist, effort is part of himself, and he is all the better
for it. The popular moral instinct perceives this, and that
is why those great thinkers have not succeeded in founding
aschool. Art, labor, and effort rule us all, and what we
call nature in ourselves is, most frequently, of our own
making, for we create ourselves day by day. I felt the
truth of this while pursuing my anatomical studies last year,
especially on the brain. The brain is manifestly the organ
of work, the incarnation of our daily life. Hence its intense
expression, and, if I may so say, its eloquence, in superior
individuals; Ido not hesitate to call it the most perfect
flower, the most touching beauty in nature—affecting in
the child, and often sublime in the man. Let them call
this Realism; I am quite indifferent. There are two sorts of
realism: the one vulgar and vacant—the other, through
the Real, attaining the Idea, which is its essence and its
highest truth, consequently its inherent nobility. If pru-
dery is “shocked” at my poetry of truth, the only pure
poetry, it is of no consequence to me; when in L'Amour I
broke down the stupid barrier which separates literature
from the enlightenment of science, I did not ask the advice
Preface. vil

of those shame-faces, who would be chaster than Nature,
and purer than God.

“Woman needs a faith, and: expects it from man, in or-
der to bring up her child; for there can be no education
without faith. The day has come.when faith may be laid
down in a formula. Roussean could not do it; his age was
not ripe for it. Conscience is the test of truth; but it must
have two controlling influences—history, which is the con-
science of the human race, and natural history, which is the
instinctive conscience of nature. Now formerly neither of
these two existed; they have been born within the last cen-
tury (1760-1860).

“When Conscience, History, and Natural History accord
—Believe!”
[Conrenrs.

eS

PAGE
TRANSLATOR'’S PREFAOE, . : s 8 . rs a . . v

Srdroduction,

I.—Why People do not Marry, : s . ‘ . . - 12
II.—The Female Operative, . . . . * . . - 28
IIL—The Woman of Letters, . 4 ‘ : . ‘ . 31
IV.—No Life for Woman without Man, . . 5 ‘ 5 - 42

Burt Firat,
EDUCATION.
L—Sun, Air, andLight, . . . . 2. « « «© BB
IL—tThe first Exchange of Glances, and the Beginnings of Faith, . 57
IiI.—Play.—The child Teaching its Mother, . . + - 61

IV.—The Frail and Sacred Child, . . 2 : A , . 67
x Contents.

V.—Love at Five Years—The Doll, . .« . +
VI.—Woman a Religion, . 5 a) ‘ 7 5
VIL—Love at Ten Years.—Flowers, “ . . .
VUL—The Little Household.—The Little Garden, . .
IX.—The Maternities of Fourteen.—The Metamorphosis,

X.—History as a Basis of Faith, . . ‘. .
XI.—Pallas.—Reason, . ‘ . ‘ . . .
XII.—Andrea del Sarto’s ‘ Charity,” 4 . . .

XI11.—The Revelation of Heroism, . . . é .

Book Secoud.

WOMAN IN THE FAMILY.‘

L—The Woman who will Love most.—Of a Different Race, . 7
II.—The Woman who will Love most.—Of the Same Race, . a

IIT.—The Man who will Love best, . 5 . . .
IV.—The Proof, . 7 : : ‘ . 3 .
‘V.—How She gives her Heart away, . . . .
VI.—Thou shalt leave thy Father and thy Mother, . .
VIL—The Young Wife.—Her Solitary Thoughts, . .
VITII.—She would be his Partner and his Client, : .
IX.—Arts and Reading.—The Common Faith, . .

X.—The great Legend of Africa—Woman the Goddess
ness, . . . : 7 7 . -
XI.—How Woman Excels Man, . « . ‘ .
XIL.—The Humiliations of Love.—Confession, . 3 .
XIIL.—The Communion of Love, 7 : ° ; .

XIV.—The Offices of Nature, . « . . 7 .

of Good-

PAGE

92
6
85
93
98
103
113
117
123

131
138
146
152
158
165
173
180
186

192
200
208
215
222
Contents. Xi

Book Third,

WOMAN IN SOOIETY.

PAGE
I.—Woman an Angel of Peace and Civilization, . . : - 230

IL.—Last Love-—Womzen’s Friendships, . : : 5 3 + 234
III.—Woman Protecting Woman.—Caroline Chisholm, . . 241
IV.—Consolation for Imprisoned Women, ee dh 4h : . 247

V.—The Healing Art inWoman, 7 : . . 2 . 254
Vi—tThe Simples, . - 5 ‘ 2 3 7 5 7 ~ 262

VIL—Children—Light—the Future, . =... we 268

NOTES, © - ee ee ee ww ee at
INTRODUCTION.

 

 

I.

WHY PEOPLE DO NOT MARRY.

We all perceive the capital fact of our time. From a sin-
gular combination of circumstances—social, religious, and
economical—Man lives apart from Woman. And this is be-
coming more and more common. They are not merely in dif-
ferent and parallel paths; they are as two travellers, starting
from the same point, one at full speed, the other at a sluggish
pace, but following divergent routes.

Man, however weak he may be morally, is nevertheless on
a train of ideas, inventions, and discoveries, so rapid that
sparks dart from the burning rail.

Woman, hopelessly left behind, remains in the rut of a past
of which she herself knows but little. She is distanced, to our
sorrow, but either will not or cannot go faster.

The worst of it is that they do not seem to desire to come
together. They seem to have nothing to say to each other—
a cold hearth, a silent table, a frozen couch.

“One is not bound,” they say, “to put himself out in his
own family.” But they do no better in society, where polite-
14 Why People do not Marry.

ness commands it. Every one knows how a parlor divides
itself in the evening into two parlors, one of men, and one of
women. It has not been much noticed, but it. may be tested,
that in a friendly reunion of a dozen persons, if the hostess
insists with a sort of gentle violence that the two circles
mingle together and the men converse with the women, silence
succeeds; there is no more conversation.

We must state the thing precisely as it is: they have no
longer any ideas in common, any language in common, and
even as to what might interest both parties they do not know
how to speak, they have too completely lost sight of each
other. Soon, if we do not take care, in spite of casual meet-
ings, there will no longer be two sexes but two peoples.

It is not surprising that the book which comhbated these
tendencies—a little book of the heart, without literary preten-
sion, has been on all sides sharply criticised. “ Z’Amour,”
threw itself naively into the breach, invoked good-nature, and
said “ Love again.”

At these words sharp cries were uttered ; for the diseased
core was touched. “No, we will not love, we will not be
happy. There is something under all this. Under that reli-
gious form which deifies woman, he attempts to strengthen, to
emancipate her mind. He seeks for a servile idol, to bind
on his altar.”

Thus, at the word Union, broke forth all the evils of the
time—division, dissolution, the sad solitary tastes, the desire
for’savage life, which brood in the depths of men’s minds.

The women read and wept. Their directors (priests or
philosophers, no matter which) dictated language to them.
Searcely did they dare feebly to defend their defender. But
they did better, they read over again, they devoured, the for-
pidden book, they kept it for their leisure hours, and hid it
‘under their pillows.
Why People do not Marry. 15

It is well consoled by that, this much-abused book, both for
the insults of enemies and the censures of friends. Neither
the men of the Middle Ages nor those of Free Love found
their account in it. Z’Amour sought to lead woman back to
the fireside; they preferred the pavement or the convent for
her.

“A book about marriage, for the family? Scandalous!
‘Rather write thirty romances about adultery—something
imaginative, something amusing. You will be much better
received.”

“ Why fortify the family?” says a religious journal. ‘“Isn’t
it perfect already? Formerly there was something they called
adultery, but that is no longer to be seen.” “Excuse us,”
replies a great political thunderer, in a brilliant and extremely
effective feuilleton, “we beg your pardon,—it is still to be
seen, and everywhere; but there is so little passion in it that
it disturbs no one’s comfort; it is a thing inherent‘in French
matriages, and almost an institution. Every nation has its
own morals, and we are not English.”

Comfort! yes, that is the evil. Neither the husband nor
the lover is troubled by it—nor the wife either; she wishes
to get rid of ennui, that is all. But in this lukewarm, blood-
less life, in which we invest so little heart, expend so little art,
in which not one of the three deigns to make an effort of
any sort, everybody languishes, yawns, palls with nauseating
comfortableness.

We all understand that well, and no one is in a hurry to be
married. If our laws of succession did not make women
rich, there would be no more marrying, at least not in the:
large towns.

In the country I heard a married man, father of a
16. Why People do not Marry.
family, 2 man ‘well posted,’ indoctrinating a young neigh-
bor of his: “If you are to stay here,” he said, “you will
have to marry; but if you live in Paris, it is not worth the
trouble, you can dispense with it easily.”

We all know the saying which marked the fall of the
world’s most intellectual people, the Athenians: “ Ah, if we
could have children without women.” It was much worse
under the Empire. All the legal penalties, those Julian laws
which made a man marry @ coup de baton, were unsuccessful
in bringing man and woman together, and it seemed that even
the physical passion—that fine necessity which spurs the
world along and centuples its energies—was extinguished here
below. So that, never again to see a woman, men fled even
into the Thebais.

The motives which now-a-days not only cause marriage to
be feared; but estrange women from society, are various and
complicated. The first, indisputably, is the increasing misery
of poor girls, putting them at the mercy of the world—the
easy appropriation of those victims of hunger. Hence satiety
and enervation, forgetfulness of any higher love, and mortal
ennui at having to solicit tediously what may be had so easily
every evening.

Even he who has other needs, and a taste for fidelity,
who would like to love with a single intensity, infinitely
prefers a dependent, gentle, obedient person, who thinks of
no rights of her own, and who, if left to-morrow, will not
move a step—only wishing to please.

The strong and brilliant personality of our girls, which too
often asserts itself the very day after the wedding, frightens
the celibate. There isno joke in that—the French woman
is a character. It affords a chance for immense happiness—
but sometimes for unhappiness also.

Our excellent civil laws (which are of the future, and to-
Why People do not Marry. 17

ward which the world is gravitating) have none the less added
to the inherent difficulties of the national character. The
French woman is an heir, and she knows it,—has a dowry,
and she knows it. It is not asin some other countries, where
a daughter, if she has any dowry, has it only in money (a fluid
which easily runs out in the business of the husband). Here
she has real estate, and even if her own brother should desire
to purchase it, the law opposes bim, and keeps her rich in
fixtures, secured by the dotal code or by certain stipulations.
Such fortunes are almost always enduring. Land does not
take wings, houses do not crumble; they remain to afford her
a voice in the matter, a personality scarcely ever possessed by
the English or the German woman.

The latter, so to speak, are absorbed in the husband; they
sink into him body and property (if they have any property) ;
so that they are, I believe, more completely than our women
uprooted from their native family, which would not receive
them again. The wife is reckoned as dead by her own people,
who rejoice in establishing a daughter so as never again to
have expenses on her account. Whatever may happen, and’
wherever her husband may choose to take her, she will go and
remain. On such conditions marriage is less formidable to
the men.

A curious thing in France, contradictory in appearance but
not in reality, is that marriage is very weak, and the esprit de
famille very strong. It happens (especially in the provinces,
among the rural bourgeoisie), that the wife who has been
some time married, as soon as she has children divides her
soul in two parts, one for her children, the other for her rela-
tives, for her reawakened first affections. What protection, in
that case, for the husband? None, the esprit de famille an-
nuls the marriage.

One can hardly imagine how wearisome is such a wife, bury-
ing herself in a retrograde past, letting herself down to the
18 Why People do not Marry.

level of a superannuated but lively mother, all imbued with old
‘things. The husband lives on quietly, but soon sickens of it—
discouraged, weary, good for nothing. He loses the ideas
and hopes of progress he had acquired in his studies and in
youthful society. He is soon killed off by the proprietor, by
the dull stifling of that old family hearth.
Thus under a dowry of a hundred thousand franes is buried
a man who might perhaps have earned as much every year.
So says the young man to himself in his time of aspiration
and of confidence. But whether he have more or less, no mat-
ter; if he would take his chance, know what he is capable of,
he will send the dowry to the devil. For the sake of the little
thing that beats under his left breast, he will not, for five hun-
dred francs, become husband to the queen.

Bachelors have often told me this. They have also told
me another thing; one evening when I had five or six at
my house, men of mark, as I was bantering them about their
pretended celibacy, one of them, a distinguished savant,
uttered these very words to me, and quite seriously: “Never
believe that, whatever diversions a man may find without
it, he is not unfortunate in having no fireside—I mean a wife
who is truly his own. We all know that, we feel it. There
is no other repose for the heart; and not to have a wife, sir,
be sure is a sombre, cruel, bitter life.”

Bitter! on that word all the others also laid stress, and
spoke as he did.

“ But,” said he, “one consideration deters us. All who
work in France are poor. We live by our engagements, by
our patronage. We live honestly, I earn six thousand francs;
but the wife I should choose would spend that much on her
toilet. Their mothers educate them so. Suppose one of these
beautiful creatures were bestowed on me, what would become
of me the next day, as she left her rieh abode to find mine go
Why People do not Marry. 19

poor. If loved her (and Iam quite capable of that), imagine
the misery, the wickedness into which I might be tempted, to
become a little richer, and so displease her a little less.

“T shall always remember how being once in a small town
of the South, to which it was the fashion to send sick people,
I saw a startling apparition pass by a place where the mules
were winding along in a cloud of dust. It was a very beau-
tiful woman, clothed like a courtesan—a woman, not a girl—
twenty-five years old, puffed out, ‘distended in a fresh and
charming silk robe of blue, clouded with white (a master-piece
of Lyons), which she dragged abominably through the dirt-
iest spots. She seemed not to rest on the earth. Her blonde
and pretty head tossed back her jaunty Amazonian hat,
which gave her the air of a piquant young page, her whole
appearance said, ‘I jest at everything.” I felt that this idol,
monstrously in love with herself, for all her pride, belonged,
from first to last, to those who flattered her, that they mocked
her, and that she did not even know what a scruple was. I
called Solomon to mind. ‘ Ht tergens os suum dixit: non
sum operata malum? This vision remained with me. It was
not a person, it was not a thing, but it was the fashion, and
the manners of the time, I saw; it will always inspire me
with a true terror of marriage.”

“ As for me,” said a younger bachelor, “the obstacle, the
insuperable scruple, is not crinoline, but religion.”

We laughed: but he, becoming animated, protested ;
“Yes, religion. Women are educated in dogmas which are
not ours. Mothers who are so desirous to have their daugh-
ters married, give them an education exactly calculated to
produce divorce.

“What are the dogmas of France? If France herself
does not know, Europe does very well; its hatred perfectly
reverls them. An enemy, a very retrograding foreigner,

w
20 Why People do not Marry.

once described them to me thus: ‘ What renders your France
hateful to us, he said, ‘is that beneath its apparent muta-
tions it never changes.’ It is like a lighthoise in eclipse, with
revolving lights. It shows or conceals the flame, but the
focus is always the same. What focus? The wit of Voltaire
(long previous to Voltaire) ; in the second place (’89), the
grand laws of the Revolution; and in the third place, the
canons of your scientific pope, the Academy of Sciences.’

“J disputed it. He insisted; and I now see that he was
right. Yes, whatever new questions may arise, ’89 is the
faith even of those who postpone ’89, and refer it to the
future. It is the faith of all France, and that is why foreigners
condemn us altogether, and without distinction of parties.

“Well, the daughters of France are carefully educated to
hate and contemn what all France loves and believesin. Thrice
they have embraced, weakened, killed the Revolution; first,
in the sixteenth century, in the matter of liberty of con-
science; then, at the end of the eighteenth, in the question of
political liberty. They have devoted themselves to the past,
not knowing what indeed that is. They like to listen to those
who say with Pascal: ‘ Nothing is sure; therefore, believe in
the absurd.’ Women are rich in France; they have much
wit, and every means of instruction. But they will not learn
anything, nor create a faith for themselves. Let them meet a
man of serious faith, a man of heart, who believes and loves
established truths, and they say with a smile: ‘That man
doesn’t believe in anything.’ ”

There was a momentary pause. This rather violent sally
had nevertheless, I perceived, won the assent of all present.
I said to them: “If what you have just advanced be admit-
ted, I believe we must say it has been often just the same in
other ages, and people have married, nevertheless. Women
loved dress and luxury, and were conservative, but the men
Why People do not Marry. 21

of those times were doubtless more daring; they faced those
perils, hoping that their influence, their energy, above all their
love, the master and conqueror of conquerors, would effect
happy changes in their favor. Intrepid Curtii, they threw
themselves boldly into the gulf of uncertainties, and very
happily for us. For, gentlemen, but for the audacity of our
fathers, we had never been born.

“ Now, will you permit a friend older than youto speak with
frankness? Then I shall venture to tell you that if you were =
truly alone, if you endured without consolation the life you
find so bitter, you would make haste to change it, you would
say: Love is strong and can do whatever it will. The greater
will be the glory of converting these absurd and charming
beauties to reason. With a great, resolute, and persevering
purpose, well-chosen means, and skilfully calculated circum-
stances, one may do much. But it is necessary to love, to
love intensely, and love a single object. No coldness. The
cultivated and coveted woman infallibly belongs to the man.
If the man of this age complains that he does not reach her
soul, it is because he has not what subdues the soul, viz. con-
centrated strength of desire.

“ Now, to speak only of the obstacle first alleged, of the
unrestrained pride of women, their madness for the toilet, etc. :
it seems to me that this applies especially to the upper classes,
to rich ladies, or to those who mingle with wealthy people.
There are two or three hundred thousand of these. But do
you know how many women there are in France? Eighteen
millions, and eighteen hundred thousand marriageable.

“It would be great injustice to accuse them all of the wrongs
and follies of ‘ our best society. If they imitate it at a dis-
tance, it is not always from choice. Ladies, by their
example, often by their contempt or their ridicule, cause great
misfortunes in this way. They impose an impossible luxury
22 Why People do not Marry.

on poor creatures who sometimes would not care for it, but
who by their position, involving serious interests, are forced to
be brilliant ; and to be so, they plunge into great extravagance.

“Women who have their own peculiar world and so many
secrets in common, ought certainly to love each other a little,
and sustain each other, instead of warring among themselves.
They inflict mutual injury, in a thousand cases, indirectly.
The wealthy dame whose luxury changes the costume of the

‘poor girl, does the latter a great wrong—she prevents her
marriage; for no workman cares to marry a doll, so expen-
sive to dress. If she remains a maiden, she is, perhaps, an
office or a shop girl, but even in that capacity the lady still
harms her; she prefers to deal with a clerk, in a black coat, a
flatterer, and finds him more womanly than the woman. The
shopkeepers have thus been led to substitute, at great ex-
pense, the clerk for the girl, who cost much less.

“What will become of her? If she is pretty, twenty years
of age, she will be ‘protected,’ and will pass from hand to
hand. Soon fading, before thirty, she will become a seam-
stress, and work for her ten sous a day. She has no means of
living save by earning her bread every night in shame. Thus
the woman of wealth, depreciating her own sex, goes on mak-
ing celibacy more and more economical, and marriage unpro-
fitable, until, by a terrible retribution, her own daughter will
never be able to marry. *

“Do you wish me, gentlemen, to briefly portray the lot
of woman in France? No one has yet done it with sim-
plicity. This picture, if I do not deceive myself, will touch
your hearts, and perhaps enlighten you, and will prevent
you from confounding very different classes in the same ana-
thema.”

 

 
The Female Operative. 23

II.

THE FEMALE OPERATIVE.

WaEn the English manufacturers, enormously enriched by
new machinery, complained to Pitt, saying: “We cannot go
on, we do not make money enough,” he gave them a terrible
answer, a stain on his memory: “ Take the children.”

How much more guilty are those who took women, who
opened to the wretchedness of the city girl, to the blindness of
the peasant, the fatal resource of an exterminating labor, and
the promiscuity of factories! He who takes the woman, takes
also the child; for in every one that perishes, a family is
destroyed, many children, and the hope of generations to
come.

Barbarism of our West! Woman is no longer esteemed
for the love and happiness of man, still less for maternity and
the power of reproduction—but as an operative.

Operative! an impious, sordid word, which no language
ever had, which no period could have ever understood before
this iron age, and which alone would counterbalance all our
pretended progress. “

Here comes the close band of economists, doctors of the
net proceeds. “ But, sir,” they say, “the high economic and
social necessities! Industry would be obstructed, stopped.
In the name of these same poor classes,” etc., etc.

The first necessity is to live, and palpably, we are perishing.
The population no longer increases, and its quality is degene-
rating. The peasant girl dies of labor, the female operative
of hunger. What children can we expect from them? Abor-
tions, more and more.

“« But a people does not perish!” Many peoples, even of
those which still figure on the map, no longer exist. The
Scottish Highlanders have disappeared. Ireland no longer
presents a race. Wealthy, absorbing England, that prodi-

zt
24. The Female Operative.

gious blood-sucker of the world, does not succeed in renew-
ing itself by the most. enormous alimentation. The race is
changing and growing weak there, has recourse to stimu-
lants, to alcohol, and is more and more enfeebled. Those
who saw it in 1815 did not, recognise it in 1830, and how
much less to-day ! «

What can the State do for this? Very little in England,
where the industrial life swallows up everything, the whole
country being now but one factory. But an infinite good in
France, where we as yet have so few laborers, comparatively.

How many things that were impossible, have nevertheless .
been done! It’ was impossible to abolish lotteries; they are
abolished. We would have sworn it was impossible to
demolish Paris int order to re-build it: ‘but that was easily
done by a brief clause in the code (Appropriation for Public
Improvements). g °

I see two peoples in our cities:

The one dressed in woollen—that is man,—the other in
wretched cotton, and that too, even in winter,

By the former I mean the lowest operative, the least paid
bungler—a servant of operatives. This man, however, eats
meat in the morning (a Bologna sausage, or something else).
In the evening he enters a cookshop, and has a dish of meat,
and even drinks some bad wine.

The woman of the same condition takes a sou’s worth of
milk in the morning, some bread at noon, and some bread at
night, and very rarely a bit of cheese. Do you deny-that?
It is certain ; I will prove it presently. Her day’s income is
ten sous, and cannot be eleven, for a reason which I will
‘explain.

Why is it so? The man no longer wishes to marry, no
longer wishes to protect the woman. He lives greedily alone.

Can it be said that he leads an abstinent life? No. He
The Female Operative. ag

deprives himself of nothing. Besotted on Sunday night,
he will find without seeking some hungry shadow of a wo-
man, and will outrage the dead creature.

One blushes at being a man.

“] make too little money,” says he; four or five times
more than the woman, in most trades. He earns forty or
fifty sous, and she ten, as we shall see.

The poverty of the male operative would be wealth, abun-
dance, luxury, to the female.

The former complains much the more; and, as sogn as he is”
in want at all, he wants many more things. We may say of
them what has been said of the Englishman and the Irishman :
“The Irishman is hungry for potatoes, the Englishman is
hungry for meats, sugar, tea, beer, liquors, etc.”

In the budget of the workman’s necessities I have over-
looked two things in which he indulges at any price, and of
which the workwoman never thinks: tobacco and beer. In
most cases these two articles absorb more money than a
family.

The pay of the men has, I know, sustained a rude shock,
chiefly from the effect of the precious metal crisis, which
changed the value of silver. Their wages will rise again, but
slowly ; time is needed to restore the equilibrium. But, allow-
ing for this, the difference still exists; the woman is much the
more affected. It is meats and wine that he must give up:
with her, it is bread itself. She cannot economize; one step
lower, and she dies.

- “Tt is their own fault,” says the economist. “Why are
they so mad as to leave their fields, and come to die of hunger
in towns? If it is not the workwoman herself, it was her

2
26 The Female Operative.

mother who came, and instead of a peasant became a domes-
tic. She did not fail, though unmarried, to have a child, which
child is the operative.” ‘

My dear Sir, do you know what country life is in France—
How terrible, excessive, severe the labor is? Women do not
till in England; they are very miserable, but yet they have
sheds to protect them from the wind and rain. Germany,
with its forests and its prairies, with its very slow labor, and
national gentleness, does not crush out woman as wedo. The
durus arator. of the poet has his reality scarcely anywhere
but here. Why? He is a proprietor—proprietor of little
or nothing, and in debt. By a furious, blind labor, and
‘unskilful agriculture, he struggles with the vulture; the
land threatens to escape from him. Rather than that should
happen, he will bury himself in it, if need be; but, first, cer-
tainly, his wife. It is for this that he marries, in order to
have a workman; in the Antilles, they buy a negro; in France,
we marry a wife.

She is preferred who has a small appetite, a lithe and slen-
der figure—from an idea that she will eat less (a historic
fact).

She has a great heart, this poor French woman, and does as
much or more than is required. She drives the ass (in light
soils), and the man holds the plough. In any case, she has
the hardest part. He prunes the vine at his ease—she scrapes
and digs. He has respites—she none. He has festive occa-
sions and friends. He goes alone to the tavern—she goes
for a moment to church, and there falls asleep. If he returns
at night intoxicated, she is beaten, and often, which is worst,
when she is encetnte. Then she endures for a year her double

suffering, in heat and cold, chilled by the wind, drenched by
the rain, daily.

 

Most of them die of consumption, especially in the north
(see the statistics). No constitution can withstand their mode
The Female Operative. 27

of life. Then forgive the mother if she desires her daughter to
suffer less, if she sends her to the factory, there at least she
will have a roof over her head; or makes her a domestic in
town, where she will partake of the amenities of the bowr-
geoisie. The girl is only too eage? for that; every woman
has in fancy little needs of elegance, finery, and aristocracy.

She is at once punished for it. She no longer sees the sun,
Her mistress is often very hard, especially if the girl be pretty.
She is immolated to spoiled children, vicious monkeys, and
cruel little cats, who make her their plaything; or else she is
blamed, scolded, teased, abused. Then she would be glad to
die, home-sickness takes possession of her; but she knows
that her father would never receive her. She grows pale and
wastes away.

Only the master is good to her. He would console her if he
dared. He clearly sees that in her desolate state, in which she,
has never a word of kindness, the little one is in the power of
any one who will evince the least friendship for her. The
opportunity soon arrives, madame being in the country. The
resistance is not great; he is her master, and he is strong.

‘She is enceinte, and a great storm follows. The husband,
ashamed, shrugs his shoulders. She is driven out of doors,
and without bread, lives in the streets till she can go to the
hospital for her accouchement. (This is the almost invariable
story. See the confessions noted by physicians.)

What will be her life, great God, what struggles, what
difficulties, if she has so good a heart, so much courage, as to
wish to rear her child!

 

a

Let us notice the condition of woman thus burdened, in
circumstances comparatively favorable.

A young Protestant widow, of very: austere morals, laborious,
economical, temperate, exemplary in every sense, agréeable
also, in spite of all she has suffered, lives behind the Hotel-
28 The Female Operative.

Dieu, in an unhealthy street, lower than the wharf. She has
a sickly child, who is always trying to go to school, always
falling ill, and cannot get on. Her rent is raised, less than many
others, from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and
sixty francs. She said to two excellent ladies, “ When I can
go out by the day, they will give me twenty sous, even twenty-
five; but that happens scarcely more than two or three times
a week. If you had not had the goodness to aid me with my
rent, by giving me five francs a month, I must have done like
the others, and, to support my child, have walked the streets
in the evening.”

The poor woman who thus walks the streets trembling,
alas! to offer herself up, is immeasurably above the coarse
man, whom she must address. Our work-women who have
so mucb wit, taste, and tact, are usually physically favored,
graceful, and delicate. What is the difference between them
and the ladies of the higher classes? The foot? No. The
figure? No. The hand alone constitutes the difference, be-
cause the poor operative, forced to wash often, passing the
winter in her little room with a simple foot-stove, has her
hands, her only means of labor and of life, swollen grievously,
bursting with chilblains. With almost only that exception
the same woman, if a little dressed, is Madame la Comtesse,
as much as any in the grand Faubourg. She has not the
jargon of the world; she is much more romantic, more lively.
Let but a gleam of happiness fall on her, and she will eclipse
them all.

We do not sufficiently remark what an aristocracy women
form; there is no populace among them.

As I was driving down the street, a young woman with a
gentle, feminine countenance, worn, but delicate, pretty, and
distinguished, followed the carriage addressing me in vain, for
I did not understand English. Her beautiful supplicating blee
eyes seemed profoundly sorrowful under her little straw hat.
The Female Operative. 29,

“Sir,” said I to my neighbor, who understood French,
“can you tell me what that charming person is saying to me,
she who has the air of a duchess, and who for some reason
persists in following the carriage.” “Sir,” said he, politely,
“T am inclined to believe that she is an operative without
work, who is begging in violation of the law.”

Two important events have changed the lot of woman in
Europe, in these latter years.

She has only two great trades, spinning and sewing. The
others (embroidery, flowers, etc.) scarcely deserve to be
counted. Woman is a spinner, woman is a seamstress. It has
been her business in all times: it is her universal history.

Well, it is no longer so; it has just been changed. The
loom has suppressed the spinner. It is not only her earnings,
but a whole world of habits that she has lost. The peasant
used to spin as she watched her children and fire; she spun
in the watches of the night; she spun as she walked, driving
her cow or her sheep.

The seamstress was the operative of towns; she wrought at
home, either continuously, the livelong day, or divided the
labor with her household cares. For all important purposes,
this no longer exists. First, convents and prisons presented
a terrible competition to the isolated seamstress; now the
sewing-machine comes to annihilate her.

The achievements of the two machines, cheapness and good
work, will make their products prevail everywhere. There
is nothing to be said against them, nothing to be done.
Indeed, these great inventions will, in the end, be advantage-
ous to the human race; but their effects are cruel in the
period of transition.

How many women in Europe, and elsewhere, will be de-
voured by these two terrible ogres, the brazen spinner and
the iron sewer? Millions—but it can never be calculated.
30 The Female Operative. ;

The needle-women were so suddenly famished in England,
that many societies are occupied in. promoting their emigra-
tion to Australia, The sum advanced is seven hundred and
twenty francs, but the emigrant can, after the first year,
return half of it (Blosseville). In that country, where the
males are infinitely the more numerous, she marries without
difficulty, fortifying with new families that powerful colony,
more stable than the Indian empire.

What becomes of ours? They do not make much noise.
They do not, like the conspiring and sturdy laborers, masons,
carpenters, make a formidable strike, and dictate terms.
They die of hunger, and that is all. The fearful mortality of
1854 fell especially on them.

Since that time, their condition has been sorely aggravated.
Ladies’ gaiters are sewed by machinery. Flower-makers are
paid much less.

To inform myself on this sad subject, I spoke of it to many
persons, especially to my venerable friend and associate, Dr.
Villermi and M. de Guerry, whose excellent works are so
highly esteemed, and to a young statistician whose vigorous
method I had much admired, Dr. Bertillon. He had the
extreme kindness to make a serious task of it, combifing with
the data furnished by the laboring classes, others communi-
cated by public officers. I wish he would complete and pub-
lish it.

I will give but one line of his statement: “In the great trade
which occupies all women (except a very few), needlework,
they can earn but ten sous a day.”

Why? “Because machinery, which is still dear enough,
does the labor for ten sous, If the woman demanded
eleven, the machine would be preferred.”

And how does she make up the loss? “She walks the
street at night.”

That is why the number of filles publiques, registered and
numbered, does not increase in Paris, and, I believe, diminishes
a little.
The Woman of Letters. 31

Man does not content himself with inventing machines.
which suppress the two great trades of woman, he takes pos-
session directly of the secondary industries by which she
lived, and descends to all the avocations of weakness. Can
the woman, at her will, rise to the trades that demand
strength, and assume those of men? By no means.

The Nonchalant and lazy ladies, buried in divans, may
say as much as they like: “Woman is not an invalid.”
That which is nothing, when one may be nursed two or three
days, becomes overwhelming to her who has no repose, and
she becomes ill at once.

In fact, woman cannot labor long, either standing or sit-
ting. If she is always sitting, the blood rises, the breast is
irritated, the stomach embarrassed, the head clogged. If she
stands, like the laundress, or the compositor, she has other
sanguineous accidents. She can labor long only by vary-
ing her position, as she does in her household, going and
coming. '

A household she ought to have, she ought to be married.

 

 

Ill.

THE WOMAN OF LETTERS.

Tue well-educated girl, as she is called who can teach, be-
comes governess in a family, or “ professor” of certain arts—
does she fare any better in her business? I wish I could say
yes. Those gentle offices do not the less cause her an infini-
tude of risks, altogether a troubled life, an abortive and some-
times tragical destiny. Everything is difficult for the solitary
woman, everything a barrier or a precipice.

Fifteen years ago Ireceived a visit from a young and amiable
girl, sent by her parents from a provincial place to Paris. She
was directed to a friend of her family, who might aid her to
32 The Woman of Letters.

gain a livelihood by procuring pupils for her. I expressed
my astonishment at their imprudence. Then she told me all.
They had sent her into this peril to avoid another; she had at
home a lover, entirely worthy, who wished to marry her.
He was a most excellent man, a man of talent; but, alas! he
was poor. “My parents esteem, love him,” said she, “ but
they fear we would die of hunger.”

I told her without hesitation: “It is better to die of hun-
ger than to run the gauntlet of Paris pavements. I bid you,
miss, return—not to-morrow, but to-day—to your parents.
Every hour that you remain here you will lose a fortune.
Alone, inexperienced, what will become of you?”

She followed my advice. Her parents consented, and she
was married. Her life was a hard one, full of trials, but ex-
emplary and honorable, sharing her time between the care of
her children and the intelligent aid she afforded her husband
in his labors—I can still see her running in the winter to the
libraries, where she took notes for him. With all these mise-
ries, and the grief I felt at not being able to help their proud
poverty, I never regretted the counsel I gave her. She en-
joyed much in her heart, suffered only in her fortune; there
was never a happier household. She died, beloved, pure, and
respected.

The worst destiny for woman is to live alone.

Alone! the very word is sad to utter. And how can there
be on earth a Lone Woman?

What! Are there no more men? Are we in the last
days of the world? Does the consummation of all things,
the approach of the final judgment, render us so selfish that
we shut ourselves up in fear of the future, and in the shame
of solitary pleasures ?

Werecognise the Lone Woman at the first glance. Take her
in her own neighborhood, or anywhere where she is known,
The Woman of Letters. a5

and she has the disengaged, free, elegantly lightsome air pe-
culiar to the women of France.

But in a place where she thinks herself less observed, and
lets herself out, what sadness, what visible dejection! I met
some of these last winter, still young, but in the decay of their
bloom, fallen from the hat to the bonnet, grown a little thin
and pale—with ennui and anxiety—with bad and innutritious
food, perhaps. To make them again beautiful and charming,
a very little would have sufficed: hope, and three months of
happiness.

What obstacles present themselves to the solitary woman !
She can scarcely go out in the evening; she would be taken
for a “girl.” There are a thousand places where only men
are seen, and if anything should bring her there, they are
surprised, and laugh sillily. For example, suppose she is
belated on the skirts of Paris, and hungry, she dare not
enter a restaurant. She would cause a sensation, make her-
self a sight; every eye would be fixed upon her, and she
would hear reckless and unpleasant conjectures. She has a
whole league to return, and, having arrived late, kindles her
fire, prepares her slight repast. She avoids making a noise,
because a curious neighbor—some stupid student, or young
clerk, perhaps—might apply his eye to the keyhole, or ab-
ruptly enter to offer his services. The vexatious indiscrimi-
nateness, or rather the slavishness of our vast and abominable
barracks, which we call houses, make her tremble at a thou-
sand things, and hesitate at every step. All is embarrassing
for her, and free to a man. How cautiously, for example,
does she shut herself in, when on Sunday her young and
noisy neighbors have what they call a repas de gargons.

Let us examine this house.

She lives in the fourth story, and makes so little noise that
the occupant of the third believed for some time that there
was no one above him. He is scarcely less unfortunate
than she—a man whom delicate health and a modest
income have induced to be idle. Without being old, he has

Q*
34 The Woman of Letters.

already the prudent habits of a man who is for ever occupied
in taking care of himself. A piano which wakes him a little
sooner than he would like, has revealed the solitary woman ;
then, once, he detected on the stairway a charming woman,
rather pale, but of fragile elegance, and his curiosity is
aroused, Nothing is easier than to gratify it; the porters
are not dumb, and her life is so transparent. Except when
she is giving her lessons, she is always at home, and always
studying ; she is preparing for examination, preferring to be a
governess, in order to have the protection of a family. In
fact, they speak so well of her, that he begins to reflect.
“ Ah! if I were not poor!” says he. “It is very pleasant to
have the society of a pretty woman who understands every-
thing; saves you from passing your evenings at the theatre
or the café, But when, like me, a man has only ten thousand
livres income, he cannot marry.”

He then calculates and adds up, but, as usual in such cases,
makes the account double, combining the probable expenses
of a married man, and those of the bachelor who keeps up the
café and the theatre. It was thus that one of my friends,
one of the most brilliant journalists of Paris, discovered that
to support two, without a domestic, in a tiny house in the
suburbs, an income of thirty thousand livres would be
necessary. j

This lamentable life of honorable solitude and desperate
ennui, is that which is led by those wandering shades, called
in England members of clubs. The system is beginning also
in France. Very well catered to, very well warmed, in splen-
did establishments, having at hand all the journals, and choice
libraries, living together like well-educated and polished dead
men, they progress in spleen, and prepare themselves
for suicide. Everything is so well organized that speech is
useless; there is no need even of signs. On certain days of
the year,.a tailor presents himself and takes measures, without
speaking. There is not a woman in the house, nor would they’
go to the houses of women. But once a week a girl will
The Woman of Letters. 35
* ‘
bring gloves, and such things, paid for in advance, and noise-
lessly depart in five minutes.

I have sometimes, in an omnibus, met a young girl, mo-
destly attired, always wearing a hat, whose eyes were fixed
on a book, and never once raised. Seated close to her, I have
observed it without staring.

Most frequently, the book was some grammar, or one of
those manuals of examination. Little books, thick and com-
pact, in which all the sciences are concentrated in a dry, un-
digested form, as if they were flint. Nevertheless, she put it
all into her stomach, that young victim. Certainly, she was
eager to absorb as much as possible. She devoted her days
and nights to it, even the moments of repose the omnibus
afforded, between the lessons she gave and those she received
at the two ends of Paris. That inexorable idea pursued her.
She never thought of raising her eyes. Fear of that exami-
nation weighed heavily on her.

We hardly know how alarmed they are. I have seen some
who, for several weeks beforehand, did not sleep, and scarcely
breathed, but only wept.

We must have compassion.

Observe, that in- the present state of our morals, I am a
strong partisan of these examinations, which facilitate an
honorable existence, somewhat more free. I do not ask that
they be simplified, that the field of required studies be
narrowed; yet, I would like a different method: in history,
for example, a small number of great cardinal facts, with, their
circumstances and details, and no tables of contents. I sub-
mit this reflection to my learned colleagues and friends, who
are the judges in these examinations.

I would like, moreover, to see their timidity humored; that
_ the examinations should be public only to ladies, and that no
men but the relatives of the girls be admitted. It is hard that
36 The Woman of Letters.

they should be compelled to submit to such a trial before a
curious audience, with a sprinkling of jesting young men.
To each, also, should be left the choice of the day for her
examination. To many, the trial is terrible, and without this
precaution might endanger their lives.

Eugene Sue, in a feebly executed romance, but marked by ad-
mirable observation (LaGouvernante), presents a true picture
of the life of a girl suddenly installed in the house of a stranger,
whose children she is to educate. Equal, or superior, by her
education, modest in her position and in her character, she is
only too interesting. The father is much touched by her;
the son declares himself in love; the servants are jealous of
the attentions of which she is the object, and scandalize her.
But how many things are to be added? How incomplete
has Sue left the sad Iliad of what she has to suffer, even the
dangers she has to fear? We might cite astonishing, incre-
dible facts: here, the passion of the father, rising even to
crime, attempting to frighten a virtuous girl, cutting her linen
and her dresses, even burning her curtains! There, a corrupt
mother, wishing to gain time, and to marry her son as late as
poxeible, finds it convenient to amuse and detain him with the
ruin of a poor young woman of no consequence, who has
neither parents nor protector. She flatters, caresses the
credulous girl, and, without appearing to do so, arranges
opportunities and contrives accidents. On the other hand, I
have sometimes seen the mistress of a house so violent and so
jealous, making the life of the unhappy creature so bitter, that
from the excess of her sufferings, she justly sought relief under
the protection of the husband.

To a young soul, proud and pure, and courageous against
fate, the temptation is natural to escape from individual
dependence by addressing herself to the community, to make
the public her protector, and to believe that she can live by
The Woman of Letters. 27

the fruits of her own thought. Would that women might
here make their revelations; one only, I believe, has ven-
tured to do so,—in a very powerful romance, the defect of
which is, that it is so short that the situations do not attain
their full effect. This book (Une fausse Position) appeared
fifteen years ago, and disappeared at once. It is the exact
itinerary, the guide-book of a poor literary woman, the sche-
dule of the tolls, town-dues, turnpike rates, admission charges,
etc., which are demanded of her for the privilege of going
anywhere; a record of the churlishness and vexation her
resistance causes all about her, so that she is surrounded with
obstacles, I might almost say with murderous obstacles.

Did you ever see the children in Provence conspire against
an insect which they consider dangerous? They arrange
straws or dry twigs around it, and then light them, so that to
whatever side the poor creature turns, it encounters the
flame, is cruelly burned, and falls back ; it repeats this several
times, and persists in its efforts with an obstinate courage, but
always in vain. It cannot pass that circle of fire.

You see the same thing in the theatre. An energetic and
beautiful woman, very strong of heart, says to herself: ‘In
literature I must submit to the critics, who create public
opinion. But on the stage, [am in person before my judge,
the public, and I plead my own cause. I do not need that
any one should say: ‘She has talent!) But I say: ‘See
for yourself! ” ‘

What a terrible mistake! The crowd decides much less
by what it sees, than by what somebody affirms to be the
judgment of the crowd. The audience may be touched by
an actress, but the individual hesitates to say so. Each will
wait, fearing the ridicule that attaches to extr avagant enthu-
siasm. ‘The authorized censors, those professional jesters,
must give the signal for admiration. Then the public breaks
out, and dares to admire, overstepping indeed all that the
emotion of the individual would have allowed.

But merely to reach this day of judgment for which she
38 The Woman of Letters.

has everything to fear, how disgraceful the preliminaries !
What interested, suspicious, indelicate men, have the sove-
reignty of her fate!

By what wire-pulling and what trials have débuts been
made successful? How has she conciliated those who intro-
duce and recommend her—first, the manager, to whom she is
presented; then the popular author, who is to create a réle for
her ; and finally, the critics. And I do not allude here to the
great organs of the press, which are supposed to have some
respect for themselves, but to the most obscure and insignifi-
cant. It is enough that some green employé, who passes
his life in an office, making pens, has scribbled a few satirical
lines,—that a contemptible journal prints them, and distri-
butes them between the acts. Animated and encouraged by
the first applause, the artiste reappears on the stage, full of
hope, but she does not recognise the house. The charm is
broken, the audience chilled; they look at each other and
smile.

I was young when I witnessed a very impressive scene, at
the remembrance of which'I am still indignant. I am glad to
think that now-a-days things are changed.

At the house of one of these terrible critics, with whom I
was acquainted, I sawa slight girl enter, very simply clad,
with a sweet and winning countenance, but already wearied
and a little faded. She said, to the point, that she had come
to ask a favor, to beg him at least to tell her why he did not
let a day pass without attacking, crushing her. He replied
boldly,—not that she performed poorly, but that she was dis-
courteous,—that to his first somewhat favorable article, she
should have responded by a token of gratitude, a substantial
souvenir, ‘Alas! Sir, [am so poor! I earn almost nothing,
and I must support my mother.”—“ What of that! take a
lover.”—“ But I am not pretty; and, besides, I am so
wretched. Only lively women are loved.”—“ No, you cannot
make me believe that. You are pretty, Miss, but your
temper is bad. You are proud, but that will avail you no-
The Woman of Letters. 39

thing. You must do like the others, and take a lover.” He
stuck to that.

Thave never been able to understand how a man could
have the courage to hissa woman. The individual man is per-
haps good enough, but they are cruel asa public. This is
what sometimes occurs in a provincial town: to force the
manager to expend more than he is able; and import the best
talent, they every night kill off some unfortunate actress, who,
whatever her talent may be, loses her wits before such impla-
cable animosity, such a shameful punishment. She wavers,
stammers, and knows not what she is saying ; then she weeps
and stands mute, with imploring eyes. But still they laugh,
and they hiss. So she becomes indignant, and revolts against
such barbarism. But then the tempest grows so horrible and
ferocious, that she prostrates herself before them, and prays
for pardon.

Accursed be the man who breaks down a woman, who takes
from her her pride, her courage, and her soul! In Une fausse
Position this moment is indicated so tragically and truly, that
we feel it is nature itself, and taken from the life. Camille,
the literary woman, ingeniously surrounded by the circle
of fire, having no escape, wished but to die. She is prevented
only by an unforeseen chance, an inevitable, imperious chance,
still to do something good. Softened by charity, she loses the
strength that pride had lent to her despair. A savior comes
to her, and she yields. She is humbled, disarmed by the
great dilemma that so bothers the mystics: “If vice is a sin,
pride is a greater sin.” Suddenly she, who had carried her
head so high, becomes good, docile, and obedient. She makes
the woman’s confession: “‘ Z need a master—command, direct
me—lI will do whatever you will.”

Ah! as soon as she is a woman again, as soon as she is gen-
tle,.and no longer proud, all is kindly, all is smooth. The
40 The Woman of Letters.

saints are pleased that she is humbled, and the worldly have
good hopes of her. The doors of literature and the theatre
are opened to her, all strive and combine for her. The more
dead her heart is, the better is she established in life. Every-
thing looks well again; those who made war upon the artist,
upon the laborious and independent woman, now side with
the submissive woman—and henceforth she has a support.

The author of this romance tortures, but saves the heroine
intheend. In her heart is the burning fire of truelove. She’
yields and subdues her spirit before she is degraded. Few
have that happiness; most have suffered too much, fallen
too low, to feel so vividly; they submit to their fate, and are
slaves—fat and flourishing slaves.

Slaves to whom? you ask. Slaves to that uncertain and
unknown being, as frivolous as he is irresponsible, without
consideration or pity. His name? It is Vemo—the name
under which Ulysses escaped from the Cyclop. Here, it isthe
Cyclop himself, the devouring Minotaur. It is nobody, every-
body. .

I said she was a slave—more miserably a slave than the
planter’s negro, or the registered prostitute in the gutter.
How so? Because these wretched sufferers have at least no
anxieties, they fear no loss of work, they are fed by their
masters. The poor camellia, on the contrary, is sure of
nothing. She may be turned adrift ‘any day, and left to die
of hunger. She seems gay and careless; it is her trade to
smile ; so she smiles, and says: ‘Starved to-morrow, perhaps,
and for a home a milestone!”

Even in her-secret thought, she tries to be gay—afraid of
being ill, and growing thin. It is atrocious to be unable to
be sad; but she well knows that notwithstanding the some-
what ironica] regard her friends express for her, they would
never forgive her a day of languor, or the-least alteration,
The Woman of Letters. 41

A certain hue of suffering, a slight sickly paleness, which
would embellish the fine lady and make her lover mad for her,
is the ruin of the dame au camellia. She is bound to be
brilliantly fresh, or glowing rather. There is no let-up for
her. .

A very excellent physician, whom one of these had called
in, as he was passing through her street, a week afterwards,
with no other motive than pity, went in to ask how she was.
“You see I am always alone,” said she. ‘He scarcely comes
once a week, If I happen to be suffering on that day, he
says: ‘Good night, I am going to the ball’ (that is, to find a
woman), dryly leaving me to understand that I am good for
nothing, that I do not earn my bread.”

The manner in which the relation is annulled is the worst
of it. M. Bouilhet, in his fine drama of Heléne Peyron, has
put on the stage what may be seen daily. Her gentleman
does not like to fling the bargain in her face exactly ; but it
is so arranged that the abandoned girl, without a resource for
the morrow perhaps, too credulously accepts the suit of
a perfidious friend, who of course tells, and so the lover is
free to accuse her of betraying him.

In an immortal poem, of inexpressible tenderness, Virgil
has described the bitterness, the fathomless sea of sorrows,
into which the lover of Lycoris was plunged. Those servile
courtesans, whom an avaricious master hired and sold, have
drawn heart-rending verses from the unfortunate muse of
Propertius, Tibullus, and their suceessors, They were
instructed, graceful, and true ladies, more like our dame au
camellia than the Manon Lescauts of the old: regime—so
naively corrupt, a simple source of pleasure, who felt nothing
and knew nothing.

There is very great danger here; the surest way is to
keep far away from it. One day, one of my friends, a distin-
42 No Life for Woman without Man.

guished thinker, charitable enough, but with the manners of
the time, told me that by such light relations, of no conse-
quence, by avoiding any serious engagement, he had been
able to reserve himself for study, and solitary intellectual
exercise. I said to him: ‘What! you think that of no con-
sequence? .... Is it not rather a great peril? By what
philosophic effort of forgetfulness and abstraction can you see
an unfortunate girl thus crushed by misery, by treachery
perhaps, without having your heart torn by her horrible lot ?
And if this poor creature, a plaything of fate, should happen
to win your heart, you would be lost !”—“ 1!” said he, smiling
(but with so sad a smile), “that cannot be. My parents pro-
vided against that; they fastened the door that leads to the
great folly. Before I knew I had a heart, they rid me of it.
They killed all love in me.”

This funereal remark made me shudder. I thought of the
saying of the sophistical emperor, on the last day of the
Roman empire: “Love is a convulsion.” Next day every-
thing crumbled, not by the invasion of barbarians, but by that
of celibacy and premature death.

 

 

IV.

NO LIFE FOR WOMAN WITHOUT MAN.

Aw ever laborious life enriches us, as we advance, with new
ideas, before unknown to us. Very lately, only last winter
(1858-59), I found in my heart the meaning of little children.
I have always loved them, but I did not understand them.
I will hereafter relate the charming revelation I had from a
German lady; to her, certainly, belongs the best of what is
contained in my first chapters on education, to which you will
come presently.

In entering upon this branch of study, I believe it necessary
No Life for Woman without Man, 43

first to understand the child’s anatomy. My friend, Dr.
Beraud, Hospital Surgeon, and ex-demonstrator at Clamart
(still a young man, but well known by the fine treatise on
physiology, in which he is the author-colleague of our illus-
trious Rolin), wished -to dissect several children before my
eyes, in his cabinet at Clamart. He wisely reminded me that
the study of the child is usefully illustrated by that of the
adult. Thus, under his auspices, I was launched into anatomy,
with which I was previously familiar only through plates.

An admirable study, because, independently of its many
practical advantages, it is fundamentally highly moral; it
tempers the character—we are men only by the firm eye we
keep on life and death. And, what is not less true, although
less known, is that it humanizes the heart, not by feminine
sensibility, but by informing us of the many natural offices we
owe to humanity. An eminent anatomist said to me: “It is
very painful to me to see a water-carrier under her weight
of buckets which overburden her and cut her shoulders, If
people only knew how delicate these muscles are in women,
how weak the nerves of motion, how tender jthe nerves of
sensation !”?

My own impression was analogous to that, when, after
observing the organization which renders the child a being
fatally alive, on whom nature imposes the need of constant

. change, I thought of the inferno of immobility his school life
inflicts on him. So much the better did I like the good
German method (children’s workshops and gardens), in which
the teacher provides just what nature calls for, that is, motion
—developing that creative activity which is the true genius of
man.

As long as you have not seen and touched these realities,
you hesitate about all this, you debate, and lose time in listen-
ing to praters, Dissect, and, in a moment, you will understand
and feel it all. It is death which most of all teaches you to
respect life, to economize, and not overwork the human
race.
44 . No Life for Woman without Man.

If I could doubt the moral infinence of anatomy, it would
be enough for me to remember that the best men I have
known were great physicians. At the very time when I
was studying at Clamart, I saw there a celebrated English
surgeon, who, at the advanced age of eighty-four years, crosses
the sea every year to visit’ this scientific capital, and inform
himself of the happy novelties which its inventive genius con-
stantly discovers for the solace of humanity. I was especially
interested in the anatomy of the brain. I studied a great
number of them, of both sexes, of every age, and was sur-
prised to see how naively the lower side of the brain answers,
in its physiognomy, to the expression of the countenance. I
speak of the lower and not the upper part, which is covered
with veins, a circumstance to which Gall evidently attached
too much importance. It is far from the bony box, but at
the large bases of the brain, full of arteries, rising into more
or less rich volutes, according to the development of intel-
ligence, that the character reveals itself even as in the
face. The latter, a coarse surface, exposed to the air, and a
thousand shocks, deformed by grimaces, would speak, if there
were no eyes, much less clearly than this interior face, so
well-guarded, so delicate, so marvellously shaded.

In common women who were known to have had coarse occu-
pations, the brain was very simple in form, as though in a rudi-
mentary state. These would have exposed me to the grave
error of concluding that women in general, in this essential
centre of the organization, are inferior to men. Happily other
feminine brains disabused me—especially that of a woman
who, presenting a singular case in a pathological respect,
obliged M. Beraud to inform himself of her malady and her
antecedents. Here, then, I had what was wanting in the
other cases—the history of a life and a destiny.

This remarkably rare singularity was a stone of considera-
ble size found in the womb. This organ, now so ordinarily
affected, but in no other case perhaps to such a degree, revealed
avery extraordinary state. That in the sanctuary of generat-
No Life for Woman without Man. 45

ing life and fruitfulness—should be found this cruel destroyer,
this desperate atrophy, an Arabia Deserta I may say, a flint—
that the unfortunate one should have been, as it were, changed
into stone—immersed me in an ocean of sombre thoughts.

Nevertheless the other organs were not changed as much as
one might have supposed. The head was very expressive. If
the brain was not as large, strong, puissant, as those of some
men J had studied, it was as varied, as rich in convolutions—
little wavy volutes, marked by an infinite detail, lately occupied,
I felt, by a crowd of ideas and delicate shades, a world of wo-
man’s dreams. All had a story to tell, and as I had had
under my eyes a moment before brains of little expression—
dumb, I was going to say—this at the first glance made me
understand its language. As I approached it I seemed still
to hear through my-eyes the echo of its sighs.

The hands, soft and rather delicate, were however not ele-
gantly elongated like those of the idle lady. They were
moderately short, made for use. She had doubtless held little
objects, which do not deform the hand but curb its growth.
She must have been a working girl—in linen materials, per-
haps, or flowers. That was the natural conjecture. She
may have been twenty-eight years of age. Her eyes of a
blueish grey, surmounted by rather heavy black eyebrows,
and the peculiar quality of her complexion, revealed a woman
of the West, neither Norman nor Breton, but of an interme-
diate region, and yet not of the South.

The countenance was severe, if not proud. The highly
arched but not elliptical eyebrows indicated a worthy and
undegraded person, who had preserved her purity, and strug-
gled on even to the death.

The body, already opened at the hospital, showed that an
inflammation of the breast had carried her off. She had died
on the 21st of March, within twelve days of Shrove-Tuesday.
We were tempted to believe she was one of the numerous
victims of the balls of that season—a cruel season, which sud-
denly crowds the hospitals, and presently the cemeteries. It
46 No Life for Woman without Man.

“might justly be called the feast of the Minotaur. For how
many women does it not devour alive?

When we think of the mortal ennui, the profound mono-
tony, the disinherited, dry, and empty life the operative
leads, especially the seamstress, with her eternal dry bread,
alone in her cold attic, we are but little astonished if she
yields to the young fool at her side, or to some older and more
calculating fiend. But what always gives me a painful twinge
is, that he who seduces her has so little heart, that he affords so
little protection to the poor giddy girl, nor cares to know (he
so warmly robed with cloaks) whether she returns clothed,
whether she has fire and other necessaries, even anything to
eat to-morrow. Alas! to cast forth into the frozen night the
unfortunate, whose last caresses you have just enjoyed.
Savages! you pretend there is only levity in all this. Not so.
It is deliberate; you are cruel and avaricious; you fear to
know too wuch about it; you prefer to be ignorant of the
consequences, whether life or death.

To return; in spite of the season, I doubted, from the
countenance of this woman, that she was an étudiante, a
habituée of those balls. That world is easily known. She
would never have succeeded in it. Her severely cut nose,
her firm chin, her delicate and precise lips, her certain air
of reserve, would have made her too much respected there.

The final inquest proved that I had judged rightly. She
was a provincial girl, of a trading bourgeois family, who, in
a city peopled for the most part by bachelors and clerks, had
been unable, in spite of her natural goodness, to defend her-
self against infinite assaults, a pursuit every hour. Under
promise of marriage she had loved, and had a child. De-
ceived, with no other resource than her fingers and needle,
she had left her native city, in which, of all France, women
are the least embarrassed, for they there earn whatever they
are equal to. She preferred to come and hide herself in
Paris, and die of hunger. She brought her child with her, a
grave obstacle; she could be neither chambermaid nor shop-
No Life for Woman without Man. 47

gir), and sewing yielded her nothing. She tried to iron, but
in sickly condition, aggravated by grief, charcoal fumes pro-
duced cruel headaches, and she could not stand all day with-
out the greatest pain. Her sister-workers knew nothing
of that, and thought her lazy; the Parisian women are full
of ridicule, and they did not spare the poor provincial;
nevertheless, out of their good hearts they lent her money
in her trouble.

Her sad robes of faded calico, which I have seen, showed
that in her extreme misery she did not have recourse to what
remained of her beauty. Such a garment makes one old, it
left no chance of guessing how young and perfect her person
still was. Sorrow and misery make one gaunt, but they do
not wither, like excesses and enjoyments, and she, very plainly,
had had little to do with the joys of life.

The mistress who employed her to iron had charitably
allowed her to sleep in a great loft, which served as a work-
shop—a place strongly impregnated by vapors of charcoal,
and which, moreover, had to be cleared in the morning for
work. However she might suffer, she could not remain in
bed, not for one day. The other women arrived early, and
ridiculed her as an idler, and a good-for-nothing.

On the first of March she was worse; had some fever, and a
slight cough. That would have been nothing if she had only
had a home, but not having one, she was obliged to leave
her little girl to the kindness of the mistress to go to the
hospital.

She was received into one of our large old hospitals, where
at that time there were many cases of typhoid fever. The
skilful physician at once perceived that her fever would assume
that character. She was asked if her general health was good.
She said, modestly, “ Yes;” concealing her short internal
pangs, and dreading a painful examination.

In those great halls wherein so much of suffering is gathered,
where agony and death surtound each patient, the gloom often
increases the malady. Relatives are admitted on certain days,
48 No Life for Woman without Man.

but how many have no relatives; how many die alone!
She was visited once by her kind mistress; but the good wo-
man was frightened by the typhoid fever, and did not return.

The necessary ventilation is still, as formerly, procured by
means of huge windows, and great currents of air. The need
of a better plan is now seriously agitated. These currents
chill the patients, who are but slightly protected by their
curtains; and so her slight cough became, first, a violent
bronchitis, and then an inflammation of the lungs. Exhausted
by weak nourishment long continued, she had not the strength
to react. She was well taken care of, but she died in three
weeks.

Her little daughter (a charming child, already full of intel-
ligence) was sent to the Hnfants trouvés.

Her body, unclaimed, was removed to Clamart, and, I ven-
ture to say, very usefully, since it has instructed science on
a point from which fruitful inferences may be drawn. This
simple recital will also have been useful if it strongly com-
mands the attention of benevolent minds. Woman dies if
she has no hearth and no protection. If this person had only
had a shelter, a bed for one week, her illness would have
passed. away, in all probability, and she would still be alive.

She should have enjoyed for a time the hospitality of a
woman. How easy it would often be for an intelligent lady,
at certain critical times, to save a creature whom misfortune
has thus engulfed. Suppose such a lady, traversing a public
garden, near the hospital, had seen her seated on a bank, with
her little parcel, resting for a moment, before entering, after
her long journey. The lady, seeing her so pale, and struck
with her excellent countenance, which has an almost distin-
guished expression, in spite of the extreme poverty of her dress,
takes a seat by her side, and draws her into conversation.

“What is the matter with you, young lady?” “T have a
) No Life for Woman without Man. 49

fever, madam—I am quite ill.’ ‘Let me see. I understand
fevers, Oh, it is a trifle yet. At present, the prevailing
epidemic abounds in the hospitals. You would be very likely
to catch it. A little quinine would probably set you on your
feet again in a couple of days. I shall have plenty of ironing
to do. For these. two days, at least, come to my house;
when you are well again, you shall have my work.” That
would have saved her life.

Two days would not have done it; but in a week she would
have been restored. The lady appreciating the good charac-
ter, so plain in-her countenance, would doubtless have kept
her longer. Partly servant, partly young lady, better clad,
beautified again by a few months of happier life, she would
have touched many hearts with her pensive grace. The mis-
fortune of having been deceived, and of possessing that pretty
child, redeemed by her prudent conduct, her economical and
industrious habits, would scarcely have checked the love of
those around her. I have several times had occasion to ob-
serve the tender and generous magnanimity of worthy work-
men in this kind of adoption. J have known one such admi-
rable household. The woman loved, I dare say adored, her
husband; and the child, by a mysterious instinct, attached
itself to him even more than to a father: he always left it
weeping, and, if he was late, it wept for his return.

We too easily imagine that a person is irremediably ruined.
In our good old France they did not use to think so. For
example, every woman who emigrated to Canada, was re-
garded as purified of every fault and misfortune by the bap-
tism of the sea. This was no vain notion; for they clearly
proved the justice of it, and became admirable wives and
excellent mothers.

But the best of all emigrations for those, who, while yet
scarcely more than children, have been cast by chance upon a
frivolous life, is to rise courageously by labor and privations.
So one of our first thinkers insisted, in a severe letter he wrote
to one of our poor Amazons, brilliant and wretched, who asked
2 8
50 No Life for Woman without Man.

him how she might escape from the gulf before her. The
letter, very harsh in ‘expression, but in spirit very kind and
wise, told her that she could expiate her guilt by misery,
refine herself by labor and accepted suffering, and become
worthy and pure again. He was quite right; the soul of a
woman, much more mobile, more fluid-like, than that of a
man, is never profoundly corrupted. When once she has
seriously resolved to return to virtue, when she once has fairly
begun to live by struggles, sacrifices, and reflection, she is,
already regenerate. She is like the stream, which was turbid
yesterday, but fresh waters have come in, and it is clear to-
day. Ifthe woman, thus changed, forgetting the bad dream
of her involuntary sins, in which her heart was never involved,
succeeds in finding that heart again, if once she loves—all is
well. The best man in the world may find happiness in her,
and be honored by her still.

I intended to add nothing to this mournful story. My
friends were affected, and rose. But with a word I recalled
them to what had preceded it:

My dear sirs, the reason for which you will marry, the
strongest motive for your hearts, is, as I told you, that:

Woman cannot live without man.

No more than the child without woman. All foundlings
die; and does man live without woman? You yourselves
have just said: Your life is sombre and bitter. In the
midst of amusements and vain feminine shadows, you possess
neither wife, nor happiness, nor. repose. You have not the
sure foundation, the harmonious equilibrium, so favorable to
productiveness.

Nature has bound up life within a triple and absolute tie:
man, woman, and child. Separately, they are sure to perish,
and are only saved together.

All the disputes about the two sexes, and their opposing
No Life for Woman without Man. 51

peculiarities, go for nothing; we should put an end to them;
we must not imitate Italy, Poland, Ireland, and Spain, where
the weakening of family ties, and solitary egotisms, have -con-
tributed so much to destroy the State. In the only book of
the age that contains a great poetic conception (the poem of
the Last Man), the author supposes the earth exhausted and
the world about to come to an end. But there is one sublime
obstacle:

The world cannot come to an end while one man still
loves.

Have pity on this weary earth, which, without love, would
no longer have a reason for living. Love somebody; for the
salvation of the globe.

 

If I have rightly understood you, you would gladly love,
but apprehensions restrain you. Frankly, you are afraid
of women. If woman were only a thing, as once she was,
you would marry. But in that case, my dear friends,
there would be no marriage; for marriage is a union of two
persons ; and is therefore just beginning to be possible,
because woman to-day is a person and a soul.

But seriously, are you men? Shall the power you now
exercise over nature by your irresistible inventions—shall
that fail you? Shall the single being, who sums up all
nature, and is all happiness, be beyond your reach? By
your science you attain the sparkling beauties of the milky
way; is it because the sparkling beauties of earth, more
independent of you, send you back (as the Venetian girl sent
Rousseau) to mathematics ?

Your grave objection, about the opposition of faiths, and
the difficulty of bringing women to your own, does not seem
very strong to the man who looks at the difficulty coolly and
practicably.

Fusion will be completely effected only by two marriages,
two successive generations.

s
52 No Life for Woman without Man.

The true woman for a wife is she whose portrait I have
painted in my Book of Zove—she who, simple and loving, hav-
ing as yet received no definite impress, shall least repel the
modern thought, shall not beforehand be an enemy to science
and to truth. I prefer that she should be poor, and isolated,
with few family connexions—her position and education are
secondary matters. Every French woman is born a queen
or is on the point of becoming so.

As a wife, the simple woman, who can be somewhat
instructed, and as a daughter, the confiding woman, who can
at once be taught by her father: these will break that vicious
circle in which we revolve, in which woman prevents us from
creating women.

With so excellent a wife, sharing, in heart at least, the
faith of her husband, the latter, following the very easy path
of nature, will maintain over the child an incredible ascendency
of authority and tenderness. The daughter does so trust in
her father! He may make of her what he will. The strength
of this second love, so lofty and so pure, will create in her the
woman, the adorable ideal of grace and wisdom, by which
alone family and society are to be restored in the future.
Part I.—EpucaTION.

 

 

I.
SUN, AIR, AND LIGHT.

Aw eminent observer affirms that numerous microscopic
beings, which in the shade remain vegetables, assume a higher
character in the sun, and become veritable animals. The fact
is certain, indisputable, and accepted by everybody, that,
deprived of light, every animal merely vegetates; that a
plant can scarcely blossom, and that its flower is pale, lan-
guishing, abortive, and short-lived.

The human flower, more than all others, craves for the sun;
the sun is its first and supreme initiator into life. Compare
the child a day old, that has known only darkness, with the
child a year old: the difference is enormous between the son
of shadow and the son of light. The brain of the latter, as
compared with that of the former, presents the palpable
miracle of a complete transfiguration. We are not surprised
to perceive that in it the apparatus of vision occupies more
space than the organs of all the other senses combined.
Light inundates the head, traverses it through and through,
even to the deep, recondite nerves, whence proceed the spinal
marrow, and the whole nervous system, the complete mecha-
nism of sensation and motion. Even above the optical con-
54 Sun, Air, and Light.

duits in which the light circulates, the central mass of the
brain (the radiant crown) seems also to be penetrated by it,
and doubtless receives its rays.

So the first duty of love is to bestow on the child, and the
young mother also, who was only yesterday a child, shattered
by the accouchement, wearied with nursing, plenty of light
and salubrious air. Grant her the blessing of “a good ex-
posure,” that the sun may cheer her with his first rays, loving
and regarding her long, revolving around her at mid-day,
even at two o’clock, still warming and illuminating her, and
leaving her only with regret.

Leave to those who live the artificial life of the beax monde
the splendors of apartments turned toward the Evening.
Kings, the great- and the idle, have sought for sunsets in
their Versailles, to glorify their fétes. But whoever sanctifies
life by labor, whoever loves and has his fétes in his beloved
wife and child, lives most of all in the Morning. To himself
he secures the freshness of the early hours, when all life is
energetic and productive. To them he gives the joy, the first
flower of gaiety, which enchants all nature in the happiness
of its awakening.

What'is comparable to the innocent and delightful grace
of these morning scenes! The good laborer watching for the
sun sees it peep through the curtains to admire the young
mother, and the child in the cradle. She is surprised, and
stretches her arms; “ What! so late!? And smiling, says:
“Ah! how indolent I am !”—“ But, my dear, it is only five
o’clock, The child has kept you awake a great deal. Sleep,
I beg you, an hour longer.” She does not need to be urged,
and they go to sleep again. ;

Let us close the curtains doubly, and shut fast the window-
blind. But the Day, in its triumphant and rapid march, will
not be excluded. A charming combat is waging between
light and darkness; and it would indeed be bad if the night
got the better of it. What a picture would be lost!. As
she, inclining toward the child, encircles its head in the curve
Sun, Air, and Light. 5

of her loving arm. A gentle ray insinuates itself. So be it,
leave them with that sacred aureole of the blessing of God!

 

I have spoken in one of my books of a strong and sturdy
tree (a chestnut, I believe), which I saw thriving out of the
earth, on air alone. We suspend in vases certain elegant
plants, that likewise vegetate with no element but the atmo-
sphere. Our poor peasants resemble these only too nearly.
What compensates them for their imperfect sustenance?
What enables them, so poorly nurtured, to endure such pro-
tracted and severe labors? The perfection of the air in which
they live, and the power it affords them of deriving from
their food all the nutrition it contains.

Thou, whose happiness it is to rear and nurture those two
trees of Paradise, the young wife who lives in thee, and her
child which is thine own—consider well, that if thou wouldst
have her live, and bloom, and give good milk to that dear
little one, thou must first provide her with the aliment of all
aliments, vital air. What a misfortune, how sad a contradic-
tion, to expose thy pure, chaste, charming wife to a dangerous
atmosphere enough to poison her body and soul! No, not
with impunity will a delicate, impressionable, and penetrable
woman receive the horrible mélange, of a hundred vitiated,
vicious effluvia, that rises from the street to her—the breath
of unclean spirits, the pell-mell of smokes, vile emanations,
and unhealthy dreams which hover over our sombre cities.

You must make a sacrifice, my friend, and at any price take
them where they can live. If possible, go out of town—you
will see less of your friends, but they will come a little further
to see you, if they are true friends: You will go to the thea-
tre but little. Its pleasures (agitating and enervating) are less
to be desired by him who has, on his own loving hearth, his
own rejuvenating joys, his own “Divine Comedy.” You will
lose less time at night, gossiping in saloons; and for your
recompense, you will have in the morning all your strength,
\

56 Sun, Air, and Light.

not wasted in vain words, but fresh and tranquil, to put into
labor, solid works, those durable results which shall not fly
away.

Iwant a garden, not a park: a little garden. Man does
not easily flourish away from its vegetal harmonies. All the
legends of the East place the commencement of Life in a gar-
den. A pure and capable people, the Persians, believed that
the world began in a garden of light.

If you cannot leave town, dwell in the upper stories of a
house; more desirable than the first floor, the fifth or sixth
may have a garden on the roof; at all events, light abounds
there. Iwould choose for your young pregnant wife a vast
and splendid prospect, to beguile her waiting reveries, during
your long hours of absence. I would prefer that the eyes of
the child, when it is first carried out on the balcony, should
fall on monuments, on the majestic effects of the Sun, in its
course, lending to them at different hours aspects so diverse.
Where a view of mountains, tall shrubbery, beautiful forests, is
wanting, we receive from grand edifices (in which is the na-
tional life, the history of the country in stone) early emotions
whose traces are for ever ineffaceable. Little children know
not how to express their feelings, but their souls vibrate to the
effects of architecture so transfigured. Such a ray, such a
flash of light, falling at such an hour on a temple, will remain
for ever present with them.

For myself, I may affirm that nothing in my early child-
hood made a deeper impression on me than the Pantheon as I
once beheld it against the Sun. It was in the morning. The
interior, revealed through the windows, shone like a mysteri-
ous glory. Between the light columns of the exquisite Ionic
temple, so grandly springing from its’ austere and sombre
walls, the azure air circulated, roseate with an inexpressible
gleaming. I was enraptured, fascinated, impressed, far more
than I have since been even by very great events. They
have passed away, but that vision remains luminous for me
still.
The First Exchange of Glances. a

Il.

THE FIRST EXCHANGE OF GLANCES, AND THE BEGINNINGS
OF FAITH.

Tux divine rapture of the first maternal glance, the ecstasy
of the young mother, her innocent surprise at having given
birth to a god, her religious emotion in her marvellous dream,
which is so real nevertheless,—all this may be seen every day,
but it has seemed impossible to paint it. Correggio has been
able to grasp it, inspired by nature, free from the tradition,
by which, in his day, art was restrained and chilled.

There are spectators around the cradle, and still the scene
is solitary, for it is divided between her and him, who are
the same person. She gazes on him, moved; from her to
him, from him to her, flashes an electric light, which dazzles
and confounds them together. Mother and child are one in
that living ray, which restores their primitive and natural
unity.

If she no longer has the happiness of containing her child
palpitating within her bosom, she is compensated by the fairy-
like enchantment of having him before her, under her eager
eyes. Reclining over him, she trembles. Young and inno-
cent, she reveals, by the naivest signs, her joy at assimilating
to herself by love, this divine fruit of her own being. Lately
he was- nourished by her, now she is nourished by him,
absorbs him, eats and drinks him. A delightful interchange
of life: the child giving and receiving it, absorbing the
mother in her turn, like milk, and heat, and light.

A great, a truly great revelation; no idle creation of art
and sensibility ; a mere gratification for the heart and the
eyes. No; it is an act of faith, a mystery, but not absurd;
the serious and solid foundation of religion and education, ca
which is to be raised the whole structure of human life; and
the mystery is this :—

é 3%
58 The First Exchange of Glances.

Tf the child were not God, if the relation of the mother to
it were not a worship, it would not live. It is so fragile a
peing, that it could never be reared but for the marvellous
idolatry of the mother, which deifies it, and makes it full of
bliss to her to sacrifice herself for its sake. In her eyes it
is good, beautiful, perfect; and it is needless to add, she
beholds in it her ideal, the absolute of beauty and goodness,
the acme of perfection.

What painful dismay would beset her if some gloomy
thinker, some awkward sophist, should dare tell her that ‘“ the
child is born bad, that man is depraved before his birth,” and
other such fine philosophical and legendary inventions. But
women are mild and patient; they only turn a deaf ear. If
they had believed that, if for a moment they had seriously
accepted such ideas, all would soon have been ended. Uncer-
tain and discouraged, they would not have put their whole
life into a cradle, and the neglected child must have died.
There would have been no humanity; history would have
come to an end at its very commencement.

As soon as the child sees the light, and sees itself in the
maternal eye, it reflects, instinctively returns the look of
love; and from that moment the most profound and sweetest
mystery of life has been accomplished between those two.

Will time add to it? Can the beatitude of so perfect a
marriage be increased? On one condition only, perhaps;
namely, that both have understood it, so that the child will
disengage itself from the divine immobility ; will act, and seek
to correspond with its mother; will go to her with all its
little heart, and impulsively give itself up to her.

This second season of mutual love and faith forms the sub-
ject of a rare creation, which France possesses in the Louvre.
The painter, Solari (of Milan), survives only in this one paint-
ing—all the rest have perished. He had lived many years
The First Exchange of Glances. 59

among us, and possessed the double sense, the soul of the two
sister nations. How, had it not been so, could he have ac-
quired that exquisite expression of nervous life, and its deli-
cate sensitiveness ?

In this there is no magical effect, no mysterious contest
between light and darkness. In full noon, without artificial
accessories, under a tree, in a pleasant, everyday landscape,
are a mother and her child; nothing more. Here and there
the crudity of its tone (the effect of restorations) offends the
eye, but why is the heart so troubled ?

The young mother, refined and pretty, and singularly deli-
cate, is desirous of fulfilling a duty far beyond her strength.
Not that her breast is wanting in milk; it is beautiful with
plenitude, with visible tenderness, and a sweet desire to
nurture. But so frail is this charming person that we ask
ourselves how can she supply that beautiful fountain, but at
the cost of her own life.

Who is she? An Italian flower, swaying with slight exhaus-
tion; or a nervous Frenchwoman? I would quite as readily
believe the latter. The race, moreover, is much less ap-
parent here than the epoch, which is that of cruel wars and
miseries, when are felt. and expressed the touching charm that
grief imparts to grace, those smiles of suffering women, who
make excuses for their suffering, and would like not to weep.

The handsome, vigorous, and largely developed baby over
which she bends, reposes on a cushion; she could scarcely carry
him—a striking disproportion, which, however, has no mys-
tical significance, only that the child comes of a great race, of a
father who doubtless even yet belonged to the heroic times,
while the young mother, suffering, weak, refined, is of the
period of Correggio’s “Italy :” a last drop of the divine elixir,
under the pressure of grief.

Observe also that in those days, the mother, although
60 The First Exchange of Glances.

poorly nourished, nurses her child a long time; the more
intelligent he grows, the sweeter he finds this indulgence,
and the less desire he has to renounce it. She has not the
strength for the great rupture; she exhausts herself, is aware
of it, but will go on all the same, as long as she has a drop.
She exhausts herself even unto death, rather than grieve her
child.

This picture of Solari says three things :

Weak as she is, not giving of her abundance, but rather what
isnecessary to her own sustenance, she nevertheless smiles,
and says passionately: “Drink, my child! drink, it is my life.”

But either the charming child, with an innocent avidity,
has slightly wounded that beautiful bosom, or the powerful
suction reaches within the breast and rends its inner fibres,
for she has suffered, and suffers yet. No matter, she still
says: “Enjoy, drink, it is my pain.”

And the milk which rises, swelling and expanding the
breast, flows forth; the pain, departing, gives place to a sweet
languor which is not without its charm, like that of the
wounded man who is pleased to see his own life ebbing away.
But here there is real happiness: if she féels herself growing
weaker, she grows strong in him. She experiences a strange
and profound shock to the very sources of her being, but
says, nevertheless, “‘ Drink, it is my delight.”

:%

Such is his invincible power over her that, whatever may
happen, she cannot separate herself from him, and the result
to him is that, understanding her, loving her, he is, both in
his physical life and in his young heart, bound up in her,
wholly absorbed in her.

His love is calm in the innocence of his age—not, like that
of his mother, sharpened by all the arrows of delight and
‘Play—The Child Teaching its Mother. 61

grief, but strong in its great unity. If he could speak, he
would say: “Thou alone art my infinite, my absolute and
complete world; there is nothing in me, which is not from
thee, which does not wish to return to thee. I know not
whether I live or not, but I am sure I love!”

India symbolizes the circle of perfect and divine life by the
attitude of a god holding his foot in his hand, concentrating
himself, and forming himself into a sphere. Little children
gften do this; and thus does this little one, invited to his
mother’s bosom. She aids him to come to her, but he desires
it as much as she, and does what he can toward it. By a
graceful and charming movement, and a natural instinct, the
first dawn of the deliberate impulse of tenderness, he makes
a powerful effort, and contracts his whole body into an are as
complete as possible, in order to offer himself at once, and
entire.

 

 

III.

PLAY.—THE CHILD, TEACHING ITS MOTHER.

Tuere is nothing more beautiful, nothing more touching,
than the embarrassment of a young mother, a novice in mater-
nity, puzzled how to handle her child, to amuse it, teach it to
play, and enter into communication with it. She hardly
knows how to take up her jewel, the adored mysterious being,
the living enigma, that lies there, and seems to wait to be
moved, and have its desires and its wants divined. She ad-
mires it, moves round it, trembles at the thought of touching
it roughly, and makes her mother hold it. Her pretty awk-
wardness makes the old nurse smile; she observes it in silence,
but says to herself that the young mistress is none the less a
miss for having had a child. Virgins are maladroit: grace
62 Play—The Child Teaching its Mother.

and skill rarely belong to her who is not a complete woman,
already made pliant by love.

Well, madam, since indeed you are now a madam—is it so
many years since you were a little girl? At fifteen, if I recol-
lect, under the pretext of trying the fashions, you were still
playing with dolls. When you were alone, you were even
wont (confess it now) to kiss and rock them. Now you see
the living doll, which asks only to be played with. Play on
then, my little lady; nobody will look at you.

“But I do not dare. With this one I am afraid. It is so
delicate; if I touch it, it cries; if I leave it, it cries—I tremble
lest I break it !”

There are mothers so idolatrous, so lost in the ecstasy of
this contemplation, that they would pass the whole day on
their knees before the child. In nursing it, gazing at it, sing-
ing to it some little nursery song, they feel themselves united to
it, and desire nothing better. But this is not enough; union
consists much more in active will, in concurrent action. If
your child did not act with you, would you ever know if
it loved you? It is play which will create between you a
union more intimate even than nursing, and have all the effects
of a mental nursing.

Form its young soul, its thought, its will, by play. In it
slumbers an individual; call him forth. And your happi-
ness will be that this soul and this individual, this desire and
this will, shall at first have no other object but yourself. The
first impulse of the liberty you have gained for him will be to
return to you. Ah! how wise he is in this! How gladly do
we all, after pursuing the false pleasures of the world, return
to the maternal paradise. Proceeding from the bosom of
woman, our only heaven here below is there.

“J should certainly be very happy to become my child’s
friend and companion; but what shall I do?”
Play—The Child Teaching its Mother. 63

Little or nothing, my dear, but follow his example. Let
us observe him, Lay him gently on the sunny grass, on this
flowery carpet. You have only to look at him; his first move-
ments will guide you; he is going to teach you.

His movements, his cries, his at first powerless attempts
to act, the little playfulness which follows, are not at all
arbitrary. It is not your nurseling only that you see here;
it is the child Humanity, as it was in the beginning. “This
first activity,” says Froébel, “informs us of, and reproduces
for our contemplation, the propensities, ideas, and needs,
which first belonged to the human race. Some uncongenial
element may be mingled with it, perhaps, in our modern races,
altered by a factitious society; but, on the whole, it is none
the less a very grave revelation of the remote past of hu-
manity, and of its instincts for the future. Play is a magic
mirror, in which you have only to look, to learn what man
was, what he shall be, and what must be done to lead him
to his destiny.”

Let us at once derive from this the first principle of edu-
cation, which contains all the rest: The mother teaches the
child only what she shall first have been taught by the child.
This means, that from him she derives the first germs of
whatever she develops in him—that in the child she first
detects a glimmer, which, in the end, with her assistance,
shall become light.

“Then these germs are good,” she says; “these gleams
are sacred. Thanks! Oh, I thought so. I was cruelly told
that the child is not born good. I never could believe a word
of that—I felt God in him so clearly! Beautiful, charm-
ing counsel! May it sink into my heart!—To keep my eyes
fixed upon him—to make him my rule in everything—to wish
nothing but what he wishes !”

Softly, dear little one, softly. Let us first see if he is
sure that he does wish, knows what he wishes. Let us
see, rather, if, overwhelmed by a chaos of confused things
which flow in upon him all at once, he does not await your
64 Play.—The Child Teaching its Mother.

aid to choose for him, to enlighten him as to objects of
interest.

Here is a stroke of genius by the good Froébel; and here
truly, by force of simplicity, he has discovered what the wise
bad vainly sought, the mystery of education.

Such the man, and such the doctrine. This German pea-
sant isin a fair way to become an accomplished expert, for
he possesses a singular gift of childlikeness, and the unique
faculty of recalling the impressions of his earliest childhood.
“JT was,” says he, “enveloped in an obscure and impenetrable
mist. To see nothing, to understand nothing, is at first a sort
of liberty ; but when our senses transmit to us so many images,
so many sounds, the reality oppresses us. A world of things
without meaning, without order or succession, come to us all
at once, and without allowance for our feebleness ; we are asto-
nished and disturbed, possessed and unduly excited. From
so many ephemeral impressions weariness alone remains to us.
It is a relief, a happiness, if a kind providence selects from the
crowd of objects, and brings frequently before us, such or
such that are easy and agreeable, which may occupy us only
to refresh us and deliver us from that Babel.”

Thus this first education, far from imposing restraint on the
child, is an aid, a deliverance, from the chaos of diverse

“impressions with which it is overwhelmed. By bringing
things to it in order, one by one, that it may consider them
at its ease, that it may observe and handle any little object
that pleases it, the mother creates for it the true liberty that
its age demands.

To form in this way a good and reliable method, you must
perfectly understand the tendencies of the child: an easy
thing for her who, bending over it night and day, regards it
anxiously, studying only what it is, what it wants, and the
good she can do it.
Play.—The Child Teaching its Mother. 65

First, it wishes to be loved, it wishes you to occupy your-
self with it, and prove your love for it—Ah! how easy
that is!

Secondly, it wishes to live, to live much, to be always
progressing, to extend the circle of its little actions, to move,
to vary its life, to pass hither and thither, to be free.—Be not
alarmed ; I mean free around you, the beloved; as near as
possible to you, always able to touch your robe,—free, above
all, to embrace you.

Thirdly, already launched upon voyages of discovery, it is in
no small degree preoccupied with a world of new things. It
prefers to understand, through you—and it always goes to
you—not by an instinct of weakness and ignorance merely,
but by I know not what sense which tells it that everything
sweet, lovely, and good comes through you, fet you are the
milk of life and the honey of nature.

And fourthly ; so young, scarcely speaking, scarcely walking,
it is already like us; its heart and its eyes judge like ours,
and it finds you very beautiful. Everything is beautiful to it,
in proportion as it resembles you. Of everything which
nearly or remotely recalls the pleasant forms of its mother, it
says flatly: “It is pretty.” When they are inert things, it
feels less distinctly their connexion with your living beauty.
But even as to these things, you powerfully influence its judg-
ment.

The symmetry of double organs and forms, of your hands
and eyes, supplies its idea of harmony.

Besides, its glorious and truly divine characteristic is that it
so abounds in life, that it dispenses it liberally to all objects.
The simplest are the best for it. Organized, living beings
may amuse it, but their independent action will perplex it;
it would maltreat them, but without malice,—merely to
understand them, and from simple curiosity.

Give it rather things of elementary forms (for it is still an
element) and of regular outline, which it can group together
in its pastime. Nature, in her first attempt at association,
66 Play—The Child Teaching its Mother.

creates crystals. Imitate nature—give the child forms like
crystals. You may be sure it will use them, as it does so
many other things, placing them side by side, or one on top
of another. Such is its instinct; if you do not give it some-
thing, it tries sand, which will not be fixed, and always
disappoints it.

Above all, never set a model before it, to fetter its
action. Do not make it an imitator. Be sure, that in its
mind, or at least in its memory, it will find pretty types for
its tiny architecture. Some morning you will be astonished
to recognise your house.

“ Marvellous!” you willery. “He has done that himself—
My son is a creator !”

And that is the proper name for man. Moreover, in cre-
ating anything, he goes on creating himself. He is his own
Prometheus.

And that is why, young mother, from the very first, out
of the pure instinct of your heart, without daring to express
it, you felt that he was God.

But see! she is at once alarmed; “If that be so,” she
says, “he is already independent, and presently he will escape
from me!”

No, no fear of that: for a very long time he will remain
quite dependent on love; he belongs to you, and that is his
happiness. If he creates, it is always for you. ‘“ Look,
mamma, look!” (Nothing would be beautiful to him without
the favor of your notice, the benediction of your eyes.) “See
what I have made for you.—TIf it is not pretty, I will do it
another way.”—So he piles stone on stone, block on block—
“See here, my little chair, on which mamma may sit. Two
pasts and one beam make one roof,—this is the house in
which mamma shall live with her little boy.” :

You are, then, his complete circle; he proceeds from you,
and returns to you. The essay, the first effort of his inven-
tion, is to honor you in his work, to entertain you in his
house.
The: Frail and Sacred Child. 67

Infantine and happiest life of all, and all engrossed in love!
Who can remember it without regret ?

 

 

IV.

THE FRAIL AND SACRED CHILD.

_ Wuen we consider how few children live, we are filled with
a desire to render them happy, at whatever cost.

One fourth die in their first year—that is, before they
have lived, before they have received the divine baptism of
light which transfigures the brain in the first twelve months.

One third die before the second year—almost before they
have known the sweet caresses of woman, or recognised in a
mother the best of earthly blessings.

One half (in many countries) do not reach puberty—the
first dawn of love. Overwhelmed by precocious labors, by dry
studies, and severe discipline, they never attain that second
birth of happiness and enchantment.

The best foundling hospitals may be said to be the ceme-
teries; in the hospital at Moscow, out of the 37,000 children
received in twenty years, only 1000 were saved; and in that
of Dublin, 200 out of 12,000—that is, one-sixtieth. What shall
I say of the Paris institution? I have seen and admired it,
but its results are not very accurately known. In it are
brought together two very different classes of children: 1.
orphans, who are received there after being reared—and these
stand some chance of living; 2. foundlings, properly so called,
children brought thither at birth; these are sent away to be
nursed, and their life is prolonged for some months.

Let us speak only of the happy ones, of those who are sur-
rounded by tenderness and foreseeing care. Look at them:
all are pretty at four years of age, and ugly at eight; as soon”
as we begin to refine them, they change, become vulgar, and
68 The Frail and Sacred Child.

deformed. We blame nature for this; we call it the ungrate-
ful age; but that which is ungrateful, sterile, and withering,
is only the stupidity with which we force the child from a life
full of action into one of barbarous routine—and turn its little
head, full of sensibility and imagination, to things so abstract
as philosophy or mathematics. To do this without injury to
the child, many years of well-managed transitions are neces-
sary—very short and very easy little tasks, diversified with
action, but not automatic. Our asylums are still far from
fulfilling these conditions.

This problem of education, which is not only a question of
future development, but most frequently of life and death,
has often disturbed my mind. The world is divided between
two opposite educational systems, and I have seen both fail.

Education by simple teaching, traditional and authoritative,
as it prevails in schools and coiieges (or small seminaries—for
they all follow the same method), has lost prestige throughout
Europe, and to its well-established insufficiency, the recent
attempts at amelioration have added confusion.

On the other hand, the free schools, which aimed rather at
forming the character of the child than instructing him, which,
inspired by Rousseau and Pestalozzi, were remarkable for
their originality, flourished only for a season in Switzerland
and Germany, and were abandoned.

These schools appealed to the hearts of mothers; for, what-
ever came of them, the child, in the meantime, was happy.
But the fathers found that, with their very slow methods, they
taught too little, and gave too few lessons ; so, in spite of their
mothers’ tears, the children were sent off to colleges (lay or
ecclesiastical).

In these institutions, many wither and die: a few, very few,

‘learn, but only by superhuman efforts. A course of instruction
so various, in which each study is carried on separately, with

me
The Frail and Sacred Child. 69

no demonstration of its relation to the others, exhausts and
cripples the mind.

Girls, of whom I shall presently speak more particularly,
are no better educated now than in the time when Fenelon
wrote his pleasant book, or when the author of Hmile sketched
his Sophie. Nothing is done to prepare them for life; they
are sometimes taught accomplishments that dazzle, sometimes
(among the less wealthy classes) pursue a few serious studies
which put them on the road to learning; but no culture pecu-
liar to woman, to the wife and mother, no special education
for their sex.

I had read so much on these subjects, so many mediocre
and useless things, that I was tired of books; on the other
hand, my connexion with schools, my own experience in
teaching, left many things obscure to me; so I resolved, this
year, to go to the very source, to study the physical orga-
nization of man, face to face with facts—to strengthen my
mind by actual observation. The body tells usa great deal
about the soul; it is much to see and touch the sacred instru-
ment on which the young soul tries to play, an instrument
which may reveal its character and indicate to us the measure
of its forces.

It was spring. The anatomical course was over in Clamart,
and solitude reigned where all is so gay and populous in
winter. The trees were full of birds, the parterre that
embellishes those funereal galleries was all in blossom. But
there was nothing comparable to the hieroglyphic flower I
came to study. The term is by no means a fantastic compa-
rison—it expresses my feeling. I experienced no disgust, but
on the contrary, a sentiment of admiration, tenderness, and
pity. The brain of a child, one year old, seen for the first
time, from its base (the lower side as it appears on being
reversed), has all the effect of a large and splendid camellia,
70 The Frail and Sacred Child.

with its ivory nerves, its delicate rosy veins, and its pale azure
tint. I say ivory, for want of a better word. It is an
immaculate white, and yet of an exquisite and tender soft-
ness, of which nothing else can give an idea, and which, to
my mind, leaves every other earthly thing far behind.

I am not deceived about this; my first emotions, doubt-
less strong, nevertheless did not cause the illusion. Dr. Beraud,
and a very skilful artist who paints anatomical plates daily,
accustomed as they are to see these things, were of the
same opinion. It is really the flower of flowers, one of the
most delicate, imocent, charming objects in the world,—the
most touching beauty that nature has ever produced. The
vast establishment in which I studied enabled me to pursue a
cautious method, to repeat and verify my observations, to
make comparisons between children of different ages and
sexes, and, moreover, to compare children and adults, even to
extreme old age. In a few days, I had brains of all ages
under my eyes, so that I could trace from year to year the
progress of time.

The youngest were those of a girl who had lived only a few
days, and some boys, a year old at most. She had never seen
the light; but they had had time to be impregnated by it.
Hers was a floating brain, in its rudimentary state: theirs, on
the contrary, were already as strong, fixed, and almost as well
developed, as those of older children, or even of grown persons.

This great revolution of the first year passed, the develop-
ment of the mind (visible also in the face) modifies, more
than the age, the physiognomy of the brain. In a little
girl of four or five years, of intelligent countenance, it was
traversed by convolutions and folds, more neatly arranged,
more finely traced, than in those of many common women of
twenty-five or even thirty-five years. The mysterious figures
which the cerebellum presents in its thickest part, and which
are called the tree of life, were much better outlined in this
young child, prettier, and more clearly defined.

This was not, however, an exceptional case; in many chil.
The Frail and Sacred Child. 71

dren of the same age I found nearly the same development;
and I came to the conclusion, that at the age of four, not only
the brain, but the spinal marrow and the whole nervous sys-
tem, have their greatest development. So, long before the
muscles attain their strength, while the child is still so feeble,
the brain is quite mature as to its nerves of sensation and
motion ; it is already, in its most charming harmony, a
human being.

But, though thus developed, at this age it is still exceed-
ingly dependent, and wholly at our mercy. The brain of that
child of four years, pure and blank as an ivory tablet, full of
sensibility, seemed to wait for something to be written upon
it—to say: “ Write here whatever you please—I will believe,
I will obey, I am here to obey; I am so dependent upon you,
and belong to you so entirely.”

An utter incapacity to avoid any suffering, or to provide
what is necessary for itself, characterizes the child at-this time.
This one, especially, advanced as she was, capable of loving and
understanding, seemed to implore assistance. You might have
almost read her prayer—for, though dead, she still prayed.

I was greatly moved, but at the same time enlightened.
The nerves of this poor little girl afforded me a very precise
revelation and insight into the absolute contradictions which
constitute the child’s state of being. ,

On the one hand, it is a mobile creature—more than all others
moving by necessity. The nerves of motion are developed
and active before the counterpoising forces which maintain the
equilibrium. Thus its incessant restlessness annoys and often
vexes us: we do not reflect that at this age the child is life
itself. :

On the other hand, the nerves of sensation are mature; con-
sequently the child’s capacity to suffer, and even to love, is
greater than is commonly believed. We have proof of this
in the Mnfants-Trouvés ; a great many of the children brought
there at four or five years of age are inconsolable, and die.

Amore astonishing fact, in connexion with this tender age, is
72 Love at Five Yeéars——The Doll.

—that amorous sensibility is expressed in the nerves more
strongly than in the adult. I was alarmed at this; love, slum-
bering as yet in the sexual organs, seemed already fully awa-
kened in those parts of the spinal marrow which act on those
organs. No doubt that at the first call they afford premoni-
tions of it; we need not then be astonished at their innocent
coquetries, their sudden tiniidities, their furtive movements
of bashfulness without cause.

Here is a pitiful phenomenon, which should make us trem-
ble. This infinitely mobile being, remember, is at the same
time infinitely sensitive. Be kind, patient, I pray you!

We destroy them by harshness, often too by tenderness.
Passionate and fitful mothers force and enervate the child
by their violent transports. I would desire for such as these

the painful but salutary impression that the sight of so ten-:

der an organism would bestow. It needs to be surrounded
by a mild and gentle and serious love, by a world of pure
harmonies. The little creature herself, already amorous in
organization, is in almost as much danger from furious ca-
resses as from undue severity. Spare her, and let her live!

 

oO

 

Vy. *
LOVE AT FIVE YEARS.—THE DOLL.

Tr is strange that the excellent Madame Necker de Saus-
sure should have thought that, till ten years of age, a girl
and a boy are almost the same thing, and that what is said about
the one will apply to the other. Whoever observes them, well
Knows that this almost is an incalculable, an.infinite difference.

Little girls, in the full levity of their age, are already much
the more staid. They are also more tender; you will rarely
see them hurt a little dog, or choke or pluck a bird; they
have charming impulses of goodness and pity.

hak
Love at Five Years——The Doll. 73

Once, indisposed, I was lying on a sofa, half covered with
acloak. A lovely little girl, whom her mother had brought
on a visit to us, ran to me and tried to cover me better, to
tuck me in in my bed. How can we help loving the delight-
ful little creatures; nevertheless we must be cautious not to
show it too much, not to fondle them too much.

The little boy is wholly different; he will not long play
in peace with a girl; if they begin at first to make a house, the
boy will soon want it to be a carriage; he must have a wooden
horse, to whip and manage. Then she will play by herself.
He vainly “makes believe” to be her brother, or indeed her
little husband ; even if he be the younger, she despairs of him,
and resigns herself to solitude,—and this is what happens:

It is chiefly in the winter, by the fireside, that you will

“x” observe it, when people are shut up in the house, and do not

run about, and there is little doing out of doors. Some day,
when shé has been scolded a little, you will see her in a corner
softly wrapping some object, a bit of stick perhaps, with linen,
and a piece of one of her mother’s new gowns; she will tie it
with a thread in the middle, and with another higher up, to
mark the waist and the head—and then will she embrace it
tenderly, and rock it to and fro: “‘ Thou, thou lovest me,” she
says in a low voice; “thou wilt never scold me.”

This is play, but serious play, much more serious than we
think. What is this new person, this child of your child?
let us examine all the characters the mysterious creature
enacts. F

You think that it is simply an imitation of maternity, that
to imagine herself grown up, as tall as her mother, she
wishes to have also a little daughter of her own, which she
may rule and govern, embrace or scold. So it is—but some-
thing more also: to this instinct of imitation must be added
another, which the precocious organism imparts to all, even
to those who may never have had a mother for a model.

Let us name it aright: It is First Love. Its ideal is
not a brother (he is too rude, too noisy), but a young sister,
74. Love at Five Years.——The Doll.

gentle, lovely, like herself; who may caress and console
he.

In another aspect, not less true, it is the first attempt at
independence; a timid essay of individuality.

Under this pretty manifestation, there is, without her
knowing it, a feeble desire to withdraw herself, something of
feminine opposition and contradiction. She is beginning her
réle as woman: always subject to authority, she murmurs a
little at her mother, as she will hereafter at her husband, She
must have an ever so tiny confidant, with whom she may
sigh. For what? Nothing to-day perhaps, but some-
thing or other which will come in the future. Ah! you are
right, my little daughter. How, alas! will your small pleasures
be mingled with sorrows! We who adore you, how much
we make you weep!

We must not jest at this—it is a serious passion. The
mother should join in it, and receive with kindness the child
of her daughter. Far from despising the doll, she should insist
that the capricious girl be always a good mother to it, and
keep it properly dressed, that it be neither spoiled nor beaten,
but treated reasonably, as she is herself.

You big children, who may read this—father, brother, cou-
sins—I pray you, do not laugh at the child. Examine youre
selves—do you not resemble her? How often, in affairs which
you deem the gravest, a memory returns to you, and you
smile—half avowing to yourselves that you have been playing
with a doll. '

Observe, that the more the little girl’s doll is her own, the
more that it is of her simple, elementary, but also personal,
manufacture, the more has she set her heart upon it, and the
more danger there is of distressing her.

In the country, in the north of France, a poor and hard-
working region, I once saw a very discreet little girl, wise
Love at Five Years—The Doll. 75
beyond her years. She had only brothers, who were all older
than she; born long after her parents had ceased to expect
more children, they seemed to take it amiss that she had come
into the world. Her mother, laborious and severe, kept her
always near her at work, while the others played; the elder
boys, moreover, with that selfish levity which marks their sex
in childhood, rarely took part in the sports of their young sister.
She tried to make herself a little garden; but they laughed at
her attempts, and trampled on it. Naturally it occurred to her
to make, out of some cotton rags, a little friend, to whom she
might relate the tricks of her brothers or the scoldings of
her mother. Her tenderness was lively and extreme. The doll
was sensible, replied intelligently, and in the sweetest voice;
‘by her tender effusions, her touching recitals, it was equally
affected, and, embracing each other, they wept.

Onc Sunday it was discovered, and created much laughter ;
the boys, tearing it from her arms, took great delight in
throwing it up to the topmost branches ofa tree, so high that
it finally remained there. Her tears and cries availed her
nothing. She was faithful however, and in her grief refused
ever to make another. All the winter long, she thought of
it, and wept and wept to think that it was out in the snow
and storm. When, in the spring, the tree was cut down, she
begged the gardener to look for it. I need scarcely say, that
long before that, her poor sister had been carried away by
athe northern blasts.

.Two years after, as her mother was buying some clothes
for the boys, the ‘shopwoman, who had also toys for sale,
noticed the little one looking at them. Her good heart
prompted her to give something to the child for whom
nothing was purchased ; so she placed in her arms a little Ger-
man doll. So great was her surprise and delight, that she
trembled and tottered, and could hardly carry it.—This doll,
pliant and obedient, lent itself to her every wish. It was
fond of dress, and its mistress thought only of making it
beautiful and brilliant; but that was the ruin of it—the boys
76 Woman a Religion.

danced her to death: her arms were torn out, and she
fell so ill that she was put to bed and nursed. ° The little girl
sank under these new blows of grief.

Fortunately a young lady, touched with pity at seeing her
so very sad, found among her trumpery a splendid doll, which
had been her own. Although defaced by time, it was much
more real than the modern one; its form was perfect—even
when naked, it seemed alive. Her friends often caressed it;
and. already it had preferences in its friendships, and showed
gleams, and first signs, of a precocious passionate character.
During a short illness by which the little girl was confined,
some one, perhaps from jealousy, cruelly broke the doll; its
mistress, on her recovery, found it decapitated. This third
tragedy was too much; she fell into such melancholy that
she was never seen to smile or play afterwards. Always de-
ceived in her fancies, she grew weary of life, which she had
scarcely tasted, and nothing could save her. So she died,
sincerely mourned for by all who had seen the sweet, gentle,
innocent creature, who had scarcely known happiness, and
who yet was so affectionate, with a heart so full of love.

 

‘0

 

VI.

WOMAN A RELIGION.

In education, the father is far too much concerned for the
future, that is, for the Uncertain. The mother is devoted
chiefly to the present, and wishes her child to be happy, and
to live. I take my stand with the mother.

To live! which is really a most difficult thing. Men do
not think of that; though they may have under their very eyes
the spectacle of the trials, the watchings, the anxious cares,
by which from day to day the life of a frail being is pro-
longed, they coolly reason on what it will do ten years hence.
Woman a Religion. 77

Let them, then, at least understand the indisputable, official
statistics of the frightful mortality of children. To the new-
born babe, death is for a long time the probable fate—with-
out a mother, almost certain. The cradle is for the most part
a brief moment of light between night and night again.

Women, who write and print, have made eloquent books
on the misfortunes of their sex; but if children could write,
what things they would have to tell! They would say:
“Take care of us, spare us for the few days or months gene-
rally allotted us by unsparing nature. We are so dependent
on you! You so hold us by superior strength, reason, and
experience! For the little of skill and good management that
you expend in our cause, we will be very obedient, we will
do what you will. But do not shorten the only hour we have
beneath the warm light of the sun and on our mothers’ knee.
~—To-morrow we shall be under the sod; and of all earthly
goods, we shall take away with us only their tears.”

Impatient minds will conclude from this that~I desire for
children that unlimited liberty which would be our servitude,
that I trust only in the child’s instinctive tendencies, that I
would have him obeyed.

On the contrary, I set out, as you remember, with the pro-
found and original idea which Freebel first broached: “The
child, left to the chaos of first impressions, would be very
unhappy. He is relieved if the mother substitute for that
wearisome confusion a small number of. coherent objects,
if she understand these, and present them to him in order.
For order is a necessity of the mind, and consequently hap-
piness for the child.”

Orderless habits, unbridled agitations, are no more neces-
sary to the happiness of the growing child, than a chaos of
confused sensations to the nurseling. I have very often
noticed the little unfortunates who were left entirely to their
78 Woman a Religion.

own fancy, and have been astonished to see how soon they
are wearied by their empty boisterousness and boldness. For
want of personal restraint they encounter every moment the
restraint of things, the mute but fixed obstacle of realities;
they fret against this to no purpose. On the contrary, the
child, directed by a friendly providence and in natural ways,
but rarely subjected to the tyrannies of the impossible, lives
in true liberty.

The habitual exercise of freedom in the paths of order, has
this admirable result—that sooner or later it will inspire
nature with the noble purpose of subduing itself, of con-
quering liberty through a higher liberty, of seeking effort and
sacrifice.

Effort itself belongs to nature, and is its best element; I
mean free and deliberate effort.

I have made this explanation in advance, for the benefit of
those who criticise before they read. I am still very far
from imposing effort upon the little creature I have in hand.
She is intelligent, loving; but she is, nevertheless, only an
element. God preserve me, poor little one, from telling you
all this! Your duty to-day is to live, to grow, to eat well, to
sleep better, to run in the wheat, and among the flowers.
But one can’t always be running, and you will be very happy
if your mother or elder sister will play with you, and make
you skilful in those labors which are games,

Duty is the inner soul, the life of education. The child
feels it very early ; almost at birth, we have inscribed on our
hearts the idea of justice. I might appeal to that, but I will
not yet. Life should be completely and firmly established,
before its barrier is set up, and its action limited. Those
who make a great commotion about morals and obligations
with the child that is not yet sure of living at all, who labor
to confine and circumscribe its needed buoyancy of action, are
Woman a Religion. 79

only too stupid. Ah! wretched bunglers, lay aside your
shears; at least wait till the material is there, before you dock,
and cut, and trim it.

The foundation of education, its soul and constant life, is
what appears early in the conscience—the good, the just. The
great art is, by love, gentleness, order, and harmony, to teach
the infant soul, as it attains its true, healthy, and complete life
to perceive more and more clearly the justice that already
exists within it, inscribed in the depths of love. Let the child
have examples only, no precepts—at least not in the begin-
ning; he will of himself easily pass from one to the other.
Without seeking, he will discover this: “I ought to love
my mother dearly, because she loves me so much.” That
is duty, and yet nothing is more natural.

I am not now writing a book ‘on education, and should not
stop to discuss general views, but proceed to my special sub-
ject, the education of the daughter. Let us have done then
with what is common between the girl and boy, and dwell on
the difference.

It is profound, and this it is:

The education of the boy, in the modern sense, aims to
organize a force, an effective and productive force, to create
a creator; which is the modern man.

The education of the girl is to produce harmony, to har-
monize a religion.

Woman is a religion.

Her destiny is such, that the higher she stands as religious
poetry, the more effective will she be in common and practical
life,

The utility of man, being in creative, productive power, may
exist apart from the ideal; an art which yields noble pro-
ducts may sometimes have the effect of vulgarizing the artist,
who may himself retain very little of the beauty he infuses
into his works.

There is never anything like this in woman.

The woman of prosaic heart, she who is not a living power,
80 Woman a Religion.

a harmony to exalt a husband, to educate a child, to con-
stantly sanctify and ennoble a family, has failed in her mis-
sion, and will exert no influence even in what is vulgar.

A mother, seated by the cradle of her daughter, should
say to herself: “I have here the war or thé peace of the
world, what will trouble the hearts of men or give them the
tranquillity and high harmony of God.

“She it is who, if I die, will at twelve years of age, on my
tomb, raise her father on her little wings, and carry him back
‘to heaven. (See the Life of Manin.)

“She it is who, at sixteen, may with a word of proud enthu-
siasm, exalt a man far above: himself, and make him cry, ‘I
will be great?

“She it is who, at twenty, and at thirty, and all her life
long, will renew her husband, every night, as he returns
deadened by his labor, and make his wilderness of interests
and cares blossom like the rose.

“She again, who, in the wretched days, when the heavens
are dark, and everything is disenchanted, will bring God back
to him, making him find and feel Him on her bosom.”

To educate a daughter is to educate society itself. Society
proceeds from the family, of which the wife is the living bond.
To educate a daughter is a sublime and disinterested task ; for
you create her, O mother, only that she may leave you, and
make your heart bleed. She is destined for another. She
will live for others, not for you, not for herself; it is this
relative character which places her higher than man, and makes
her a religion. She is the flame of love, and the flame of the
hearth; she is the cradle of the future, and she is the school,
another cradle—in a word: She is the altar.

God be thanked, all the debated systems for the education
of the boy end here, all disputes cease here. The great conflict
of methods and theories expires in the peaceful nurture of this
Woman a Religion. 81

blessed flower; discords are disarmed, and embrace each other
in Beauty.

She is not condemned to strong and violent action; she
will know, but not enter into, the frightful world of details,
aver increasing, beyond all the powers of man.

Will she ever rise to the summits of high speculation? Very
likely, but not by following in our footsteps. "We will prepare
ways for her to reach the idea, without subjecting her charming
soul to the preliminary tortures in which the spirit of life is lost.

What shall she be? Beauty. After what model, O mother,
shall she form herself?

Every morning and every night, offer up this prayer: “My
God, make me very beautiful! that my daughter, to be so,
need only look on me!”

The end of woman on this earth, her evident vocation, is
love. One must be very unfortunately constituted, very hos-
tile to nature, very blind and crooked-souled, to pronounce,
against God himself, that this delicate organism and this ten-
derness of heart are destined only to isolation. ‘“ Let us edu-
cate her,” they say, ‘to be self-sufficing ; that is the safest plan.
Love is the exception, and indifference the rule. Let her know
how to live within herself—to labor, pray, die, and work out
her salvation, in a corner.”

To this I reply, that love will never be wanting to her. I
maintain that, as a woman, she earns her salvation only by
constituting the happiness of man. She ought to love and bear
children; itis her sacred duty. But let this remark be under-
stood—if she is not a wife and mother, she may be an instruc-
tress; in which case she will be no less a mother, and will bear
the fruit of the mind.

Yes, if it has been her misfortune to be born in an accursed
epoch, when the most lovely are no longer beloved, so much
the more will she open her arms and her heart to the universal

4*
82 Woman a Religion.

love. For one child that she might have borne, she will have
a thousand ; and clasping them to her bosom she will say: “I
have lost nothing.”

Let the men understand one thing, a noble and exquisite
mystery that nature has concealed in the bosom of woman;
and that is the divine doubt wherein, in her organization, love
dwells. In men, it is always desire; but in her, even without
her knowledge, in her blindest impulses, the instinct of ma-
ternity overpowers all the rest. And when egotistical pride
convinces the lover that he has conquered, we may see, most
frequently, that she has yielded only to her own dream—the
hope and love of a child, which almost from her birth she had
conceived in her heart.

High poetry of purity! In every season of love, when the
senses assert themselves, the instinct of maternity eludes them,
and bears love into sublimer regions.

To educate woman, is to promote her transformation—it is,
at every step of her life, by giving her love according to the
necessities of her heart, to aid her thus to exalt love, and
elevate it to a form at once so pure and so intense.

To express in a word this sublime and delightful poesy:
from the cradle woman is a mother, and longs for maternity.
To her everything in nature, animate or inanimate, is trans-
formed into little children.

We shall perceive more and more clearly how felicitous this
is; woman alone can educate man, especially in the decisive
years when it is necessary with prudent tenderness to discipline
his young liberty by bringing it into order. To brutally break
and crush the human plant, as hitherto has been done, there
is no need of women. But they will be recognised as the
only possible educators, in proportion as we shall desire to
cultivate in each child his peculiar and natural genius, which
is of infinite diversity. None but a woman is sufficiently deli-

cate, tender, and patient, to perceive so many shades, and
take advantage of them.
Woman a Religion. 83

The world lives by woman. She contributes two elements
which create all civilization; her grace, her delicacy ; but this
last is chiefly a reflection of her purity.

What would become of the world of men, if these two things
were wanting? Those who seem most indifferent to them
forget that, without this grace, these forms at least of purity,
love would be extinguished on earth—love, the all-powerful
spur of our human activities. Delicious torment, fruitful
trouble! without you, who would care to live?

It is necessary, absolutely necessary, for woman to be grace-
ful. She is not bound to be beautiful, but grace is essential
to her. She owes it to nature, which has made her to be ad-
mired; she owes it to humanity. Grace charms the arts of
men, and imparts a divine smile to all society.

And what must the child do to be graceful? She must
always feel that she is loved. Let her be guided equably: no
violent alternations of rigor and tenderness; nothing rude,
precipitate, but a very gradual progress—no interruptions, and
no very great effort. She need not be embellished with elabo-
rate ornaments; but by a sweet absorption, create a new
beauty which, little by little, will bloom out from within.

 

Grace is a reflection of love on a groundwork of purity.
Purity is the woman herself:

Such should be the constant thought of the mother, as soon
as a daughter is born to her.

The purity of the child is at first that of the mother; the
child should always find truth, light, and absolute transpa-
rency, as of a perfect mirror, in her, which no breath ever
tarnishes.

In the morning and evening, both should make abundant
warm ablutions—or better, a little cold. In all things they
hold together. The more the little girl sees her mother atten-
tive to neatngss, the more will she wish tq be like her in per-
son, and soon in heart also,

-
84. Woman a Religion.

Purity of air and temper; purity and uniformity of influ.
ences. Let there be no nurse to spoil below stairs what is
done above, by flattering the child, and making her think her
mamma, cross.

Purity above all in her regimen and her food. And what
is to be understood by that?

I mean that the little one should have a child’s diet, that
she should continue her milk regimen, sweet, mild, and not
exciting; that, if she eat at your table, she should be taught not
to touch your dishes, which are poisons to her. A revolution
has been at work here: we have abandoned the frugal French
regimen, and adopted, more and more, the heavy, bloody
cuisine of our neighbors, much more appropriate to their cli-
mate than to ours, and the worst of it is that we inflict this
diet on our children. A strange spectacle truly, to see a
mother give to the daughter she was nursing but yesterday, a
coarse supply of half-raw meats, and dangerous stimulants,
wine, and (exaltation itself) coffee! She is astonished to find
the child violent, whimsical, passionate, when she has only
herself to blame for it.

What she does not yet know, but which is nevertheless of
grave importance, is, that in our precocious French race (I
have seen nurslings in love in the cradle), the excitement of
the senses is directly provoked by such a regimen. Far from
strengthening, it agitates, weakens, enervates. The mother
finds it pleasant and pretty to have so lively a child, with
repartees already, and so sensitive that it weeps at the least
word. It is all owing to her being over-excited herself; she
wishes her child to be so, and without knowing it, is a cor- °
rupter of her own daughter.

All this is worth nothing to her, madam, and searcely more
to you. You have not the courage, you say, to eat anything,
unless she has her share. Well, abstain then, or at least be
moderate in the use of such a diet—good for a jaded man,
perhaps, but fatal to an idle woman—vulgarizing her, per-
turbing her, making her violent, somnolent, or stupid.
Love at Ten Years.—F lowers. 85

In both woman and child it is a kindness, a loving kindness,
to be chiefly frugivorous, to avoid the fetid viands, and live
rather on the innocent aliments which cost no creature its
life—the fragrant fruits which delight the smell quite as
much as the taste. A very natural reason why the dear
creatures never inspire repugnance, but seem etherial in com-
parison with men—is chiefly to be found in their preference
‘for vegetables and fruits, a purity of diet which contributes
not a little to that of the soul, and truly assimilates it to
the innocence of flowers.

 

 

VII.

LOVE AT TEN YEARS.—FLOWERS.

Wuen the good Frebel placed in the pretty but rather
awkward hand of my dear little one the elementary forms
with which nature begins, he invited her also to the love
of vegetable life. To build a house is beautiful; but how
much more beautiful to make a plant, to create a new life, a
flower which will expand, and reward you for your pains!

A splendid red kidney-bean, the admiration of childhood,
has been planted, not without some solemnity. But, to wait
is a thing impossible at five years; how can she wait, inactive,
for what nature does by herself? Next day, of course, the
kidney-bean is visited. Taken up and put back carefully, it is
not at all improved. The tender anxiety of its young nurse
leaves it no repose; she removes at least the surface of the
soil, With an indefatigable watering-pot, she importunes the
idleness of the nonchalant vegetable; the earth drinks won-
derfully, and seems to be always thirsty. So, in spite of the
care and the watering, the bean dies.

Gardening is a labor of virtue and patience; it is excellent
discipline for the character of a child. But at what age
86 Love at Ten Years.—Flowers.

may it be really begun? The little Germans of Freebel were
to commence at four years; ours a little later, doubtless. I be-
lieve that our little girls (much better than the boys) may, by
their kindness and tenderness for the baby plant, undertake to
wait for it, to spare it, and train it. As soon as one attempt has
succeeded, as soon as they have seen, admired, touched, kissed
the little being, everything is accomplished. They are so eager
to repeat the miracle that they become patient.

The child’s true life is in the fields; but even in town she
should, as much as possible, be familiarized with vegetable life.

And for this, neither a grand garden nor a park is necessary.
She who has little, loves it the more—though it be only a
wall-flower on her balcony, and that an extension of the roof;
and she will profit more by her single plant than the spoiled
child of the rich, let loose in great parterres which she has only
learned to destroy. The care and assiduous contemplation of
this flower, the relations which shall be pointed out to her,
between her plant and such or such an influence of the atmo-
sphere or season—with these alone her entire education may
be carried on. Observation, experience, reflection, reasoning,
will all come of it. Who does not know the admirable les-
sons Bernardin de Saint Pierre derived from the strawberry-
plant that grew by chance in a pot on his window? In it he
saw the infinite, and made it the beginning of his vegetable
harmonies, simple, popular, childlike, but not the less scientific.
(See Alex. von Humboldt.)

A flower is a whole world, pure, innocent, peace-making ;
the little human flower harmonizes with it so much the better
for not being like it in its essential point. Woman, especially

“the female child, is all nervous life; and so the plant, which
has no nerves, is a sweet companion to it, calming and re-
freshing it, in a relative innocence.

It is true that this plant, when in blossom, excited beyond its
strength, seems to be animalized. And in certain microscopic
species, it assumes in the organ of love a surprising identity
with the higher order of being; but the child knows nothing
Love at Ten Years.—Flowers. 87

of this beautiful delirium of plants, except from their intoxica-
ting odor, and her constant motion prevents her from imbibing
that too long.

The little girl, who at an early age is so complete a being,
much more delicate than the boy, more susceptible to nice
impressions, has one sense the more—that of perfumes, of
aromas. She could be penetrated by them and sometime
enjoy a sensual expansion; but this flower is not for her an
object of idle love, of indolent enjoyment; it is a necessity
for labor and activity, an object of anxiety, success, and joy,
an occupation for her heart and mind. In fine, and in a
word; maternity cures love; the flower is not her lover,
because it is her daughter.

It is a bad and dangerous intoxication for the sedentary
little lady, deprived of fresh air and exercise, to inhale in a
parlor the concentrated emanations from an amorous bou-
quet of flowers. And it is not only her head that grows
dizzy ; one of our novelists has undertaken to show the
doubtful virtue of a young woman who yields to such influ-
ences. They would no less powerfully trouble the little girl,
by hastening the sensual crisis, and forcing the blossom that
should rather be delayed.

Shall I confess (but what a paradox! how shocking to the
ladies!) There are three things that I rather dislike: those
babels of paintings, called museums, where the pictures kill
off each other ;—those babels of warbling, called aviaries,
where the nightingale, associated with vulgar singers, is in a
fair way to fall into a patois;—and those babels of flowers,
called bouquets, made up of all perfumes and colors, which
zonflict with and annihilate each other.

Whoever has a vivid and delicate sense of life does not
with impunity submit to such confusions, such a chaos of things,
however brilliant they may be. Every odor has its own fra-
grance, its own mystery, and speaks its own language. All
'

3838 Love at Ten Years.—Flowers.

together, they either shock the brain or trouble the senses—
from which the nerves suffer, as by certain vibrations of the
harmonica, It is voluptuous and cloying; we smile, but our
hearts turn from it. The discrete odors perish barbarously,
as by asphyxia. “Alas!” says the sweet marjoram, stifled
by the powerful rose, “ you will then never know the divinely
bitter fragrance which is mingled with the perfume of love ?”

A certain woman, I knew well, never plucked a flower
without regret, and in spite of herself—asking pardon of it.
Each has its own peculiar pretty way, if it is peculiar. It has
its special harmony, a charm it derives from its mother
earth, and which shall never be taken from it. In a bouquet
what would become of its ways, its graceful curves, the sweet
and jaunty air with which it: carried its head? The simple
flowers, which are the flowers of love, with their lithe and
modest graces, grow pale or disappear amid the grand corollas
of those luxurious virgins, that our gardeners develop by
their skill.

Let us then restore to our child the vegetable world, in all
‘its naive and sacred truth. While it is yet young, let it feel,
love, and comprehend, the plant in its proper and complete
life. Let it know the flower, not as a luxury and a coquetry,
but as one stage of the plant’s existence, as the plant itself in
blossom. It is a great injustice to court it with the fleeting
pleasures of a vain adornment, such as an artificial flower, and
forget the marvellous ‘reality, the progressive miracle hidden
in a tiny sanctuary, the sublime elaboration of a future and
an immortality, by which life every year escapes, and laughs
at death.

Taking a winter walk, in February, the little one, looking
at the red buds on the trees, sighs and says: “ How soon will
it be spring ?” Suddenly she cries out, for she has it at, her
very feet—a little silver bell with a green border, the snow-
drop, announces the reawakening of the year.

Soon the sun resumes his strength. To his first changeful
and capricious rays, in March, a whole little world awakes—
Love at Ten Years.—Flowers. 85

the jeunettes, violets, primroses, and daisies,—the flower-
children which, from their little golden disks, are called the
children of the sun. They have not strong perfumes—except,
I believe, the violet only. The earth is too moist as yet; the
hyacinth, jacinth, and lily of the valley, seem almost wet in
the humid shade of the woods.

How delightful, how surprising! This innocent vegetation
seems created expressly for our little girl, and every day she
makes conquests from it, collecting, arranging, and binding to-
gether the bundles of little flowers that she must throw away
to-morrow. One by one she salutes each new-comer, and gives
it a sister’s kiss. We will not disturb her in her festival of
spring. But when, after amonth or two, she is satisfied, I will
tell her: “ While you have been playing at nature, my child,
the proud and splendid transformation of the Earth has been
accomplished. She has now put on her green robe, with
the immense flounces that we call hills and mountains. Think
you it is only to give you daisies, that she has poured from
her bosom an ocean of herbs and flowers ? No, my pet: the
good nurse, the universal mamma, has first served up a banquet
to our humbler brothers and sisters, who are our support.
The good cow, and the gentle sheep, the sober goat that
lives on so little and helps the poorest to live,—for them were
these meadows spread. With the virginal milk of the earth
they will load their udders, to give you cream and butter.—
Take, and be thankful.”

To these fresh and sweet supplies are to be added the deli-
cacy of the first potherbs, and the earliest fruits. With the
increasing heat appear in due season the currant and the
mild strawberry, which our little gourmand detects by their
exquisite fragrance. The tartness of the former, the melting
lusciousness of the latter, and the delicate sweetness of the
cherry, are the refreshments sent to us in the burning days,
when the rising heats of summer enervate us, or when beneath
an overpowering sun the labors of harvesting begin.

This intoxication first appears in the rich but too penetrat-
go Love at Ten Years.—Flowers.

mg perfume of the rose, which gets in the head. The coquet-
tish queen of flowers triumphantly leads in the legions of her
more serious sisters—the medicinal flowers and pharmaceutic
plants, useful and saving poisons.

But in the sovereign labors of the great Maternity, come
next those which are to nourish entire populations—the
venerable tribes of the leguminose ; and the grasses also,
the poor of the vegetable kingdom, who, as Linnzus says,
are its irresistible valor and heroic force; though they be
maltreated and trampled down, yet will they multiply the
more!

“Their two nutritious leaves (cotyledons) are as a mother’s
breasts. Five or six poor grasses, with the abundant fulness
of these breasts, support the human race.” (E. Noél.)

My daughter, do not imitate the thoughtless, giddy child
who, where a sea of gold rolls in the wind, of corn-poppies and
blue-bonnets in their sterile splendor, goes in to pluck them.
Let not your little foot stray from the strict and narrow
line of the path. Respect our nutritive father, the reve-
rend Corn, whose feeble stalk scarcely supports his head
heavy with bread for to-mortow. Every ear you destroy is
so much taken from the life of the poor and worthy laborer,
who the whole year round has suffered, that it might thrive.

Even the lot ofthe corn itself deserves your tenderest respect.
All the winter lorig, shut up in the earth, it patiently waited
under the snow; then, in the cold spring rains, its little green
shoot struggled upward, wounded, now by a nip from the
frost, now by a bite from the sheep; and it has thriven only
by enduring the smarting rays of the sun. To-morrow, cut
down by the sickle, beaten and again beaten by flails, broken
and crushed by mill-stones, the hapless martyr, reduced to an
impalpable powder, will be cooked into bread, and eaten, or
brewed into beer, and drunk. Whichever way, its death is
life to man,

All nations, in joyous hymns, have sung its martyrdom,
and the martyrdom of the vine, its sister. Even in the corn
Love at Ten Years.—Flowers. gl

resided, in the most concentrated nutritive form our climates
afford, something of the sweetening, intoxicating property its
sister brought us. The property of sugar-making, a singular
process of the human organization, exists in these vegetables,
which may, therefore, be said to be humanized.

Such is the last effort of the year; when man wearies, grows
feeble, and languishingly perspires, mother nature affords him
a more vital nourishment.

To the vernal age of fields and milk succeeds the substantial
and strong age of wheat; and that is scarcely reaped and
thrashed, when the humble little vine—trailing and creeping,
because so much more delicate and tender—prepares its
heaven-bestowed beverage. What labors here;my daughter:
And what power over man does not this modest plant exert,
this ugly, little, tortuous shrub, that you despised in the
spring! Ifyou went through all Champagne, Burgundy, and
the South, you would find perhaps a quarter of the popula-
tion of France, millions of men, engaged, from the month of
March, in setting the props, raising, binding, and pruning
the vine, and heaping the earth around it; all the year on
foot, leading the delicate creature to perfection. To kill it,
a mere mist is enough. :

Ever the harsh alternative—life or death. Every plant
must die to give life to others. Have you not observed, near
the close of autumn, when the season is growing pale, how
gently the leaves fall, without even waiting for the wind?
Each, with a few turns, drops, wholly resigned, no noise,
and no resistance. The plant, whether it clearly knows it
or not, at least feels, that its office is to nourish its sister, that
to this end it must die. And so dying gracefully, it falls to
earth, and, by nurturing with its débris the air that wafts it
or the earth into which it penetrates, prepares the life of its
friends, who are coming to renew it, to reproduce and restore it.
g2 Love at Ten Years.—Flowers.

It disappears consoled, and (who knows?) perhaps to rest—its
duty done, and the law of God fulfilled.

Thus, dear, if you have understood me, you have seen that
beneath this brilliant circle of annual evolutions, in which
each for a moment takes her place in the sun, there is another
circle, sombre and mute, constituted in the depths of being
by sweet sisterly interchanges, each unenviously retiring to
transfer her life to the others.

A world of peace, innocence, and resignation! But the supe-
rior beings, subject to the same law, rarely yield themselves
to it so completely.—“ Nevertheless,” says nature, “ what is
to be done? it is not my fault. I have only so much sub-
stance, and no more, to share among you all; I cannot increase
it at will. It is but just that each in turn should have a little.”

Therefore, she says to the animals, “ You, the favorites of
life, so privileged by a superior organization, are not by that
exempt from nourishing your sisters the plants, which, grate-
ful and graceful, daily nourish you in advance. It is yours
to pay tribute, but only of that which is worthless to your-
selyes—your sloughs at certain seasons—your remains in
death. ... That may be as late as possible; I have shown you
how to retard it. But it must certainly come one day; for
I could do no better.”

This is but reasonable; is it not, my daughter ? ‘Ana the
Father of nature, God, ahd made and endowed you, who has
given you skilful hands (or fitted to become so), who has
given you a head, as yet light, but gradually recipient of
thoughts, grants you the distinguished honor of sharing in
his labors. You shall germinate vegetable nurselings, and
little daughter-flowers; you shall build up life, by partici-
pating in the grand operations of God; and afterwards, a
woman, and perhaps a mother, when your time shall come,
you shall cheerfully transfer your life to others, and with a
grateful grace vivify your good nurse, nature, and nourish her
in your turn.
The Little Household.—The Little Garden. 93

VIII. ee
THE LITTLE HOUSEHOLD.—THE LITTLE GARDEN.

Iv a choice of playthings be offered to a little girl, she will

certainly select miniature utensils of cooking and housekeep-
ing. That is her natural instinct, a presentiment of the duties
the woman will have to fulfil; for she must nourish the man.
_ An elevated and sacred duty—especially in our climate,
where the sun, less powerful than at the equator, does not
complete the maturity of many vegetables, does not ripen
them sufficiently to make them digestible by man. So woman
completes the work of the sun; she knows how the food,
cooked and softened, will be assimilated by him, will pass into
his circulation, to restore his blood and his strength.

It is like another nursing; if she could gratify her heart,
she would feed her husband and her children on the milk
of her breasts. Unable to do that, she borrows aliment from
nature, but brings it to them greatly changed, mingled with
herself, and made delicious with her tenderness. From pure
wheat, solid and strong, she prepares the sacred cake, by
which the family partake of her love. Milk takes a.hundred
forms from her; she puts into it her delicate sweetness and
her fragrance, and it becomes a light and etherial cream, a
most luxurious dish. The ephemeral fruits that Autumn
lavishes, as though to get rid of them, she fixes as by enchant-
ment. Next year her astonished children will see, brought
forth from the treasury of her foresight, the fugitive delights
which they supposed had perished before the first snows.
There they are, made after her own image—faithful and unal-
terable, pure and limpid as her life, transparent as her heart.

O the sweet and beautiful faculty! The child-bearing!
The slow, partial, but continuous creation, day by day !—She
makes and remakes them, body and soul, temper and energy.
She increases or diminishes their activity, stretches or
94. The Little Household——The Little Garden.

slackens their nerves, The changes are insensible, but the
results certain. What can she not do? The giddy child,
playful and rebellious, becomes pliable, disciplinable, and soft.
The man, down-borne by labor and excess of effort, is gr adually
rejuvenated by her. In the morning, out of a heart full of love,
he says: “I live again, wholly in thee.”

Besides, when this, her great power, is wisely exercised,
she has no occasion to restore, to cure. She is the perfect
physician, creating, day by day, health and harmonious equi-
librium, and barring the door against disease. Thinking
of that, what woman’s, what mother’s heart, could haggle
and find fault with nature.

Love is an idealist, and in all that is essential to the life of
its beloved it sees only spirit. The noble and high results,
which these humble cares procure, elevate and ennoble them,
and make them sweet and dear.

A young lady of distinction, delicate and sickly, sould
never allow any one else to feed her nightingale. That
winged artist is like man—to refresh its burning throat, it
would like the marrow of lions; it must have meats and _
blood. This lady’s servant found the task repugnant; but
she, not at all; she saw in it only the song, the soul of love,
to which she imparted strength. It received from her hand
the banquet of inspiration (love, hemp, and poppy seeds), life,
intoxication, and forgetfulness.

Fourier has well remarked that children have a taste for
cooking, and like to take part in it. Is it mimicry or gluttony ?

But I do not mean to encourage mimicry, as he advises,
Nor, since it is to become so grave a matter, would I have
the child make sport of it, and waste her time in foolish little
preparations for her doll’s repast. I would prefer that, after a
time, when her attempts at gardening shall have made her
skilfw, her mother initiate her in some duty in which the
The Little Household—The Little Garden. 95

life of her father is interested, by which he who supports
them may be nourished by them, by which the child may for
the first time serve him, and be made happy by his “‘ Thank
you, my daughter,” at the table.

Every art developes new qualities in us. Housekeeping
and cooking demand, in a high degree, the most exquisite
neatness, and a certain dexterity. An even temper and a
gentle character contribute much more to them than we sup-
pose. No one who is rough and fickle can manage such
things well. A just sense of precision is essential; and also,
in the highest degree, an appropriate decision of character—to
control one’s self, and know where to stop.

Observe the more important endowments which the culture
of the garden demands. At first it was only an amusement ;
but as soon as it is understood and studied, in its relation to
the life and health of loved ones, as soon as the garden has
become auxiliary to the cuisine, it assumes an important
aspect, and is much better cultivated. To notice, and take
account of, a thousand variable circumstances; to respect the
weather, and control her childish impatience; to subject her
will to great laws; to be active, but to know that her own
activity is not everything; to recognise the concurrent agen-
cies of nature; and, finally, to fail often and not be dis-
couraged—such is gardening to her—a labor made up of all
labors; human life complete.

The kitchen and the garden are but two departments of the
same laboratory, working to the same end. The first com-
pletes by fire the maturing process which the other began in
the sun. They interchange kind offices; the garden supplies
the kitchen, and the kitchen supplies the garden. The slops
that are thrown out almost with disgust, are accepted (if I
may believe an eminent horticulturist) as choice aliment, by
pure and noble flowers. Therefore, despise nothing. The
meanest refuse, even the dregs of coffee, are eagerly absorbed
by vegetables, as a flame, a spirit of life; three whole years
may pass, and still they will feel its warmth,
g6 The Little Household.—The Little Garden.

Let me instruct your child in these necessary laws of life.
It would be a foolish reserve to leave her ignorant of the
transformation of substances, and their natural circulation.
Our disdainful young ladies, who know plants only to pluck
them, are not aware that the vegeteble consumes as much as
the animal. How do they live, themselves? They never think
of that; they have a good appetite, and they absorb, but
without gratitude, without a thought for the duty of restitu-
tion. Nevertheless, they must make restitution, by death
especially ; and they must make it continually by the pro-
cesses of perspiration, sloughs, and diminutions of themselves
—the losses and the little daily deaths which nature imposes
on us, to the profit of the lower orders of life.

This fatal circulus is certainly not without its grandeur. It
has one very grave aspect, by which the child’s heart will be
touched with a salutary emotion: namely, that our weakness
daily condemns us to seek strength where it is accumulated,
in our brethren the animals, and to live on their life.

A double lesson this, by no means useless to the young girl,
in that first impulse of pride, proper to her youth, her beauty,
and intensity of life, which sometimes make her think, “I am;
the rest is nothing. The flower and the charm of the world is
myself, and all else is but refuse.”

Flower, beauty, youth? Agreed. But do not forget the
cost of them. Be modest; remember the humble and severe
conditions on which nature parts with life: to die a little
daily, before dying utterly; and every day, at this happy,
loaded table, to be born again—alas! by the deaths of imno-
cent creatures,

At least let these animals be happy as long as they live.
Teach the child of their right to exist, and the regret and
pity we owe them, even when the needs of our organization
compel us to destroy them. Caréfully teach her the uses they
all have, or had—even those that to-day may harm us. The
child is very poetical, but not much of a poet. Nevertheless
our little one will fecl, by the instinct of her charming heart,
The Little Household—The Little Garden. 97

much that would hardly impress her mind. The heroic
maternity of the bird, constructing its nest with so much
pains, submitting, for its children’s sake, to so many sore
trials, will certainly strike her. And in the ant and bee she
will. see, not without respect, and a sort of religion, a very
different artistic genius from that which maternity inspires,
The colossal labors of the ant, raising or lowering its eags,
by the well-calculated scale of its thirty or forty stories,
according to the air and sun, and all the variations of tempe-
rature, will fill her with admiration. In these infinitely little
things, she will catch the first gleam, the first delightful ray,
of the great mystery, which is postponed for her,—the great,
the universal Love.

Knowing that there is but one happiness here below, that
of creating, always creating, I have endeavored at all times
to make her happy, by inducing her to create.

When she was four years old, I put materials into her pretty
hands, regular forms (analogous to those first attempts at asso-
ciation that nature makes in crystals), and with these wooden
crystals, joined in her own way, she erected little houses and
other baby structures.

Afterward, she was shown how nature, bringing opposites
together in sympathy, makes veritable crystals, brilliant,
colored, and so beautiful! She has made some herself.

From that time, with her own hand, she has sowed seeds and
made plants, and by her care in tending and watering them,
has brought them to live and blossom.

For silk-worms, she innocently collects the little grains, the
seedlings of the butterfly ; these she tends, and keeps always
about her, nurturing them with her warmth, and protecting
them night and day in her unformed bosom. Some morning
she has the happiness to see a new world, disclosed to her by
her own young love.

5
98 The Maternities of Fourteen.

Thus she goes on, creating and happy. Continue to have
children, my daughter. Associate yourself, dear little one,
with the great Maternity. It costs your tender heart nothing.
You create in profound peace. .To-morrow, it will cost you
more, and your heart will bleed.—Mine also ; ah! believe
that well. But for to-day, let us enjoy. Nothing is more’plea-
sant to me than to observe, in such complete repose, in such
touching innocence, your little fecundities. They reassure
me for your lot; whatever may happen, you will have had
your part in this world, participating in the divine work, and
creating.

 

 

IX.

THE MATERNITIES OF FOURTEEN.—THE METAMORPHOSIS.

I wave feared but one thing for this child: and that is,
secresy ; I know some who are pensive at four years of
age. But happily she has been preserved from that: first, by
her active life; and then, because from her birth she has had
a confidante in her mother, so that she gould think aloud.

‘Woman, all her life long, must overflow and discharge her-
self. While yet she was very little, her mother took her in
her lap every night, and, heart to heart, made her speak.

Ah! what a happiness to confess, to excuse, or even accuse
one’s self. “So talk my child, talk on! If it is good I will
embrace you. And, if it is not good, why, to-morrow we
will both try to do better.”

So she tells everything ; what does she risk? Much; “for
mamma will suffer, if I have been bad.”—“ No, my dear—tell
me all the same; and even if it makes me cry, your heart
shall flow with mine.”

Her filial confession is the whole mystery of childhood. By
©

The Maternities of Fouttedi : 39

this confession she has every evening suggested her own edu-
cation.

On so soft a pillow her sleep is deep ; but, what then? She
wakes at last. -Thirteen years and a half have passed, and she
is drooping. What is the matter, darling? Until now, you
have lacked nothing for your amusement. When your own
doll did not satisfy you, I gave you living ones; you have
played at doll with all nature; you have loved flowers much,
and been loved by them; your free birds follow you, even to
forgetting their nests; and the other day the bulfinch (this is
no invention) left its mate for you.

_ I guess—you need a friend; neither bird nor flower, but-
terfly nor dog—but a friend like yourself.

When she was four or five years old, her mother always
took her to play in the Jardins d’ Enfants. But now, in the
country, she has no more little girls. To be sure, there is her
brother, younger than herself, whom once she loved so much,
and who clung to her. But now she would have him be a girl,
or he would like her better if she were a boy.

To get him away from the excessive cares of his mother and
sister, and under more masculine influences, he was placed in
the house of a friend, until he went to the public schools. The
boys he brought home with him have rendered the house un-
inhabitable. My little girl has conceived a great antipathy to
the blustering race. Their cries, blows, and scufiles frighten
her. Like her gentle and discreet mother, she loves order,
peace, silence—or pretty games in a low tone.

Meantime, I see her walking by herself in a garden-path,
and I call her to-me. Always obedient, she comes—but rather
slowly, her heart swollen, and her eyes moist. What is the
matter? In vain does her mother kiss and caress her: she is
dumb, and cannot reply,.for she knows not what it is. We,
who understand her case, must find a remedy for it—the one
which at all times has succeeded with her; we will give her a
new love.

Her mother who pities her very much, tries from that day
100 The Maternities of Fourteen.

to draw her out of her troubled state, by placing in ler arms
not a thing but a person.

She will forthwith take her to the village school, and show
her the little children. At first the young dreamer, the great
girl, finds the poor creatures somewhat insipid; but she is
shown that they have not everything they need: this one is
very scantily clad; that one needs a new dress; this one has
come to school without her breakfast, because her mother has
no bread; that one has no mother, and her father, too, is dead;
at four years of age she is alone, and is provided for just as it
may happen. Our darling’s young heart awakes at this. With-
out a word, she takes the child, and begins to arrange her dress,
She is not unskilful; one would think she had handled children
all her life. She oe her, kisses her, and brings her bread,
butter, fruit, and everything she has, Wweethor fell in love
with Charlotte at seeing her give a slice of bread to the chil-
dren. So should I.

The little orphan interests her in the others. One is pretty,
another so knowing; one has been sick, another beaten, and
must be consoled. They all please her, all amuse her. What a
pleasure to play with such delightful dolls, that speak, and laugh,
and eat, have wills of their own, and are almost people! What
a pleasure to make them play! And, with this idea, she goes
to playing herself—the great innocent baby! Even at home
she thinks of them; and the more she thinks, the livelier she
becomes. At once gay and serious—as is always the case when
one has suddenly a great interest in life—she no longer walks
in solitude; but seeks her mother, talks with her, requires
her co-operation, begs for this favor, bargains for that. Every
day she spends all her spare time with the children; and
lives wholly within her own little world, so full of variety
for those who see it near at hand and mingle with it. Therein
she has her friendships, her semi-adoptions, her preferences—
her tendernesses enhanced by charity, sometimes little cares,
then joys, extreme delights, and perchance even tears. But

v
The Maternities of Fourteen. 101

she knows why she weeps; and the worst thing for young
girls is to weep without knowing why!

She was just fourteen in May—those were her first roses.
After a rain, the season, thenceforth serene and beautiful,
bloomed out in all its glory. She, too, had experienced a
short interval of storms—with fever and some suffering ; it had
left her, for the first time a little weak, a little pale, while an
almost imperceptible shade of delicate blue, or faint lila¢, en-
circled her eyes. She was not very tall; but her figure had
changed, had gracefully developed ; lying down a child, in a
few days she had arisen a young woman. Lighter, and yet
less active, she no longer merited the names her mother had
given her: “My bird! my butterfly !”

Her first impulse on revisiting her garden, changed and
grown beautiful like herself, was to gather some flowers for
her father and mother, who had of late petted her even more
than usual. She rejoined them smiling, with her pretty offer-
ing; and found them much moved, saying nothing to each
other, but mute with the same thought.

For the first time, perhaps, for a long while, they placed
her between them. When she was a little thing, just learning to
walk alone, she needed to see them thus within reach of her,
on her right and left. But now, almost as tall as her mother,
she felt, very tenderly, that it was they who needed to have
her between then. They gathered her into their hearts with
a love so profound, that her mother could scarce restrain her
tears. /

“Dear mamma! what is the matter ?”—and she threw her-
self on that dear bosom. Her mother loaded her with caresses,
but did not answer, fearing to give vent to her own emo-
tions. At last, a little composed, although tears still dimmed
her eyes, Mamma said, smiling: “I was telling your father
what I dreamed last night. You were alone in the garden,
102 The Maternities of Fourteen.

and torn by the cruel thorns of a rose-bush; I wished to
bind up your wounds, but could not; so you were ruined for
life. I was dead, yet I saw it all.’ “Oh! mamma, then
never die!” And she fell, blushing, into her mother’s arms.

These three persons, at that moment, were wholly united in
heart. But I should not say three !—they were one. Through
love, they existed in their daughter, she in them. There was
no need to speak a single word; they understood each other
so well. They no longer saw each other distinctly, for it was
already dusk; and they went out, dim and shadowy—the
father supporting her on his arm, the mother embracing the
little one, and supported by her.

No longer could be heard the songs of birds, but only their
faint twitterings, their last confidential chat, as they crowded
into the nest. These murmurs are very charming and very
various; some noisy and eager, overjoyed at meeting again;
others very melancholy, troubled by the shadows of night,
seemed to say to each other, “ Who is sure of waking to-mor-
row?” ‘The trustful nightingale returning to its nest, almost
on.the ground, crossed the court at their very feet; and the
mother, tenderly moved, bade it.good-night: ‘God keep thee,
poor little thing !”

Nothing is easier than the revelation of sex to a child thus
prepared. For her who is kept in ignorance of its general
laws, who learns the whole mystery at once, it is a serious and
a dangerous thing. What are we to think of the imprudence
of those parents who leave this revelation to chance? For
what is chance? It is often some companion, neither innocent
nor of pure imagination; oftener than would be believed, it
is a flippant sensual speech from a boy, some near relative.
Many mothers will indignantly deny this; their children are
all perfect ;—they are so infatuated with their sons as to dis-
believe truth itself,
History as a Basis of Faith. 103

However that may be, if this mystery be not revealed by
the mother, it may be overwhelrning and blasting, annihilating
the judgment. At such a time, before she recovers herself,
the poor little one is, as it were, at any one’s mercy.

As for her who has early and naturally learned of the
generation of plants and of insects, who knows that in every
species life renews itself from the egg, and that all nature
is engaged in the perpetual labor of ovulation, she is not at
all astonished to find herself subject to the same common law.
The painful changes which every month accompany the phe-
nomenon seem also very natural, when she has seen the same
laborious processes in the inferior creatures.

All this appears to her noble, grand, and pure, as it harmo-
nizes with the general law of creation—grander still when she
sees in it the continual restoration of what death destroys.
“Death pursues us, and hurries us on, my dear child,” says
her mother ; ‘our only defence is in marriage. Your father
and I shall die; and to compensate for our loss, it will be
necessary for you, probably, even before that time, to leave
us and be married. Like me, you will with great pain give
birth to children; who perhaps will not live, or, if they do live,
will leave you. This is what I foresee, and it makes me weep.
—But I am wrong; our lot is in common with that of all
creatures, and it is God’s will.”

 

 

X.
HISTORY AS A BASIS OF FAITH.

Rovssxatv, first among the moderns to establish systems of
education, seems to me not to have seen clearly that a system
is not everything. He is concerned only as to the way in which
the pupil may be formed; or, rather, how the pupil, assisted
in his own proclivities, may form himself, and become capable
104 History as a Basis of Faith.

of learning everything. I am not criticizing his work; I sim-
ply remark that he says not a single word about the second
problem of education: What shall be the principal object of
study? What shall this pupil be taught? Suppose Rousseau
has succeeded in forming an energetig, active mind, inde-
pendent of ordinary routines—to what shall it apply itself?
Is there not some science in which it may find its develop-
ment, its natural gymnastics? It is not enough to create the
subject ; we must determine the object on which it may be
exercised with the most advantage. I will call this object,
the gubstance of education.

In my opinion, this should be altogether different, as it is
to be applied to the boy or the girl.

If we desire better results in education than we have
achieved heretofore, we must gravely consider the incalculable
differences which not only separate but even oppose the two
sexes—which constitute them harmonious opponents.

Their vocations and natural tendencies differ; so should
their education differ—differ in method—harmonizing for the
girl, strengthening for the boy,—differ in its object, as to the
principal study on which the mind should be exercised.

For man, who is called to labor, to battle with the world,
the great study is History, the story of this combat—history
aided by languages, in each of which is the genius of a people
—history prompted by Right, writing under and for it, con-
stantly inspired, revised, and corrected by eternal Justice.

For woman, the gentle mediator between nature and man,
between father and child, the study, thoroughly practical, reju-
venating, and embellishing, is Nature. ,

The man passes from drama to drama, not one of which re-
sembles another, from experience to experience, from battle to
battle. History goes forth, ever far-reaching, and continually
erying to him: “ Forward !”

The woman, on the contrary, follows the moble and serene
epic that Nature chants in her harmonious cycles, repeating
herself with a touching grace of constancy and fidelity. These
History as a Basis of Faith. 105

refrains in her lofty song bestow peace, and, if I may say so,
a relative changelessness. This is why the study of Nature
never wearies, never jades; and woman can trustingly give
herself up to it, for Nature is a woman. History, which we
very foolishly put in the feminine gender, is a rude, savage
male, a sun-burnt, dusty traveller. God forbid that I should
lead the tender feet of this child through so rough a pilgrimage:
she would soon droop, her breath would fuil her, and, fainting,
she would sink on the highway.

History! my daughter, history! I must indeed give you
some of it; and I will give it to you, fresh and strong, sim-
ple, honest, bitter as it is; fear not that, in tenderness, I will
sweeten it with poisonous honey. But I am not required
to make you swallow the whole, poor child, to pour down your
throat in torrents that terrible tonic in which poison pre-
dominates, te make you empty even to the dregs the cup of
Mithridates.

What I owe you of history is, first, your own story; what I
should tell you is of your own cradle, and of that which sup-
ports the very prop of your moral life. I should tell you first
how you were born—the pain, the infinite cares of your mo-
ther, and all her watchings; how many times she has suffered,
wept, almost died for you. Let that history, my child, be
your cherished legend, your pious souvenir, your first religion
here below.

Then I should tell you briefly what is and what was your
second mother—that noble mother, your Country. God has
granted you the distinction to be born in this land of France,
with which the whole world, my child, is either enraged or
enamored ; no one is indifferent to her—all speak either good
or evil of her—right or wrong, who knows? As for us, we
say of her only thus—that, “ Men suffer gaily nowhere but in
France. Hers are the only people who know how to die.”

5*
106 History as a Basis of Faith.

Of the long lives of your fathers you will know the great
events if you learn that at the sacred period when your country
was laid upon the altar, Paris proclaimed to France the wish,
the resolve of all, “To lose themselves in the great whole.”

From this united effort France became as one person; she
felt her heart beating, and questioned it; and she discerned
in that first throb, the holy brotherhood of earth, the wish
to free the world.

This is your pedigree, oh maiden! exalt it, and may you
love only heroes!

From France you shall go forth into the world. We will
prepare together, just as in a garden, plots of ground suitable
to plant nations in. Pleasant and animating is the study of
soils, of climates, of the forms of the globe, which in so many
ways have determined the actions of men, and often made
their history in advance. Here the earth has commanded, man
obeyed; and sometimes, such or such a vegetable, such or
such a regimen, has made such or such a civilization. Some-
times the internal force of man has uprisen to react, to strug-
gle against this; in these combats the good friend of your child-
hood, Nature, and the natural sciences unite, and harmonize
with the moral sciences, in which life will initiate you.

Is the teaching of history the same for boys and girls? Yes,
doubtless, as a basis of faith. To both it imparts its rich
moral fruit, strength to the heart, and nourishment to life—
to wit, the grand consent of the human soul on the question
of justice, the historic agreement of the creeds of the human
race as to duty and God.

But let it be better understood that, man being destined
for business, to a combat with the world, history is peculiarly
adapted to prepare him for it. To him it is the treasure-house
of experience, an arsenal of the weapons of all kinds that he
shall wield to-morrow. For the girl, history is principally a
moral and religious basis.
History as a Basis of Faith. 107

Woman, who seems so changeable, and who doubtless is
physically renewed month by month, must yet fulfil on
earth, much more inexorably than man, two fixed conditions.
Every woman is an altar, a pure and holy thing, where man,
bewildered by life, may at all times go for faith, and find again
his own conscience, preserved purer than in himself. Every
woman is a school, and it is really from her that generations
receive their creeds. Long before the father dreams of edu-
cating, the mother has inculcated her own teachings, which
will never be effaced.

The daughter must have a religious belief.

Snares will soon be set for her, and the most dangerous pro-
ceed from the uprooting of established faith. She will not be
twenty, perhaps but two years married, a mere child, when
they will begin to explore the ground. Pleasant people will
come to chat, to laugh at everything, to ridicule everything
good that her father had been able to teach her, the simple
faith of her mother, the thoughtfulness of her husband—to
make her think it fine to laugh at everything with them, and
deem nothing sure here below.

She must have a faith, so that this base and selfish trifling
may create in her only disgust, so that she may oppose it with
the seriousness, the gentle firmness, of a soul which has for
itself a fixed foundation of belief, planted in reason, in sim-
plicity of heart, in the concurring, unanimous heart-voice of
the nations.

From-the very first, the father and mother should agree
that under the successive forms in which, according to her
age, history shall be presented to her, she shall always: per-
ceive its moral harmony and its holy unity. Her mother,
under the lacteal form—that is, through the pleasant medium
of a language simplified for her—will have told her, at first,
of some of the great and prominent events, which she has
described in her own way. Her father, in the intermedial
age (ten or twelve years perhaps), will have given her care-
fully selected readings from original writers—some story of
108 History as a Basis of. Faith.

Heredotus, the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, the Life of
Alexander the Great, some of the beautiful Bible stories; to
which may be added the Odyssey, and those modern Odysseys,
our own fine travels; all these to be read very slowly, and
always in the same spirit, so as to show her, under such
external differences of manners, habits, religions, how little
man himself has changed. For the most part the discords
are but seeming discords, or sometimes demanded by pecu-
liarities of race or climate. Common sense will explain all that.

As to the family, for instance, we see clearly that it cannot be
the same under the physical fatalities of that hot-bed of India,
where the wife is a child, married at eight or ten. But as
soon as we come into a free and natural world, the ideals of
family are absolutely identical. It is the same in Zoroaster,
in Homer, the same in Socrates (see the admirable passage
from the Economics of Xenophon), the same, finally, in Rome,
and among us. We learn from Aristophanes that the Greek
women, not at all dependent, ruled at home, and often exer-
cised a powerful influence in the state. We see this in Thu-
cydides, where the men had voted for the massacre of Lesbos;
but returning home at night, and confronting their wives,
they retracted and reversed their decree.

Laws deceive us greatly. It is supposed, for example, that
wherever the son-in-law pays the father, he purchases his wife,
and she is his slave. But that isa mistake. This form of
marriage exists indeed in Africa, and yet it is among those
very tribes that the wife, free and a queen, rules—and not
the man (Livingston). The payment does not constitute the
purchase of the wife, but an indemnity to her father for the
prospective children which shall not profit his family, but the
one into which the wife is about to enter.

It is curious to note how sceptics seize upon this, to create
discords and exceptions to the rule, and to prove that there is
no rule. The enemies of moral sense and human reason have
no choice but to seek in the most suspicious sources for facts
not easily understood.
History as a Basis of Faith. 109

“But,” says the father, “ whence shall I derive penetra-
tion enough to find my own way, and to guide my child
through so many obscurities ?” Strong and genuine criticism
is born of the heart, rather than the intellect ; it springs from
loyalty, from the impartial sympathy we owe to our brothers
of the past and of the present. With this you will have
no difficulty in tracing through history the great unchang-
ing current of human morality.

Will you believe one who has made the great voyage more
than once? His experience is precisely that of the voyager
as he sails out of the Caribbean Sea; at the first glance, he
sees only the wide expanse of water; in the second, on the
green field he discerns a broad band of blue; that is the
immense torrent of warm floods which, crossing the Atlantic,
reaches Ireland, still warm, and is not entirely cooled even at
Brest. He sees it perfectly, and moreover, can feel its warmth
on the passage. Just so will the great current of moral tra-
dition appear, if you scan the ocean of history with caretul eyes,

But long before we reach this elevated simplification, in
which history becomes identical with morality itself, I should
desire my young maiden to be pleasantly nourished with
pure and wholesome reading, borrowed especially from anti-
quity, from the primitive East. How happens it that we put
into the hands of children the history of grown up nations
only, while we leave them ignorant of the infancy and youth
of the world? If some one would collect a few of the truly
spiritual hymns of the Vedas, some of the prayers and laws
of Persia, so pure and so heroic, and add a few of those touch-
ing pastorals from the Bible, such as the stories of Jacob, Ruth,
and Tobias, he would present the young girl with an incompara-
ble bouquet, whose perfume, early and slowly inhaled, would
impregnate her innocent soul, and remain with her forever.

No intricate subjects in the remote past for her; banish
110 History as a Basis of Faith.

from her presence the Dantes and the Shakespeares, the
sophists and magicians of the old age of the world. Put
away, still more inexorably, historical romances, that per-
nicious literature which one can never unlearn, and which
makes us insensible to genuine history forever after.

She should have the world’s nursery song, the Iliad and
Odyssey; the best book of all for a young mind—itself young
too, but so wise !

Furthermore, in order to know which books are suited to
her, you must classify them according to the quality of light
that illumines and colors them. The literature of every age
seems to correspond to some hour of the day; Herodotus
and Homer everywhere reflect the morning, and it prevails in
all the memorials of Greece; the Aurora seems always to
smile upon its monuments, everywhere is diffused a transpa-
rency, a strange serenity, a classic joyfulness, which wins
and delights the heart.

The Indian dramas and poems, modern in comparison with
the Vedas, possess a thousand beauties to charm the imagina-
tion of the child and entrance her young girl’s heart. But I
am in no haste for those; they are all teeming with the ener-
vating heats of mid-day—a world of ravishing illusions dreamed
in the shades of enchanted forests. To her happy lover, I
will leave the voluptuous pleasure of reading Sakountala to
her in some bower of flowers.

It is at evening or at night that the greater part of the
Bible seems to have been written ; all those terrible questions
which torture human reason are therein laid down harshly and
with savage crudeness. The alienation of man from God, of
the son from the father, the fearful problem of the Origin of
Evil, and all those perplexities of the latest-born people of
Asia,—I would forbear from too early agitating a young
heart with these. Of what possible use, forsooth, could it
be, to read to her the lamentations of David in the dark-
ness, beating his breast, torn with anguish for the murder of
Uriah ?
History as a Basis of Faith. 111

Strong wine for men, and milk for babes. I am old and
almost worn out; the sacred book is for such as I. But in it
man falls, and rises but to fall again—how many, many times!
how can J explain all that to my dear innocent? May she long
be ignorant of the strife of the homo duplex! It is not that
the Bible presents the enervating sensuality to be found in
the mystics of the Middle Ages, but for her it is too violent
—ever disturbed, and without rest.

Another consideration which would make me hesitate to
allow her the Bible too soon, is that hatred of Nature which
the Jews evince throughout. They evidently fear from it the
seductions of Egypt or Babylon. But whatever the cause,
it invests their writings with a negative, critical character, a
gloomy austerity, which, moreover, is not always pure: a
state of feeling exactly opposed to that which I wish for our
child, who should be the incarnation of innocence, joy, and
serenity; full of sympathy with Nature, and especially with
the animals, to which the Jews cruelly gave a base name.
Rather may my little one be possessed by the tender sentiment
of the glorious East, which blesses all life !

Daughter, let us read together—in that bible of light, the
Zend-Avesta—the ancient and sacred lamentation of the Cow,
appealing to man and reminding him of her gifts. Let us
read those powerful lines, ever true and living, in which man
acknowledges what he owes to the companions of his toil, the
strong bull, the watchful dog, the good mother Earth, The
Soil is not insensible, and what she says to the husbandman
will endure for ever. (Zend. ii. 284.)

Be pure that you may be strong, be strong that you may
be fruitful, is the whole meaning of that system of law—one
of the most humane, most harmonious, that God has given to
man.

Every morning before light, while the tiger still prowls, two
112 History as a Basis of Faith.

comrades go forth,—a man and his dog. We are speaking
of the primitive dog, that colossal mastiff without which the
land would then have’ been uninhabitable, a creature at once
friendly and formidable, which alone could overcome monsters.
One that was exhibited before Alexander strangled a lion in
his presence. —

Man had then no weapon but the short, heavy sword, such
as is depicted on monuments, with which, face to face, breast
to breast, he stabbed the lion.

Every day, protected by his faithful dog, he breaks the
land ; he sows it with good seed, waters it, and tills it with
the plough ; he refreshes it with fountains, and his own heart
is refreshed with the beneficent work of Law: so he returns
from it sanctiffed.

The companion of this noble life of toil and danger, woman,
his efficient wife, the. mistress of his house, receives him at the
threshold, and restores him with food from her own hand:
he eats what she gives him, and allows her to nourish him
like a child, for she knows everything,—the virtues of all
plants, those which give health, and those which cheer the
heart.

Here woman is a magician, a queen; she subdues even the
conqueror of lions.

That world of ancient Persia was a virginal world, fresh as
the dew before dawn. I can almost feel the circulation
through it, of those forty thousand subterranean canals of
which Herodotus speaks—hidden veins, which re-animated the
earth, and snatched living water from the thirst of the burn-
ing sun, to refresh the longing lips of innumerable roots, and
gladden the heavy hearts of trees!
Pallas.—Reason. 113

XI.
PALLAS.— REASON.

My dear child, you have as yet hardly been in the galleries
of sculpture; your mother thinks them too cold, and we have
always preferred to ascend to the upper story of the Louvre,
to the warm, breathing world of pictures. And yet, espe-
cially in, the summer, it is a place of sublime repose, of silence,
where one may meditate and study better than in the museum
above. To-day, while her duties detain your mother at home,
let us, together, make a pilgrimage to that solemn country of
the dead.

Nations and Schools are not classified here as in the picture-
gallery. The pure and lofty antiques are too often found side
by side with the works of the Decadence. There is no con-
fusion, however. So proud, so sublime, so simple are the
true children of Greece, that even in the midst of Romans—
emperors and senators—it is they who are glorious, who
triumph,—the Greeks, who seem masters of the world. The
low passions which characterize the busts of the Empire (the
Agrippas, the Vitelliuses, etc.) had no part in their noble pre-
decessors. A sublime serenity is the attribute of these sons
of the ideal; on their brows is the same reflection with which
Aurora gilds the dome of the Acropolis of Athens, while their
deep eyes denote not soft revery, but subtile intuition, and
masculine reason,

You have read Plutarch’s Lives, and you seek here for the
great dead, the objects of your preference; but those interest-
ing and romantic biographies of the Decadence afford an idea
quite opposed to that of the genius of antiquity. They pro-
claim the Hero to enthrone and deify him; on the other hand,
the glory of the Greek world consisted in being a heroic peo-
ple, where there were, nevertheless, no heroes—where no one
man was a hero, and yet all were. By physical and mental
114 Pallas.—Reason.

discipline every citizen reached the perfection of his beauty,
and attained the heroic climax, so as closely to resemble the
gods. By an incessant activity, by contests, by discussions in
the forum and the schools, by the theatre, by festivals with
games and combats, the Greek evolved everything strong and
beautiful in his nature, and moulded himself unwearyingly to
the likeness of Apollo and Hercules, borrowing the strength
of the one, the graceful elegance and lofty melody of the
other, or the meditative faculty of the Minerva of Athens.

Were all the Greeks born beautiful? It would be absurd
to suppose so; but they knew how to make themselves beau-
tiful.. “Socrates was born a very satyr. But within and
without he so transformed himself by this sculpture of rea-
son, of virtue and devotion, he so improved his face, that
at last a god looked through it, by whom the Phaedon is
illumined.”

Let us enter this large hall, at the farther end of which
stands the colossal statue of Melpomene, and, without going
so far, let us stop a moment before this figure of Pallas. It
is a sculpture of Roman times, but copied from a Greek Pal-
las, perhaps from that of Phidias. The face wears precisely the
same expression as the well-known faces of Pericles and The-
mistocles; that expression—to name it aright—is thought,
wisdom, or rather reflection.

To reflect is to turn one’s thought back upon itself, to take
it for its own object, to look at it as in a mirror. Thus it will
apparently be doubled, so that the thought gazing fixedly
upon itself will expand and develop itself, by the analysis of
language, or by the inner speech of.dumb reason.

The lofty genius of Greece did not consist in the ability of
a Ulysses or a Themistocles, who. made her mistress of Asia,
but in this invention of the process of reasoning, which made

the Greeks the great teachers for all time to come. .
Pallas.- -Reason. 115

Poetic and prophetic intuition, the Oriental process, so sub-
lime in the Jewish writings, followed a no less thorny path,
full of mists and mirage. It was arbitrary, besides, depend-
ing on the wholly involuntary chance of inspiration.

For this obscure process, Greece substituted a vigorous
method of seeking and finding, of coming with certainty into
the open day, by ways known to all, where one may pass and
repass, and make a thorough exploration. Man thus becomes
his own architect, and the builder of his own destiny—no
particular man but any man whosoever—not the elect, nor the
prophet, nor the special favorite of God. With this art of
reasoning, Athens gave to all the world an instrument of
equality.

Until then there had been no connecting link. There were
blind bursts of emotion, and attempts at reflection, but that
speedily came to nought; all was unconnected and fortuitous
—nothing regular.

Until then all progress was by fits and starts; no true his-
tory of the improvement of the human race has been possible.
Asia possesses little of the historical element; her scanty
annals afford but isolated facts, from which one can draw no
conclusion. Indeed, what conclusion can we draw from events
ordered by fate, and uncontrolled by wisdom ?

But from the day that reasoning became an art, a science,
from the day that the virgin Pallas gave birth to the faculty
of deduction and comparison, in its clear form, there has
existed a regular, uninterrupted descent for human works.
The stream flowed on, and has never stopped—from Solon
to Papinian, from Socrates to Descartes, from Archimedes to
Newton.

In you, as in us all, my child, this great power; it is
only necessary to cultivate it. I do not ask you to apply
yourself to the most abstract subjects, to translate Newton,
116 Pallas.—Reason.

for instance, like a celebrated woman of the last century; I
do not ask you to teach the higher mathematics to a circle of
attentive men and respectful pupils, as I saw a lady do at
Granville, in 1859; but I should be very happy if, in the
misfortunes which may cloud your life, you could find distrac-
tion in those pure and exalted regions. THe love of the
beautiful is so indigenous to the heart of woman, that to feel
herself growing more beautiful will console her for anything.
Purity, nobleness, the elevation of a life turned wholly toward
the true, is a recompense for the loss of all earthly happi-
ness. Jt may be that even that would no longer be remem-
bered.

We have had an example of this in an admirable child,
the young Emilia, daughter of Manin. She had early suffered
the heaviest sorrows,—the loss of her mother, the ruin of her
father, and the fearful tragedy of Venice, the results of which
fell upon her; exile and poverty, and the gloomy life of
northern towns, completed her desolation. But the most
terrible result was, that this suffering image of the martyr-
dom of Italy, who endured all its horrors, was subject to the
agonizing paroxysms of a cruel nervous malady. Ah!
through all this that young daughter of grief kept her mind
serene and elevated, loving abstract purity—algebra and geo-
metry! She so sustained her father by this sublime serenity,
that he consulted her in everything, and even after he had lost
her acted as she would have advised. “I think,” said he to
me, speaking of a certain patriotic scheme, “that my daughter
would have approved it.”

_Is there any difference between God and Reason? It
would be impious to believe it. And of all the forms of Eter-
nal Love (beauty, fascination, power), no doubt Reason is the
first, the most exalted. It is through Reason that Divine
love possesses harmony and the order which blesses—benefi-
Andrea del Sarto’s “ Charity.”. 117

cent, benevolent order; and though she appears cold, she is,
nevertheless, loving. :

We shall not always live to love and protect you; perhaps
like other women, you will be alone in the world. Well, let
your father’s heart appoint you a protectress, a grave and
faithful guardian who will never fail you—I vow and dedicate
my darling to the Virgin of Athens—to Reason !

 

 

XII.
ANDREA DEL SARTO’S “CHARITY.”

Tue attentive reader, I doubt not, has been able to seize upon
the double thread of the methods I have pursued in the three
last chapters, methods equally rigid, although one seemed to
respect and caress Nature, and the other to contradict her.
From the day when my little girl, on the delicate ground
between two seasons of life, was in her turn attacked by that
delicious malady which is only love, I have successively em-
ployed two medicines, not to eradicate, but to change it.
I would not cheat love, for which I have that tender respect
that we owe to all the good things of God, but extend
it, satisfy it better than it could satisfy itself, ennoble it, and
elevate it to worthier objects.

The reader has seen that at the moment of the change—
towards fourteen, or rather a little before, when I saw it
approaching—I made use of what might be termed homeo-
pathic remedies, balancing and opposing like with like. I
118 -Andrea del Sarto’s “Charity.”

gave as a counterpoise to the sexual emotion, the maternal
passion, and the care of little children.

But in the years which have followed, with allopathic art I
have filled her mind with new studies, with pure and quiet
reading. In the pleasing variety of travels and histories I
have taught her to find for herself the solid moral basis on
which her life is to rest—the oneness of man’s faith, in duty
and in God.

She has seen God in nature, she sees him in history; she
perceives in eternal love the link between those two worlds
which she has studied apart—witli what deep and tender feel-
ing! But have I not created danger here, and will not this
young loving heart grow bewildered, and under the guise of
purity, in a higher sphere, pursue a whirlwind of disorders no
less dangerous ?

As to this, everything depends upon the mother. At the
first shock of nature, the tender, troubled child, was wholly in
her mother’s arms; and found therein not only warm caresses
but dreams too. A woman is so moved when her child be-
comes a woman, that she herself becomes a child; she fears
for her adored treasure, now tottering and frail; she prays
and weeps, and easily falls back upon the wealneee of a mys-
ticism by which both may be enervated.

And then what will become of me? Of what use that I
have given this flower healthful and strengthening waters, if
a weak mother is to keep it sickly with milk and with tears,
and what is worse, dosed with quackeries ?

Of all corrupting romances the worst are the mystical
books wherein soul talks with soul in the dangerous hours of
an artificial twilight. She believes she is growing in grace,
and she goes on languishing, softening, preparing herself for
all human weaknesses. The rough, harsh, and violent agitation
of the Jewish writings, is sickly and feverish in those of the
middle ages; how much more so in their modern imitations,
so disastrously equivocal! My young daughter, who from
year to year, by an entirely opposite path, has ascended to
Andrea del Sarto’s “ Charity.” 119

the idea of God (of God strong, living, and creating), has less
to fear than others; but it is just at this moment that I intend
to arm her; to protect her young head with something to put
dreams to flight—the luminous steel helmet of the true virgin,
Pallas. The. mental dialogue I would begin in her is not at
all that of dangerous revery, but the rigid questionings of
thought, fully awakened, with thought itself. There, higher
than reasoning she perceives Reason. Above the spheres of
life which she has traversed, she sees the crystal sphere, where
the Zdea in full light has penetrated through and through.
And so beautiful and puré is this, that she loves and adores
Purity for its own sake. This is the love which in her has
transfigured love, and this is how I have defended her heart.

But will this always avail? I must not so flatter myself.
Poor child! it is not her fault; it is nature’s, who every day
enriches her with strength, embellishes her with a luxury of
life, and makes a magic charm of her. A maiden of pure and
lofty heart, of upright and enlightened will, she seems by
that very purity to offer a worthier prize to the imperious
power. Her eyes and .her thoughts are on heaven, her heart
intent on serious subjects, her virtuous mind which can con-
trol itself shuns no abstraction. But it often happens that
in the very midst of these noble studies some one disturbs
her (who, indeed?) ; her cheek suddenly flushes, her beautiful
eyes wander and grow dim—a wave of life has ascended and
flooded her young bosom.

She is a woman—so what can one do? she radiates all
around her a seductive electricity. Under the forests of the
equator, love, in myriads of creatures, burst forth from flame
itself, through the magic of the winged fires that transfigure
the night. Naive revelations these, but not more so than the
timid innocent charm of a maiden, thinking to conceal all. A
divine light emanates from her involuntarily, a voluptuous
halo; and at the very moment when she blushes at her own
beauty, does she diffuse around her the intoxicating perfume
of love.
120 Andrea del Sarto’s “Charity.”

“O my dear child, I cannot, I will not, leave you thus!
You would be consumed even as ataper. With that danger-
ous fever which would destroy you, we must blend another
to dissipate it. A devouring power possesses you, but I will
give it food; anything is better; my darling, than to see you
pine alone. Receive from me the cordial, one flame to quench
another; take (it is your father who administers) bitterness
and sorrow.

“Sheltered by our love, shut in with your own thoughts and
your studies, you know but little of the world’s labors, of the
immensity of its wretchedness. Save a glance at a crying
child, so quickly comforted, you have never yet suspected the
numberless griefs here below. You were weak and delicate ;
and your mother and I did not dare to excite you with so
many heart-rending emotions; but to-day we should be culpa-
ble not to tell you all.”

So I take her with me, and lead her boldly through that
sea of tears which flows by our very side without attracting
our notice. I tear away the curtain, regardless of the physical
disgust, the false delicacy : Look, look, my child! behold the
reality! In the presence of such things a woman must be
endowed with marvellous powers of egotistic abstraction, to
pursue her dreams and her personal idyl—her idle sail over
the stream of Love, whose banks are gay with flowers.

She blushes for her ignorance, is troubled, and weeps.
And then, recovering herself, blushes for weeping instead of
acting. The flame of God burns brightly within her, and
henceforth she gives us no peace. All the powers of love, the
warmth of her young blood, enlisted in charity, rouse her to
activity, to enthusiasm; she is impatient, unhappy that she
can do so little. How shall we calm her now? it is her -
mother’s task to direct her, watch her, restrain her ; for with
this blind enthusiasm, she may precipitate herself into un-
known dangers.

The intoxication of charity and its heroic fire, that ravish-
ing passion of maidens overfiowing with love, has never been
Andrea del Sarto’s “ Charity.” 121

described ; but it has “been painted once. An Italian exile,
touched with gratitude for the charity of France, bestowed
upon us this inestimable gift, the most fervid picture, I think,
in the Museum of the Louvre. Alas! why is it there
among so many common works of art, that inspiration of
exalted sanctity! And how altered too! Barbarians! hea-
thens! thanks to you, this divine wonder has almost perished
on the canvas. But in my glowing memory it is always
blazing ; and to my last moment, more than any other saintly
image, shall it have my devotion.

The following, without alteration, is the hasty informal note
I wrote on the 21st of May last, when I saw it for the last
time:

“A work of infinite boldness, without conventionality or
deference to rule. In it we see that terrible period, of the
catastrophe of Italy. One must have died many times to be
able to describe or paint like this.

“The fair, full breast is that of a virgin, not a aie
too are more timid. The one before us has not been subdued ;
she has nothing dodging about her, she wavers neither to dh
right hand nor the left—has no fear, no doubt. She only looks
on those poor starving wretches, and that is enough; she feeds
them. (Here we must explain, that at this period a man cross-
ing the Alps encountered an immense troop of. thousands of
children who had lost their parents; they were browsing on
all fours, guided by an old woman.)

“ Before this horrible spectacle of misery and filth, another
would have wept, but would have fled. She, young, heroic,
knowing neither fear nor disgust, opens wide her arms, and
takes them to her bosom.

“ One is at her feet, all haggard, his ribs distinctly visible ; he
is tired, exhausted, and can go no further ; with weariness and
sleefiness he has fallen on a stone. As she has but two arms

6
122 Andrea del Sarto’s “ Charity.”

she holds but two of the children; one she has placed at her
bosom, her luxurious bosom, turgid with milk. He is in per-
fect happiness, and his greedy, gluttonous mouth (for he has
been famished so long!) presses the beautiful fountain, red with
life and love, with pure and generous blood.

“With how proud a heart, with what noble bounty, she
pours out her milk! A naive circumstance betrays the charm-
ing precipitation with which she took up the starving child,
She is not a nurse ; soshe has placed him to her breast just as
he came, holding him on her left arm, which she has passed
under him with tender strength, without ever thinking of the.
right way. But how could one laugh at that? No more
than he could smile at the bold negligence with which the
young saint, wholly absorbed in her passionate employment,
has put on her capawry. The other child, which she holds on
her right arm to her covered bosom, is larger, stronger, more
decent—I was about to say more corrupt. He has a girdle
about his waist, and is not dressed like a boy, but already has
the cringing, fawning air of a young beggar ; his sharp trem-
bling lips seem to utter a harsh, piercing prayer through his
clenched teeth. He holds in his hands, I think, some bad,
sour grapes; but is in haste to forget in the pleasure of the
rich sweet milk of the woman, that bitter food. He will not
be kept waiting long; his comrade has imbibed so much that
he is swollen like a leech.

“‘ Near by, on the ground, is a chafing-dish with a fire of red-
hot coals and embers—but so cold in comparison with the fire
that glows in her heart! Her form too glows, and she has
the grand calmness of strength, a firm heroic attitude, a throne
in the grace of God.” /
The Revelation of Heroism. 128

XIII.

THE REVELATION OF HEROISM.

FRorst1, in his Education of Children, suggests a very happy
expedient. He requires that they be reared independently of
their teacher, by a lovely and accomplished young lady, such
as a man would desire for his wife. How grateful we should
be to the children! He advises that this young girl shall visit
the schools often, to assist the teacher and assume her qualities.
The teacher must be careful, loving, intelligent, with that un-
wearying patience that love alone can give. The young women
who assist her should be like her, or gradually become so, by
means of that which renders a woman capable of everything—
the love of children, the maternal instinct. Must they be per-
fect? In this way, at least, they will become so. Happy
children, to be in such pleasant hands! And how much more
so, indeed, the lover to whose lot shall fall the divinest of the
gifts of heaven.

Madame Necker is of the same opinion. She thinks we can
form the girl into an admirable wife by thus first making a
mother of her.

How much these poor little things who have nothing, can
bestow onthe young lady! First, a knowledge of life, with all
its realities and miseries; for they will show her the world as it
is. They will strengthen her character, and relieve her of her
false delicacy. She will not be the haughty prude, the fasti-
dious fine lady, that we meet every day. She will become skilful
and bold, will feel the sacredness of humanity, and the dignity
of charity; she will have none of the silly scruples of those
who have nothing better; calmly, and with dignity, willshe per-
form the most menial offices—feeding, bathing, dressing, and
undressing, if need be, her innocents.
124 The Revelation of Heroism.

A thoughtful girl, who has thus, at the same time, both the
ideal of study and the reality of life, will be strengthened by
both, and derive from them a correct judgment. When she
is older, she will not know a gentleman by his yellow gloves,
or his horses and carriages, but by his actions, by his heart
and his goodness. She will love only seriously, paying little
attention to externals, but penetrating to the depths of her
lover’s character, for what he does, and of what he is capable.

Suppose that by chance a young man enters and discovers
her with her mother, engaged in her holy duties. The chil-
dren, a little frightened at the advent of so fine a gentleman,
cling close and cluster around her, behind her chair, on her
knees, even under the folds of her dress, where, feeling safe, they
peep out and show their pretty heads. She, though surprised
and smiling, blushes a little; do you fancy she will take refuge
behind her mother? No, she is herself a mother to them,
busied in comforting them, more concerned for them than for
her visitor. It is he who is embarrassed ; he feels like kneel-
ing before them to kiss their hands. He does not address the
daughter, but approaches the mother: “ Ah! madam, what
a pleasant sight, what a charming scene! I cannot tell you
how my heart thanks you for it.” Then to the young lady:
“He would be happy, mademoiselle, who could aid you!
But, mon Dieu! what could I do?”

She, quite at her ease, in no wise disconcerted, replies:
“That is easy, sir. Most of these children are orphans; find
some good people without children, who would be willing to
adopt this little one. He is five years old. I cannot comfort
him; he wants a mother, a real mother; I have tried my best,
but I am too young, too far from the age of his own mother
whom he has lost.”

There are many men of the world, who feel these things
for a moment, who admire as artists the grace of expression
The Revelation of Heroism. 125

or attitude the young girl may have displayed; but there are
not many who take them into their hearts and preserve their
permanent and lasting impression. Life is variable and restless ;
it drifts them far away. At most, they only say in the even-
ing: “I saw a charming thing this morning, mademoiselle—a
veritable tableau, after Andrea del Sarto—the prettiest
sight !”

She very well knows what such admirers are worth, and
the slight value to be placed on their fickle emotions.

The more she retires into the sanctum sanctissimum of the
family, the happier she is in it, the less she cares to leave it.

Every time she catches a glimpse of the world, she feels
more cheerfully the pleasantness of her own little nest.

Little, very little! yet human life is complete within it, in
that graceful equilibrium of a mother ennobling by her heart
the humblest cares, and of an earnest father, whose hidden
tenderness is often betrayed in spite of himself. At such
passionate demonstrations the young girl quivers, and is even
more deeply touched by his care to transmit to her every day
whatever he has in himself of good and great.

As a woman, she is happy in thus discovering the inner life
of aman. She did not know her father, at least never so well
as now; she saw him every day, and listened to his teachings,
and his emphatic words; but she did not know the secret and
best part of his nature. Every man becomes what circum-
stances, the force of precedents, and education, the necessities
of business, may chance to make him. Much must be sacri-
ficed to position, to the needs of Family; and thus the
inner man, often very different and far nobler, lies stifled
under all. Amid the monotony of every-day life, wherein it
sleeps, a vague sadness betrays the mute complaint of the
other, the better self. What a pleasant awaking is it, then,
and how charming, when a young soul, knowing nothing
of our miseries, appeals to these hidden powers, to this captive
poetry, and asks their assistance; when all absorbed in her
family, and afraid of the world, she turns alone to her father,
126 f The Revelation of Heroism.

and seems to say to him: “I listen to thee, I have faith only
in thee!”

Doubtless this sublime moment is the noblest, the sweetest
experience of paternity. A child in docility, she isa woman in
ardor, and in the eager. tenderness with which she receives
instruction. How aptly she comprehends everything good
and noble! He himself hardly recognises her: ‘‘ What!”
says he, “is this my little one who but lately scarcely reached
my knee, and who used to say, ‘carry me!’” His heart is
truly moved. Let him but speak at this moment, let him but
speak, and, oh! he will be eloquent! JI am quite sure of that,
J have not the slightest doubt of that.

Let us take advantage of these beautiful hours, these pre-
cious téte-d-tétes. I see the two walking now under the majestic
elms that inclose their little garden. They step with a quick
firm tread, faster than one would expect in this hot month of
July; but they keep time with the beating of their hearts 4nd
the rapidity of their thoughts. She, knowing her father’s taste,
has placed in her black hair some blades of grain and blue
blossoms. We will listen to their talk, for the subject is a
grave one, the question of right and justice. For a long time
the young girl has been prepared to understand bint; in his-
tory she soon recognised the unanimity of nations in the idea
of justice; in mighty Rome, her father showed her a world
of right. But here it is no longer a question of study, of his-
tory, of science, but a question of life itself. He hopes
that in her impending crisis, in the love which will come of it
(violent perhaps, and blind), she may preserve the light of
justice, of wisdom, and of reason, At heart, woman is our
judge; her influence, her fascination, if it is unjust and capri-
cious, is only our despair. To-morrow she will judge, this
beautiful girl. In the most modest form, in a few low words
to her mother, she will draw tears from one who may never
weep again, who perchance will die for that.

She is so well prepared both by the example of her mother,
and the lessons of her father, by the atmosphere of reason in
The Revelation of Heroism. 127

which she has lived, that she will be less liable than others to
the caprices of her sex. But of the generality, we may say
with Proudhon, “ Woman is the desolation of the just.”

Say to her, for instance, if she loves; “ Of course, you deem
this favored man, the most worthy of your lovers? You have
discovered in him something good and great?” And she will
answer frankly, “No; I chose him because he pleased me.”

In religion she is the same. She makes God in her own
image, a God of preference and caprice, who saves whosoever
has pleased him. Love seems to her all the freer for falling on
the unworthy, on one who has no merit to compel love. In
feminine theology, God would say: “I love thee, because
thou art a sinner, because thou deservest nothing. I have
no reason for loving thee, but it is pleasant to me to forgive.”

 

Oh! how thankful I am that her father has taught her jus-
tice! for that teaches her true love. I thank him in the name
of all the loving hearts who will soon be agitated by her, who
will hang upon her youthful wisdom, and wait for the decree
of her lips. Let them know indeed that, thus enlightened,
only to the most worthy, to the deserving, to the just man,
above all to the man of noble deeds, in whom her father
teaches her to recognise the lofty beauty of heroic justice, will
she belong.

What is this justice? It is the right beyond the right,
and seemingly opposed to it; the injustice of Decius, who
discovered that it was just for the best man to die for all, is
the deeper mystery of devotion and sacrifice.

Never until now had her father spoken to her of her own
time, of the great nineteenth century, greatest in invention,
and also one of the richest in heroic devotion. To-day, he
anveils to her that sacred bleeding side of the world, of which
she has lived in such total ignorance; he repeats to her the
Golden Legend—of the martyrs dead and living.

A great day for her young heart !—and how it transfigures
128 The Revelation of Heroism.

her! How radiant this virgin, and who would not accept her
now for a symbol of the future ?

But no, she is a woman, and she turns pale; her self-control
cannot restrain a tear; one orient pearl drops from her beau-
tiful eyes,

Ye are rewarded, O ye heroes, who dying and bequeathing
to your country all your dreams, said, “In the future, virgins
shall weep for us.”

 

But enough, enough for one day.” A gentle woman advances
slowly, smiling and interrupting them. The mother is happy
to see the father and daughter so closely united; she looks on
them, and blesses them, and says: “ Ah! my poor little one!
this will be thy happiest love.”

But will she love elsewhere? He has captured a glorious
prize, this father, master, pontiff, who makes revelations of
heroism to a young, heroic heart, and fathoms its lowest
depths. One cannot talk much of heroes without being him-
self a hero for the moment. Such indeed does he appear to
the child who hangs upon his words; he would paint his
ideal, but she sees but him.

‘We know the enthusiastic love of Mme. de Staél for her
father; and I have no doubt that that young gir!, then all
nature, all passion, powerful, eloquent, divine, exalted him
above himself. He was great in her eyes, and that made him
so—or at least contributed to it. Commonplace before and
after, but in that solemn hour, young, bold, transfigured, he
arose to the noble idea of ’89—the infinite hope of equality.
He might ¢hange, he might fall, and she too, under his influ-
ence. No matter—the child’s dream, one moment realized,
took the measure of the whole world.

 

This is a strong tie then, so strong that all others seem
weak and insufficient. I have seen other daughters, less
The Revelation of Heroism. 129

known, but not less admirable, in whom this first affection
seemed to have closed the heart against all others. The
sweetness and delicacy of the close intimacy they enjoyed in
the filial relation seemed attainable in no other. One had a
father nearly blind, and she was his eyes; he saw through
her, she loved through him. For another, the rest of the
world had been destroyed, her father existed alone; she
declared that with him she would welcome the profoundest
solitude at either pole. ‘ Talk not to me,” said she, “ of the
divorce that men cal! marriage!”

For our own daughter there remains to us the serious duty
of warning her of the common fate. Alas! our pure and
tender union can be but transient. Nature urges us on, and
does not allow love to fall back upon itself.

It is a painful task to tear heart from heart, to calm, to
regulate the naive impulses of the child, and lead it on to wis-
dom: “My dear child, in your beautiful season of eager and
radiant life, which vivifies all things, one thing escapes you
which you must sometimes recall—death !

“Our undying love can avail you nothing; your mother
and I must soon leave you. What, if loving me too well, you
should wed, in me, grief?

“Of late, the intimacy of this normal initiation, the deep
joy I have felt in revealing to you the elements of man’s
greatness, have too fondly enraptured your heart, my child,
and identified it with mine. You have seen me in your filial
illusion, young with the eternal youth of the heroes I have
described, and at the same time mature, calm, wise, with the
gift you call the sweetness of autumn. All this, my daughter,
is not what God designs for you. For you is the beginning,
not the end. You require the brave, fierce strength of those
who have much to do, in whom time may do its work, to soften
and ameliorate. Their present defects are often excellences
in the future. Your gentleness is only too inclined to cherish
the gentleness of a father. I wish for you—and may God
grant you—the energy of a husband.

6*
130 The Revelation of Heroism.

“At this very time you are already the beginning of a
wife; another initiation awaits you, and other duties. Wife
and mother, wise friend, and universal cqmforter, you are
created to be the happiness and the salvation of many. Take
heart, then, my daughter, and the cheerful courage one feels
in marching to duty. Though my heart may suffer in teach-
ing you these sterner laws of life, it yet bears itself proudly.

* Does the lover exist whom we would desire for you? I
know not; but whatever happens, love will not fail you. The
maternal is the purest love, and you will be a mother to all.
All shall recognise in you the most benign reflection of Provi-
dence.”
Boox JI.—Woman IN THE FamILy.

 

 

i,
THE WOMAN WHO WILL LOVE MOST.—A DIFFERENT RACE.

Brrore pursuing further the young girl’s destiny, which in
our first book we have been tracing, let us take a general
view of marriage, and the physiological questions of race
and amalgamation.

Love is the mediator of the world, the redeemer of all
human races. Love means peace, harmony, unity, and is the
great peace-maker. Political hostilities, discords, contrary in-
terests, all these are as nothing to it; it cancels and overcomes
them; or, even more, it laughs and mocks at them. Diversity
indeed is the very thing it prefers; contrast is a seduction, the
unknown a charm, a mystery which it would fathom; the con-
trariety which might be expected to blunt, only whets the
edge of its desire.

Every one who has been in Berne, has seen the portrait of
Magdalena Nageli, with the huge chamois gloves—a robust
woman and a fruitful mother, who was beloved for her great
strength. Though daughter of a patrician of Berne, she was
engaged in the family washing, at a fountain with her servants,
when there passed by a young noble, of a house always hostile
to hers—an hereditary enmity, like that of the Montagus and
Capulets in Romeo and Juliet; and the young man lingered to
132 The Woman who will Love Most.

gaze at the beautiful girl, as she clapped the linen with a hand
of iron and wrung it with an arm of steel. He saw that
there would be born of her a race of men as strong as bears ;
so he hastened at once to his enemy’s palace, and implored
him for his friendship and his daughter, because he despaired
‘of ever finding another woman so vigorously framed.

The most energetic races on earth have sprung from a
union of opposite, or seemingly opposite elements: for in-
stance, the blending of the white man with the black woman,
which produces the mulatto, a race of extraordinary vigor ;
or on the contrary, of identical elements; for example, the
Persians and the Greeks, who married their near relatives.
Which is precisely the way in which race-horses are improved ;
they are permitted to breed only with their own stock, so as
to refine their blood.

In the first case, the principle consists in the fact that there
is so much more attraction between opposite; the egress
adores the white man. In the second case, it proceeds from
the perfect harmony of likes, which co-operate.

The native speciality accumulates and increases from mar-
riage to marriage. The races deemed inferior, only appear
so from their need of a culture contrary to ours, and especially
from their need of love. How touching are they in this
aspect, and how well they merit a return from the favored
races, who find in them an infinite source of physical regenera-
tion and youth!

The river thirsts for the clouds, the desert for the river, the
black woman for the white man. She of all others is the
most loving, the most generating; and this not only because
of her youthful blood, but, we must also admit, from the rich-
ness of her heart. She is loving among the loving, good
among the good (ask the travellers whom she has so often
saved). Goodness is creation, it is fruitfulness, it is the very
benediction of aholy act. The fact that this woman is so fruit.
ful, I attribute to her treasures of tenderness, to that ocean
of goodness which permeates her heart.
The Woman who will love Most. 133,

“Africa is a woman; her races are feminine,” says, very
truly, Gustavus d’Eichthall. The revelation of Africa in the
red race of Egypt was in the reign of the great Isis (Osiris
was secondary). In many of the black tribes of Central Africa,
the women rule; and they are as intelligent as they are amia-
ble and kind. We see this in Hayti, where they not only im-
provise charming little songs for their festivals, inspired by
their affections, but in business operations solve very compli-
cated mental problems.

It was a pleasure to me to learn that in Hayti, through
liberty, comfort, and intelligent culture, the negress is disap-
pearing, and that without amalgamation.. She is becoming
the true black woman, with straight nose and thin lips; even
her hair is changing. The coarse and bloated features of the
negro on the coasts of Africa are (like the swollen hippopo-
tamus) an effect of his burning climate, which at certain
seasons is drenched with warm floods. These floods fill the
valleys with refuse, which decays there; and the fermentation
swells and puffs up everything, just as dough rises in an oven.
But there is nothing of all this in the dryer climates of Cen-
tral Africa. The frightful anarchy of petty wars, and the
slave-trade, which desolate the coasts, contribute not a little to
this ugliness; and it is the same in the American States under
the influence of slavery. Even there, where she remains a
negress, with no refinement, the black woman is still very -
beautiful. She possesses the charm of supple youth, which
the Greek beauty, formed by gymnastics and always a lit-
tle masculinized, never had. She may scorn not only the
odious Hermaphrodite, but the muscular beauty of the crouch-
ing Venus (in the Jardin des Tuileries), The black is avery
different "woman from the proud ladies of Gréece; she is
essentially young in blood, in heart, and in body—of gentle,
child-like humility, never sure of pleasing, ready to do any-
thing in order to displease less. No tyranny wearies her
obedience; annoyed by her face, she is in no wise comforted
by her perfect form, so full of touching languor, and elastic
134 The Woman who will love Most.

freshness. She throws at your feet what you were about to
adore; she trembles and begs your pardon—she is so grateful
for the pleasure she bestows! She loves, and her whole heart
flows into her warm embrace.

Only let her be loved, and she will do aryehine learn any-
thing. In the black race, the woman must first be elevated,
and through love she will elevate the man and the child. But
for her there must be a system of education entirely contrary
to ours. Cultivate in her first, what she already has so richly,
the sense of rhythm (dancing, music, etc.) ; and through the
art of design lead her on to reading, to the sciences, and the
agricultural arts. She will be in raptures with nature as soon
as she learns of it. When the earth is made known to her—
so beautiful, so good, so womanly—she will fall in love with
it, and with more energy than one would expect from her cli-
mate, she will bring about a marriage between the earth and
man, Africa had only the red Isis; America shall have the
black Isis, a glowing female genius, to impregnate nature and
reanimate exhausted races.

Such is the virtue of the black blood, that wherever a drop
of it falls, everything revives; no more old age—a young and
puissant energy, it is the very fountain of youth. In South
America and elsewhere, we behold more than one noble race
languishing, drooping, dying; why is that so when they have
life at their very doors? The Spanish Republicans, true nobles
and perfect gentlemen, were better masters than the other colo-
nists; they were generously the first to abolish slavery. Ah! in
return, beneficent Africa can restore them to strength and life.

Observe this African race—so gay, so kind, so loving. From
the day of its resurrection, at its first contact, by love, with
the white race, it furnished the latter with an extraordinary
combination of faculties which give force, in a man of inex-
haustible powers—a man, did I say? rather an element, like
an inextinguishable volcano or a great American river. How
long was it without the rapturous gift of improvization, which
for the last fifty years it has possessed? No matter, for all
The Woman who will love Most. 135

that it affords the best machinist, and the most vivid dramatist
since Shakespeare.

We find an unknown source of beauty in the black race.
The red rose, which was formerly the only hue admired, has,
we must confess, but little variety. Thanks to the art which
combines, we have the numberless tea-roses now, with their
thousand shades,—and others still more delicate, veined or
tinted with faint blue. Our great painter, Prud’hon, has
painted nothing more lovingly than the beautiful dark woman
in the hall of the Louvre. She is a little in the shade, like a
mystery unveiling itself. Her beauty is seen as through a
cloud. Her lovely eyes are not large, but deep, and full of
expression. The spectator, who perhaps sees in her what is
in his own heart, regards her as Night shrouded in Passion.

A dark and glowing picture! And yet I have seen one
somewhat clearer, and even prettier. Last winter, visiting an
eminent Haytian, as distinguished in literature as in business,
I was received, in his absence, by a young lady, as timid as
she was charming, whose rare beauty took me by surprise. A
scarcely perceptible shade of delicious lilac threw over her
roses a mysterious magical charm, quite indescribable. Pre-
sently she blushed, and the fire of her eyes would have dazzled
the two worlds.

A thousand honors to the black France! for so would I
name Hayti, since her kindly people so love her who oppressed
their fathers. Receive my vows, O youthful state! and may
we afford thee protection in atonement for the past, and develop
thy free genius, the genius of that cruelly calumniated race
whose sole civilized representative in this world thou art. By
an equal title thou art‘representative of the genius of woman.
Through thy charming women, so loving and so intelligent,
must thou cultivate thyself and organize thy schools. Such
tender mothers will, I am sure, become admirable instructors,
A rigid normal-school for the governesses and school-teachers
(especially after the delightful method of Froebel) is the insti-
tution I would first desire for Hayti.
136 The Woman who will Love Most.

How France has been loved! How deeply do I still mourn
for the love and friendship with which the tribes of North
America welcomed us—so proud and fierce a race! It is
really a glory to us that those men, with the piercing eyes and
the second-sight of the hunter, preferred us for their daugh-
ters, and at once discerned the truth—that a Frenchman is a
superior man. As a soldier he lives everywhere, and as a
lover he creates everywhere.

The Englishman and the German, strong and well-formed
as they appear, are both-less robust and less generative ; they
can do nothing with the foreigner. Ifthe English or German
woman is not always at hand, following them on their jour-
neys, their race dies out. Soon there will be nothing left of
the English in India—no more than the Franks of Clovis
among us, or the Lombards in Lombardy.

The black woman’s love for us is perfectly natural ; that of
the red woman, the American Indian, is more surprising. She
is stern, haughty, and sombre. A Frenchman’s gaiety, some-
times rather volatile, might have shocked her. Her deep pro-
phetic powers could hardly be expected to consort with our joy-
ous dancers, who even in the wilderness, while an eight months’
winter reigned, danced to the songs of Paris. But she knew
them to be brave, she saw that they were serious, kind,
loving, helpfal, fraternizing at once with her tragic warriors;
and so they found favor in her eyes. If she checked the
audavity of our wild scape-graces who sometimes intruded on
her privacy, it was in delicate, dignified words, that did not
wound. The reply of the betrothed maiden is well known.
“The friend I have before my eyes prevents my seeing
you.”

These red women treated us like boisterous children, who
are sometimes a little troublesome to their mother or their
sister, but she does not love them the less.

From these amours a mixed race remains—the Franco-
Indians ; but they are scattered—few in number, and gra-
dually dying out; the noble race is fast becoming extinct.
The Woman who will Love Most. 137

In a hundred years what will be left of them? Perhaps
Préault’s bust.

A doleful image—ah! so very sad—which the great sculptor
of tombs seized upon instinctively, with unconscious genius,
and which remains to perpetuate the poor but noble woman
of the race that Chateaubriand caricatured.

Some ten years ago, an American speculator bethought him
of exhibiting in Europe a large family of Iowas. The men
were magnificent, of a proud and regal beauty—on their
necks the claws of bears, significant of combats. Very strong
—yet not with the great muscles of the blacksmith or the
boxer, but with beautiful arms, almost like a woman’s. A
child too, ten years old, was like a pretty Egyptian statue of
red marble—perfect, but with a fearful gravity. You could
not look on him without thinking, “That is the son of a hero.”

What consoled these kings for being made a show of on a
stage, like monkeys, was, I think, their latent scorn of the
crowd of superfine gentlemen, who were there with their
opera-glasses—volatile, restless, gesticulaters, the veritable
monkeys of Europe. The only person in the party who
seemed sad was a woman, the wife of a renowned warrior
named “The Wolf,” and mother of the child. She had suffered
much before, but how much more here! She drooped; she
died. Alas! what could France offer to one of the last of
those poor women who had loved France so well? Nothing,
but a tomb to preserve the fire of a lost genius. Antiquity
(even the Jewish) has never had, nor known, nor dreamed
of anything so sad; for here we behold a superior being who
has not only endured every personal misfortune and sorrow,
put is accursed in not having been left to the legitimate expan-
sions of his race. Hidden, but mighty grief of the American
world! What with his eternal war with the wilderness and
his savage contests with bears and men, the Indian has not
been permitted to reveal himself fally. And then the prosaic
power of old Europe laid before him, in guns and fire-water,
every instrument of treachery or conflict.
138 .The Worhan who will Love Most.

She looks all this in the face, this woman—like a sphynx,
stern and bitter—and yet under that bitterness, ob! the heart
of the mother and the wife! How gladly in the long
famine of winter would she have cut bloody morsels from her
own body to nourish her little one! With what joy, to save
it, would she have been burned at the stake by a hostile
tribe! And what unfathomable depths of love would not the
hero of her choice have found in her! :

One indeed felt, in gazing on her, the mysterious infinite
of pride and silence she concealed. Her life was as mute
as her death. All the tortures in the world would no more
have drawn from her a sigh than the sting of love. She had
not lost the power of speech ; she spoke as she ever did, with
the thrilling expressions of the strange world, enigmatical
and gloomy, that she contained within her; strange! but per-
haps nothing greater in all the realm of mind,

 

 

XI.

WOMAN WHO WILL LOVE MOST.—THE SAME RACE,

Love has its earthly plan. Its true aim is to unite, to
blend all races in one universal marriage; so that from China
to Ireland, from the north pole to the south, all shall be
brothers, brothers-in-law, nephews—like the Scotch clans, for
instance, the six thousand Campbells all cousins. It should
be the same with all humanity, We should form but a single
clan.

A beautiful dream! but we must not yield to it too soon.
In such a union the blood of all races being mingled together,
suppose, which would be difficult, that it should blend—I
imagine it would be very pale. A certain neutral, colorless,
faded element would be the result. Very many special cha-
racteristics, all charming, would be lost; and the definitive
-

The Woman who will’ love Mast. 139

victory of love, in that total fusion, would be fatal to love
itself. ‘

An able intelligent book on the mingling of races is much
needed. We must not suppose that they can be blended
with impunity. An indiscriminate mingling degrades the
race, or ruins it. It is only successful between sympathetic
races, seemingly opposed, but not so in reality. Between the
negro and the white there is no anatomical opposition, of any
importance. The mixed race lives and is strong. On the
contrary, between the French and English, which seem so
nearly related, there is even in the skeleton a marked differ-
ence. The offspring are either of short life, or dwarfed, or
in their ensemble present some visible discordance.

Between the French and the German the results vary con-
siderably. The man finds a great charm in such a marriage.
Parched, burning, of an eager mind, he enjoys by contrast
the moral freshness—he finds music, an appreciation of nature,
and complete amiability, which render life very pleasant to
him, although perhaps a little monotonous. The child (if there
is one) does not always live. Generally it is frail, but charm-
ing. Rarely does it preserve the paternal fire; neither French
nor German, it becomes European.

I one day asked an intelligent young man, who was teach-
ing some wise birds to read and calculate, if his little heroes
were not raised above their kind by skilful blending, if they
were not mixed? On the contrary, said he, they are of a
very pure race, not impaired by combining.

This set me to reflecting on our actual tendency toward the
mingling of races, and the belief, often incorrect, that combin-
ing, as it does, the endowments and the simple elements of
both, the mixed race is necessarily superior.

Among those of our great writers whom I have known,
only three are of mixed race. Six are pure Frenchmen; and
the three of mixed blood, being foreign, not through the
father, but the grandfather, have three-fourths French ele-
ment, a very strong predominance of the national sap.
140 The Woman who will love Most.

One important point to consider, which may seem para-
doxical, is that foreign women, of the most distant races, are
easier to become acquainted with than European—especially
than French women.

If I marry an Oriental I can very easily foretell what my
marriage will be. One can foresee and determine the Asiatic
wife, through great classes—race, nation, tribe. Even in
Europe, the man who marries a German woman, appropriat-
ing her, transplanting her, is almost sure to have a peaceful
life. The ascendancy of the French mind turns all the chances
in his favor.

But races in which the personality is strong, are not so safe.
They say the Circassian maidens like to be sold, feeling sure
of reigning wherever they go, and putting their masters under
their feet. It is almost the same with the Polish, the Hunga-
rian, the French women—the superior energies of Europe.
They have often a masculine intellect; they marry their hus-
bands, rather-than are married. So it is necessary to be
acquainted with them, to study them beforehand, to know if
they are women at all.

The French personality is the most active, most individual,
in Europe—the most complex too, and most difficult to under-
stand. I speak especially of the daughters. There is less dif-
ference among the men, moulded as they are by the army, by
centralization, by the machinery of a quasi-identical education.

Between one French woman and another the difference is
immense, but between the French maiden and the French
woman, as till greater difference. So, the difficulty in choosing
is not slight, but the foretelling of them is.

In return, when they yield, and are constant, they permit a
more thorough and closer intimacy, I think, than any other
European women. The English woman, an excellent wife,
obeys by the letter of the law, but always remains a little
obstinate, and changes but little. The German woman, so
loving and gentle, wishes to belong to her husband, to assimi-
late herself with him; but she is effeminate, dreamy, and in
The Woman who will love Most. 141

spite of herself, fickle. The Frenchwoman brings you a prize;
she reacts on you; and when she has received your thoughts
most clearly, she gives you back the charm, the personal, inti-
mate fragrance of her free womanly heart.

One day I met, after twenty years’ absence, a Frenchman,
living in a foreign country, and married there. I asked him
jestingly, if he had not married some superb English rose, or
a beautiful German blonde. He answered seriously, but not
without vivacity, ““ Yes, Monsieur, those are very beautiful,
more brilliant than ours. I compare them to that splendid
fruit, which gardeners cultivate to the highest development,
the magnificent pine-apple strawberry. The flavor is not
wanting—it fills the mouth; one only misses the fragrance.
I prefer the French woman, and southern French too; for she
is the wild strawberry.”

Whatever we may think of this poetical comparison of a
newly married man, it remains fixed and sure that the per-
sonality of the French woman is extremely powerful for good
or evil. So marriages in France should be prudent, and pre-
pared with serious reflection; yet it is the very country of all
Europe in which marriages are most precipitate. This arises
not merely from the quick calculations of interest which, once
arranged, urge marriages to conclusion; it results also from
the great defect of our nation—impatience. We hurry every-
thing.

I think the evil is increasing. In proportion as we become
more earnest in business, precipitation in matters of the heart
seems to increase. Our language has lost a number of elegant,
graceful words which once marked the degrees and shades of
love. What is left is curt and hard. The heart is not
changed at bottom; but the people, jaded with wars, revolu-
tions, and deeds of violence, are tempted to look in every-
thing for an enterprise, a coup-de-main. The marriage of
Romulus, by stratagem, would have pleased them only too
well. They must have razeias; I could almost call it viola-
tion by contract. Sometimes the victims weep—not always ;
142 The Woman who will love Most.

they are but little astonished in these times of lotteries—lot-
teries of money, of war, of pleasure, of charity—to be thus
set, up in a lottery. Frequently these fortuitous marriages
suddenly unmask, the very next day, an unexpected battery of
irreparable evils, of ruin and ridicule, which strike full in the
face.

Physiologically such unions, often impossible as unions, pro-
duce abortions, monsters that die or kill the mother, or render
her ill for life—in short, which make a nation ugly. Morally
they are still worse, for the father, who thus marries his daugh-
ter, is not ignorant of the eousolation she will soon accept.
Mar riage under such conditions constitutes and regulates the
universality of adultery, makes intimate divorces, often thirty
years of mutual distaste, and in the marriage couch a temper-
ature that would freeze mercury.

Our peasants were formerly firm in marrying those with
whom they were best acquainted—a relative perhaps.
Throughout the Middle Ages they struggled against the
church, which forbade the marriage of cousins. The restric-
tion, at first excessive (even to the seventh degree, and later
to the fourth), no longer exists in reality. One can have dis-
pensation if he likes, to marry his cousin, or his niece, or ‘the
sister of his first wife. What is the result? That now,
when it is easy, very few profit by it.

The casuists, those false geniuses, who in almost everything
have cultivated the art of finding the wrong side of good
sense, say, pleasantly: “If wedded love be added to the love
of kindred, there will be too much love.” History teaches
precisely the contrary. Among the Hebrews, who at first
allowed marriage with sisters, we see the young people, far
from caring for each other, going out of the family, out of
the nation—running after the daughters of the Philistines.
Among the Greeks, who could marry their half-sisters, such
marriages were very cold, and but seldom productive. Solon
felt himself called upon to inscribe in the law that husbands
should be required to remember their wives but once in a de.
The Woman who will love Most. 143

cade; and the marriage with sisters was abolished. The Ro-
mans married no closer than their cousins.

In fact, marriage ought to be a new birth. The delightful
moment when the wite first enters her bridal home, is lost to
the sister. The beautiful Greek, as we see her in the marbles
of the Parthenon, never entered such a house; hut was there
from her birth, seated on the paternal hearth. She faithfully
represented the spirit of father and mother, the old familiar
traditions. She could lend herself but little to the young ideas
ofher brother-husband, to the mobility of Athens. Magnificent
as she was, she was somewhat tiresome. The race lost nothing
by it, it was the most beautiful in the world; but love lost
much, and the family was hardly renewed.

But Greece cared little for that; she dreaded fecundity,
and only wished to strengthen native genius, by cultivating
to the highest degree the vigor of each lineage, and its pecu-
liar originality. She looked—not at numbers—but simply at
the hero; and she obtained him by the concentration of ener-
getic races, and a marvellous increase of activity, which, in a
short time, it is true, wore out and exhausted the races.

Breeders of race-horses practise this very art. By uniting
animals of near kin they accumulate the blood of the breed.
The perseverance of a century in this direction, produced,
about 1789, the famous Eclipse, that horse of horses, that
flame more rapid than voice or eye, with whom no horse
dared to run, and who, by his four hundred sons in twenty
years, fetched the price of all Europe.

J have read all that has been written of late on this subject,
and what seems to me probable, is, that marriage between
relatives, while it may weaken the weak, and further degenerate
them, may on the contrary strengthen the strong. I so con-
clude, not only from the experience of ancient Greece, but of
our own French coasts. Our sailors, prudent men, who go
everywhere, and know everything, and do not decide like
peasants, by local routine, generally marry their cousins, and
are none the less an élite of strength, intelligence, and beauty.
144 The Woman who will love Most.

The real danger in such unions is the moral one—real for
all but the sailor, who is free, by his wandering life, from over-
whelming influences at home. It is not without good reason
that in France we marry our relatives less and less. (See the
official statistics.) By the charm of common memories, such
marriages are liable to retain a man firmly in the grooves of
the past.

The French woman particularly, exerting an influence
already, by her energy and the wealth she has brought (for
the law favors her more than any woman in Europe), if she
is also sustained hy relatives, may become at home a power-
ful instrument of reaction, and a serious obstacle to progress.
Imagine how great may be the double power of domestic
and religious tradition, to trammel and impede: at every
step opposition, dissension—or at least sadness and inertia ;
consequently, nothing done, and no advance made. A pretty
Veronese at the Louvre expresses this idea perfectly. The
daughter of Lot is so slow in quitting the old city, which is
tumbling about her head, that the angel takes her by the arm,
to drag her away; but for all that, she manages not to ad-
vance a step, saying, “Only wait till I have put on my
shoe!”

We have no time, my beauty. So remain, and be a pillar
of salt with your mother !—But no, we will not go alone; be
carried, if you cannot walk. The vigor of the modern man,
which can draw worlds along, will not be greatly retarded by
thy weight, poor, light-witted thing.

If the relative has not that special education which might
associate her with progress, the foreigner (I do not say the
stranger) should be preferred. She should be preferred, I
say, in two cases, wherein she is known even more perfectly
than the relative.

The first case I laid down in Z* Amour, where a man forms
his own wife. This is the surest; for he knows what he has
made. I have two examples in my mind.

Two of my friends, one an eminent artist, the other a dis-
The Woman who will love Most. 145

tinguished and prolific writer, adopted and married two
young persons, entirely fresh, without relatives and without
culture. Simple, lively, charming, wholly occupied with
household affairs, but gradually partaking of the ideas of
their husbands, in ten or twelve years they were completely
transformed. The same in external simplicity, they became
mentally ladies of lively intelligence, perfectly understanding
the most difficult matters. What was done to accomplish
this? Nothing at all. These two men, busy, and extremely
productive, have bestowed on their wives no express educa-
tion. But their thoughts were elevated, and they communi-
cated to them at all times their emotions, their projects, the
aim. of their efforts. Love did the rest.

But the success, I grant, is not always the same. A relative
of mine failed in a similar attempt. He selected for a wife a
Creole child of a vulgar, worldly class, with a coquettish step-
mother, who very soon spoiled everything. He had roved
about the world considerably, and was then a functionary in
the Department of Finance. He returned home sad and
weary, without the animation, the fire, of those great creators
who, always at work, have always a great deal to say, to
vivify a young heart. I will return to this again.

The other case is that, in which of two men united in heart,
jn faith, and in principles, one gives to the other his daughter,
reared and educated in those principles and that faith.

‘ his supposes such a father as we saw in our first book, on
Education; it supposes a mother too—two phenixes. If we
found them in the second generation, we should realize some-
thing impossible as yet, but which will be less so hereafter:
the hypothesis of two children brought up for each. other—not

’ together, but in a happy harmony—knowing each other early,
but seeing each other for a short time at long intervals, so as
to become each other’s dream.

All this, of course, left free for the two young hearts. But
with a little diplomacy onc may create and cultivate love.
Nature is so amiable a conciliator! A double education

7
146 The Man who will love Best.

seems the only true logic for man and woman, each being
only a half.

The eastern idea, of the same being divided, and always
longing to be united, is true. One should sympathize with,
and help the poor half to find its “other half and restore
the lost unity.

 

 

Il.

THE MAN WHO WILL LOVE BEST.

Ir in the life of woman there is one period more fearful than
another, it is the marriage of her daughter. To her, even the
best, the happiest marriage is an overturning of her existence.
Yesterday the house was full, now it is empty. We did not
at all perceive how large a place this child filled; we were too
used to so natural a happiness; we are not, indeed, conscious
of living and breathing; but if our breath fail but for a mo-
ment, we suffocate, we die.

How different the position of the mother who can say, “ My
son is married,” from that of her who must say, “I have mar-
ried my daughter.” The one receives, the other gives. One
enriches her family by a happy adoption; the other, when
the din of the wedding is over, returns home—so poor! shall
we call it “severed from her daughter?” “ widowed of her
child?” No, those terms do not express it. We must always
regret that a word is wanting to our language—a sad word,
and full of lamentation—orba.

What she gives up is Aersejf. It is herself who goes to live
in the house of a stranger, to be kindly or unkindly treated.
She dwells there in imagination. The man is loving to-day;
but how will he be to-morrow? In fact, the son-in-law is the
least ‘of all she has to worry about. How will his family
behave—his mother, whom he loves, who influences him, and

«
The Man who will love Best. 147

who rules at home? How many ways she has of annoying
the young wife, to break her in perhaps, so that she shall
oppose her but little! Therefore, the mother-in-law, to pro-
tect her daughter, must be respectful, and pay court to the
mother.

I can perfectly understand the restlessness, the eager anti-
cipation, of her who for the first time looks on her future son-
in-law—or at least, the young man who may become so. Ah!
how I sympathize with her secret emotions. She is smiling,
gracious, but at heart how moved! Truly, it is life or death
with her; for what is this young man? Her rival. The more
amiable, the more loveable he may be, the more will the
mother be forgotten. ;

A rare moment in which to observe her, for never is
woman so interesting. That strife of restrained but transpa-
rent emotions imparts to her an irresistible natural charm.
She is beautiful in her love and her self-abnegation, beautiful
by her many sacrifices. What has she not performed and
suffered to create this perfect flower? Such a daughter is
the visible virtue of her mother, her wisdom and her purity.
Like every woman she has had her ennuis and her dreams,
and she has put them all to flight with the simple words “my
daughter!” She has confined herself to the domestic hearth,
between God and her husband, devoting her most beautiful
years to duty, to the culture of one sweet hope. And now,
is it strange that her poor heart beats so wildly? That heart
isin her face whatever she does; and at times it glows with
glorious radiance in the light of her lovely tearful eyes. If
you please, madame, try to be less fair. Do you not see that
we are confused, and know not what we say?

She is tempted to make use of this power. She sees that it
depends wholly on herself, whether she shall charm this young
man, and do with-him as she pleases. She might become
absolute mistress of the future household; she might preserve
her daughter from the tyrannical influence of her new family ;
she mihgt, day by day (for what is impossible to a woman of
148 The Man who will love Best.

wit ?) make him a good husband—amiable, even obedient. To
trust him now with her cherished idol, before she is sure of
him, seems impossible; she must subdue this son-in-law. And
so behold her, still young as she is, recklessly plunging into dan.
gerous coquetries. She thinks she can stop and retire, at will,
And what is the consequence? Why that he loses his wits,
often forms mad schemes, and oftener withdraws altogether.
But the marriage has already been announced, and the young
lady is compromised. What remedy for that? Am I writing
fiction? No, it is what I myself have seen more than once,
and the cases are frequent. The mother loves her daughter
so much, that to marry her well she submits to the strangest
conditions—a deplorable arrangement, which sometimes leaves
all three overwhelmed with sadness and mortification.

The wisest, the most reasonable, almost always make this
mistake: they choose a son-in-law to suit themselves, and not
their daughters ; they consult their own fancy, according. to a
certain ideal, more or less romantic, which most have in their
minds. A double ideal, but always false—I say that frankly.
They admire masculine energy and strength, and they are
right. But it is less the producing and creating force than
the destroying energy that they select. Strangers to grand
achievements, completely ignorant of what constitutes true
strength of mind, they understand by valor only that short-
‘lived daring which serves on the battle-field, and think, like
children, that it is fine to break everything. The man of
brave speech has all the advantagé with them, They pooh-
pooh the true warrior who holds his*tengue and shrugs his
shoulders.

Their judgment i is no aera’ as to the gentle than to the
rude characteristics. They find a powerful charm in the man
who resembles them,—a puppet of no sex. They weave,
very awkwardly, a sentimental little romance over some good-
for-nothing, girlish page—Cherubino, a shepherd in a comic
opera—Nemorino, more a woman than Stella. In their novels,
Proud’hon very truly observes, they never succeed in creating
The Man who will love Best. 149

a man with a genuine masculine character; their hero is
always a woman’s man.

Now, in real life, and in so serious a matter as a mother
choosing for her daughter, they act just as they do in their
novels. Their preference is often, almost always, for the
woman’s man, the nice young fellow of “ correct principles.”
In the first place, they are flattered to perceive that they are
more energetic, really more man-like than he. They think
they can govern him; but they are often deceived. The
amiable, insipid character is frequently but a mask assumed
for success; the man, at heart, is selfish, and to-morrow will
show what he is—harsh, unfeeling, false.

Madam, in so important a matter, where it is a question
of life with you, and even more so with her- for whom you
would a hundred times sacrifice your life, will you allow me to
lay aside reserve and idle subterfuges, and tell you the plain ~
truth. Do you indeed know what your charming daughter
needs, she who says nothing, can say nothing? But her age
and nature speak for her; respect those voices of God!

Well! she needs a man!

Don’t laugh. The article is not so common as you may
think. A loving man is necessary ; I mean one who will
alway continue to love.

She needs an arm and a heart: a strong arm, to uphold her,
and smoothe her way of life; arich heart, from which she may
draw for ever, which she has only to touch to elicit the true
spark.

Woman is conservative, she requires solidity; and that
is natural. There should be firm, sure soil for the hearth and
the cradle. .

t
150 The Man who will love Best.

But everything is unstable. Where shall we find the firm-
ness we desire ?

No position, no property in these times can promise that.
Look—not at France, not at the Continent, that sea of sand, in
which everything is for ever going and coming ; but look at
that sacred island of property—old England. If you except
five or six houses of no great date, every estate there has
changed hands often within two hundred years; only one
thing is substantial—frith. You need a man of faith,

But I mean active faith.

“That is, a man of action!” Yes, but productive action—
a producer, a creator. ,

The only man who has any chance of stability in this world
is he whose strong hand renovates it, who creates it day by
day, and if it were destroyed could recreate it. The men who
possess this action, who in art, in science, in manufactures, in
business, work .with energy, it matters little how they define
their credo—they always have one.

A beautiful miracle! you say. Yes, madam, beautiful, and
very new; it is faith in things that are proved, faith in
observation, in reason. Would you know the secret of that
increase of modern activity which for the last three hundred
years has made every century infinitely more active, more
inventive, than the one that preceded it ?

This—that men are no longer in the mists of that fantastic
age which doubted all realities, and founded its faith on dreams.
They stoutly maintain that what is, is.

You will find it also in the stronger conviction of certainty.
The vigor of our actions increases by the security that a firmer
soil bestows. In the sixteenth century, Montaigne doubted.
Excuse him; the ignorant man had no idea of the intellectual
strength his great precursors had already displayed. Pas-
cal, in the seventeenth century, doubted, because he chose to
doubt. Galileo and many others, proved the earth so‘id.
To-day thirty new sciences, erected on thousands of ob-
served and computed facts, have made this earth a rock. Step
The Man who will love Best. 151

with firm tread and fear not—it is the immovable rock of
truth.

The modern man knows what he wishes, what he does, and
whither he goes.

Who are the sceptics of to-day? Those who are pleased
to be so, those who will not be informed, nor know the times
they live in; those who, always reserving to themselves the
right to change, are alarmed because there are so many immu-
table things. When they proclaim their doubt I ask, “‘ What
does it avail you?”

Does this imply that the active and productive men of these
times have perfect knowledge of the thirty sciences which
constitute our security? No, they know only the great re-
sults; they feel their spirit, they feel these sciences under them,
firm and living. At any moment, if they fall, they will gather
incalculable strength from the maternal soil of truth.

And herein is the real difference between us and our fathers.
They tumbled about in a marsh of earthy water or watery
earth, and when their feet slipped, they could do nothing
with their hands. But we, no longer slipping, do much with
our hands, much with our minds, much with our inventions,
We invent ten times as much as the age of Voltaire, which
invented ten times as much as the age of Galileo, which in-
vented ten times as much as the age of Luther. That is what
makes us gay, whatever happens ; that is what makes us laugh,
and stride through life with the firm step of giants.

Whoever feels himself powerful—that is to say, full, strong,
productive, a creator and a generator—has an inexhaustible
fund of serious gaiety (I mean that), and of courage and love
as well, madam.

Give your daughter to such a man—a man who will always
be above his business, who will take her into his actions, who
will suck her into his whirlpool. I dare swear that he will
love her, and that every hour of the day and the night (and
there lies the gist of the matter) he will have much to tell
her.
152 The Proof.

IV.

THE PROOF,

Ir God had given me a daughter, I should have made my-
self beloved. How? By exacting a great deal, by impos-
ing difficult tasks—but noble ones and just.

Of what use is royalty, if one does not use it? Doubtless
there is a time when a woman may do much for a man—when,
perceiving his value, she charms him, by imposing lofty condi-
tions, and requiring him to give serious proof of his love.

Why, sir, at such a time all nature makes an effort, every-
thing rises one degree; the flower displays the sensibility
which is the charm of animal life; the bird utters a divine
song, and insect-love bursts even into flame. And do you
think that man will not change then, and be a little more
than man ?

Proofs! sir, proofs! else I care little for your insipid
asseverations. I do not ask you, like those princesses of chi-
valric romances, to fetch me the head of a giant, or the
crown of Trebizond. These are trifles; I exact much more.
Idemand that you transform me, a young girl of obscure
family and common education, into a noble, regal, heroic
creature, such as I have always had in my mind—and that
not transiently, but by a complete and radical transformation.

Whatever your career, bring to it an imperial spirit and a
noble will. Then I shall have confidence in you, I shall
think you sincere; and, in my turn, will see what I can do
for you. He who can do nothing for me, whom love itself
cannot raise above prose, above the “ earth to earth” of this
age, God save me from having him for a husband! If you
cannot change, it is because you do not love.

“Alas!” the mothers say, ‘what would happen if one
presumed to use such severe language? Love is not the
fashion; young people are so blasé, so cold; they find so
The Proof. 152

many opportunities of pleasure everywhere, and are so little
anxious to establish themselves! The days of chivalry are
far off.”

Madam, in all times, man eagerly prefers the difficult.
In those days of chivalry, do you suppose the young squire
could not have had all the common girls of the neighbor-
hood? In the strange pell-mell and confusion of the feudal
house, wenches and ladies were at the pleasure of the page.
And yet he longed only for the proudest, the ‘impossible
she,” her who made his life a nuisance. For her, from whom
he got nothing, he would bea knight; for her he would die at
Jerusalem, and bequeath to her his bleeding heart.

And now there is another crusade, a crusade of labor and
study, of the immense effort a young man must make to
plough the furrow of a strong speciality, and sow that speci-
ality with all human sciences. Everything depends on this,
and henceforth he who does not know everything, cannot
know anything. :

I see from here, on the rue Saint-Jacques, by the opportune
chance of a half-open window, a young man who, early in the
morning, has had no rising to do, because he has sat up all
night; but he is not weary now. Is it the morning air that
has so wonderfully refreshed him? No, I think it must be
that letter which he reads and re-reads, and wears out, and
devours. Never did Champollion’s zeal peruse the trilingual
scroll with more of eagerness. A woman’s letter, you may
be sure—short and elegant. I will content myself with tran-
scribing a line: ‘“ Mamma, whose hand is lame, bids me write
to you, and say that she expects you to spend your holidays
here, and that you must pass your final examination as soon
as possible. Succeed and come.”

We must not forget what a young man is in the streets
of Paris, lest we forget his sadness, his languor, and his
homesickness. To be sure, science is beautiful to the master,
to the inventor, launched upon the sea of discovery ; but how
dry and abstract to the student! Verily, the idle, thought-
154 The Proof.

less friends, who never fail to come in his moments of luke-
warmness, find a fine prize now.

Ah! but there is the letter. In the midst of his wild com-
panions’ talk he catches a glimpse of her. She holds him fast, -
and fixes him; she serves him as a fever or a headache—any-:
thing to prevent him from going off with them to-night. So
they take themselves away, and my young friend betakes him-
self to his letter-reading, over again. He studies it seriously,
in form and meaning, and tries to discover by the writing if
she was moved—seizing on some dash omitted, or some com-
ma forgotten, as a significant matter. But the same letter,
read at different Hours or moments, is full of changes; yes-
terday it was passionate, to-day utterly cold; stormy one day,
the next almost indifferent.

Some one, I know not who, regretted nothing of his youth,
“but a fine disappointment on a beautiful prairie.” Add to
that the sweet pain of studying, deciphering, interpreting, in
a hundred ways, the letter of your beloved.

“ What! a young lady write to a young man?” Yes, sir,
her mother wishes it—a wise mother, who would at any price
cheer and guard the young fellow. But she by no means
relishes the English method, which proudly thinks it can bring
flame to flame without danger. The Swiss would go still
farther in their grossness; they deem it well that the lover
should spend his nights with his betrothed, who, granting all
things but one, never fails, they say, to rise a virgin. <A
virgin ?—perhaps, but not pure.

Every nation has its vices. The Germanic races, above all
bibulant and gluttonous, are so much the less inflammable.
But when the lacteal regimen of English Pamelas is so thick-
ened with meats, and even"spirituous liquors, those sanguine
and over-fed virgins ought themselves to wish for better pro-
tection and defence from their own passions.

I do not mean to say that it is not sometimes necessary to
allow lovers the happiness of meeting and talking together.
But such communications, however pure we may suppose
The Proof. 155

them, if too frequent, would be liable to precipitate their
longings, consuming them with a slow fire, and making them
martyrs. Let us, if possible, prolong the more beautiful
period of life. Let there be letters, first from the mother; and
then, as matters progress and become safer, sometimes a word
from the daughter, written under her mother’s eye.

But I have forgotten to tell how love begins. Happy they
who know nothing about it! who, rocked in the same cradle,
reared on the same hearth, enter at the same time upon love
and life! like Isis and Osiris, the divine twins, who loved each
other in their mother’s womb, and still loved after death.

But the fable has it, that even before they were born, in
the darkness of the maternal prison, they made the most of
time, and their precocious love was fruitful—that they created
even before they lived. We would not have our children
quite so fast as those glowing gods of Africa. There should
be initiation and patience; we must deserve to be gods before
we enjoy the divine moment in its plenitude.

It is all very well, very charming, for them to live and play
together at the age of threé, four, or five years; but after
that I deem it wise to separate the sexes. Though he saw
her only when she was small, very small, and played with
her, wherever he may go he will remember the pretty little
girl—cousin, friend, whatever she may be (for at four years
old we are all relations)—the sweet creature to whom he
behaved badly, with whom he often quarrelled ; and he will
be sorry for it, recollecting her amiability, her good.temper,
and her childish wisdom. Thoughtless as he is, as all little
boys are, there will sometimes come over him, with the plea-
sant remembrance of games and sweetmeats, a longing to
see her again. =

And, indeed, at last, when she is twelve perhaps, he will
see her again,—but more sedate, already not daring 'to play
so much, in all the charm and dignity of that first reserve
the maiden wears, as she sits by her mother in the family

gatherings.
156 The Proof.

Beatrice Portinari was only twelve, and wore a purple
dress (that is, a violet red one) when Dante saw her for the
first time. In his heart she ever retained that age and that
dress; and even unto death she was for him a queenly child
clothed on with light. So shall my collegian carry always
with him the image of his little Beatrice. She will save him
from many evils, especially from vulgarity. Should pleasure
present itself to the boy (as is only too common) in the form
of some degrading indulgence, it would disgust him. His
heart is already above that.

_Let two or three years pass by, and then let him see her
again, gay and pretty. In the development of his rose, the
charming vivacity of Shakespeare’s Perdita, who goes and
comes, and helps her mother, is shepherdess and princess at
once—behold the new ideal which shall guard my young
friend. If ladies of questionable delicacy would attract his
early fancy they will come too late. Comparing them with
her he will say: ‘“ My cousin is entirely different.”

Petrarch, in a most beautiful sonnet, full of a naive confes-
sion, tells his Laura that she is to him a sacred shrine towards
whom, himself a pilgrim, he journeys all his life. And yet he
confesses that in the chapels that dot the road he halts, from
time to time, to offer short prayers to Madonnas. I would
have no chapels, no Madonnas by the way. At every step
I would have the traveller descry his Laura afar off, and
swerve not from the path.

But I am wrong; Laura herself is willing that he should
have other mistresses; she is not jealous,—she consents to
share his heart. She knows, indeed, that man needs diversity.
She knows that in the Jardin des Plantes ever waits that rav-
ishing woman with the beautiful form—Nature, the great Isis,
who intoxicates young hearts. She knows that in the schools
of the Pantheon, and everywhere, her lover will pursue the vir-
gin, Justice. Besides, she takes their part, and interposes for
them. She prays him, through his mother, to forget her, if he
can, for her sublime rivals, A beautiful, a glorious time, when
The Proof. 157

woman protects woman! and this absent young girl imparts
courage to him, in the midst of study and privation! Import-
ant, most important, is it to prolong the fruitful labors of this
season, to preserve its energy just when it is perfect, to keep
the cup full. The hard life, the isolation of studies which
achieve greatness, is very differently sustained when this
Robinson Crusoe of Paris can say, in a double alibi of all base
and vulgar life: “I have here my mistress and my mind.”

Marriage is confession: I have said that before, and I re-
peat it, because it is very true and very suggestive.

‘Oh! how delightful, what a joy and a safe-guard, to have
for your confessor a girl of eighteen, to whom you are free
to speak, but who herself is also free not to understand en-
tirely, and not to influence you too much. Sometimes her
mother is anxious, and says, “Is he not ill? I should think
so—he is sad. Add a line for him.”

It is indeed well that a young man should tell a maiden of
his emotions, the heights and depths, the hopes and joys and
sorrows of his mind. ‘ Yesterday I learned—what opens up
a new world to me. It seems to me that, in this direction,
I too shall succeed. Aid me, encourage me! I shall yet
be a man, perhaps.”

Do you know what I think? That this same young gentle-
man is a shrewd and adroit seducer. It is a living joy to a
woman’s heart to mould a man,—to recognise, day by day,
some progress in him, which she has made. In the quiet life
of the domestic hearth, with a mother infinitely loving, with
an old, indulgent father, it is a delightful novelty to her, gra-
dually to join her life to the ardent life of a young adventur-
ous man, who takes her in his bark.

She is much embarrassed ; she is afraid; she flings herself,
in tears, on her mother’s bosom. Some delightful day she
‘stops astonished, as she is writing thus to him: “It is always
a pleasure to converse, to exchange ideas; and all that proves
your mind clearly enough.—But your heart ?” ,
158 How she gives her Heart away.

Vv.

HOW SHE GIVES HER HEART AWAY.

*‘How many improbabilities are there in the preceding
pages? A student in love! A student taking his. mistress
for a confessor! A student shutting himself up to prepare
for his examinations! A student studying! O that is too
absurd! The author is evidently ignorant of what schools
are. He forgets how long it takes to attain a profession, to
set up an office, to get practice, and all that.”

You enlighten me. I forget that all young Frenchmen
must be notaries, attorneys, functionaries, note-takers, and
manuscript-mongers—must plunge indiscriminately and fright-
fully encumbered into two or three professions, in which their
long noviciate will compel them to marry late—when most of
them, indeed, are already worn out.

Who does this? Those prudent mothers especially, who
want a son-in-law in good position. To them “ functionary”
is synonymous with stability, in this land of the unstable! A
notary ! how pleasantly the word sounds to them. And yet,
in most cases, the man plunges into debt to get his office.

So the blindness of this spirit of reaction, the ignorance and
the fear of woman, make of the most adventurous people in
the world the most foolishly timid, the most inert,—a mol-
lusk on his rock. ’

The Englishman, the American, the Russian have the whole
world for the theatre of their activities. The English-woman
deems it perfectly natural to marry a Calcutta or Canton
merchant. She follows her husband, an officer, to the farthest
isles of Oceanica. The Dutch woman will accept with equal
cheerfulness a husband from Java or Surinam. The Polish
woman, to comfort an exile, does not shrink from living in
Siberia, and the perseverance of such devotion has created
bevond Tobolsk an admirable Poland, with a better dialect
How she gives her Heart away. 159

than that of Warsaw. But let us even take Germany, which
thinks so much of home; and you see her spreading far and
wide, over the two Americas. The closest family travels most, ,
sure of carrying its happiness with it. Love everywhere
creates its own country, extends and populates it. With Love
man has wings. Only you of all Europe do not see that, if
you are not in soldier’s clothes, you are a sedentary people, a
prudent people, you drag on where you were born. But a
man is soon ruined on ’Change in your lottery life, in your
money panics, and the oyster itself is shipwrecked. So much
for your stability, your sure position, for which one must put
off marrying till a mature age, till the age when mo3t, who
have got to the end of it, have nothing to do but make love.

Gaul and old France were the homes of hope. They be-
lieved in a future, and they made that future. They loved
and married young; at the age.when we, quite worn out, finish
up, and take a wife, they had had for a long time home, fa-
mily, and posterity. To be sure, all the children did not live ;
yet the people, gay, loving, prolific, everywhere left traces
of themselves. Our ancient Gauls built up, I know not how
many nations in Europe and Asia. Our mixed races of the
twelfth century founded numerous colonies. Our Frenchmen
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, by their energy,
their facile sociality, subdued the new world and Frenchified
the savages. Who put a stop to this? Just Louis XIV.,
who, attacking Holland, gave it to England, henceforward
mistress of the sea. But for him we might have-had the two’
Indias. And why? Because we were loved, and had children
everywhere. And the English have none any where—except
in one place, the United States, whither the whole congrega-
tion of Puritans betook themselves in a body.

Think of that, young man; and in the streets of Paris,
where you have so many resources, of ideas and of arts, and a
thousand ways of making yourself a man, look around you
a little, and consider where you are. Embrace with a bold
searching scope, all science, and the whole globe—universal
60 How She gives her Heart away.

humanity. Love, and love, too, a loving and devoted worean,

who will follow you with noble courage into the uncertain-
»ties of fate, and all the inventive boldness of your own brave

thoughts. \

“ But, sir,” says my young friend, “would you know why
we are so prudent, with a woman’s prudence. It is because
women, mothers, impose such conditions upon us. Those fine
laws, which make them equal with man, make them rich and
influential, even more influential than fathers: for the father
can have only a hypothetical fortune, involved in business,
while that of his wife is often secured by contract, and remains
apart. That is why she rules, and does as she chooses. She
takes her boys from school to put them, one knows not where.
She gives her daughter to whoever pleases her. I, for in-
stance—who am I? What shall I do? or what shallI be? I
do not know yet. That depends on a woman. I am regarded
with favor, at a distance; but if with the least boldness I ap-
proach nearer, this mother will be alarmed, will draw back,
and reserve her daughter for a man of position and rank.”-

The young gentleman is right. A great responsibility at
this moment rests on the mother. She has immense power,
to make and to unmake. One word from her can work a
marvellous transformation; our hero may take his rank, may
become a bon sujet. Moreover, if this word confirms his
courage, his young loving heart, through one bond alone, may
become great.

You are a woman, and still young, madam; but you are
already in that second youth when prudence is developed,
when things have lost their glow, when one grows suspicious
of everything alive. Please do not impose so much wisdom
on them already. Do not require this young man to begin
with old age. You loved him, you took pleasure in his en-
thusiastic letters. Pray, take him as he is, young and glow-
ing. Your daughter will lose nothing by it. Act a little
with her; consult her. I warrant her less timid than you.
And in truth she is right to be bold. Such spirits, in their first
How She gives her Heart away. 161

flight, may seem eccentric by their own excess; but there
must be too much at first, in order that there may be enough
at last. Soon balanced, they will attain their true power,
and properly directed, will supply the man with his ideal of a
wise energy.

Here are our young people, brought together; and I should
like to pause at this delightful point of perplexity and restless-
ness. Besides, so little is known about it. Weare always too
far above it. We deal only with the surface, the pretty
quarrels, the sweet seeming-contentions of love. It is some-
what allied to war, and, in most cases, we approach it trembling.
Thus it is with these. The strong charm of power bewilders
the maiden somewhat; and, on the other hand, the young
man, however truly he may love, has an extreme fear of
ridicule.

Heis wrong. Woman, the true woman, is too tender to be
sarcastic. Our heroine especially, reared as we have seen, is
by no means the saucy, jesting Rosalind of Shakspeare—nor
the laughing, giddy, empty-headed girl we see too often here.
Her playful badinage is delicate ;—a pretty kind of strife that
would not even be felt by our young men-ofthe-world. But
he, less blasé, is disturbed, and rebels at the least thing. He
can bear nothing from her—is vexed, and answers crossly.
He suffers; and, at the same instant, she suffers too. To be
50 sensitive towards each other,—is not that love ?

Love! what is it, and whence comes it? How much has
been written about it, and how idly!

Neither statement, nor analysis, nor comparison avails.
Love is love, a thing like nothing else.

A pretty metaphor is that of de Stendhal, who likens it to
a branch steeped in the salt-springs of Saltzburg. Two months
afterwards it is taken out, changed, adorned with a rich
and fantastic crystallization—girandoles, diamonds, flowers
of hoar-frost. Such is love, steeped in the deep springs of
the imagination; and the comparison exactly applies to his
pretty, ironical, sensual book on Love.
162 How She gives her Heart away.

To him the subject is very dry—a poor branch of wood, a
stick—such the reality; and all the rest is but the dream, the
embroidery, the idle poetry that we weave upon it at pleasure.
A capital theory that, to render utterly sterile the most fruitful
of all subjects! A trite theory too, in spite of the piquancy of
its form. °Tis the same old Thesis, “Love is but a fleeting

show.” :
Love! I have found nothing more real in this world—as

real as second-sight. It alone bestows the power of seeing a
hundred new truths otherwise invisible.

As real as creation; the true things that it sees, itself
makes true. With woman, for instance, it is so pleasant to be
loved, that, delighted and transfigured, she becomes infinitely
beautiful: beautiful, not only as she looks, but as she is.

Real like creation, double and reflected, so that the created
creates in its turn. This radiance of beauty which our love
imparts to woman reacts upon and re-radiates from us, by
wholly new powers of aspiration, of genius and invention.
What name shall we give it? No matter what! It is
Master, the power and the creator. If it abide with us, we
are strong. Without it, we could achieve nothing great in
this world. ,

Surprise magnifies its power. Happy, most happy the
young man if chance should develope some unforeseen beauty
in him! By just that much has he advanced. For example:
it is discovered that in Paris our hero spent too much. He
suffers himself to be censured ; but presently they find out
that, by reducing his expenses to the minimum of his absolute
wants, he supported a poor family on his salary. His lady-love
is affected; she has but little to aay that day, and dares not
look at tii

From crime to crime they detect the culprit, till they dis-
cover that while they were most earnestly urging him to secure
a position in his career, by the first successes of the schools,
which by and by should lead to the great success of life,
he has acted like the great painter Prud’hon, and. our illus-
How She gives her Heart away. 163

stious physiologist, Serres; both of whom, with no fortune
but their talent in intellectual competition, abandoned the prize
themselves, and worked for a rival. Thus Prud’hon sent to
Rome a rival who, without his aid, would have been unable to
continue his studies. Serres, in a medical college, finding
among his comrades a poor English surgeon, who was dying
of hunger, conceived the idea of competing for him, succeeded
against himself, and so won for his friend a place as pupil at
the Hétel Dieu. An act of courage in the cause of humanity
is another pretty bouquet to offer her he loves. One has not
always such prizes; but they await those who are worthy.
A man fallen into the river, a fire, a shipwreck, a hundred
chances furnish the occasion.

Such acts induce love ; for women are weak, and very suscep-
tible to them. I confide this receipt to all who are not loved:
Be beautiful—that is the only way. From the day when that
lightning flashes across her, she recognises her master, and
feels herself powerless. Let him not take advantage of that.

How could he? I know not, for there have been no nuptials
yet—but there is marriage. The father and mother, almost in
love with him, holding him in high esteem, respect their téte-
a-tétes. They have confidence—and they are right. What
wise conversations, though so tender, so touching! She talks,
untiring, of their house, and its arrangements—of the cares of
their future home ; he, of love and their future children. She
listens, her eyes downcast, but resigned and docile. She takes
care not to interrupt him—does not object toa word. But must
it be told? she is so gentle, she appears so submissive, that he is
tempted, tempted to try his power. Then the poor child sud-
denly grows pale; she does not struggle, but throbs, and can
do no more; her breath fails her. How can he? She totters,
leans on him, and at last sits down, overcome with her
emotions. ‘Spare me, I beseech you; it is thy wife, who fora
few days implores thy forbearance.” And then she puts both
her hands inhis. “ After what thou hast done, how could I
resist thee? But thou wilt make me miserable. Yousee they
164 Thou shalt leave thy Father and Mother.

repose confidence in thee—in thee alone. They have seen me
so moved, that they well know how weak I am. Love me
for myself, my husband; protect me, defend me, for I can
no longer protect myself.”

 

 

IV.

THOU SHALT LEAVE THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER.

Our Sakontala’s farewell to her birth-place, to her sisters,
her flowers, her favorite birds, and her pet animals, is no idle
comedy; it ishuman nature. She has loved them, and she
weeps for them; she has counted the days, and now that the
day approaches, it comes too soon. She now feels how much
it all was to her, how pleasant and soft this nest that she must
leave—the happy family table, the circle of young brothers
and sisters who adored her, the weakness of her father, stern
to all others, but gentle to her. One person, indeed, is alone
in her sorrow, the real victim of this sacrifice, her poor
mother, who controls herself so well, and scarcely ever weeps.
Oh! it is too much for the young girl!

No dream of happiness, no mirage of fancy, can compen-
sate for this. The night before the parting, at the table, with
her eyes on her plate, she hardly dares to look up, lest they
should swim with tears. The rest go down to the garden, but
not: she ; on some pretext she remains, to roam from chamber
to chamber through the home of her youth, which she is
about to leave forever. She bids adieu to each article of fur-
niture, every beloved thing: her piano, her books, her father’s
chair ; but to her mother’s bed most of all. There she bursts
into tears,

And why? does she not love? Never doubt it. Yes, she
truly loves, Strange, but natural, that at the moment of follow:
Thou shalt leave thy Father and Mother. 165

ing her husband she misses her lover. The room in which she
dreamed of him, the table on which she wrote to him, have
their share of her regrets. The stormy alternations of her
love for so many years, come back to her memory now. From
her new happiness, she throws a backward glance over that
world of sighs, and dreams, and idle fears, in which passion
takes delight; she mourns for it all, even to the sweet bitter-
ness she often found in tears.’

Nothing moves her more than the sight of the friends of
her childhood—the dumb animals out of doors, who have been
told nothing—the dog, the cat of the house, who know all
about it all. The dog followe her with wistful eyes; and the
cat, dull and motionless, refusing to eat, lies always on her
bed—the little girl’s bed, that will be empty to-morrow.

They seem to say to her, “You go, but we remain. You
leave us for a stranger. You quit the home of gentleness and
love, where you had everything your own way. ‘Whatever
you did was right, whatever you said was beautiful. Your
mother, father, everybody, hurg on your lips, eager to receive
all that escaped them. Your sisters quoted your opinions as
supreme reason, and decided by your word, ‘She has said it.’
Your brothers were your knights, silently admiring you, ima-
gining nothing higher than you, loving in other ladies only
what resembled you.

“‘ Mistress, protectress, beloved nurse, who so often hast fed
us from thy hand! whither art thou going, and what will be-
come of thee? Thou art now to have a master, and thou must
swear obedience. Thou departest to dwell with a stranger—
with one who loves thee, true—but a proud young man, and
stern. ILow much will his active energy, bent on other mat-
ters, leave him for his wife and home? From his daily work—
he will come home at night, often sad, often severe. His dis-
appointments, his failures, will return to thee in the form of
unjust caprices.

“ This house of love whither thou goest, how often will it be
more dreary to thee than thy dear paternal home! Al! was
166 Thou shalt leave thy Father and Mother.

so serene here! when thou didst laugh, all laughed. Thy idle
merriment, thy clear young voice, thy goodness that made us
all happy, created here a paradise, a house of blessedness.
All was love and indulgence, and all were emboldened by
thee. For thy father and mother had not the heart to scold
the children or us. The dog well knew that at certain times
everything was permitted; and the cat as well. At such
moments when the family were at dessert, we stole in to par-
take of the feast; and thy birds came, clapping their wings,
to receive a kiss from thy lips.”

Woman is born to suffer. Every great step of life is to her
a wound. She grows up for marriage; that is her legitimate
dream. But her “vita nuova” is a rending away of the past.
To grant to love its boundless pleasure, she must suffer in her
fiesh. How much more so, when soon the other husband, the
other lover, the child from the depths of her being, shall tear
her heart! Nor is that all. Our fathers had a sombre pro-
verb; ‘ A mother’s sorrow endures long.” Here “ mother”
stood for “ matrix,” and the meaning of the proverb was that,
in addition to the physical pangs of maternity, weariness and
anxiety, sorrow and pain follow her, and shall follow her, all
her days.

On what day, at what moment, shall the victim be produced ?
‘What matter ? says the legislator. What matter? echoes the
priest. :

The astrologer of the middle ages said, “‘It matters much.”
And he was right. But how is the day to be chosen? He
set up his glass, and looked at the sky, saw nothing, and
decided.

“What we must look at, is woman herself, the dear creature
who gives up all, who suffers and devotes herself. We must
love her, and wish her to suffer less by her sacrifice. If any
day, any week, be propitious and safe, let us choose that.

Let me pause here, and ask how it happens that the nume-
rous authors who have treated of love and marriage, have
never once touched on these questions. And yet they were
Thou shalt leave thy Father and Mother. 167

the very foundation of their subject—at least, the point of
necessary departure, without which they could speak and
reason but at random.

Happily, nature does not rely on us for the great func-
tions of life which preserve it. These are accomplished
instinctively, and, as it were, under the dominion of sleep.
Our physiological chemistry is marvellously complicated, and
goes on its way, taking no counsel. So it has been with the
perpetuity of the human race, operating by love and mar-
riage, through the constitution of the family. All this has
in nowise changed, and man, in these great essentials, has
remained in the track of reason.

Unreasonableness belongs to exalted geniuses, the men of
thought and authority, the guides of the human race. For
example, to the political economists, those profound politi-
cians, who have thought they could regulate love, and retard
or hasten the operations of fecundity; not one of them
knows what fecundation is; they do not know that they are
maintaining the Malthusian theory, wherein they are always
groping. And, for example, the theologians, who have so
lucidly explained the Conception without knowing what con-
ception is. And, for example, the casuists, who have so
sagaciously directed and purified conjugal life, without know-
ing what marriage is. And, let us add, our own writers, who,
in so many eloquent books, have discussed the right and the
truth, accused man or woman, and weighed the question of
the superiority of one sex-over the other. Our great novelist,
a woman of wonderful power—our great orator, a man of
potent and terrible arm, who striking the pro and con., brings
forth flash on flash, the world looking on—is it not astonish-
ing that neither of these two.has reached the bottom of the
matter, the lowest wells from which indeed springs all the
rest? Lowest? Nothing is lowest. Let us abandon these
old ideas of a ladder and a top and a bottom. “God is a
sphere,” said a philosopher. Heaven is under our feet, as
well as over our heads. Formerly we humbled the stomach
168 Thou shalt leave thy Father and Mother.

to exult the brain. We have found (in 1848) that the brain
digests ; at least, without it no sugar is made, which alone
permits digestion.

To return : until 1830, when the ovwm was demonstrated, the
crisis of love, theory was but folly ; before 1840, when the law
was laid down.and the fruitful seasons indicated, all practice
was blind. The persevering observations of great anatomists,
the authority of the Academy of Sciences—a perfect pontiff
in these matters—and at last the sovereign dictum of the
College of France, from 1840 to 1850, gave to Europe those
discoveries, henceforth to be accepted as articles of human
faith.

How apropos does science come in? Medicine, before
‘the scourge of the century (the universality of diseases of
the matrix), stammered, and turned aside, after having vain
recourse to the brutalities of surgery.” Then Ovology comes
to its aid. It is the careful study of the functions which must
open the way to a knowledge of their changes. And who
knows? The first, gently nursed by love, may perhaps antici-
pate the second.

Forgive, my young friend, these serious words, at an hour
when, of course, your heart is occupied with very different
thoughts; but love is anxious. For thy sake, for hers, I
would draw thee back from thy poetic heaven to the real.
But the real is herself, so it is heaven still. The question is
of her, and of your future. When the health, the life of your
darling is at stake, you will not accuse us of excess of
wisdom, and tender precautions.

Is it not a spectacle to make us reflect, to see around us
young and charming women, smitten by love itself, con-
demned to refusals, to involuntary evasions, or (hateful con-
trast) to tearful concessions ?

A desolate condition indeed, which overclouds love, and
will soon extinguish it—which makes generation a fearful
thing. One shrinks appalled when, to the trials of maternity,
he knows that increased pains are added. To the most ten
Thou shalt leave thy Father and Mother. 169

der outgushings of hearts, which make them one, there comes
a time full of grief and terror of the future, and death
between kisses,

Formerly this scourge was less noticeable. In the first
place, because they died sooner, and so did not take their full
measure’ of suffering ; but also from another cause: woman,
then not at all refined, living a less intellectual life, had
stronger physical reactions against both pain and bad treat-
ment. I here allude especially to what is mildly called
amorous passion, but which might be better termed the de-
mands of selfish pleasure, exacting ,too much, desiring
wrongly, consulting neither the period nor the suffering.
She, weak and delicate, feels all this, and feels it deeply. It -
is no jest; but demands our serious attention, and the love of «
every moment.

What I would say to the mother, I would insist upon to
the lover.

In truth, more fragile than a child, woman absolutely re-
quires that we love her for herself alone, that we guard her
carefully, that we be every moment sensible that in urging
her too far we are sure of nothing. Our angel, though smil-
ing, and blooming with life, often touches the e:.rth with but
the tip of one wing; the other would already waft her else-
where.

Ask not of the ignorance of the past, what shall be done in
this great matter; it knows not, and cannot answer. Ask
science alone to advise, and love alone to execute.

Science replies first, very simply: That we should love in
her hour of love, without precipitation, letting things take
their course, to succeed each other in their natural order—
but one thing at a time, avoiding congestions and all perma-
nent irritations. Therefore, we know the true moment, lawful
and-sacred, in which marriage should take place. In a treatise
approved by the Academy of Sciences, and authorized by. its
high approval, it is stated that one ought only to marry a

8
170 Thou shalt leave thy Father and Mother.

young gir’ ten days after the process of ovulation, that is
to say—in the calm, sererie, and sterile week she has between
the two periods, . (Raciborski, 1844, p. 133.)

This excellent observation, as humane as it is reasonable, is
no quack theory, but profoundly scientific, and derived from
established facts, and the known laws of Ovology. The
deduction is natural, and so it will remain invariable, an impera-
tive ard necessary law of marriage. In fact, nothing could
be wiser. The sterile period should be chosen, says Raci-
borski, because she would suffer too much if she were en-
ceinte in the first months. How cruel would it be to inflict
upon her at the same time three pains—her periodical indis-
position, the initiation of marriage, and the disturbances of a
first pregnancy.

“But her mother would attend to that,” says some one.
Not she. She will allow the favorable period to pass, and
marry her daughter three or four days later—just when the
woman is most susceptible; and she becomes pregnant imme-
diately. The ten full days allowed will be a blessing, for
thus science interposes between impatient passion and the
wife, shielding her as in a mother’s arms, and better than she
could. So every great discovery, every great truth, which
at first is but a light, and speaks only to the reason, is not
slow in reaching those practical results which touch the heart.

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof; one labor at a
time. Spare the bride, I pray you, at such a time, those noisy
repasts of provincial weddings with which fools would stuff
her. If she does not eat, they will say, ‘Don’t you see? she
is sad; they have to force her. She does not love her hus-
band—that’s plain.”

I perceive that the good sense of our fathers desired, on
the contrary, that she should come to this trial of separation
and tears, of méral and physical suffering, only when prepared

by her mother, well refreshed, light and gay, and so much
the less vulnerable,
Thou shalt leave thy Father and Mother. 171

The rites and symbols of marriage are even now very im-
perfect. People busy themselves excessively in teaching the
weak that she is weak, so that she may feel dependent. It
would be much more instructive, more original, more humane,
to teach the strong that here he must not show himself strong,
to inspire him at such 2 moment with delicate attentions and
compassion. Love will provide for that, they say. But it is
quite the contrary. Love, be it confessed, makes strange
transformations. At times, in man, a wild beast roars with
impatience—the ferocity of desire.

Physicians begin to suspect that precipitation and reckless
insisting (shall we call it‘cruel pride ?), are often prime causes
of enduring irritations, and incurable congestions. Incurable,
of course! How can there be a cure when every day the
malady is aggravated ?

Recall, at the decisive moment, that pious, that religious
maxim, that sovereign exorcism which can put your devil to
flight quicker than any formula—the legal definition, “‘ Mar-
riage is consent.”

It will not be worth while to remember it at noon, if you
cannot think of it at night, in the moment of agitation, when
your trouble is greatest. Then, then is the time to remember,
“ Marriage is consent.”

I should indeed rejoice if thou hadst a mind to think of this
in the evening—if, laying aside pride and all its follies, con-
sulting only thy love and thy heart, thinking only of thy poor
little one, thou wouldst talk with her mother, who, without
thee, dares not have a wish. We must soften, must blunt
these thorns, if not remove them. The merciful rite of India
speaks in this matter like our own physicians.

The daughter of France is often sarcastic, laughing at our
expense, but at the same time the most nervous in the world,
and most readily captivated by imagination. She ought not
to be afraid of him whose absolute mistress she is to be; and
yet she trembles to such a degree, that were there no other
172 Thou shalt leave thy Father and Mother.

difficulty, there would still be a grave one in her depression
of spirits. Man, so selfish, thinking only of himself, complains
much of some sorcery which he says paralyses everything.
But the more veritable terrors of woman are not counted.
Her cheerfulness should be restored, that is the great point.
He must be patient, magnanimous, and desire not as against
himself, but for the sake of both, that she, too, may be happy;
he must consult her, obey her, and make this his triumph—
that her pain do not displease her.

Happy he who can prepare his own happiness! Who would
have it free, and desired, who trusts in tenderness and good-
nature. A sincere adorer, with true’ devotion he honors the
approaches of the temple, and guards its portal with a tender
and patient persistence. Of themselves those holy doors will
move for him. The living fire of the god, that seems so far
off, is at the very threshold.

In a higher, a more advanced state, to which hereafter we
shall come, it will be truly understood that this pleasant invi-
tation is precious, especially by the new ways it opens to the
heart; that it is but one step in the progression that love
makes in the gradual conquest of the beloved, in every serious
union, and such progressions must have long preceded the fes-
tival which is love’s proclamation.

The soul-marriage must have existed long before the legal
nuptials, if it is to continue afterwards, and strengthen more
and more.

Let us efface from our language that immoral and fatal
phrase; the Consummation of Marriage. A progressive
state, it finds its consummation only in the consummation of
life.

The wedding is but a publishing of this long initiation.
Useful, indispensable, as a guarantee, it nevertheless has often,
like the noisy, brilliant festival, a very bad effect upon the mar-
riage. The uproar seems to signify that a great day is over,
and love has given up its all; and the succeeding days are dull
The Young Wife.—Solitary Thoughts. 173

and cold. It is wrong to date by a festival what should be
eternal.

No, even at that divine moment, know that it is indeed di-
vine only because it consummates nothing, ends nothing ; it is
divine, because it begins. Thine idol has given thee all she
could, has given herself in accepting thy love, has given her-
self in saying, “I am thine,” has given herself in opening for
thy entertainment one of the great portals of her soul. But
that soul is a whole realm of delights which thou must now
survey. The world of discoveries within her, which awaits thy
explorations, how couldst thou know it in advance? She her-
self does not know it. She only desires, passionately, that
thou shouldst be her lord and master. Once possessed, she
instinctively feels that she can be even more than she is. She
will do what she can, so that with the infinitude of new sen-
sations that love will create in thee, thou shalt entirely tra-
verse her boundless sea of yet virgin emotions, of chaste and
delicate desires.

VII.

THE YOUNG WIFE.—HER SOLITARY THOUGHTS.

In my Book of Love, I have touched upon the great exter-
nal points. In this I attempt more: I would observe Woman
herself, especially the woman who has strong family ties, and
whom even the most desirable marriage quite uproots from
the soil to which she was bound by a thousand fibres. A
truly dramatic passage this! From parents whom she regrets
to a husband she adores, she passes, not hesitating, not strug-
gling, but with sacred sorrow. Does she love the less on
174. The Young Wife.—Solitary Thoughts.

that account? Infinitely more, to the full extent of her sacri-
fice. She gives herself up with all her grief; with boundless
love, and an unstinted faith she puts, into his hand her bleed-
ing heart. :

I know not whether the man, bewildered by his own hap-
piness, can preserve enough coherency to perceive all this;
but for myself, I know no sight more touching than such a
young girl (shall I say maiden or woman ?) as she suddenly
finds herself transplanted away from her old habits, and all
her familiar world, into a strange house. To be sure, it is, or
it will be, her own; but she has still to become acquainted
with it. Until then, all is strange to her. She does not know
where to find any thing.

Each new article recalls to her the good old family things
she left behind. True, her husband, with his strong persona-
lity, his youthful enthusiasm, his charming infatuation, warms
and illumines all; but he is not always there; and if he be
absent but for a moment, all, all is changed, looks vacant and
solitary.

The other house, in its great harmony of multiple affections
—father, mother, brothers, sisters, servants, pets—was a world
ready made. But here is a world to make. Happily, the
ardent and powerful creator, the life-giver, Love, is here.

But Love is jealous. “If you wish,” says he, “to create,
begin with me; if you wish me to bear you into the future on
my wings, do not tie me down with that strong thread of the
past.” The first law of the Drama, unity in action, is the
first law of life. Hope not for the strong without the simple.

“ Fool, to think the heart is ‘in pieces,’ to think that though
it be shared, each part is still an entity! What will become
of thee, if thou hast forever there that complaining, I will
not say jealous, mother, with whom thy wife will live, whom
she will confide in every day? Let but a cloud come between
you, and it is talked of again and again: she is comforted by
her mother; and so the cloud takes form, and hangs on the
The Young Wife.—Solitary Thoughts. 175

horizon. But thyself, thy love, and Night would have dissi-
pated it entirely.

“And her brothers—think you they will not be a little
jealous of the man who takes from them her who was the
joy of the family, and its peculiarcharm? True, their young
and pure emotions are not to be condemned. But that only
makes the tie stronger, and the secret hostility more natural.

The strong family feeling, lost sight of fora moment, and
eclipsed, will soon return. To have grown up together, to
be able to talk, among themselves, of a thousand nothings,
precious and dear, of which you have no knowledge—this is
a sort of marriage. In the past there is this strength and
danger ‘too, that, embellished by time, by losses and regrets,
by the sweet tears we shed for it, it is a hundred times
dearer than when it was the present. The holy brightness
of the domestic hearth, the cradle in which they slept or
waked together, irresistibly allures them backwards, to over-
look the present, The heart is double, and it is shared. Tra-
dition, old times, and retrospective thoughts contend with
love hour by hour. ;

Nature says: “ March, then! Take thy wife away! With-
out quite parting her family ties, live with her apart. The
more distant her family, the more thine own will thy wife be;
the more, too, will it be thy duty, thy happiness, to be all in
all to her. Thou canst not neglect her. Thou art her father,
day by day to form her mind; thou art her brother, to cheer
her with friendly chat and sweet companionship ; thou art
her mother, to care for her in her little womanly needs, to
caress her and pet her. In thy maternal, as well as conjugal
arms, she will learn to find her cradle when she suffers; and
by all her petty, trifling, childish things thou shalt raise. her,
so much the more, to thine own aspirations.”

This is a little hard, but it is true and serious—indeed, a
law of marriage. So she will have her hours of solitude; in
fact she has them the very next day. For as they thought
176 The Young Wife.—Solitary Thoughts.

themselves surely intrenched for a charming ¢éte-d-téte, the
family physician, an intimate friend, passes the sentry, and
would carry off the husband. Any idle pretext serves his
purpose—some urgent and important business, for instance,
in which her husband alone can aid him. Of course the latter
hates it, but goes, And as for her, she is so reasonable, that
even at such a time she would not interfere with their friend-
ship. In reality, it is all done for her sake. An old and very:
wise custom it was to let the bride breathe alittle. Would to
heaven the three days’ abstinence—save furtive snatches—
which once was imposed on them, were the rule now. Then
love gathered strength, and grew with its desire; and the
bride had time to compose herself; for kind Nature quickly
restores, soothes, and strengthens—but on condition that
there be a little rest. Love lost nothing by it, as we see
in the Song of Songs. For the bereaved virgin, when she
was no longer besieged and persecuted, languished as though
she were already a widow, and wished him to return at any
price. Truly a naive and significant outburst! She was very
well satisfied until then, this chaste maiden; and why did you
trouble her? Do not laugh, incorrigible man, but love and
adore her. See her (asin that glowing poem of Syria) dis-
tracted, rising at night, and seeking him through all the
gloomy streets, at the risk of shocking encounters. Protect
her, and lead her home again; or rather bring back her hus-
band to her. Ah! how happy he is! They will not complain
again; the pain of absence will render every other trouble
pleasant.

To return to her who does not roam the streets at night:
behold her for the first time in her new house, alone with her
own thoughts. She recollects herself now; she broods over
her wondrous dream, and reproduces its details. She turns to
her husband, so tender, so generous, so good; and her eyes
water. She recalls his gentleness, his patience, his infinite
delicacy under certain mysterious circumstances, and she
The Young Wife.—Solitary Thoughts. 177

blushes. Sometimes she fancies this is all an illusion, a
dream—and she fears to wake. But no—doubt is impossible ;
for a very palpable sign reassures her, a sign which will not
pass away. “So much the better! it is all true,” she says.
Thus her deep happiness, armed with thorns, speaks to her
from time to time—So much the better! I am his, then,
sealed with his love. It is done, and God could do no
more,”

So haughty before, and so stately always, she was still a
woman, and she is loving; she clings because she suffers, she
would belong and depend ; she enjoys in solitude the humili-
ties of passion. Ifthe thorns are sharp, she exalts herself the
more by the difficulty and the duty. She is as a wounded
woman, who insists on suckling her child. Then a strange
struggle takes place, wherein, much desiring, he devotedly
resists. If he is magnanimous and strong, if he abstain by
mere force of love, oh! her very heart melts, and in her
delight she repays him lavishly, in caresses, in kisses, in tears,
and overwhelms and intoxicates him. She no longer reckons
with him, but gives herself up in a hundred charming ways,
in short renders discretion impossible to him. He grows
dizzy ; his cruel exaction fills him with remorse. But having
but the sublime side of love, she, to her sorrow, perceives
only the divine uniting. ,

It is not an unusual thing for this fatal sensuality to be pro-
longed too far, sometimes for weeks and months, to the grave
peril of the devoted victim. He is sad, dejected, full of
regret, and yet sins on the same. She, proud, pure, and cou-
rageous, insists that they take no one’s advice. The only
remedy to be thought of, as I see, would be (if the husband
were a soldier or a sailor) sailing orders, or close duty for a
month. But what despair for her! At the first hint of
going, she weeps, and cries, ‘Let me die! what is the dif
ference! To lose thee is to die !”

‘She is very noble in all this! acknowledge that, my friend.

8*
178 The Young Wife.—Solitary Thoughts.

But of thee I know not what to say. I pity thee, poor slave
of the body, I pity our slavish nature.

How exalted, and how poetic! She is the poetry of heaven
fallen around you. May you feel it, and weave with it a deli-
cate religion! This frail but fascinating emanation from a
better world is given you,—for what? To change you, to
make you a better man. And you need it; for, frankly, you
are a barbarian. Civilize yourself a little. With your gentle
companion you may reform your manners; by her pure love
you may sanctify your heart..

Even yesterday, you were in company with noisy friends,
pursuing pleasure without restraint; and now you are with
this young saint, this virgin, this charming sybil, who knows,
or comprehends, or devises everything, who hears the very
grass grow in the ground. -

She has always lived in so harmonious, so pleasant, so well-
regulated and quiet a home, that your young strength, your
manly vitality, though they please her much, disturb her,
Your bold step, your somewhat noisy way of closing doors
and windows, startle her ear. Her mother walked so softly;
her father spoke but little, and in'solow atone. But your ring-
ing voice, with the true military quality, good to command sol-
diers with, made her start—I will not say tremble—the very
first day; but she laughed ina moment. Soften yourself for
your gentle companion, for she wishes to be your companion
in everything. She would assist and serve you, and be your
little friend, she says. And so she is, but a weak and frail one ;
and you must take the more care of her because she does not
like to be taken care of. “JZdelicate? Not at all. sick?
Never.”

She says to her mother, “ Everything goes well.” But
some day, when you are in haste to go, and are detained by
her, through over-attention to her toilet, you are thoughtlessly
harsh to her. Then, see how her heart overflows in tears.
Just then, her mother arrives, and catches her in the act; but
The Young Wife—Solitary Thoughts. 179

blames herself: “No, mamma, it is nothing; I was wrong,
and he corrected me.”

The busy man, compelled to be absent long hours together,
finds, in her very sadness, a beautiful, delicious compensation,
in being so anxiously awaited. How touching she is! and
what a pity you could not return secretly and conceal yourself,
so as to witness her agitation, especially in the last moments.
How freely, then, might you read on her frank face, in her
eloquent eyes, all that she feels for youin her heart! She
need not speak—I can hear it all: “‘ Why is he not here? It
is so long since he went away. Will he tell me something ?
Will he have some news to entertain me with? I do so long
for him! to hear him ascend the stairs quickly and firmly, as
he always does! Then, in a moment, everything will be
changed; the house, full of happiness and mirth, will fairly
tremble with joy. The table, the hearth, will glow again.
Such a fine appetite, such rapid stories! His plate shall be
here.—No, better here. These are his favorite dishes, ours—
for us two alone (Fido shan’t have any)—a kiss for every
mouthful. If the fire makes me sleepy, or if I make believe,
he, who never sleeps, will know how to wake me. I have on
the head-dress he thought so pretty.—But I am wrong.—If
he should be tired? Or oh! if he should say that I have
taken possession of him, expressly for to-night, I should feel
so ashamed !”

Such are her simple thoughts, which perhaps I should have
done as well to keep to myself. It is four o’clock, and you
are not expected till six, but still she cannot keep still. She
goes and comes, and looks at the sun, and takes her place at
the window. “ What is the matter? Night is coming on,
and my flowers are closing. The smoke is rising from the
chimneys. Those people are very happy; they have returned,
and their families are united. What is he doing, and where

is he ?”
By accident, that day, something unavoidable detains you.
180 She would be His Partner and Client.

The clock strikes seven. Oh! how her tide, her torrent
of fancies, apprehensions, dreams, rushes in! Even her
natural sweetness is disturbed. A tear of impatience escapes
her, and (could I have believed it?) she stamps her foot.
Ten or twenty times already, the table, the fire have been
retouched, improved, perfected; but they bring not back the
master. Her anxiety is at its height; her pulse beats rapidly.
But hark! a sound on the steps—three steps at a time—he
rushes in. And she, too—another would have controlled her-
self, would have maintained her dignity—would have waited !
But this poor little thing waits for nothing, but hastens to
drown herself in your kiss, and faint between your arms.

 

 

VIt.
SHE WOULD BE HIS PARTNER AND HIS CLIENT.

One day I heard a pretty saying of the peasants: “ See,
they have been married only a week, and already they are
so loving!” That already is charming. It expresses a very
truly and deeply human idea—that we love in proportion to
our intimate knowledge of each other, in proportion to the
length of time we live together and enjoy each other’s society.
This may astonish the blasé, the sick, and the tired. The
deranged stomach thinks it necessary continually to change
its food; it finds everything insipid, and has no appetite.
If it were healthier, it would see that the same is never
the same; when one’s taste has its natural and correct tone,
it perceives the marvellously delicate shades with which the
same food is incessantly diversified.

If this is true of taste, the lowest of the senses, how much
more so of love, the most delicate, the most complex !
She would be His Partner and Client. 181

In the higher orders of animals, we all know that there is
much more variety in the renewings and metamorphoses of a
single female, than in the brutal tasting of many. With man,
love is a voyage of discovery in a little world—infinite,
always infinite, because always renewed—from mystery to
mystery, by the eternal revealings of the beloved—ever
new and ever unsounded; because we are always creating
there.

The honeymoon days of marriage are those of dizzy, blind
passion—if I may say so, a season of physiology. In these
first tastings of the tree of life we hardly distinguish its true
flavor. The newly-wedded wife would be much humiliated, if
she possessed sufficient sang-froid to perceive the truth, in spite
of so many fine speeches—namely, how much her sex has to
do with her lover’s infatuation, how little she herself. It is
only with time that a man learns to fully appreciate a distinct,
loving, and beloved personality—the woman whose preference
for him makes her superior to every other. He loves her,
then, for the pleasure she gives and has given; he loves her as
his own creation, sculptured and impregnated by himself.
He loves her for that high attribute of love, that in its most
passionate climax it is no longer frenzy, nor annihilation, but
God made manifest.

“ People love,” they say, ‘ because they do not yet know
each other; as soon as they do, they will love no longer.”

Who, then, do know each other? I meet in the world
only people who are ignorant of each other, who in the same
chamber live strangers to each other; who, having failed
awkwardly at the only point where they might have blended,
remain discouraged, inert, in stupid juxtaposition, like one
stone against another. Who knows? the stone struck, might
have given forth electric sparks, or perhaps gold or diamonds.

Another maxim is: “ The marriage once consummated,
adieu to love.”

Marriage, indeed! and where will you find it? I see it
182 She would be His Partner and Client.

almost nowhere; the married people I know can scarcely be
called married.

That term, marriage, is very elastic; it admits of immense
thermometrical latitude. One is married at twenty degrees,
another at ten, another at zero. Let us always distinguish
and ask, “In what degree are they man and wife ?”

Everything in married life depends on the beginning; and
we must confess that, in general, the fault lies not with the
women. Young ladies, really young, whom confession, ro-
mance, and the world have not precociously matured and de-
veloped, bring to marriage delightful luxuriance of heart, an
instinctive docility, and good intentions. They have great ex-
pectations of the life on which they are entering. She, who,
with her parents, was industrious, studied zealously, and
seemed to know everything, wishes now to learn everything
anew from her husband. And she is very right, for it will all
return to her invested with life and ardor. She at first
received it passively, as inert and cold matter; but now she will
grasp it, quickened with that burning electricity which is the
only. magnetism that unites soul and body.

Yet we grant that her father acted wisely : if he had given
her a stronger impress, he would have committed a blunder.
The unknown and unforeseen fate of his daughter, was this very
same future husband; it was necessary then that her education
should not be too definitive, but somewhat elastic. Besides
there is no stamina in the family—the mother, very often, still
entertains the old superannuated ideas which cannot be those
of a young man; and the father, though more decided, has
not been able to influence his daughter as to many difficult
and dangerous questions, wherein the heart and the judgment
are at stake. How many maxims in morality and facts in
history, has he not shown her in profile! but it belongs to the
husband to fill them up.

Those vague, those incomplete family traditions, the hesita-
tion and vacillation in the life and words of old ‘persons, are
She would be His Partner and Client. 183

precisely what the young wife must be removed from. She
desires a man of decision, who will never be in doubt, who
will think and act with firmness and strength; who even
on trying and painful occasions will retain the serenity and
good-humor of invincible courage. She will take pleasure,
with such a true man, in being able to act the woman ; in hav-
ing for her confidence and her life a good pillow (but not too
soft) on which she may lie in perfect rest. Of such a prize, she
says, with her whole heart, “‘ He is my master ;” but her smile
adds: “ Whose mistress I am”—mistress by the great
subordination, mistress, in the full delight of obeying—which,
when one loves, is bliss unutterable.

I do not remember what Indian law-maker it is who forbids
the young wife, loving and admiring, to look at her husband
too much. And what should she look upon, if not her own
living, luminous book, wherein she may read at a glance,
both what she shall believe, and what she shall do.

How happy she will be! What limitless faith, what a pas-
sion of obedience she brings to you. As a maiden she eludes
you. You may read in the songs of the modern Persians,
in the ballads of Provence, how she flies through all
nature, taking a hundred forms that she may be pursued.
But once overtaken, wounded, become a woman, far from
flying, she follows, willingly follows her captor; she would
even be held a closer captive. And in this there is no decep-
tion; in this naive and humble aspect, she fears only to be
troublesome; she walks behind, step by step, and says, “I
will go anywhere.” Create, if you can, a new world, full of
unknown perils, she will follow you there. She will become
an element—air, water, fire—and follow you into the infinite ;
or, better still, she will be all imbued with life which shall
mingle with your own—if you like, a flower; if you choose,
a hero.

Beneficent gift of God! Woe to the cold, dull, proud man,
who, thinking he possesses everything, knows not how to
184 She would be His Partner and Client.

profit by the unbounded devotion, the delicious abandonment
of her who gives herself up, without reservation, that he may
be made the happier for it.

The man has a hundred ideas, a hundred objects of con-
centration; she only one—her husband. You should say to
yourself, on going out in the morning, “‘ What will my darling,
my soul’s joy, do all alone, the many hours she will wait for
me? What shall I bring to her to interest and refresh her ;
for it is from me she receives her life.” Remember this, and
never bring back to her, as so many do, the cares of the day,
the bitter dregs of failure. You are sustained by the excite-
ment of the struggle, by the necessity of exertion, or the
hope of ‘doing better to-morrow; but she, this poor woman-
soul, so sensitive as to all that relates to you, she would be
very differently affected by the blow; she would retain the
wound, and languish of it long. Be young and brave for
both; return serious, if the misfortune be indeed important,
but never overwhelmed—spare, oh! spare your child.

The best way to strengthen her against these chances, is to
very gradually initiate her into your business. This is practi-
cable in many professions; we improperly circumscribe the
circle of those. which woman may enter, though many are,
doubtless, too laborious for her, requiring effort, time, and
will.

But you could not better employ your time. What an
admirable companion! what a useful partner! How much
will be gained by it, especially for your hearts, and your
domestic happiness. Thus to be one is true strength, repose
and freedom.

She wishes to work with you. Well, take her at her
word; set about it, not with the petty attentions of gallantry,
but with strong, earnest love. Know that at this time she is
capable of great effort, of continued application, that she will
do anything to be loved.

I can cite the noblest, the most surprising examples of this:
She would be His Partner and Client. 185

An illustrious physician, at the head of one of the greatest
Schools of the age, had, in his young wife, his favorite dis-
ciple and his competent assistant, possessed of a mind truly
manly in its vigor, and of profound sagacity. The great
physiologist, who discovered and defined the law of Ovology,
often saw, and saw correctly, as has been proved, through
the eyes of a woman. This is perhaps the noblest fact of
its kind; that an admirable wife, by persevering devotion,
thus contributed to the revelation of marriage. Without
this woman would women have ever been understood? Her
heroic exertions, directed by genius, fathomed the great mys-
tery, which has opened a world to us. Hitherto we had loved
at hazard, we had loved in the dark. Humanity, which
henceforth will love in the light, will not be ungrateful, and
in drinking from its wells of affection and happiness, will
always remember Madame Pouchet, of Rouen.

Every man, taking into consideration the character of his
profession and the capacity of his wife, should establish his
community of interests in a greater or less degree, but it
should inevitably be done. The artist, absorbed in his
technicalities and his specialties, and in the minute details
of execution, ought not to retire within himself, and shut out
his wife from the great idea which inspires his work, and
which she herself would have fostered and sustained. The
lawyer or the politician cannot afford to keep her in igno-
rance of what makes up his life; she can seldom be of any
use to him, but she should be none the less informed. She
is much more at home with the natural sciences. The physi-
cian, who returns home fatigued and harassed with his grave
responsibilities, cannot be a “society” man; he will scarcely go
to the drawing-room to pass his leisare moments. How com-
pletely might he rest on the domestic hearth, pursuing his
peaceful study of the secrets of life, which indirectly may
arm him for his combat against death.

Infinitely varied are the souls of women! Men, as I have
186 Arts and Reading—The Common Faith.

said before, are cast in the same mould, made uniform by edu-
cation; but women are much more natural, and very diverse.
Nothing is more charming than the fact that no one woman
resembles another. Voyagers on tropical seas, sometimes be-
hold the water, for immense distances, transformed into a bril-
liant parterre, glowing with an infinite variety of bright-hued
creations, Are they plants, flowers? Yes—living flowers, a
marvellous iris of exquisite lives, seemingly fluid, but organ-
ized—moving, active, having volition. It is the same with that
social parterre which the female world presents. Are they
flowers? No, they are souls.

Most men, sensual and blind, in their flatteries and caresses,
say: “They are flowers; let us pluck them; let us inhale
and enjoy their perfume; they bloom only for our pleasure.”
Oh! how much greater the pleasure would be if they would
cherish the poor flower, if they would leave it on its stem, and
cultivate it according to its nature! What a charm of hap-
piness would it not give back to him who would devote his
soul to it! ;

But as the flowers are varied, so are the modes of nurture.
One needs grafting, the introduction of a different sap, for
she is as yet young and wild; another soft and sweet, and
thoroughly permeable, needs only imbibition—nothing is want-
ing but to infiltrate her life; another is more than fluid, she is
fantastic, a fly-away; the dust of her love is scattered to the
wind; she must be housed, concentrated, above all, fecun-
dated.

 

 

IX.

ARTS AND READING.—THE COMMON FAITH.

A sirp-sone of our fathers, shows the trivial ideal of
their day:
Arts and Reading-—The Common Faith. 187

T was little, and a fool,

When they sent me to school;
I was little, and a fool,

When they sent me to school;
But nothing there I heard,
Save a little loving word,
Which, now I have a lover,

I am always saying over.

But this “little loving word,” you must develop; and
what does it contain? The three worlds, all that is real—and
no more.

She would be but too happy to leave you to work, to act,
to reason alone; she would be glad to be only a charming
thing, that gave you pleasure. But you must make an indivi-
dual of her, and introduce her more and more into your world
of thought. The more intellectual she becomes, the more
means will she possess to unite herself more closely with you.
Make her strong—never fear. She will be softened at finding
herself more free through you, happy in having more to give,
in possessing a will, so as the more completely to lose herself
in you.

Learn this new thing, one which shall constitute one of the
blessings of the future, in a more civilized society: namely,
every art, every science affords us special means whe zby to
penetrate more profoundly into the personality.

It is not easy for two souls alone to fathom each other, and
to mingle together. But each of those great methods which
are called sciences or arts, is a mediator that touches a new
chord, and discovers an organ of unknown love, in the beloved.

Learn this other thing, too little observed, which renders our
communion of ideas with woman delightful: namely, that she
receives them by senses which are altogether different from
ours, and gives them back to us, under most beautiful and
touching forms which have all the charm of complete surprises,
What to man is only light, is to woman warmth, first of all,
188 Arts and Reading—The Common Faith.

An idea takes the form of sentiment; if it is profound, it be-
comes nervous emotion. A thought, an invention, some use-
ful novelty, affects your brain pleasantly, and makes you smile,
as with an agreeable surprise. But she, she feels at once the
good which will result from it, a new happiness for humanity.
This touches her heart—she trembles—she shivers with agi-
tation—she is well-nigh weeping. You hasten to strengthen
her, you take her hand tenderly, but her emotion is not
calmed ; like a circle in the water, spreading into ever-widening
circles, it extends ‘throughout her whole system, to the very
depths of her nature, where it mingles with her tenderness,
and, like everything else in her, melts im love for you; so she
throws herself on your breast, and clasps you in her arms.

‘What boundless happiness will you enjoy in traversing with
her the world of Art; for each art is but a different way of
loving; each, especially in its perfection, blends itself with love,
or with religion, which is the same thing. Whoever initiatés
a woman in these higher temples, is her priest and lover.
The stories of Héloise, and the new Héloise, do not belong to
the past, but to the present, and the future—in a word, to
eternity.

That is why the maiden can pursue art only to a certain
extent, and why her father is an imperfect guide. He cannot,
he wi ' not, allow her to pass with him beyond certain grave |
and frigid regions. He leads her there, but when she would
advance farther, in her young and pure enthusiasm, he stops—
draws back; for she stands on the dangerous threshold of a
new world—Love.

For instance, in drawing, he gives her the old Florentine
school in its grandeur, the Madonnas of Raphael, the chaste
pictures of Poussin. It would be impious to place Correggio
before her—with his quiverings, and his burning passion. It
would be immoral to show her the deep but unwholesome
meaning, the feverish and sinister grace of the dying Italy,
in the smile of the Joconda.
Arts and Reading.—The Common Faith. 189

Life itself, life with its emotions, teaches only by love.
When the superb Nereid, the luxurious blonde of Rubens,
treads the foaming waters, murmurs the marriage hymn, and
already conceives of the future—so much the worse for the
maiden who shall feel that emotion, shall understand that
je ne sais quot, which issues from her amorous mouth. In her
heart, she would know it too well.

Even the master-piece of Greece, pure and sublime in its
greatness, so far, so very far from the sensuality of the painter
of Antwerp—the fainting women, the swooning mothers of the
temple of Theseus—what maiden would dare copy them?
Such the palpitation, such the heart-beating, visible under
those beautiful robes, that she would be troubled. The con-
tagion of love and maternity would utterly confuse her. Oh!
better that she wait awhile. Only under the eyes of her
lover, in the arms of her husband may she be inspired by
these things and appropriate to herself their life—may inhale
their effluvia and their warm impregnation, may drink long
draughts of their beauty, adorn herself with it, and endow
with it the fruit of her bosom.

Music is the true glory, the very spirit of the modern world.
I define it, the art of fusing hearts, the art of mutual penetra-
tion and an intimacy so close, that by it, into the heart
of your beloved, your wife, the mother of your children,
you shall penetrate still deeper. What Dumesnil and Alex-
andre have said of grand symphonies, of the music of friend-
ship, of chamber music, I admire too much to repeat. I
have only this to add; that between man and woman all is the
music of love, the music of home, and of the closet. A duet
is a marriage; the singers do not simply lend themselves to
it, but they give up their hearts for the time, give themselves
up with even more abandon than they desire. What shall I
say then of her who every evening sings, with the first comer,
those moving, pathetic melodies which blend two souls toge-
ther as completely as the first kiss? The lover, the husband,
190 Arts and Reading—The Common Faith.

will come too late, she has nothing, more to bestow upon
him.

Happy the man, whose wife renews his heart, day by day,
with music in the evening! “All that I have, I give to
you,” she says. “My ideas? No, I am still so ignorant;
but through you I shall in time know everything. All I have
to give you, is the breath of my heart, the life of my life, my
soul, without form, in which my love floats like an uncertain
shadow, a dream. Oh, take both me and my dream!”

“Ah! how little I know of music,” he says. ‘ What a
savage life I have lived.”

She begins, and strives to abandon herself wholly to the
inspiration, but cannot satisfy herself—it is so pure, so lofty!

H@ soars on golden wings into the vast heaven of love.
He would also accompany her a little with his voice; at first,
he dares not, but hums low, timidly restraining his power.
Then, by degrees, launching out, he thrills her in his turff.
Half choked, she tries to go on—she trembles—oh, how united
they are!—but their emotion is too strong, their voices fail,
the song dies away in an abyss of profound harmony.

Music is the crown, the perfect flower of arts. But to
make it the principal basis of education, as is often done, is
senseless and decidedly dangerous. Music is a modern art,
almost without a past; the arts of Design, on the contrary,
are of all times, and are represented in every period of his-
tory. For this reason, alone, they furnish rich and varied
instruction. At every epoch, sculpture and painting afford not
only models for imitation, but the most fruitful texts for intel-
lectual improvement. These texts identify themselves won-
derfully with those of literature, and even supply their place.
What Rabelais and Shakspeare could not express of some
idea, some nice feature, some aspect of their age, is told by
Da Vinci, by Correggio, by Michael Angelo, or Goujon.

All the too passionate books which the father avoided, from
which, at the utmost, he only dared to make extracts, are
Arts and Reading—The Common Faith. 191

laid open before you. And what delight will it not afford
you thus to place between you and your beloved all the trea-
sures of life, both the Bibles of history and the Bibles of
nature! Their admirable concordance will be to her as a
pillow on which her faith may rest. Every evening, without
exciting her too much, and without interfering with her re-
pose, some pleasant and improving reading, varied with affec-
tionate conversation, may reveal to her something of the
universal love, and some new aspect of God. She may now
properly know all things, for she is a woman. What would
have: troubled the maiden will sanctify the wife’s heart, and
give her, by your side, sweet sleep and blessed dreams.

It is through love that woman receives everything, even
her intellectual culture. Would you nourish her with the trite
and the commonplace? Under the pretext of facility this is
always done; we know that, on the contrary, only the great
and strong are simple. Woman says modestly: “TI leave
great facts to men, and read only light novels.” But these
novels, tame and insipid with their sickly images of love, are
not the less complicated in incident and plot. No, let us
always look to the highest; there shall we find the great
intellect and the strong heart, even purity itself.

Love! where shall we look for it. Many a woman seeks it
in Balzac. She had better go to Madame Sand, for in her
works there is, at least, always an aspiration for the ideal;
and better still, to the Cid and Romeo, to Sakontala and
Virgil’s Dido.

But from an enormous height, above all other human
works, the great legends of antiquity excel the rest, putting
them to shame.

Our idezs of progress create no illusions; antiquity has
left us to fathom the depth of Analysis, which is the ground-
work of progress. With its synthetic power, and the organic
vitality which propelled it forward, this young giant, with
two strides, touched the poles, and reached the very bounda-
192 Woman the Goddess of Goodness.

ries of the world. Analysis has created the great types of
divine simplicity. Thus, marriage in Persia is of a type so
heroic, that even in Rome it suffers a prosaic, vulgar de-
basement. Hence, affection, ardor, the divine power of life
and instinctive tenderness, love—sensual it may be—but
diffusing itself in impulses of universal beneficence: such is
the story of Egypt. Nothing has ever been added to it, and
we can only adore it.

; X.

THE GREAT LEGEND OF AFRICA.— WOMAN THE
GODDESS OF GOODNESS.

(Fragment from the History of Love.)

Tur chef-d’euvre of Egyptian art, the Rameses, as it is
seen in Ipsamboul, in Memphis, and in the museum at Turin,
affords a unique example of goodness in power, and of sub-
lime repose. Its expression, which one might deem peculiar
to that face, I have found again, in a degree, in the head of
a@ young man, on a beautiful coin of Leyden. It is cha-
racteristic of the race, and very different from the sharp, thin,
Arab profile, which seems cut with a razor. In this head
there is an extreme gentleness, and a fulness, which, how-
ever, is not heavy, hut seems the effect of a peaceful develop-
ment of all the moral qualities. Man’s heart is in his face,
sanctifying, beautifying the external forms by the internal
ray.

This extraordinary expression of countenance is more than
individual; it is the revelation of a race. In it we perceive
that the great Egypt was as a moral festival; the joy and the
Woman the Goddess of Goodness. 193

divine smile of that deep African world, shut in on every
other side. The highest type of the African, above the
negro, above the black, appears to be the Egyptian. So
unfortunate, so constantly kept down, from the time of Joseph
to that of Mohammed Ali—even to our own time indeed—
the poor fellah of Egypt is yet a man of intelligence and un-
common dexterity. A mechanic in the service of the pacha
told me that the poor man whom he took into his workshops
paid the closest attention, imitated him perfectly, and became
in a fortnight as good a workman as a European in two
years.

This is also owing to their gentleness and their great
docility, to their necessity of pleasing and satisfying, An
excellent race of men, they desire only to love and to be
loved. In the cruel immolation of the individual and the
family, which power has always compelled, their mutual ten-
derness seems so much the greater. The premature death of
the man yielding to excessive toil, the child snatched away by
cruel military razzias, make for them an uninterrupted suc-
cession of tears and sighs and mourning. The old lamentation

_of Isis, seeking her Osiris, has never ceased in Egypt; along
her great river, at every moment, you hear it repeated. You
find it painted and sculptured all through the country. What
are those monuments of grief, that infinite care to save what
may be saved of the body, that binding the dead with fillets
inscribed with prayers, that commending to the gods the
absent one? I have never visited Egypt; but when I go over
our Egyptian museums, I feel that this immense effort of an
entire people, these excessive expenses imposed upon the
poorest, are the most ardent expression of aspiration the heart
of man has ever shown—to cherish the beloved object, and
follow it in death.

Religions until then had dealt in epics; but hush !—here is
the Drama; and a new genius arises over Europe and over

Asia,
9
194 Woman the Goddess of Goodness.

Let us lay the scene first. This land of toil and tears,
Egypt, is in itself a feast, and a land of joy. In the burning
bosom of Africa, fervid mother of a swarthy race, is opened
by a breeze from the north a valley of promise. From un-
known mountains the torrent of fertility descends. We share
the frantic joy of the traveller, well-nigh dying of thirst, who,
overcoming the sands at last, reaches his longed-for oasis—
Egypt at last, the great oasis of Africa.

In Egypt, the first word is “Isis,” and “Isis” is the last ;
for Woman reigns there. It is a remarkable saying, that of
Diodorus, that in Egypt husbands swear obedience to their
wives—an exaggerated expression of the great fact of female
predominance.

The lofty genius of Africa, the queen of ancient Egypt, is
this Isis; her throne eternally decked with attributes of fecun-
dation. The lotus is her sceptre, the calyx of the flower of
love. Instead of a diadem, royally on her brow she bears a
vulture, the insatiate bird, that never cries “enough.” And
to show that this greediness will not be vain, in her strange
headdress the insignia of the fruitful cow rise above the vul-
ture, to signify maternity. This kind fruitfulness, this inex-
haustible maternal goodness, is what glorifies and purifies the
heats of Africa. Presently come, too thickly indeed, death
and mourning, and the eternity of sorrow to sanctify them.
Do religions spring only from nature, from climate, from the
inevitable destinies of race and country? Oh! much more
from the needs of the heart. Almost always they arise out of
the sufferings of the wounded soul. In the pangs of a new
dispensation, man plucks from it, as from a tree of sorrows,
fresh fruit of consolation. Never has any religion borne clearer
testimony to this than the faith of old Egypt. It is manifestly
the sublime consolation of a poor laborious people, who, toil-
ing without respite, fearing death so much the more because
family was everything to them, sought. their aJleviations in
immortal nature, trusted themselves to its resurrections, and
Woman the Goddess of Goodness. 195

prayed to it for hope. And Nature, deeply moved, swore to
them that they should never die.

The potent originality of this great popular conception is that
thus for the first time, the human soul and earth and heaven
associated their triple drama with the outline of the year. The
year dies only to rise again. Love caught at this idea, and be-
lieved in the eternal renaissance and resurrection of the soul.

When I see among the mountains some peak of basalt, which
has pierced the superincumbent strata, and overlooks all other
summits, I ask myself from what profound depths, and by
what enormous force, has this giant arisen? The religion of
Egypt fills me with just that astonishment: From what
depths did it spring, of physical tenderness and love and grief?
The abysses of nature!

In the universal mother, Night, were conceived before all
time, a daughter and a son, Isis and Osiris, who already loved
each other in the womb, and who were so utterly one that Isis
became pregnant. Even before she was, she was a mother ;
for she bore a son, who was called Horus, but who was no
other than his father—another Osiris of goodness, and beau-
ty, and light. Then the three were born—a wonder! mother,
father, son, same age, same love, same heart.

How beautiful! behold them at the altar—woman, man, and
child—persons mark you, and living beings. Not the fantastic
trinity by which India united in a discordant marriage three
ancient religions. Not thescholastic trinity by which Byzan-
tian subtlety argued its metaphysics. But life, and nothing
more; from that burning ray of -nature flashed the triple hu-
man unity.

Oh, until then, how fierce and terrible were the gods! The
Indian Siva keeps his eyes closed, lest the world should perish
under his devouring glance. The God of the pure, the Fire
of.the Persians, hungers for all that exists. But here nature
herself is on the altar, under the sweet aspect of Family,
blessing creation with a mother’s eye; for the great god is a
196 Woman the Goddess of Goodness.

mother. How does this reassure me! I had feared that the
black race, governed too much by the beast, impressed in its
infancy with terrific images of the lion and the crocodile,
would produce only monsters. But thus is it softened, hu-
manized, made feminine. The loving African, in his profound
desire, has exalted the most touching object of all earthly
religions, What? That living reality, a good and faithful
woman.

Most ardent this, but so pure! Ardent, as we compare
it with cold, ontological dogmas. Pure, as we contrast it
with modern refinements, with our faint conceptions, our pious
corruptions, our world of equivocations.

All innocent, the joy bursts forth. Immense and popular,
the joy of exhausted Africa—a deluge of water, a prodigious
sea of sweet water, comes. I know not whence, but over-
flowing the land, deluging it with happiness, infiltrating and
insinuating itself into the least of its veins, so that not one
grain of sand shall complain that it is thirsty. The little dried-
up canals smile, as the babbling water visits them with refresh-
ment. The drooping plant laughs with all its heart, as the
welcome wave moistens its root, and takes possession of its
stalk, and mounts upward to its leaves, and hangs upon the
stem, which gently sighs—the whole a charming spectacle, and
one wide scene of love and pure delight, for the great Isis is
inundating her well beloved.

The good Osiris works and works, - He created Egypt herself,
and the land is hischild. He made the worship of Egypt, and
he engendered in her the arts, without which she would
have perished.

But nothing lasts. The gods have disappeared. The living
Sun of goodness, which planted in the bosom of Isis all the
fruits, and everything that was salutary, could of himself cre-
ate all things except time and duration. One morning he
was gone. O, void, immense! where is he? Isis, distracted,
searches for him.
Woman the Goddess of Goodness. 197

The sombre doctrine spread throughout all western Asia,
that even the gods must die; but that dogma of Syria and
Asia Minor, and the isles, could not even approach, it seems,
this robust Africa, which has so vivid and so ever-present a
sentiment of life..

But why deny it? For everything dies. The Father of
Life, old Nile himself, is exhausted and dried up. At certain
times the Sun is no longer himself, but, dejected and pale, has
lost his rays. Osiris, life, goodness die together, and by a bar-
barous death, his limbs all scattered. His weeping wife finds
his remains ; but one part is wanting, and she seeks that, tearing
her hair, “ Alas! that part is Life itself, the energy of Life,
the sacred power of Life! If you are wanting, what shall be-
come of the world? Where may yoube found again?” She
implores the Nile, she cries to Egypt. But Egypt takes care
not to give up her assurance of perpetual fertility.

Yet, so great a grief well deserved a miracle; and in that
fierce combat of tenderness and death, Osiris, all dismembered
as he is, and cruelly mutilated, resuscitated by an omnipotent
will, returns to her. And so great is the love of the dead,
that, by the magic of the heart, he finds a last desire.

He has returned from the tomb only to make her a mother
again. And, ah, how eagerly does she receive the embrace!
But it is only an adieu, and the glowing bosom of Isis will
never warm thaticy germ. What of that? The fruit it bears,
sad and pale though it be, proclaims no less the supreme victory
of love, which was fruitful before life, and is fruitful after it.

Interpreters of this legend ascribe to it a significance of
astronomical symbolism; and, certainly, the coincidence of
the destiny of man with the course of the year, the decline
of the sun, etc., has been recognised from the earliest times.
But all this is secondary, and of later observation. Its primal
origin was in humanity, the actual wound of the bereaved
widow of Egypt, and her inconsolable grief.

On the other hand, let not the African and material coloring
198 Woman the Goddess of Goodness.

deceive you. Here, truly, is something more than regret for
physical joys, and unsatisfied desire. In such suffering doubt-
less nature demands something. But Isis did not desire merely
aman; she longed for him whom alone she loved, her own
and not another—the same, always the same. The sentiment
is entirely exclusive, and entirely individual. We perceive it
in the infinite care bestowed upon the body, so that not a
single atom shall be lost, so that death may change no part
of it, but one day shall restore, in its wholeness, this sole object
of love.

“T long for him who was mine, who was myself, and my
completeness. I desire him, and heshalllive again. The heetle
reappears, and the phenix; the sun, the year return, And
so I long for him, and he shall arise again. Am I not life and
eternal nature? Though he disappear some day, he will
certainly return to me. I feel him, I carry him within myself.
In myself I had him before I was. I tell you I was his sister
and his lover; but I was his mother also.

Simple and profound truth; and thus under a mythological
form the triple mystery of love is expressed for the first time.
The wife is a true sister to the man in the labors of life—more
than sister, and more than wife, to console him, and to rest his
weary head at night. She comforts his fatigue; a nurse, she
lulls him to sleep, and taking him again into her bosom, brings
him forth with renewed life, forgetful of all things, and rejuve-
nated for the joyous waking of the morn. Such is the power
of marriage, but not of transient pleasure. The longer it lasts
the more is the wife a mother to the husband, the more is he
her son.

It is their guaranty of immortality. United thus, who shall
disunite them? Isis contained Osiris, and so inclosed him in her
maternal tenderness, that all separation was but a phantasy.

In this legend, so tender, so pure, so simple, there is a mar-
vellous intimation of immortality, never surpassed. Be hope-
ful, all afflicted hearts, forlorn widows, and little orphans!
Woman the Goddess of Goodness. 199

you weep; but Isis also weeps, and she does not despair.
Osiris, dead, yet lives, continually renewed in his innocent
Apis. Down there, he is a shepherd of souls, a gentle guardian
of the world of shades, and your dead one is near him. Fear
not! allis well. One day he will return to claim his body from
you. Envelope with care those precious remains. Embalm
them with perfumes, with prayers, and with burning tears.
Preserve them very near you. O happy day, when the Father
of souls, issuing from his gloomy realms, shall restore to you
your beloved, shall join him to his body again, and say; I
have taken care of him for you.

The eternity of the soul—not vague and impersonal, as in
the creed of Asia—but the individual soul, consecrated and
eternalized in love, the imperishable permanence of the adored
one, the tender goodness of God held fast by the tears of a
woman and pledged to restore—this sublime blessing is the
boon of all, and henceforth shall never pass away.

God has promised only for the good; he will separate
them from the wicked. In this, for the first time, we
clearly: apprehend the Judgment and divine justice. Wait-
ing, let us labor, let us build with eternal materials, let us per-
petuate our memories, let us address ourselves to future ages
in the language of marble and granite. All Egypt is as a
book to which all the wise may come, one by one, to learn.

Consequently, all nations imitate her, and become emulous
of immortality. They heap up, and they accumulate. Each
day enriches the inheritance of the human race.

Thus by a moral of art, of labor, of immortality, this
adorable legend fertilizes the whole earth.
200 How Woman excels Man.

XI.

HOW WOMAN EXCELS MAN,

TuE true happiness of the teacher is in finding himself
surpassed by his pupil. Woman, constantly cultivated by
man, and enriched by his thought, soon believes; and some
morning she finds herself superior to him.

She becomes superior to him, as well by these new elements
as by her personal gifts, which without the inspirations she
derives from man would scarcely have come to light. Melo-
dious aspirations, and sensibility to nature, these were in her;
but they have flourished by love. Add one gift (so high, that
it is the all in all, that which chiefly distinguishes our race
from others): a true and charming womanly heart, opulent
with compassion, with knowledge to console all, the divinations
of pity.

She is docile, she is modest, she is unconscious of her splen-
dor; but at every moment it blazes forth.

You take her to the Jardin des Plantes, and she dreams
there of Alps, and virgin forests of America. You take her
to the galleries of pictures, and she dreams of the time when
there will no longer be museums, when whole cities shall be
galleries, and have their walls painted like the Campo-Santo.
At the labored concerts of artists, she thinks of the concerts
of the people which shall be hereafter—grand confederations
wherein the souls of all the human race will be united ina
final harmony of universal friendship.

You are strong; she is divine—a daughter and a sister of
nature. She leans upon your arm, and yet she has wings.
She is feeble, she is in pain; and it is just when her beautiful
languishing eyes bear witness that she suffers, that the dear
aibyl soars to lofty heights and inaccessible summits. Who
knows how she mounts thither ?
How Woman excels Man. 201

Your tenderness has done much towards that. If she has
this power, if as woman and mother, united with man, she
possesses in the midst of marriage the sibylline virginity, it is
because your anxious love, surrounding the dear treasure, has
divided and distributed your life——for you, hard labor and
the rude contacts of the world—for her, peace and love, ma-
ternity, art, and all the tender cares of domesticity.

How well you have done! and how grateful am I for it!
Oh! woman, fragile globe of incomparable alabaster, wherein
burns the lamp of God, one must care for thee well, bear thee
with a pious hand, and guard thee closely in the warmth of
his bosom.

It is by sharing with her the miseries of the special labor
with which your days are occupied, dear workman, that you
will preserve her in the nobleness which only children and
women have—that amiable aristocracy of the human race.
She is your nobleness, your own, to raise you above yourself.
When you return from the forge, panting, fatigued with labor,
she, young and fresh, pours over you her youth, brings the
sacred wave of life to you, and makes you a god again, with
akiss. With so divine an object near you, you will not blindly
follow the temptations which allure youfrom your rugged and
narrow path. You will each moment feel the happy necessity
of elevating and extending your conceptions, in order to fol-
low your dear pupil whither you have elevated her. Your
young friend, your scholar, as she modestly calls herself, will
not permit you, O master, to shut yourself up in your avoca-
tion. She beseeches you every moment to come out from it,
and aid her to remain in harmony with all that is noble and
beautiful. To suffice for the humble needs of your little com-
rade, you will be forced to be great.

She is practical, and she is spiritual; she has the most oc-
taves, above and below. She is a lyre of ampler range than
you,—but not complete, for she is not very strong in the
middle chords.

9*
202 How Woman excels Man.

She reaches into the details of matters which escape us.
And on the other hand, at certain times, she sees over our
heads, pierces the future, the invisible, and penetrates through
the body into the world of spirits.

But the practical faculty she has for small things, and the
prophetic faculty that sometimes leads to great, have rarely a
medium, strong, calm, and melodious, whereby she can fall
back upon herself, and fecundate herself. For the most part,
she alternates rapidly without change, according’ to the
month. Now her poetry declines to prose, then her prose
rises to poetry, often by fierce storms, by sudden gusts of the
mistral, like the climate of Provence.

An illustrious reasoner laughs at these prophetic powers,
and denies them, incontestable as they are. In the effort to
depreciate them, he seems to confound the spontaneous inspi-
rations of the woman with somnambulism, a sickly, dangerous
state, a nervous debility, often caused by the arrogance of the
man. He asks what we can do with a faculty so uncertain,
“ besides being physical and inevitable.”

I know that inspiration, even the most spontaneous, is not
entirely free. It is always mingled and marked with a measure
of fatality. If for that you would degrade it, you must con-
tend that eminent artists are not men. You must class with
the women Rembrandt, Mozart and Correggio, Beethoven,
Dante, Shakspeare, Pascal, all the great writers. Is it abso-
lutely certain that even those who believe in relying exclu-
sively on logic, never yield to this feminine power of inspira-
tion? I find traces of it even among the closest reasoners.
Let them become ever so little artistic, and they unwittingly
fall under the wand of the fairy.

We cannot say (like Proudhon) that woman is only recep-
tive. She is productive by her influence upon man, both in
the ideal, and in the real. But her thought seldom attains a
strong reality ; and that is why she has created so little.

The political world is generally almost inaccessible to her.
How Woman excels Man. 203

A generative and essentially masculine spirit is necessary to
it. But she has the sense of order, and is well fitted for ad-
ministration.

The great creations of art seem even now impossible to
her. Every noble work of civilization is a product of the
genius of man.

All this has been made, very foolishly, a question of self-
love. The man and the woman are two relative and incom-
plete beings, only two halves of a whole. They should love
and respect each other.

She is relative: therefore she should respect the man, who
creates everything for her. She has no support, no happiness,
no wealth which does not come from him.

He is relative: therefore he ought to respect, to adore the
woman, who creates the man, and the pleasure of man, who
by the magic of eternal desire has drawn from him, from age
to age, those jets of flame which are called arts and civiliza-
tions. She renews him every evening, bestowing by turns
the two graces of life:—in soothing him, which is harmony,
in putting him off, which is the spark. She has thus created
the creator, and that is all he is.

I do not upbraid woman for not producing things for which
she was not made. I only accuse her of feeling too exclusively,
sometimes, her proud and charming ascendancy, and of not
taking into account the world of creation—the productive
sense of man, the fruitful energy, the prodigious effort of the
great workman. She does not even suspect their existence.

She is beauty, and loves only the beautiful, but without
effort—the beautiful ready made. There is another beauty
of which she can scarcely conceive, that of action, of heroic
toil, which has even made that beautiful thing, but is more
beautiful itself, and often even sublime.

A thousand pities for the poor creator—to see that in ad-
miring the effect, the completed work, she does not admire
the cause, but often despises it! that it should be precisely
204 How Woman excels Man.

the effort he makes for her that kills her heart. out, and that
by deserving more he begins to please her less.

“Let me do what I may, I do not attach her to me. She
has been mine this long time, and yet I shall never truly pos-
sess her,”

Such was the rather singular remark that a man of true
merit, of a loving and faithful heart, always in love with his
wife, made to me one day. She, brilliant, but good and true,
complaisant and amiable towards him, could be the object of
no serious reproach. She had no faults, but her superiority and
her ever increasing distinction. He felt, not without sorrow,
that she, his darling idol, was no longer wrapped up in him as
at first; and that, in spite of his devotion, she soared into a
sphere independent of that in which he had concentrated his .
energies,

These words perfectly explain the types I have set up in my
chapters on education: “The modern man is essentially a
worker, ‘a producer ; the woman a harmony.”

The more the man becomes creative, the more striking the
contrast, It explains much of that coolness, which we should
be wrong to regard as fickleness, ennui, satiety—a coolness
which is not always because the pair are wearied with finding
each other ever the same, with never changing—but on the
contrary, because they have changed, and progressed and
ascended. This progress, which should be a ‘new reason for
loving each other, is nevertheless the cause, that finding no
longer their old points of union, they have but little influence
over each other, and despair of regaining it.

Will they continue thus coldly apart, indifferent, united
only by interests? No, the danger increases; the heart will
play its part elsewhere. For in France, the heart is very
absolute, it demands the closest union, or another love. It
says, “all or nothing.”

Indulge me in a paradox. I maintain that in spite of the
reckless gaiety universally feigned, our period is that in which
How Woman excels Man. 205

love is the most exacting, most insatiate. If it takes hold
upon an object, it aspires to penetrate it to its lowest depth.
Extremely cultivated, provided with so many new ideas, and
new arts, which are as so many senses by which passion
is tasted, however little we may have in us, we are sensible
of that by a thousand touches, to which our ancestors were
insensible,

But it too often happens that the beloved object escapes:
perhaps from want of consistency, the true feminine fluidity—
perhaps by brilliant transformations and the acquisition of dis-
tinctions—perhaps, indeed, by friendships, those secondary
relations which divide the heart and weaken it.

The man is humiliated, discouraged ; very often he perceives,
the sad consequences of this in his art, and in his energy, and
depreciates himself on account of it. Then, oftener than one
would suppose, a passionate egotism reanimates and exalts his .
love. He longs to regain, to repossess his dear creature,
who sometimes, without irony, but with proud coldness, says
smiling: “Do what you can.”

“Ter totum fervidus ira, lustrat Aventini montem, ter
saxea tentat limina nequicquam, ter fessus valle resedit.”

Three times, ardent, he makes the circuit of the mountain,
three times shakes the cold rampart of stone, three times falls,
and sits down in the valley.

The difficulty, the mysterious negative influence, the inva-
lidating impediment, comes almost always from outside. But
it is not invariably found in an enemy; it may be a mother,
a sister, or a drawing-room friend, for aught I know. The
most honorable cause has sometimes such effects. Indeed, a
vehement friendship, turning aside the strength of love, some-
times suffices to disturb the harmony of marriage.

I knew two accomplished ladies united in a close friendship.
One, only, was married. The other remained unmarried, in
order to devote herself entirely to this attachment. The
husband, a man of genius, a brilliant, fascinating writer, had
206 How Woman excels Man.

evinced remarkable talent. The important question was,
would his gift from the fairies become permanent? would it
be strengthened? He felt his inspiration by intervals—I was
about to say, by chance. Then, his work eclipsed everything.
What would he not have performed, if the strange spark had
been blessed and watched over by love?

She was extremely beautiful, and her heart more lovely still.
She had an elevated, but very serious, moral nature, which
made her slightly sensible of these capricious gleams; and to
confirm her in that, she had the friendship, the adoration, of a
woman, herself adorable. Against this couple, so united and
so perfect, could the husband hold his own? A third person

_was de trop there. His fine but wavering qualities, mingled
with the sensitive defects which sometimes are attached to
genius in decline, hardly coincided with the straight line which
they applied to them. The two friends, virtuous, pure, and
transparent as the light of noontide, indifferently relished his
uncertain and sensuous graces, his transient twilight.

His uncertainty increased. He was very gravely wronged
by not being believed in. His friends had faith in him, and
called on him to make good his promise; but nothing can
take the place of the internal support. The wife is the grand
umpire, and the sovereign judge. He would have succeeded
better, perhaps, with an inferior woman. She, by her noble
beauty, by her open purity, by her estimable talents, com-
manded too much respect. Such excessive perfection affords
but little chance of appeal against its judgments—judgments
always benevolent, but frank.

This singular and charming man could do nothing save
blindly. He needed a beloved hand to bandage his eyes, and
complete the blindness, which rendered him productive. ,On
the contrary, he lived with judicious reflection ever at his
side. Solitary in the inspired moment, he yielded to the pru-
dence which checks inspiration, and so he fell short of his
mark, and missed his aim.
How Woman excels Man. 207

Will the women permit me to interpose a word here?
They have more delicate ears, they will hear better: besides
they have more time, for the most part. Man, that fanatic
of toil, intoxicated with enthusiasm and struggle, will. not
hearken to me.

Madam, be not perfect; keep faults enough to console a
man; nature intended him tobe proud. It is essential to
your interest, and to that of your family, that he should be
so, that he should think himself strong

‘When you see him dejected, sad, discouraged, the best
remedy is to be downcast yourself, to be more a woman, and
younger—even a child, if need be.

And my second maxim:—Madam, do not divide your
heart.

I will tell you what I saw at Hyéres in Provence, in a de-
lightful garden. It was planted with handsome orange trees,
at suitable distances, and in the best exposure; they had no-
thing to complain of; in a country where the people like to
mingle different kinds, they had refrained from planting
between these orange trees, any plant, or tree, or vine, which
could injure them. Only some borders of strawberries were
along the walks—excellent, delicious, fragrant strawberries.
As we all know, these have but little root; so they spread on
the surface and extend, without penetrating, their small and
delicate fibres. Yet the orange trees drooped and fell into
sickliness. The gardeners were troubled; what could be the
matter? They had sacrificed everything. They never sus-
pected that the innocent strawberry vines could be the cause
of all. But if those robust trees had been consulted, they
would have confessed that their prostration came from that
small enemy. They did not complain—they only died.

At Cannes, not far off, they know that the orange tree is
vigorous only when solitary. So they not only allow it no
companion, small or great, but before planting it they dig the
ground to the depth of eight feet; they dig it three times
208 The Humiliations of Love—Confession.

over, to be sure that it is clean and free, that it contains no
forgotten root, no living herb, which might claim its share of
the sap.

The orange tree desires to be alone, Madam—and so does
ove,

 

 

XII.

THE HUMILIATIONS OF LOVE—CONFESSION.

Love is a very diverse thing, in kind and in degree. It
differs very much in different nations.

The French woman is an admirable partner for her husband,
in business, and even in ideas. If he does not employ her, it
is possible that she may forget him. But let him fall into
difficulties, and at once she recollects that she loves him, de-
votes herself to him, and sometimes (as in 93) dies for him.

The English woman is a reliable wife, courageous, indefa-
tigable, who follows anywhere, and suffers everything. At
the first sign she is ready. “Lucy, to-day I set out for Aus-
tralia.” ‘ Well, only give me time, dear, to put on my bon-
net.”

The German woman loves, and loves always. She is hum-
ble, obedient, and would like to obey still more. She is fitted
for only one thing, love—but that is boundless.

With the German woman you can easily change expedients,
and if the one you have is bad, emigrate to the ends of the
earth. With the German woman you may live all alone, at
a retired country-seat, in profound solitude. The French
woman is capable of that, only provided she is occupied, and
you have known how to create for her a great activity of
mind. Her strong personality is much more embarrassing,
The Humiliations of Love—Confession. 209

but it renders her capable of going far in a sacrifice, even to
the extent of immolating her vanity, and her craving for dis-
play.

Stendhal, an ultra Frenchman, strongly opposed to Ger-
many, and ridiculing it every moment, makes this just
remark: “The best marriages are those of Protestant Ger-
many.”

He saw Germany in 1810, I saw it in 1830—and often since.
Things have changed in the higher classes, and in some of the
large cities, but not throughout the country; there is every-
where the humble obedient wife, anxious to obey—in a word,
the loving woman.

True love, profound love, is recognised by this, that it kills
all other passions: pride, ambition, coquetry, all are lost in it,
all disappear.

It is so far from pride, that it often runs into the other ex-
treme, and ranges itself on the opposite pole. Anxious to be
absorbed, it goes far out of itself, very easily forgets what is
called dignity, and without hesitation sacrifices the graceful
appearances intended for the public. It conceals no bad quali-
ties, but sometimes exaggerates them—aspiring to please by
no merit, but by excess of love.

Lover and mystic are herein completely blended. In both
the humility is excessive—a desire to abase themselves, so
much the more to exalt their god; whether it be a beloved
woman, or a favorite saint, the effect is the same. I forget
which devotee it was who said: “If I could only have been
the dog of St. Pauline.” More than once have I heard a lover
say the same thing: “If I were only her dog!”

But such disparagements of the soul, such excesses of
humility, love should not indulge in. Its effort, on the con-
trary, should be to elevate her who loves, at least to hold her
up to the man’s level, to cultivate a union by that which binds
her fast, which alone renders her rea/—equality. When two
souls are so disproportionate no interchange, no blending can
210 The Humiliations of Love—Confession.

be Possible, You cannot harmonize everything and nothing.
This is the torment which Colonel Selves (Soliman Pacha)
did not hesitate to acknowledge. “How,” said he, “can you
know that an oriental woman loves you?” We who have the
happiness to possess in our European women souls and wills,
whatever embarrassment these wills may at times cause us,
ought yet to avoid whatever may shatter them, and break the
mainspring of the soul. Two things, especially, are infinitely
dangerous to them:

The first—by which imprudent women of the present day
are very much abused—is the magnetic power. Their unfor-
tunate facility of submitting to it is a real disease, which per-
manently injures them, and is aggravated by cultivation. This
peril should not exist.; it is disgraceful to see a man who is not
beloved, and who has no power over her heart, assume an un-
limited power over the will of a woman. She becomes his
slave—compelled to move at his sign, or disclose before
witnesses the most humiliating secrets. She follows him
fatally. Why? She cannot tell; he is her superior neither
in talent nor energy; but she surrenders herself, under pretext
of medical treatment, or for the amusement of society—and
behold her abandoned to a thousand unknown chances. Have
these victims the true medical inspiration? time will show.
But whatever it be, the gift is dearly paid for, since it creates
an invalid, a humiliated invalid, who parts with the disposi-
tion of her own will. Even he whom she loves, her lover or
her husband, if she beseeches him to assume this power over
her, ought to consider well before he does so. Instead of
evoking from her this passive slavery, this obscure inspiration,
he should associate her with the active faculties, which are
those of liberty, and should exercise over her only one kind
of attraction—open love.

Another power which every generous man will beware of
exercising, is that of violence—the fascination of fear.

Women throughout Asia (I might almost say throughout
The Humiliations of Love—Confession. 211

the world) are treated like children. But we should consider
that, except in Europe, they are married while children—in
the warm countries at twelve, at ten, and sometimes in India
even at eight years of age. The husband of a child of eight
years is obliged to be her father, in some sort her master, in
order to educate her. Hence that apparent contradiction in
the Indian laws, which in one part of the country prohibit the
striking of wives, and elsewhere permit them to be corrected
“like small scholars.” They are always children, and this
childish discipline (not servile nor violent) they patiently sub-
mit to. Where polygamy is practised, they remain timid and
sensual, and are held somewhat by fear, receiving in just the
same degree caresses and correction.

Our women of the North, on the contrary, marriageable
later in life, are quite mature, and in no wise children when
they are married. To treat them as children would be the
most shocking abuse of power, and let us add, the most
dangerous. It is generally found that the seasons when their
vexatious humor provokes the brutality of man, are those in
which they are most easily injured, when any violent emotion
would be dangerous. They have their hours, their days, of
cruel agitation, when they suffer (they confess it themselves)
from the demon of contradiction, when everything conspires
to displease them, when they must offend. Then they should
have sympathy, not irritation. It is a very unsettled state;
and as at bottom it conceals an emotion by no means hate-
ful, it often only needs a little relaxation of rule, a little
address avid love, to change the proud humor suddenly, and
transform it into the most charming sweetness—reparations,
tears, and loving abandonments.

Men should deliberately reflect on this point; women are
more uniform than they are. The excesses of temper of
which they are too frequently guilty, should especially put
them on guard against themselves. When a woman is
excited and violent, it is generally a very natural cause (and in
212 The Humiliations of Love —Confession.

truth an amiable one) which disturbs her, and incites her to
provoke the man by sharp words and defiances. French-
women perfectly understand this, It is not a question of self-
love, but of love. There is no need to retaliate (as they are
too apt to do in England) ; nor is it wiser to laugh, or coax
a sudden change from quarrels to caresses. But parry a little,
maneuvre a little. In an interval of weakness, of natural reac-
tion, her good-humor returns ; she confesses that she is wrong,
and repays you by being good again.

In barbarous times the government of the family, like the
government of the State, was a system of coups détat. Let.
us pass on, I beg, to times that have been civilized and soft-
ened by mutual understandings, by that freer and milder
rule which comes from harmony of will.

Man’s domestic coup d’état is that ignoble brutality which
lays its hard hand upon a woman, that savage violence which
profanes a sacred object (so delicate and so easily wounded) !
that impious ingratitude which insults and outrages one’s own
altar. ;

The woman’s coup d’état, a war of the feeble against the
strong, is her own shame—the adultery which humiliates the
husband, imposes upon him children not his own, and
degrades both, rendering them for ever miserable.

Neither of these crimes would be common, if the union
were every day strengthened by mutual confidences, by a per-
manent communion, wherein the most trifling differences, dis-
sipated as soon as perceived, would not have time to swell
into such tempests. In their obligation to tell each other every-
thing, they would be more watchful of. themselves. Tempta-
tions, if they are not brooded over, lose their force.

Coujugal confession (a sacrament of the future) is the very
essence of marriage. As we emerge from the coarse and bar-
barous state in which we are still plunged, we shall learn that
we are married precisely for that—to unbosom ourselves
every day, to disclose all things without reserve, our busi-
The Humiliations of Love—Confession. 213

ness, our thoughts, our feelings—to keep nothing to ourselves,
to share our souls entirely—even those formless clouds, which
may become great storms in the heart that nurses instead of
expelling them.

This, I repeat, is the foundation of marriage. Is genera-
tion essential to it? No. Even in sterility there may be
complete union; without children there may be marriage.
Does it consist in an interchange of pleasure? No. Even
when the pleasure has died out with age or disease, still there
is marriage. But it consists in daily interchanges of thought
and will, in the continual blending and harmony of two souls.
Let the beautiful maxim of the law—marriage is consent—be
verified every day; let the confidences of every moment
assure both that they are in the way wherein each consents to
what the other desires and does. Whom should you marry,
lady ? The man who is willing to live before you in the full
light of day, concealing no thought or act, conceding and
communicating everything.

Whom should you avoid? The man who, freely promis-
ing to give himself up, still holds himself aloof—who, in the
selfish inclosures of his soul, appropriates to himself an
exclusive part in what should be common property—who
keeps one sentiment under lock and key, one thought to
himself.

Pure, gentle, and faithful women, who have nothing to con-
ceal and nothing to atone for, have yet, even more than
others, the need of loving confessions, of continual overflowings
into a loving heart. Why is it that men, generally, profit so
little by such an element of happiness? It must be because a
used-up youth, or the bewilderings of the world, render us
blind and brutish, true enemies of ourselves, that we do not at
once perceive that so tender a communication is the most
exquisite enjoyment a woman can bestow upon us.

Oh, as for that, most men are unworthy of it! They
smile, they scarcely listen; sometimes they show that they are
214 The Humiliations of Love—Confession.

sceptical in. regard to simplest revelations, which should not
only be accepted, but adored.

And yet there is nothing so very new in it. In matters of
business the married pair consult and confide in each other.
They should be equally confidential.in matters of the heart, in
matters of religion and love, as to agitations, emotions, and
all the secret life of imagination. We are united, married,
only by an extreme, conclusive and perilous pledge—to deliver
up our last secret, and to put ourselves mutually in each other’s
power, by telling each other everything.

Do not pass by the dear creature when she is a little ill,
when her heart is troubled with foolish dreams, as will often
happen to the purest; do not leave her distrustful of her
husband, whom yet she loves; teach her to trust in your
indulgence, and ask your advice, rather than deliver up her
important secret (which at bottom is just nothing at all) to
some one who henceforth will have a threat for both her and
you, who will hold her by it, and on the street, without a
word, will have but to look at your poor innocent to make
her blush, and cast down her eyes.

And here again is something to reflect upon :—If a worthy
and reasonable woman become somewhat capricious, ber hus-
band should ask himself the reason, and if the fault may not
be in himself. In the midst of life, with all its intoxication
and its folly, we neglect the essential things, we neglect even
what we love most.

The husband should say to himself: ‘“‘ Perhaps she is right ;
I am growing tedious, too much absorbed in one thing.” Or
rather, “ Do I sufficiently respect her delicacy in our physical
relations. Am I not disagreeable to her?” or again, “She
justly regards me in a painful aspect, morally ; I am hard and
sordid. Ah, well! I will recover her heart; I will be more
charitable, more generous, more magnanimous. I will be
above myself. She must necessarily perceive that, after all, I
am better than he who makes himself agreeable to her, an¢
especially that I love her more.”
The Communion of Love. 215

Very few words are necessary. Sometimes it is enough
that they merely regard each other with love in the evening.

Deelmud, an artist—who has two or three times displayed
decided genius—in an engraving which he calls Je Cafe, has
very well expressed the look of two sympathetic souls, whc
have no need of word; they understand and appreciate each
other so perfectly. But I would add one thing, especially in
the man—a something which should say: Be sure you cannot
have a safer shelter than you have in me.

 

 

XIII.

THE COMMUNION OF LOVE.

I cannot do without God.

A momentary eclipse of the high central Idea darkens this
wonderful modern world of sciences and discoveries. All is
progress, all is power, but everything lacks grandeur. Minds
are struck and staggered by it—conceptions enfeebled, iso-
lated, scattered. There is certainly the poetical ; but the grand
whole, the harmony, the poem, where are they? I do not
see them.

I cannot do without God.

I said, ten years ago, to an eminent thinker, whose bold
and energetic severity I liked: You are a radical; and so am
J, in one sense, for I wish to live; and strict centralization
would kill off all individual life. But the loving unity of the
world, far from killing it, stimulates it—because this -unity és
love. Who would not desire.such a centralization, and whc
does not perceive it throughout the universe ?
216 The Communion of Love.

Because we have abandoned the untenable argument of an
arbitrary providence, existing from day to day by personal
decrees and little coups d’état, is that as much as to acknow-
ledge that we do not perceive that high, impartial Love,
which reigns by its own grand laws? And being Reason, is
it not also Love? As for me, I feel beneath me the mighty
wave that bears me up. From the depths of life a strange
fervor arises, a fruitful aspiration ; a breath passes before my
face, and I feel a thousand deaths in me.

To reduce all religions to one head, in order to cut that
one off, is a very easy proceeding. But if you effaced the
last trace of historical religions and established creeds in this
world, the Eternal Creed would remain. The Maternal pro-
vidence of Nature, adored in the midst of dead and living
religions of the past or of the future, and of which you do not
think, remains immutable; and when the last great Deluge
shall burst over our little globe, it will still endure, indestruc-
tible as that World of which it is the charm and the life.

This, my faith in a loving cause, obscured, I could no
longer act. Without the happiness of feeling that this world
is beloved, and that I am beloved in it, I should no longer
wish to live. Then lay me in the tomb, for the spectacle of
Progress would have no more interest for me; though Art and
Thought should soar higher still, I should no longer have
strength to follow. Though to the thirty sciences that were
born but yesterday, you should add thirty more, or a thou-
sand—as many as you please—I should not want them.
What could I do with them, when Love is extinguished in
me ?

The Orient—humanity in its first beautiful dawn, before
the sophistical centuries obscured it—set out from an idea
which will become dominant again in our second childhood, a
zenith of wisdom. That idea is, that the Communion of Love,
sweetest of the mysteries of God, is also the highest, and that
its clear gleam for a moment displays the Infinite to us
The Communion of Love. 217

Dark in an inferior state of being (and such is ours at first),
it becomes brighter and brighter, in proportion as the flame
is fed with refining and sanctifying love.

I do not here repeat what I said last year on this subject,
so important to all, about the touching, the terrible mystery
wherein a woman, to impart life, sports with her own—wherein
pleasure, happiness, fruitfulness, bring us face to face with
death.

We feel it in that hour, in our profound agitation ; we feel
it in our quivering flesh, and in our icy bones; a thunderbolt
falling could add nothing to it. At the moment when we are
so near losing our beloved, when the chill of the agony is
upon us, if voice remained to us, we should utter one cry,
torn from our inmost being, and from the depths of truth:
“ ‘Woman is a religion.” :

We may utter it now, we may utter it always; for it will
be always true.

I said it of my own little girl, while yet she was but a child
— A religion of purity, of mercy, and of poetry.”

How much more should I say it now, that, truly a woman
and a mother, she, by her grace, radiates on all sides a har-
monious power, which from the family circle projects into
society still wider circles—“ A religion of goodness and
civilization.” ‘

It is especially in religious eclipses—when the traditions of
the past pale on the horizon, when a new world, complicated
and fettered even by its own greatness, organizes itself but
slowly—that woman can do much to sustain and console. To
the support of the central Idea, which, slowly evolving itself,
develops the oneness of intelligence, she, without knowing it,
brings the charming unity of life, of love, of religion itself.

In the great assemblies of men, which have not worship for
their object, in the popular concerts of Germany (wherein
five or six thousand musicians are met), in the vast political
or military fraternities of Switzerland and France, such as

10
218 The Communion of Love.

they have been and will be, the presence of women bestows a
holy emotion. Our Country is not there, if our mothers and
our wives are not there with their children. Speaking only
of family and of individual happiness, I should simply say of
woman, in the language a good laborer one day made use of
before me: “She is the Sunday of man.”

That is to say, not merely the repose, but the charm, the salt
of life, and the reason why we wish to live.

The Sunday! the joy, the freedom, the festival, the
cherished, the sacred part of the soul—not the half, nor a

- third, nor a fourth, but the whole.

Fully to fathom the significance of that word Sunday,
which means much more than idleness, it is necessary to know
all that passes in the mind of a laborer on Saturday evening,
all the dreams that float there, all the hopes and aspirations.
Is it woman in general, or some pretty mistress, to whom you
must look for your Sunday? No, it must be your own wife,
your gentle, amiable, faithful wife; because only with her is
a sentiment of certainty mingled with your enjoyment—a
feeling of definite possession, which deepens your happiness,
and makes it delightful. The penetrating perception and
fine appreciation of a woman so devoted, who affords you so
many pleasures, far from lessening your content, opens to you,
in a thousand delicate forms, a vast unknown of beatitude.

In her is every sweet and sacred emotion. She brings back
to you, even purer than of old, the solemn impressions of
your childhood.

Your morning awakings, when you were but twelve years
old, which you can yet recollect—the freshness of the early
dawn, the silvery bell of the village, as it sounded then—all
seem far away, and vanished, never to return. But, on Sun-
day morning, having toiled late into the night, and awaking
rather later than usual, you are greeted by the soft smile of
your wife, who for a long time has been gazing on you, and
who, with her cheerful voice, and her round arms about you,
The Communion of Love. 219
salutes and blesses you. She has waited, and prayed for
you. And you exclaim to yourself, “ Ah, my dawn, my
angelus! how sweet the sentiment of morning that you bring
to me! I feel as though twenty years of my life were effaced.
Oh! how young you make me! and how I wish I were truly
young, for your sake !”

But she, with tact, putting you off and evading you, offers
you a diversion—some cherished idea that you lately dis-
cussed with her, some favorite project which occurred to you
even yesterday; thence to your common interests, to the
family and the children, the transition is easy. And so, when
she is sure she has you in a gracious mood, inclined to a
favorable hearing, she suggests something that shall do your
heart good, and sanctify the day, some good to be done.
The times are hard, and the effort is not trifling; but with
plenty of work, and God aiding you, you still may do it.
You do not say no; you wish to please her. But before you
have time to tell her all your thoughts, her quick tact pre-
vents you: “See, my dear, Charles is awake, Edward is
prattling ; the baby has not slept this long time, and is listen-
ing. Why, how late itis! I must dress them.”

Tis dismal, gloomy weather. It is snowing, and there is
a high wind. The northern birds, leaving early, foretell a
hard winter. There will be no visitors; will it be a cheer-
less Sunday? By no means; where she is, who could be
sad? It is not the bright blaze on the hearth, nor the hot
breakfast, that warms the house. It is her affectionate
vivacity that inspires and animates all. She is so thoughtful
for her own, and so loves and cares for them, so softly lines
their nest, that there is only room for joy in it. :

And their happiness is doubled by the winter. They con-
gratulate themselves on the bad weather, which shuts them up,
and the pleasant day they are going to pass together. There
is little noise. As for the husband, he takes advantage of the
day to do some odd job for himself. He is like Rembrandt’s
220 The Communion of Love.

little picture of the Carpenter ; at least, if he does not plane
like him, he reads and re-reads a book. But as he reads, he is
conscious that the children are out there, because from time
to time they utter something very low. Behind him he per-
ceives, not with his eyes, but with his heart, something that
makes no noise—her gentle, wavy movements, and her light
step. She does only what is indispensable, and, with her
finger on her lip, makes a sign to them to be very good, and
not disturb him.

And what are the children doing? I am curious to know.
They are reading a good book. They are reading of the bold
adventures, the hardihood and sacrifices of the old travellers,
who opened the world for us, and suffered so much for us.
“This coffee, children, that your father drinks, the sugar you
put into your milk so freely (perhaps too much of it), were
all bought with heroism and suffering ; be grateful, then. To
Providence we owe those other providences, the great souls
who slowly bind this globe together, who enlighten it and
make it fruitful, who bring it, or soon will bring it, into the
harmony and unity of one single manly soul.” By degrees
she tells them of those material communions which prepare
them for the moral one—of navigation, commerce, roads,
canals,.railroads, and the electric telegraph.

Material! I conform to the foolish phraseology of the time ;
but they are in no respect material. These things come from
the mind ; and they return to the mind, of which they are the
means and shapes. In introducing nations to each other, sup-
pressing ignorances and blind antipathies, I maintain that they
are equally moral and religious powers, or as I have said,
communions.

To teach them gradually, according to their intelligence,
with suitable slowness and precaution, is to impart to children
religious instruction, to train them in a divine spirit, in the
spirit of goodness and tenderness.

Who does not feel these revelations in his heart when they
The Communion of Love. 221

come to him from beloved lips? The children are amused ;
but he, who knew all this before, in receiving it again from
her, with such a softening charm, is silent in his perfect ecstasy,
and feels that all our new arts are but powers of love.

Father and children are alike nourished by her soul and her
sweet wisdom. They listen, and when she has finished, they
awake as from a dream. A slight noise, a little tic-tac, is
heard on the window. It is the remonstrance of a winged
neighbor ; the house-sparrow says, in his frank, petulant way:
“What, you little selfish things! when the weather is so bad
do you take care only of yourselves.” This speech has a tre-
mendous effect ; they open the window and throw him bread.
But what an excitement when one of their guests, bolder
than the rest, taking advantage of the chance, enters and
bravely hops to the farther end of the room.

“O thank you, cousin Red Breast, who, without ceremony,
remind us of what we had forgotten—the universal relation-
ship. You are right; is not our home indeed yours also ?”
They hardly dare to breathe; their mother throws him
some crumbs, very carefully, so as not to frighten him. And
he, not at all abashed, having picked them all up, and even
approached the hearth, flies off, leaving this adieu behind him :
“Good by, my good little brothers !”

If dinner-time were not so near, their mother would have
much to say; but they must have ‘something to eat, and you
too, little robins.

At dessert, she tells them of the banquet of nature, to
which God-invites all his creatures, great and small, to sit
down, placing them according to their intelligence, their
industry, their activity and labor—the ant high up, and some
giant like the rhinoceros or hippopotamus low down, If man
sits in the highest seat, it is because of one thing alone—his
perception of the grand harmony and the Love divine, his
tender sympathy with all that emanates from it, his sublime
gift of Pity.
222 The Offices of Nature.

Why is it that this discourse, which at another time might
pass unheeded, enters the hearts of the children? What
engraves this hour on their memory, and why-are they
touched? Because their parents consummate before them
that act of fraternity which their mother’s prayer bespoke in
the morning : the laborer will share his toil with his brother
—even his life and his soul. With tearful eyes she embraces
him, and the table is sanctified.

Enough for one day. Now children, gladden your father’s
heart by a double song—a song of the French land in its days
of great sacrifices, which, in the hour of need, you would
imitate ; and a hymn of gratitude to God, the benefactor of
the world, who has given you this day, and perhaps his own
tomorrow. ,

“ Now let us go to bed. Your father, very tired, is almost
asleep now. He sat up so late last night, to finish his Satur-
day’s work! Sleep, my own—sleep, my children; and God
keep you while you sleep.”

And so blessing them all, she carefully covers up the fire,
making no noise, hardly breathing, and quietly lies down near
him, very careful not to wake him. Though he sleeps, he
well knows she is there; for she is his spring-time of love, his
summer in the midst of gloomy winter. In herself are all
seasons. What is all nature to her sacred charm?

 

 

XIV.
THE OFFICES OF NATURE.

Tne two natural and reasonable aspects of religion are
demonstrated in the tendencies of the man and the woman, as
they are displayed by each. Man perceives the infinite in the
invariable Laws of the universe, which are the ways of God’s
The Offices of Nature. 220

existence ; woman, in the loving Cause, the father of Nature,
who creates better out of good. She feels God in that which is
the life, the soul, and the eternal act—love and generation.

Are these points of view contradictory! By no means.
The two harmonize in this, that the God of the woman, Love,
would not be love if he were not love for all, incapable of
caprice or arbitrary preference, if he did not love according
to law, reason, and justice—that is to say, according to the
idea that man has of God.

These two columns of the temple are so deeply planted
that no one will attempt to overthrow them. The world,
however, alternates ; sometimes it sees only Laws, sometimes
only the Cause. It for ever oscillates between the two reli-
gious poles, but it does not change them.

Science—at present not centralized, as it soon will be—is
much inclined to recognise only Laws, and forget the loving
Cause, imagining the machine could go without a motor,
This forgetfulness is what produces the sad religious eclipse
by which we are now darkened, but it cannot last long. The
beautiful central light from which proceeds all the joy of the
world will reappear. Though weakened for a time, the senti-
ment of a loving cause will return to us. No, laws are not
causes; and what would become of our progress if we did
not recover the idea of causality and life ?

There is neither cheerfulness nor happiness here below,
independent of the idea of production. Speaking of children,
I have already said that we can develop them and render them
happy only by making them creators. Well, from their little
world, let us carry the principle into the great one. When
we perceive that it is stagnant, that there is no longer vital
warmth in it, an overwhelming despondency takes possession
of the heart, and we become happy again only.by recovering
the idea of the great fruitful movement where, free, and yet
restrained by the high animating Reason, we, workmen of a
creative Love, also shall create in joy.
224 The Offices of Nature.

This explanation was necessary to introduce us to the
inmost heart of the man and the woman, and to their two
religions, wherein each plays a distinct and very delicate part,
each fearing to wound the other; for generally they do not
know how much, after all, they harmonize—hence the gropings,
the hesitations full of fears, the faint contest between two
souls which in reality are but‘one. Never in the daytime,
before witnesses, is this tender struggle ; the children must be
asleep, even the light put out. It is their last thought on the
pillow. : :

But although each maintains a true and sacred aspect of
religion (he the Laws, she the Cause), there is this material
difference: that in God the man perceives rather His modes
of existence, His laws of action; the woman His love, which
continually prompts His actions. She is more in the sanctuary
of God, I should say, and nearer to his heart. Thus, having
the Love, she has all the rest and understands it all. She
touches at will every note on the grand key-board, while man
for the most part knows but afew. She comprehends by
intuition all the natural manifestations of God, from grave to
gay, from lively to severe. She is sovereign mistress of this
divine art, and teaches it to man. ‘“ Whence, indeed, does
she get all this?” he asks. ‘Where finds she this treasure
of loving things, this torrent of enchantments?” Where, but
in thine own love, and in the love she bears to thee, in the
reserved riches of a heart which no outpourings, no genera-
tions can empty. Every day it gives out a world, but still
the universe remains. 7

So simple, so modest, and yet. so superior! From day to
day you go on blindly, never marking the course of time,
your eye fixed on the earth, by the necessities of toil; but
she perceives more clearly the progress of time, for she is in
harmony with it. She follows it hourly, charged with the
duty of foreseeing for you, your needs, your pleasures, your
repasts, and your repose; in every moment a duty, but also
The Offices of Nature. 225

a poetical delight. From month to month, warned by the
pangs of love, she scans the passing time, and watches its
sacred march. When the solemn hours of the year are struck,
in the flight of seasons, she hears thé impressive chant uprising
from the depths of nature.

She has her ritual, in no wise arbitrary, which to her
expresses the life of her country, in its immutable relations
with the life divine. It is no easy matter to meddle with
that. The traditions, the authority, which impose upon one
people the rites of another, tend to produce naught but jar-
ring discord. The songs of the exalted Orient, beautiful
as they are, are discordant in Gaul, for has she not her song
of the lark, which as bravely rises to God.

Our sunrise is not the sunrise of America nor of Judea,
nor are our fogs the heavy mists of the Baltic; and all these
have their voices. Our climate, our hours, our seasons, all
sing after their own fashion; and the-woman, with her fine
French ear, has caught them all. Yet, do not ask her for
them ; she would sing you only the conventional strain. But
when she is at home alone, somewhat saddened by your
absence, and quietly working—in her pensive mood, she hums
in an undertone, a simple and holy strain that comes of itself—
of the day and the hour, her own humble vespers, her heart-
song for God and for thee.

’ How well she knows the festivals, the true festivals, of the
year! In that, be guided by her; for she alone perceives the
days of grace wherein heaven is loving towards the earth,
the high divine indulgences. She knows them, because she
-makes them—she, the kindly smile of God, the festival and
the Christmas, the everlasting Easter, of love, wherein the heart
lives, and lives, and lives.

Without her, who would care for spring? How sickly,
then, and sad, would be the fruitful warmth with which all
life ferments. But with her—enchantment !

Freed from their winter confinement, they go forth into the

10*
226 The Offices of Nature.

air. She in a white dress, although at times the warm sun
is chilled by a touch of the north wind’s breath. All is life,
but all is combat, too. In the meadow, growing green
again, there is sport and contest; kids against kids try their
sprouting horns; the nightingales, that have come a fortnight
before their iste esses, contend in duels of song for priorities
of love.

In the midst of this pleasant combat, out of which pro-
ceeds a seeming peace, she appears—she, the truce, the
goodness, the beauty, the living joy of this world! As she
advances, her tender heart is divided between two loves.
From both sides they appeal to her. With brimming hands
her children bring her young flowers, and cry, ‘“‘ Mamma! see!
see!” while another whispers in her ear, and still she smiles.
Not with impunity may one thus have a charming woman
on his arm, so near his bosom and his heart. Very sweetly
he urges her, and she is not insensible. Devoted and tender,
she hearkens to all, so truly does she wish to make them all
happy. “ Yes, my little ones—yes, my darling.” She says to
them, “Let us play, then;” and to him, “O, whatever you
wish !”

But in her extreme goodness, which renders her even
weakly obedient to her children, whoever knows how to
observe her may detect behind her smile a pensive abstrac-
tion. Her husband thinks only of her, but she thinks of God.

When the pretty festival of field flowers, and the labors of
haymaking, return with the warmth and mildness, she, like the
others, comes with her rake to work. But beautiful as she
always is, her form has now assumed a sweet luxuriance,
which, while it renews her freshness, yet weighs her down.
Her white bosom, whence her children have drawn their life,
those treasures which even he who knows them best would
hide away, these render her a little languid, a little indolent.
She is soon fatigued, and they forbid her to work; but they
work for her. Her children, gay and happy—her husband,
The Offices of Nature. 227

full of tenderness—cannot pass a flower without bringing it
to her, without presenting it to the sovereign rose. They
load her table with them, they cover her bosom and her head
with them, She runs from the fragrant shower, and cries,
“ Enough! enough!” But they do not spare her. She can
hardly see through the flowery rain; she no longer defends
herself, and is overwhelmed and drowned in caresses, kisses,
blossoms.

Already summer is upon them, and the heat is extreme;
the delicate wife must not be agitated. The three months
between haymaking and vintage are terribly oppressive to
man, equally to him who works with his hands and him who
works with his mind. Heavy and sharp, the hot sun strikes
the brain, and that in two ways: at the same time that it
prostrates our strength it exalts the passions. Her husband
is enervated by the season, by his labor, by indulgence. She
perceives that, and it alarms her. She hazards a word of ad-
vice, a word of true religion. “At such a time as this, when
God is perfecting his work, and completing his yearly treasure
of nourishment for the human race, does not the exclusive
employment of man’s strength belong to Him?” But it is
not well taken; he becomes cold, even angry. By what pious
stratagems shall she wean herself from him? “By what charm-
ing evasions, and lowly prayers for postponement? Then
comes the inexorable July, and with it the harvest revels, the
triumph of the year, the crowning banquet of plenty. The
extreme heat stings like a wasp, and makes her ill; and so her
petition is granted, and a little bed made for her near the cra-
dle of his children.

O, happy autumn! golden time of happiness and freedom !
The end of toil is come, and love which, in the murderous
months, made war on love, may at last throw prudence away,
and indulge the promptings of the heart. He who was angry
at her refusals will never know who suffered most. She
has but one word for him—she returns to him entirely; and
228 The Offices of Nature. ei

on the promised day he reminds her. “But, my dear, should
not the work be finished first ? This gray, uncertain weather,
veiled by a transparent gauze of mist, is so admirable for
the vintage! Let us make haste. This mild, pale sun,
piercing through the haze, to bestow a parting kiss on the
amber grape, will kiss away the dew from it. Now is just
the time to gather them. In the evening we shall no longer
be separated. It is not so warm now; I shall return to thee
and take refuge with thee all the winter long.”—Here is joy
indeed! In certain countries the apes and the bears are fud-
dled with grapes. Why should not the wits of man be stag-
gered? As for this one, he is drunk before he has drunk;
but she is sober. “Softly, softly, let us set a good example,
and work.”

In the vintage there is complete fraternizing ; all are equal
there, and your smart worker is your only aristocrat. To
_ her it is a great pleasure to sup in friendship with the people.
All are welcome, even those who have not helped. She will
be truly happy to have them. She knows all the village well,
and misses the absent. So and so, what about him? He is
unwell. Well, we will send for him. And another is travel-
ling. Thus she inquires for all, wishing she could have them
all together, united and friendly.

The place is ample—one of those amphitheatres of hills
from which some vineyards look down upon the sea—the
weather so mild, you may dine in the open air. A gentle breeze
favors the departure of the winged travellers that flit athwart
the sky. The day is short; although not old, it seems
already to assume the pensiveness of evening.

Never was she more beautiful; her eyes beam with im-
pressive sweetness ; and each feels that she looks on him, and
wishes him well, that she thinks of him, and of all. By her
tender regards the whole country is blessed.

Her daughter had twined for her a charming crown of
vine branches, delicate heliotropes, and the red vervain—a
The Offices of Nature. 229

royal and right feminine crown, which perfumes all the air
around. She declines it at first, but her husband insists; he
would crown her, if he could, with all the crowns of earth.

Yet she seems sad. ‘“ What is the matter— ?”

“Ah, I am too happy!”

“All our friends, all our kindred, are here. And all these
good people—not one has stayed away.”

“Alas! my dear, those, only those, who suffer and who
weep are absent. Pardon—”

She can say no more; her emotion chokes her. To hide a
falling tear she bends over her glass, and that adorable pearl
is mingled with the blood of the vine. Her husband snatches
the glass from her lips, and empties it at a draught. But
those who do not understand, and only know she weeps, are
moved in sympathy with her.

And all are in communion with her heart.
Boox III.---Woman 1n Society.

 

 

I.

WOMAN AN ANGEL OF PEACE AND CIVILIZATION,

‘Woman, in her superior aspect, is the mediator of love.

A profound and delightful influence which is manifested in
two revelations.

In proportion as the first, the attraction of sex, and plea-
sure—the sanguine storm of life—fades out and dies, the
second appears in all its celestial sweetness—the influence of
peace, consolation, and mediation. Man is, most of all, an
agent of creation. He produces, but in two senses ; for he also
produces wars, discords, and combats. In the midst of the
arts and the ideas, the torrent of benefactions, that flow from
his fruitful hand, flows also a flood of evils, which woman
follows, to soften, console,. and heal.

I am traversing a dangerous forest, and I hear a stealthy
step. Surely that must be a man, I say, and I stand on my
guard. But behold, it isa woman. “Hail, gentle angel of
peace !”

An Englishman who made a benevolent tour through Ire-
land, thirty years ago, to inquire into the evils of the land
Woman an Angel of Peace. 231

and seek a remedy for them, described the fierce defiance of
those indigent and miserable creatures, whom the entrance
of a straiger into their miserable huts greatly disturbed,
“Was he an agent of the customs? Was hea spy?”

But, happily, he was not alone. Behind him they caught a
glimpse of a woman’s countenance, and they had henceforth
nothing to conceal; they were reassured and full of confi-
dence. They could not imagine that he would have brought
his wife among them if he had not wished them well.

Livingstone met with the same experience, in his admirable
expedition to the unexplored regions of Africa, in 1859. A
man, alone, would have been suspected, and probably put to
death; but the sight of his family satisfied and pacified
them.

“Peace! peace,” was the prayer, the eager cry, of those
good people, as they expressed themselves in their simple
language to the European missionary who brought them
the protective arts. The women said to him, “Give us
sleep 2” and this sleep, this peace, this complete security, they
beheld in the train that approached, with the rolling house
and the oxen. They beheld them in Mrs. Livingstone, sur-
rounded by her three children. That spectacle satisfied
them; for they well knew that he would not have brought
that precious nest into a den of lions, if he had not wished to
do good to men.

If the mere sight of a woman has so much effect, how is it
with her words? with those accents which penetrate from
heart to heart ?

The language of woman is the universal fraxinella, the
peace-maker, which everywhere softens and heals. But the
divine gift is free to her only when she is free, when she is no
longer a dumb statue of modesty, when the progress of years
has emancipated her, untied her tongue, and unfettered her
actions.

Jn a moment of true nobleness and magnanimity, a woman
232 Woman an Angel of Peace.

of fine genius has justly described and appreciated mature
age, and even the approach of old age, which no woman con-
templates without a shudder. This formidable pefiod seems
to her to have its own charms—a tranquil grandeur which
youth has not.

“Youth,” she says, very nearly (I regret that I cannot
recall her exact words), “is an Alpine country, full of sur-
prises, with its rocks, its torrents, its cascades. But old
age is a majestic French garden, with noble shadows and
beautiful long stretches of promenade, wherein we may see
afar off the friends who are coming to meet us—wide walks,
where several may go abreast and talk together—indeed a
pleasant place for social converse.”

We should be wrong to conclude from this beautiful com-
parison that old age is samely and monotonous; it is just
the contrary. Woman has privileges then which she has not
had at any other age. The customs of society held her cap-
tive; she was required to avoid certain conversations—certain
associations were forbidden her; even the walks of charity
were often difficult and dangerous to her. -An unjust world
was prone to speak evil of her. But as she grows old she is
enfranchised, and enjoys all the privileges of an honest
liberty. The result is, that the whole scope of ber mind is
brought into play; she thinks and speaks in an original and
independent manner. Thus she becomes herself.

All young and pretty women are at liberty to be fools,
because they are always sure of being admired. But not so
with the old woman. She must have wit; and because she
has it, she is generally agreeable and amusing.

Madame de Sévigné expresses this idea very prettily (I
quote from memory): “Youth and spring,” she says, “are
green, uniformly green; but we autumnal people are of all
colors.”

Such a woman has it in her power to exert, on all around
her, those amiable social influences which are a peculiarity of
Woman an Angel of Peace. 233

France. These, in fact, are but manifestations of that bene-
volent and sympathizing disposition which puts a man at his
ease, which lends wit even to those who have it not, and gives
them confidence, overawing the gigglers, who take thought-
less pleasure in embarrassing the timid.

This royalty of goodness fills her parlor with a gentle ra-
diance. Especially does she encourage the man whom the fine
talkers silence, and who, under the protection of a woman of
esprit, who lends him her countenance, assumes a modest
confidence. The conversation there is not the vacant badi-
nage we find everywhere else, that eternal gossip in which
empty heads have all the advantage. When some well-in-

_ formed man has stated his point clearly, without prolixities or
' pedantry, she adds just one word from the heart, which often
makes it clearer to himself, imparting warmth as well as light
to what he has said, and rendering it agreeable and easy to
understand. Then they look at each other, and smile, and
there is mutual appreciation.

We are not sufficiently sensible of the fact that sometimes
a simple word from a woman can save a man, and raise him
up, teach him to respect himself, and give him an abiding
strength, which until then he had not.

I one day saw a forlorn, sickly child, with a timid, sly, pitiful
countenance—and yet he had talent. His mother, who was a
hard woman, said to me: “I cannot imagine what is the
matter with him.”

“JT can, madam,” I replied; “he has never been kissed ”»—
and that was only too true.

Well, in Society, that capricious mother of genius, there are
many who fail (and not the smallest number either), because
they have never been kissed, applauded, encouraged. No
one knows how this happens. No one has a grudge against
them; but no sooner do they timidly venture a word, than
every one turns a cold shoulder to them; or worse—they
take no notice of it, or very likely laugh at it.
234 Last Love-—Women’s Friendships.

Beware lest this snubbed and flouted stranger be an angel
of genius unawares. Oh, if at such a moment some woman,
influential by her wit, her grace, her culture, had caught up
the remark (often forcible, sometimes profound), as it escaped
from the lips of the pariah—if taking him by the hand, she had
distinguished him, and shown the sneerers and the jeerers
that this pebble was a diamond—what a change would have
been there. Justified, exalted, triumphant, he would soon
have shown that in such company he alone was a man, and
the rest—nothing.

 

 

H.
LAST LOVE.—WOMEN’S FRIENDSHIPS.

THE great divorce of death is so overwhelming to the wife,
left alone and unconsoled, it is so bitter to her, that she de-
sires and hopes to follow her husband to the tomb. “It will
kill me,” she says.

But alas! it is but rarely that she can die. If the widow
does not mount the funeral pile of her husband, as they do
in India, she is in danger of surviving him a long time.
Nature seems to take pleasure in humiliating the sincerest,
and doing her a spite, by preserving her in all her youth and
beauty. The physical effects of grief are various, even
directly opposed, according to temperament. I have seen a
lady buried in grief and drowned in tears, hopelessly pros-
trated for life, yet in a flourishing plenitude of health. Her
entire engrossment in her sorrow, her fixity of grief, had lent
her beauty what it lacked—a lovely luxury. She blushed,
she groaned for it, and the shame of her seeming heartlessness
added to her despair.

*Tis a decree of nature, ’tis the will of God, that this pleas-
Last Love-——Women’s Friendships. 235

ing flower shall not fade and die. She cries for death, and it
will not come; life is thrust upon her; she must continue
to be the delight of the world. Even he whom she longs to
follow forbids the sacrifice. The love that has brought
her so many hopes and so many vows, which has done so much
to develop her heart and make her an individual, would not
have her bury it all, nor take it out of the world with her.
If it is true love, it permits her, perhaps even enjoins her, to love
again, Among our coast-people, in so many respects superior,
I have observed two things: that the wife, often anxious, and
always thoughtful, for her husband, loves him and is very faithful
to him; but as soon as he dies, she marries again. Among our
sailors engaged in the dangerous American fisheries—especially
those of Granville, that town of brave people (where there are
no illegitimate children except those of foreign emigrants), the
woman immediately remarries if her husband does not return.
The step is necessary; otherwise the children would die.
Should the dead come to life again, he is content that his
friend has adopted and supported his family.

Even if there were no children to bring up, it is impossible
(if only in gratitude) that he who had loved her, whom she
had rendered happy, could wish to leave her always unhappy.
To-day she says no; and she sincerely believes that she will
always be able to fortify herself by sorrow and the strength
of her remembrance. But he, who knows her better than
she knows herself, can easily foresee that a violent change
in all her feelings and habits is beyond her power, that she
must remain desolate.

Can he bear to look into the future, and see her coming
home at night, to find no one thére, and to weep by her cold
and lonely hearth ?

If he reflects, if he has the least knowledge of human na-
ture, he will think with compassion of that mysterious suffer-
ing which we treat so lightly, but which physicians describe
and deplore. The craving for love, which, in a blasé man,
236 Last Love—Women’s Friendships.

quickly dies out, in a pure woman, on the contrary, is pro-
longed, and often aggravated. A less rapid circulation, a life
less gay and less cerebral, less diversified by fancy, a slight
embonpoint, by which (even in spite of her fasting and her
tears) she is strengthened and beautified—all this agitates
and oppresses her.

The determinations of blood to the head, the extreme ner-
vous excitements, the dwelling on the past, by which they
have profited so little, fill their lives with pains and humilia-
tions, which are their secret; they are martyrs to their own
unprofitable reveries. Punished by their very virtue, and their
postponed duty, they too often become victims to the cruel
diseases of their time of life. Or perhaps the poor lonesome
creatures, toys of fate, for all their strictness, fall into some
sudden shame, at which the world ruthlessly. laughs.

He who has loved his wife and is dying now, should look into
the future for her; for he can see better than she can, through
her tears. He should foresee and prepare for her, should im-
pose no obligations upon her, but rather deliver*her from her
scruples—should even, magnanimously, constitute himself her
father, to liberate the dear child, to direct and instruct her
beforehand, and arrange her future life for her.

Thus the first union is never quite dissolved. It is main-
‘tained by obedience, by gratitude and affection. If she mar-
ries again, far from forgetting him, on the contrary living by
his law, in the calm of her heart she says to herself, I did
what he wished; whatever happiness is mine now I owe to
him. To his forethought I am indebted for the consolations
and the tranquillity of the last love.

It is for the highest interest of the widow, if she must re-
sign herself to a second marriage, to take the nearest—I do
not mean the next of kin, as in the Jewish law—but the kin-
dred spirit. I mean one who loved the dead, one who was
part ‘and parcel of the husband’s own soul, and for whom, the
widow, from the very fact that she once belonged to him,
Last Love.—Women’s Friendships. 237

far from losing, on the contrary possesses additional charms.
That power of transformation, inherent in marriage, through
which the woman at length contains physically and morally
another existence, would perhaps distress the irreproachable
wife, if the second husband were not identical with the first
in love and friendship.

Why is the widow generally prettier than the young girl?
Some one has said,“ because Love has passed over her.”
But he should also have said because “love still abides with
her ;” we see in her its beautifying traces. In cultivating such
a flower time has not been wasted. Promising but little in the
bud, love has created from it a rose, a hundred-leaved rose, in
each leaf a seductive charm. She is all grace, all soul. ,Does
possession detract from her attractions? No, it rather adds
to them. If she was happy while watched over by a worthy
heart, render her happy again. In the brilliant freshness of her
middle age, so much richer, you will have little cause to re-
gret the meagre, frail beauty of her first youth. Maidenhood,
itself, blooms again in a pure woman whom a tranquil life has
consoled and beautified. She is innocently attuned to the
harmony of her two loves.

Has a man only one life, has the soul but one mode of per-
petuating itself? Apart from the persistent influence of our
immortal energy, do we not at the same time bestow some
emanation from ourselves, upon the friends who receive our
thoughts, and sometimes prolong the dearest affections of our
hearts? The glowing historian who inherited the last love
of his master, Bernardin de Saint Pierre, caught a reflection
from.him ; and in the critical austerity of an eminent historian
of our own time, one may recognise a great inheritance, if it
be true that he had the glorions happiness of communicating
with the soul of the eighteenth century, in the person of Ma-
dame de Condorcet.

Many, either already aged or perfectly free from the re-
straints of youth, would not accept a second marriage.
238 = Last Love-——Women’s Friendships.

An adoption satisfies them.

The widow can perpetuate the soul of her first husband in
an adopted son, whom he may have recommended to her.
Such an interest will fill her beart, and give her an object in

_life. There are so many children without parents, so many
whose parents are far away. We do not realize how much,
in our severe schools, a forlorn child has need of a woman’s
pity. For a lad lost in one of those immense colleges which
are almost armies, the best of good genii is a lady to keep a
maternal eye upon him, to visit and comfort him, to intercede
for him when he is punished, above all to take him out into the
fields and walk with him, and teach him, more perhaps than he
would learn in a week’s study, and to watch his play and choose
his playmates. She will be still more useful to him when he
is transferred to the high schools. She will preserve him there
from many perils that even a mother could not avert; for he
will confide to her a thousand things of which his more timid
mother would never have known. Her skilful tact will guide
him safely through that intermediate epoch, when the blind
fury of indulgence sometimes ruins the man.

A delicate mission, in truth, which often imparts to the
young man an admirable refinement, though a little effeminate
perhaps—but which, on the other hand, sometimes steeps a
poor woman’s heart in bitterness. She finds it difficult to re-
gard herself altogether as his mother; and sometimes she
loves him with a different love. For her own sake, I would
that this good and tender creature would-devote herself rather
to the maternal protection of a class, the most unhappy and
the least consoled—I speak of women themselves.

Women, who so well know what women suffer, should love
and help each other. But they do not; their rivalries, their
jealousies are so very strong—an instinctive hostility, which
even survives youth. Few ladies can forgive a poor work-
woman, or a servant, for being young and pretty; and thus
they deprive themselves of a very sweet privilege which be-
Last Love-—Women’s Friendships. 239

longs to their condition, and is worth almost as much as love
itself—that of protecting love. Their happiness should be to
instruct and advise the lovers, to bring them together, to
make the poor workman understand that his café habits are
more expensive and every way less agreeable than domestic
life. A word from an influential person will frequently pro-*
mote or strengthen love. Often have I seen a husband, who
imagined that he was sick and tired of his wife, thus reclaimed ;
a word in her praise overheard by chance, a gesture of admir-
ation accidentally observed, some exclamation of a third per-
son in envy of his happiness—either of these sufficed to show
him, what everybody else saw, that she was more charming
than ever, to arouse his heart which only slept, and to remind
him that he had always loved her.

There are in every household critical hours, which a saga
cious female friend may perceive or divine, and wherein she can
happily interpose. She ‘ confesses” without confessing the
young woman, directs without directing; and when the wife
comes to her, with her heart swollen, dumb, and fast locked
on its own trouble, she gently unlocks it, unlaces it. And
then the trouble bursts forth—some severity of her husband,
his little regard for her—while another, on the contrary—the
rest may be conjectured. At such a time her friend will enfold
her, and take possession of her. It is easy enough, for a wo-
man of intelligence and experience, to take the weeping child
to her bosom, to restrain her, to dispossess her for a while of
her right over herself. The unforeseen happiness of finding
a mother again may save the young wife from some foolish
step, from some reckless vengeance which she would for ever
regret.

Sometimes with true pride she will not deign to revenge
herself thus. She demands a separation—a course too often
pursued now-a-days. Indignant at the first manifestations of
folly in her high-spirited young husband, which a few quiet
words would have cured, the wife, especially if she be rich,
240 Last Love——Women’s Friendships.

will listen to nothing, will’ wait for nothing, but flies into a
passion, and insists on going home. Her influential family
take her part, and the servants, her own creatures, testify
against her husband. She will have her dowry back, but not
her liberty; though still so young, she is virtually a widow.
And can she take back the intimacies she has shared, that
definite communion which involved the yielding of her per-
son, and which transformed her? Alas, no! that she can
never take back, more’s the pity! Is there, then, indeed no
alternative—cannot the young man be reclaimed? His faults
belong only to his age, he is neither wicked nor avaricious.
Let her parents have her dowry then ; it is she alone whom he
loves and regrets. He sees plainly and, especially since he is
separated from her, that he can never find another to please
him. And in her very pride, so fatal to their happiness, is
there not something to attract love?

‘Love! we have nothing but love in this world. To-morrow
we must die; love then to-day, for I know you still love each
other !”

This is what her thoughtful friend says to her, and she does
more than she says. While she caresses and consoles the little
wife at her country-house, she attires her one day, whether or
no, and makes her beautiful. Visitors are coming. But for
her only one is coming, and who is he? Guess, if you can.
“The husband?” No,alover. In countenance perhaps they
may resemble, but in soul they are quite different persons. If
it were the husband, would he manifest such a charming em-
barrassment, so much love and ardor, so violent a return of
passion? Well, why don’t they explain themselves? Neither
knows what to say; they stammer, they promise, they protest
—in short, both have lost their wits.

Their friend laughs, and tells them they haven’t even com-
mon sense left. It is late; supper is soon over, for “she has a
headache,” she cannot entertain them, and they are very will-
ing to excuse her, themselves so exhausted with emotion. The
Woman Protecting Woman. 241

new lovers may safely be left alone now, no danger that they
will quarrel. Give them a hearing at your earliest conveni-
ence, but now—let them repose.

And does it end here? No. The amiable friend who has
re-united them is determined that the storm shall not again
cloud their horizon. So she extracts from them two promises.
First, that they will abandon the influences in which this storin
was brewed, for such misunderstandings do not often arise be-
tween those who love, except from outside influences. If one
of the married pair commits an indiscretion it is almost always
exaggerated by the interference of some unlucky friend, from
whom they must get away. Change of place will sometimes
effect a change in everything else.

Another prevailing evil, which the friend will seek to re-
medy, is want of occupation. An idle, vacant existence is
necessarily productive of melancholy, morbid reveries, and bad
temper.. To blend their souls and lives together, the husband
and wife should co-operate, should work together as much as
they can—but at all events work; when apart, each will regret
the other, and suffer a little for being separated; and in that
way they will continue to desire each other—full of impatience
for the hour when they shall meet, and longing for the coming
of night.

 

 

III.
WOMAN PROTECTING WOMAN.—CAROLINE CHISHOLM.

Tur fifth part of the world, Australia, has, up to this time
only one saint, one legend—an English woman, who died I
believe this year.

Without fortune or assistance, she achieved more for that

11
242, Woman Protecting Woman.

new world than the British government and all its Emigration
societies. The richest and most powerful among the king-
doms of the earth, mistress of the Indies and an empire of
2 hundred and twenty millions of men, failed in the coloniza-
tion which was to have redeemed her losses, while an unpre-
tending woman succeeded and carried the affair by her own
intrepid courage.

And in her let us render homage to her persevering race.
A French or German woman might have possessed equal cou-
rage, and generous pity; but I doubt if she would have per-
sisted against so many obstacles with such admirable stub-
bornness in a good cause—such sublime obstinacy.

Caroline Jones was born about 1800, on a farm in Nor-
thampton county. At twenty she was married to an officer
in the East India Company, and accompanied him to India.
Brought up in the decent, serious orthodoxy of English coun-
try life, her lot was cast in those military Babylons where
license has full sway. The orphan daughters of the soldiers
were for sale in the streets of Madras; she collected them,
and filled her house with them; and in defiance of ridicule,
continued her charitable work, till her dwelling became a
royal orphan asylum.

The health of her husband, Captain Chisholm, demanding a
change of climate, he obtained leave to recruit for a season in
Australia, and went there in 1838, taking his wife and chil-
dren. But soon obliged to return to his post, he left her
there alone; and it was then that she began her courageous
enterprise.

Everybody knows that Sidney and Australia were princi-
pally peopled by convicts, and criminals of a class that with
us would be convicts. Constant transportations took crowds
of men there, but comparatively few women. You may
imagine how much these few were sought after, and pursued.
Every vessel that arrived loaded with women, was waited for
.at the landing, and saluted with wild rejoicings, clamorous as
Woman Protecting Woman. 243

the cries of famine. The most violent and revolting assaults
were common; even the wives of the men employed on the
island were not safe in their husbands’ absence; and as for
the transported girl, she fell among the crowd like game
that they got on the scent of again.

To appreciate the horrors of such a situation, you must
know what an English womanis. She has none of the address,
the internal resources, the expedients, which characterize our
women. She does not know how to work; she has absolutely
no capacity for any duties except the care of children and
housekeeping. She is very dependent and modest, as she has
no dowry. Married, she is often beaten; while if not mar-
ried she is a wretched creature, without self-reliance, continu-
ally alarmed, and continually getting into trouble; morally,
she is always falling down and hurting herself. Somebody
has called her “a lost dog,” that runs about looking for his
master, and don’t know how to make one for himself.

Even the filles publiques of England are more to be pitied
than ours. ‘The French girl of this unfortunate class, pro-
tects herself by irony, and can make herself in a manner re-
spected ; but the English girl has not the least resource, the
least defence against her shame, not a word to say—only the
Trish women know how to talk. She endures her moral
abasement by drinking gin every fifteen minutes, which keeps
her in a half stupid state, so that she hardly knows when she
is insulted.

. Alas! girls of only twelve or fifteen, driven to this mode
of life, and to petty thieving, constituted a large proportion
of those arrested by the police, and sent with hasty trials to
Australia. They often crowded them into old vessels like the
Ocean, which foundered off Calais, and cast upon our shores
four hundred corpses of women—almost all so very young and
pretty, that they who saw them wept and tore their hair at

the sight.
We can guess what became of such a human flock, helpless
244 Woman Protecting Woman.

as young lambs, driven into that community of convicts.
Pursued in the streets of Sidney, they only escaped continual
outrage by going outside of the town at night, to sleep on
the rocks, under the beautiful stars. i

Caroline was insulted, both as to her woman’s heart and
her English modesty, by this revolting spectacle. She ap-
pealed to the authorities: but they, wholly occupied with the
surveillance of so many dangerous men, had too much to do
to trouble themselves about those miserable women. She
appealed to the clergy: but the English Church, like every-
thing English, believes too much in the inherent depravity
of human nature, to repose confidence in human remedies.
She appealed to the press, and provoked from the journals
ironical answers.

Yet so positively she insisted that it should not cost a cent,
that finally the government magnificently placed at her dis-
posal an old magazine. In this she immediately gave shelter
to one hundred girls, who thus had at least a roof over their
heads. Married women, in the absence of their husbands,
were permitted to encamp in the court, to be out of the reach
of night attacks.

But how to feed this troupe of girls, most of whom could do
nothing, Caroline, a plain captain’s wife, and burdened with
three children, was sorely at a loss. So she explored the coun-
try for married people with families, who would employ them,
and thus made room for more. In less than a year she had
saved seven hundred girls: three hundred English Protestants,
and four bundred Irish Catholics. Many of these married, and
in their turn threw open their own homes to their poor trans-
ported sisters.

Having supplied all the families near Sidney, she had to go
farther for asylums. Travelling is scarcely practicable for a
young woman in a country thus peopled, where the dwellings,
often many miles apart, render all public oversight and pro-
tection impossible. But she was not afraid; mounted on a
Woman Protecting Woman. 245

good 1] orse, which she called “Captain” (in remembrance of
her absent husband), she set out in search of charity, travelling
by the roads sometimes, but often where there were none, and
frequently crossing rapids. The boldest feature of these jour-
neys was that she took her young girls with her, sometimes
as many as sixty, to hire them as servants in families, or to
marry them. She was everywhere received, by men not so
bad as they seemed, as a very Providence, with love and reve-
rence. But she never slept except in a sure place, and always
with her girls, preferring to pass the night in her badly-
covered wagons, to being separated from them. Then the
people began to perceive the grandeur, the beauty of her en-
terprise. Up to that time they had done nothing; everything
was in a transition state, for they had continually renewed
their fruitless colonies only to see them again and again de-
stroyed. Moreover, there was no improvement in intelligence,
manners, or customs among them. Vice remained vice; pros-
titution was even more shameful and wasteful than in Lon-
don. The revolution effected by this excellent woman may
be thus summed up: Death to sterility, and to unchaste
bachelorism !

The Governor had replied to the first petitions she addressed
to him, “How does it concern me? Is it my business to find
wives for them?” And yet everything depended upon that;
for it contained the secret of life, of progress, for that new
world. So this woman, chaste and holy before all men, did
not hesitate to constitute herself the universal match-maker
of the colony, a very minister of marriage. She endeavored
to advise judiciously as to choice in these hasty matches. But
what could she do? She believed that in complete solitude,
where there was no third person to intrigue and make mis-
chief, kind nature would arrange everything—the pair would
try to love each other; in time they would become attached,
and they would end by adoring each other.

Especially did she endeavor to bring families together again
246 Woman Protecting Woman.

She would assist a young girl, who was well married, and
mistress of a house, to send for her parents. She also sent to
England for unfortunate needle-women, who were dying there
of hunger, as ours are to-day. And for her recompense, they
came near killing her. The populace of Sidney were indig-
nant because she brought out so many emigrants, which
reduced their wages. Bands of ruffians collected under her
windows and. demanded her life, but she courageously ap-
peared before them, talked to them, and made them listen to
reason. They retired, full of respect for her.

At the expiration of seven years she went to London to
convert the ministry to her ideas, and gave a course of
lectures to diffuse them. Lord Grey, the minister, and the
committees of the House of Lords, saw fit to give her
audience, and consult with her. Her husband became her first
disciple, and returned alone to Australia—a rare and beautiful
circumstance. This couple, so attached to each other, imposed
upon themselves a painful separation for the sake of doing
the more good. She was on her way to rejoin him when she
fell ill, and it is said mortally. (Blosseville, ii, 170, 1859.)

Hers is one of the world’s stories, and her memory will
grow the brighter with time.

One peculiarity which we must not overlook, is that this
inspired woman was of a most practical mind, wholly devoid
of chimeras and exaggerations. She had, in the highest
degree, the executive talent ; did all her own writing, and kept
in order endless details of business and personal accounts, with
the utmost exactness. And here follows a trait of character
purely English: Believing herself responsible to her husband
and children for the small family patrimony, she estimated
that, on the whole, notwithstanding the large advances
she had made, all had been returned to her except a very
trifling sum. During her entire apostleship, she had impo-
verished her family only to the amount of sixteen pounds,
That was not dear for the making of a world.
Consolation for Imprisoned Women. 247

Ty.

CONSOLATION FOR IMPRISONED WOMEN.

In her Mémoires, approved by the Institute, Madame Mal-
let said, in 1845: “Ten thousand women enter our French
prisons every year. The worst criminals are treated best;
for they occupy the central establishments. The less guilty,
to the number of eight thousand, are placed in branch pri-
sons—damp, dilapidated convents, where they live in forlorn,
corrupting idleness, without work, without linen, and some-
times without beds.” Let us hope that since that time they
are better provided for. .

Even in 1840 they were guarded by men! and to this day
a woman arrested and put in durance, is under the protection
of the wisdom of ten boys, twenty years old. (See the sad
case of Oslinda, tried 14th of September, 1858.) In the
general account of crimes and offences, the women number
very few (seventeen in a hundred)—a remarkable fact, seeing
that women earn much less than men, and are, therefore,
more tempted by poverty. When we examine, with Madame
Mallet, into the details of trials, this number still further
diminishes, and in great part disappears. The majority of
these crimes or misdemeanors are involuntary. In some
instances, prostitute mothers beat their children of twelve
years, or knock their teeth out with blows of their fists, to
compel them to go on the streets, and steal. In others, it is
the lover, who, though he does not commit the crime himself,
causes it to be committed, by forcing the woman to steal for
his benefit: if she refuses he breaks a stick over her back.
With some, it is hunger alone that drives them into evil
ways; with others, it is goodness of heart, and even piety—
for they prostitute themselves to maintain their parents, and
their vices are entitled to the rewards of virtue.
248 Consolation for Imprisoned Women.

Most of them are good, affectionate, charitable creatures,
The poor are well aware of that, and appeal to them with
confidence and from choice. Among these dregs of the city,
there is abundant benevolence; in the country, on the con
trary, much cruelty—the people give a little lest they should
be burned out; but they let their parents die of hunger.

The true and frequent cause, which drives these women to
vice, and even to crime, is the ennui and sadness of their
lives. Virtue, for a poor girl, means, to sit fourteen hours
a-day making the same stitch for ten sous—her head down,
her chest bent, her bench hot and tiresome, Sedet wternum-
que sedebié. Add to this, in winter, that miserable charcoal-
pan, all the fuel she has, though shivering with cold—which
is the cause of so many diseases. One fifth of all the female
criminals are seamstresses.

Woman, poor child that she is, requires constant moving
about, constant change of position; every new sensation is
delightful to her. Still she does not need much novelty to
make her happy. Her paradise is in the trifling variety that
the household affords her, with its many little cares, and the
rearing of children. Love her—make her life a little more
pleasant, a little less fatiguing, and she will do no evil. Take
out of her fingers, for at least a few hours in the day, the
everlasting needle, that penance of eternal monotony. Which
of us could endure it ?

Madame Mallet has thoroughly explored our prisons, for
which she is greatly to be praised. Would that more of our
ladies would imitate her, that they would overcome their
repugnance, and enter that hell, which, bad as it is, contains
many angels—fallen angels—some of them nearer heaven than
your comfortable saint.

The defect of her good book, is its timidity, its caution.
Consolation for Imprisoned Women. 243

She approves, and she does not approve, religious superin-
tendence. She follows the custom of the time and the opinion
of its judges, for the most part favorable to the “cellular”
system, which produces, by its deficiency of air and light,
emaciated and entirely artificial beings.

‘The remedy, on the contrary, is to tear down the walls, and
to let in fresh air and sunshine; for light moralizes.

Another remedy is labor, under very different conditions—
severe, but somewhat varied, and lightened with music. (This
plan has been successful in Paris, through the liberality of
some Protestant ladies.) Imprisoned women are crazy for
music; it soothes them, restores their moral equilibrium, and
calms their heart-burnings.

Léon Faucher has wisely said, that “Prisoners from the
country, men and women, should be put to field labor, not
immured in your horrible walls, which are only consumption
factories. Yes, set the peasant to tilling the earth again—in
Algeria at least.” I would add, that even the working woman
can be very profitably colonized under a semi-agricultural sys-
tem, where, several hours in the day, she might do a little
gardening, which would contribute to her support.

We have no need of costly penitentiaries at the antipodes,
as.the English have. Let us colonize the shores of the Medi-
terranean. Africa supported the Empire; and she will again
be populous and fruitful, from the day that we seriously try
to render her healthy.

But the great, the decisive, the sovereign remedy, is—love
and marriage.

“ Marriaget and who would desire that ?” Many a thought-
ful person.

Broussais said: ‘The disease which is excess of strength
in one man may be weakness in another; or in a different
temperament, and under different physical circumstances, it is
no longer disease.”

T also think that a person who, in the suffocation of our cities,

11*
_ 250 Consolation for Imprisoned Women.

and in a society so contracted, has sinned by violence and ex
cess of strength, would be precisely in the right place, and
perhaps estimable, in the freedom of the Atlas, or the adven-
turous life of a military colony. Madame Mallet remarks,
that “In general, passionate women, who, excited by rage or
jealousy, have committed a criminal act, are not at all de-
praved.” Place thém, then, where they may healthily expend
their energy ; they would concentrate it on love and a family,
‘and become the veriest lambs of gentleness,

And those martyrs, those saints of prostitution, who have
yielded from filial piety or maternal love—who will believe
them irredeemable? Ah! those unfortunates, on whom vir-
tue itself has inflicted such tortures, may be virgins among
the purest. Their broken but pure hearts, more than any
other woman’s, long for honor and love; and none have a
better right to be loved.

Even the truly guilty, if they are sent out of Europe, and
placed under a new sky, in a land which knows nothing of
their faults—if they feel that Society, though a mother who
punishes, is still a mother—if they see, at the end of their trial,
forgetfulness of the past, and love perhaps—their hearts will
melt, and in their abundant tears they will be purified.

When I behold those bald Mediterranean shores, those
mountains, arid indeed, but which, retaining their springs, may
always be rewooded, I feel that twenty new nations might be
founded there with little difficulty. Instead of returning
home a miserable workman, our soldier may become a pro-
prietor in Africa or Asia. He will like much better to take,
as a wife and helpmeet, not some statue from the Orient, but
a true living wife, a soul and a mind, an energetic French
woman, softened by trial and pretty with happiness.

This is my romance for the future. It pre-supposes, I con-
fess, one condition—that Medicine will busy itself with the
great objects of this century: the art of acclimating man,
and of improving races by intermarrying among different
Consolation for Imprisoned Women. 251

nations, the art of harmonizing families by associating dif.
ferent races, conditions, and temperaments. It requires
more skill to contract marriages for us than for those English
—such as the marriages that Caroline Chisholm improvised.
Tlong for a French Caroline here, who, surrounded by the
aids of science, and enlightened by physicians, would skilfully
place liberated women in the most advantageous positions.
For example, if the passionate woman is married, in the ex-
citing air of the mountains, to a violent man, we must anti-
cipate renewed excesses on her part; mate her rather in
the plain with a quiet man, whose gentle force and noiseless
energy she will respect.

These are the only reliable remedies. The present plan
improves nothing; the authorities admit that it multiplies
offenders. (Mallet.) The silence imposed upon them in the
central prisons is torture to the women; many become insane
from it. And what does this lady propose? To aggravate
this evil, which makes maniacs, by putting them into cells, to
be catechised by a chaplain.

In general, what could he bring to bear upon them but
vague generalities? He does not vary his discourse ac-
cording to the class and person. The work-woman is only
bored by it; the peasant woman does not understand a word.
Should one address a vicious girl, hardened in guilt, in the
same words that he uses to a quick-tempered girl, in nowise
vicious, who has struck one unlucky blow? Is even the best
chaplain, whose profession it is to ignore love, the world, and
life, capable of understanding antecedents so complicated,
situations so diverse? How much less the nuns, who are
employed as superintendents. Madame Mallet, who recom-
mends them, acknowledges that they understand nothing of
it—that they hate the convicts, having no idea of the cir-,
cumstances that brought them there, nor of the temptations
of poverty.

Every member of a corporation is, by that very fact,
252 Consolation for Imprisoned Women.

moulded in certain general forms, in which he possesses infi-
nitely less of that special and individual character which is
everything in the medicine of souls.

A man, even a layman, with our uniformity of education,
is much less fitted for this duty than a woman. I mean a
woman of the world, who has age and experience, who has
seen and felt much, who knows life, who has more than one
heart at her finger ends, who is acquainted with a thousand
delicate secrets that men would never imagine. “Do you
believe, then, that you could find many ladies devoted
and courageous enough to visit these sad places often, and
come face to face with these unhappy creatures? Un-
doubtedly, it is a grand thing to feel that one is doing good;
but the strength to persevere is also very necessary.” I
dare say that this necessary strength will be found, not in the
heart only, but in the mind. To an elevated, pure, enlightened
woman, who has reached the age when she may command,
it is a marvellously instructive study, and in the highest
degree affecting, to read in this living book. Lay aside your
dramas and your theatricals—the great play is here. Reserve
your -interest and your tears—all fiction palls in the pre-
sence of such realities; so tragic, alas! so delicate also, are
the destinies of these women. Will it not be a true happi-
ness for you, madam, to gently unravel these tangled skeins
that I put into your hands, and if it be possible, with your
skill to take up these poor broken threads and bind them
together again? O, madam, the angels would envy you.

Angel of goodness, pardon me for speaking to you on a
most sad, harrowing, and terrible subject. But all is purified
in the fire of charity, with which your heart-is aglow. There
can be no reformation in prisons if means cannot be founa
to restore the state of nature there, and put an end to that
execrable tyranny of the strong over the weak, who are
beaten and made sport of.

All the world knows it, but no one likes to say it. A
Consolation for Imprisoned Women. 253

man of. sad memories (of great political faults, but he had a
heart), the man best acquainted with prisons, when we were
friends, more than once explained to me, with blushes and
tears, that mystery of Tartarus—those bottomless pits of
despair.

The effects are different; the man falls so low that a little
child can make him tremble, the woman becomes a fury.

It is not by walls and dungeon-bars that we should put an
end to that. There would be instead only the shameful sui-
cide, the cripple, and the idiot. What is necessary is air and
labor—tfatiguing labor. And for the married prisoner, it is
necessary to restore what no one has a right to take away
from him—marriage. I submit to the lawyers, my illustrious
colleagues of the Academy of Moral Sciences, the following
question: “Does the law, in committing this man to prison,
in suppressing the civil effects of his marriage, mean to con-
demn him to celibacy ?” As for me, I do not believe it.

Many of these unfortunate people cling tenaciously to their
families, and continue to make honorable sacrifices for them.
I saw, at Mont-Saint-Michael, a convict, a very skilful hatter,
who, in the depths of his prison, by depriving himself of
everything, worked to maintain his wife, and waited patiently
for the time when he should be re-united to her.

The Catholic Church believes marriage to be indissoluble ;
then its rights should be permanent. Why has she not expos-
tulated here, in the name of religion, of morality, and pity ?

The thing has practical difficulties, I know. A wise consi-
deration is necessary; we should not indiscreetly introduce to
the prisoner a perverse husband, who might exercise an evil
influence upon her.

An administration burdened with so many generalities can-
not easily enter into the minute information which this would
demand, such as seeking at a distance for information, and kecp-
ing up, for one woman, a delicate and disagrceable corres-
pondence. Jt is here that the services of a woman of kind heart

-
254 The Healing Art in Woman.

and approved virtues are necessary. Ifthe prisoner is in a great
city, or not too far off, she should procure work for her husband
there, so that the prisoner may have the pleasure of his visits
on such days of the month as the intelligent superintendent
may indicate. Woman is love itself. Give that back to her,
and you may make her all you wish. They are worth the trou-
ble; they retain a great elasticity, are sometimes exalted and
very capricious in their loving, but never cast down like men,
nor ignobly pusillanimous. She who should bestow on this
weak flock one ray of happiness, would be so beloved and
adored that she could lead them at her will. Madame Mallet
understands this well; it is her great means of discipline and
regeneration. She advises that it should be employed—and
that the husband should be admitted to the prisoner. But she
imposes upon the privilege so many fetters and restrictions, that,
to see him thus would be, perhaps, to suffer still more. Ifbestow-
ed at all, itshould not be grudgingly. Surveillance, if there is
any, should not be exercised by officials, mockers, who would
be all eyes and ears for their raptures, and whose very faces
would freeze them. It should be left to the sagacious goodness
of a reliable and respected lady, who will take everythiug
upon herself, whose indulgent virtue will guard her poor hu-
miliated sister in her supreme consolation, and who should be
responsible only to God.

 

 

Vv.

THE HEALING ART IN WOMAN.

Evrryzopy knows that my good and learned friend, Dr.
Lortet, of Lyons, has the most bountiful heart in the world, in
its benevolent devotion. His mother was his inspirer. Such
The Healing Art in Woman. 255

asheis she made him. This lady is a legend of science and
charity.

The father of Madame Lortet, Richard, a manufacturer of
Lyons, a grenadier, and nothing else, took it into his head,
while in his regiment, to learn mathematics, and soon after-
ward gave lessons to his officers and others; and when he re-
turned to Lyons and married, he bestowed on his daughter a
similar education. She commenced exactly like Froebel’s ba-
bies, with a study in which children delight, geometry ; arithme.
tic, on the contrary, fatigues them extremely. She became the
wife of a manufacturer, leading an active life of trade.
During the civil convulsions of Lyons, she risked her own safety
for both sides, saving sometimes royalists, sometimes jacobins,
intrepidly forcing the doors of the authorities, and extorting
pardons from them. The terrible exhaustion that followed
these agitations is well known. Towards 1800, it seemed as tt
the world was coming to an end. Senancour wrote his des-
perate book, Z’ Amour, and Granville the Dernier Homme.
Madame Lortet herself, notwithstanding her indomitable
courage, sank amid the universal ruin. A nervous malady
took possession of her, and seemed incurable. She was then
thirty years old. The learned Gilibert, whom she consulted,
said: *“* Nothing is the matter with you. To-morrow, go with
your child to the gates of Lyons, and collect me such and
such plants.” She could scarcely walk ; but she obeyed. Next
day he sent her to collect other plants, a quarter of a league
further; and every day he increased the distance—till in less
than a year the invalid had become a botanist, and, with her
child of twelve years, walked her eight leagues a day.

She learned Latin, in order to read botanical works and
teach her son. For him, also, she studied chemistry, astro-
nomy, and medicine. Having thus prepared him for the
medical profession, she sent him to study in Paris and in
Germany, and she was well repaid. With the same impulse
the mother and son, during all the fighting at Lyons, nursed,
256 The Healing Art in Woman.

concealed, and served the wounded of both sides. In all
things she was associated with the adventurous generosity
of the young doctor. If she had lived with him in the centre
of a great medical community, she would have pursued the
study of medicine, and confined herself less to botany. Now,
she was the herbalist of the poor; she would then have been
their physician.

I have been reminded of all this by what I have now under
my own observation. I am writing in a very beautiful place
on the banks of the Gironde. Neither here nor in the neigh-
boring villages is there a physician; but they are all gathered
in a small town, by no means central, where they have almost
nothing to do. Before one can be obtained, and his expensive
journey paid for, the poor patient dies. In many cases the
disease, if attacked in time, would have been but a trifle—a
fever, which a little quinine would have arrested—a croup,
which, cauterized at once, would have disappeared; but they
are very slow, and the child dies. Where is Madame Lortet ?

An American lady, with an income ofa thousand livres—rich,
too, in heart, and general information, and who, moreover,
had the delicate mind and timid reserve of English modesty—
resolved, notwithstanding, to give her daughter a medical
education. In that land of action and immigration, where
circumstances often carry one very far from the great civilized
centres, suppose her daughter should marry a manufacturer,
established on one of the western rivers; the thousand opera-
tives, the thousands of laborers engaged in ‘clearing the land,
should be provided with medical aid on the spot, and not be
suffered to die while waiting for a doctor, who, perhaps, would
be a hundred leagues off. In those very severe winters, no
aid is to be expected; and how much less in other countries,
Russia for example, where the muddy grounds of spring and
autumn interrupt all communication for at least six months.

In the United States, lectures on anatomy are attended by
both sexes indiscriminately. If prejudice debars them from
The Healing Art in Woman. 257

dissection, they have a substitute in the admirable models of
Auzoux. He told me that he made as many of these for the
United States as for all the rest of the world together.

Supposing the knowledge equal, who is the best physician ?
The one who loves most. This beautiful saying of a great
teacher would lead us to infer that woman is the true physi-
cian. So she is, in all barbarous nations; there it is the
woman who knows and applies the secret virtues of simples.
So has she been in other nations not barbarous, but of high
civilization—in Persia, for instance, the guardian of all the
sciences, and mother of the magi.

In fact, man, much less sympathetic, as a result of his phi-
losophic and generalizing culture, so easily consoled himself,
inspires the sick with much less confidence than a woman.

She is more easily touched, but, the misfortune is, too
easily—she is liable to be gravely affected, to contract a
nervous malady from the suffering she beholds, and. become
ill herself. Then there are those cruel, bloody, shocking acci-
dents, which, at times, it would be dangerous for a woman to
look upon. So we must relinquish the pleasing prospect.
Although woman certainly brings a consoling, healing power
into the world, she is no physician,

But how useful would she be as an auxiliary. How much
would her intuition, as to a thousand delicate things, take the
place of man’s education. In him, instruction develops more
than one faculty, but in her it smothers many. This is espe-
cially noticeable in the diseases of women. To penetrate
their elusive secret, that mysterious Proteus, one must be the
woman herself, or love her dearly.

The priest of medicine requires gifts so various, and even
so opposed, that to exercise them successfully, he must be
double, or rather, complete—a man-woman—the wife asso-
ciated with the husband, like Madame Pouchet, or Madame
Hahnemann—or the mother associated with the son, like
Madame Lortet. I can conceive also that a widow lady of
258 The Healing Art in Woman.

advanced age might practise medicine with an adopted son,
whom she herself has formed.

Will our physicians, incontestably the first men in France,
the most enlightened, be willing that an ignorant person, whom
they themselves have instructed and taught to think, should
say what one has in his heart? As to that, here is the true
aspect of the case. To the physician belong two offices, not
sufficiently considered. 1st. Confession—the art of drawing
from the patient those disclosures of antecedent circumstances
which throw light on the physical crisis. 2d. Moral intui-
tion—to complete such confessions, to see beyond them, and
force the patient to deliver up the tiny kernel, often impercep-
tible, which is at the very bottom of the trouble, and which,
as long as it remains there, will, in spite of all the most
successful remedies, continually produce relapse.

O how much better could a woman, a good woman, not too
young, but with a young, emotional, and tender heart (who has
tact and patience even in her pity) perform this office. Man
is naturally stern, He must coldly, gravely observe, and decide
from the physical appearances and the little the patient may
choose to say. But if the wife of the doctor were there, if
she could remain near the invalid, how much more would she
discover! How much more would her compassion elicit,
especially from another woman! Sometimes a few tears would
suffice to melt the ice and get at all the story.

I had for a neighbor at Paris, a collier, about thirty years
of age, who had an estate in Auvergne, and a stall here, which
was quite profitable. In his own country he had married a
pretty Auvergne woman, rather short, but handsome, whose
countenance, clouded at times, her flaming eyes in a mo-
ment rendered the more brilliant. She was good enough, but
she knew that she was much noticed, and was not displeased.
They dwelt in a dirty, narrow, dark, and unwholesome street.
Sometimes the collier, young and strong as he was, had spells
of fever; and these became more frequent, till he grew pale
The Healing Art in Woman. 259

end ill. A good physician, whom they called in, explained to
them that the dampness of their lodgings had caused the fever,
and that the fogs of Paris were not good for a man who had
so long breathed the bracing fresh air of Cantal. He told
them, also, that he could easily break up the fever then, but
that it would soon make its appearance again if the patient
did not return to the country. To this the collier said no-
thing ; and his fever increased.

A lady neighbor, whom the collier’s wife served with coal,
saw that, behind the judicious observation of the doctor, there
was yet something else. And so she said, “ My little friend,
don’t you know why your husband has this fever, and why it
wil stick to him, and he will have it more and more? It is
because your pretty eyes are too fond of being looked into.
And don’t you know why the fever has been increasing for
some days? Because of his struggle between love and ava-
rice. He is afraid he will earn too little down there; so he
will stay here and die.”

Neither the man nor his wife would have taken a decided
step in the matter ; but the lady did take one. She apprised his
relations of the true state of the case, and they wrote to the
collier, that his property was in bad hands, that it was being
frittered away, that while he thought himself thriving in
Paris he was going to ruin in Auvergne. This woke the man
up and settled the matter. His fever left him, he gave up his
little stall, took his little wife, and departed. Both were
saved,

To save others is to save one’s self; it is a great comfort to
a wounded heart to be healed by healing. The woman who
has a great sorrow, sharp troubles, and heavy losses, seldom
knows what wondrous pharmacy, if I may use the word, is
in them, for the evils and the pangs of othérs. A poor mother
has lost a child, and a lady goes to her and weeps. The
mother scarcely dares to ery any more—perhaps the lady has
lost all of hers, and is left utterly alone ; while she, for all this
260 The Healing Art in Woman.

trouble, has still the happiness to see around her a beautifal
family. She has her husband; she has the consolations of his
love, revived, re-animated by this very loss. So she compares
herself with the lady, and says: “I have still a great deal
left.”

We are advancing towards a better time, a time more in-
telligent, more humane. ‘This very year the Academy of
Medicine has discussed a most important question—the reno-
vation of hospitals. They would do away with those lugu-
brious structures, reservoirs of disease, impregnated with the
miasmas of so many generations, where sickness and death are
aggravated and multiplied tenfold, by terrible obstructions;
they would attend the poor patient at his own house—an im-
mense advantage for him, for there they become acquainted
with him, and see him in his needs, amid the surroundings
which cause his disease, and renew it as soon as he returns
from the hospital. Finally, for those rarer cases, in which it
is necessary to remove the patient, they would erect small
hospitals around the city, where the sick person, no longer
swallowed up and lost in a crowd, would be regarded in a
different light—would become a man again, and no longer be
a number.

I never enter without terror those old and gloomy con-
vents, which to this day serve for hospitals. The admirable
cleanness of the beds, the floors, the ceilings, is useless. It is
the walls I fear; for there is the spirit of the dead, the trace
of so many departed generations. Do you think it is for
nothing that so many dying people have fixed on the same
spots their melancholy eyes and their last earthly thoughts, as
though they saw some imperious beckoner there, to whom, in
the words of the. Roman gladiator, they said, “ Ave, Cesar!
Morituri te salutant !”

Small, healthy hospitals, outside of the city, surrounded by
gardens, would be a humane reform—and, first of all, for wo-
men. Crowds of women are carried off by contagious fevers
The Healing Art in Woman. 261

during confinement, because woman is much more liable to
contagions than man. She is more imaginative, more quickly
affected by the thought of being there, lost in an ocean of
disease, among the dying and the dead; that alone is enough
to kill her. Her relatives, if she has any, can visit her but
twice a week. The sisters are occupied with their professional
duties, and rather worn out besides with seeing so much
misery. The house-surgeon is but a young man—but that is
well; precisely because he is young and not yet hardened,
can he, if he is good, effect the most, morally. And what an
immense amount of instruction may he draw from it all! what
ennoblings of the heart!

Dr. L., then a young surgeon in a Paris hospital, saw a girl
of twenty, in the last stage of consumption, come into the hall.
No woman friend had she, nor relations. In her absolute
loneliness, amid that dismal crowd, in the shadow of her ap-
proaching end, she surely saw, without a word from him to
her, a gleam of compassion in his eyes—and thenceforth she
always watched him, going and coming through the hall, and
never again thought herself quite alone. And so, with this
pure and solitary sympathy, she gently departed. One day
as he was passing, she made a sign. ‘“ What do you wish ?”
he said. “Your hand,’—and then she died. That pressure
of the hand was not for nothing; it was the token of a passing
soul, and a tarrying soul profited by it. Even before I knew of
this circumstance, in looking on this man, as charming as he is
skilful, I have felt that he was one of those whom woman has
endowed, and who find treasures of healing in the tenderness
of their hearts. The best man is still a man, and a woman
cannot tell him everything. There are times especially when
the patient, doubly ill, is vulnerable to everything—weak,
easily affected, and yet not daring to speak. She is ashamed,
then she is afraid; she weeps, she dreams; not even to the
sister of charity, the official sister, can she tell all; a sworn
celibate, she could not understand, and has no time to listen,
262 The Simples. ‘

No, she needs a good woman, a true woman, who knows all
about it, who feels it all, who can make her tell alli—who will
cheer her up, and say to her, “ Don’t fret, I will go see your
children, I will find you work; you shall not want hereafter.”
Such a woman, as delicate and penetrating as she is good,
would also guess what she would not dare to tell, that having
just séen her neighbor die, she is afraid of death. ‘“ Never
fear, you shall not die, my dear; we will save you.” And a
thousand other simple, tender things out “of a mother’s heart.
The sick woman is like a child; you must talk to her as to
a child, and caress and soothe her ; a woman’s caress, her tender
embrace, has often a marvellous power. And if the lady has
influence, authority, acknowledged intellectual ascendency,
from that position her benevolence is so much the more effi-
cient. The invalid is very happy in her bed, quickly recovers
strength and courage, and gets well, to please her.

 

 

_ VI

THE SIMPLES.

Tux good often die in solitude, and those who would console
are not always consoled. Their sweetness, their resignation,
their harmony, preserve them longer than they desire. Too
often does the pure woman who has lived only to do good, and
who should be surrounded and supported when her own hour
comes, behold then all friendships and relationships depart,
and find herself left to approach the sulemn bourne alone.

But she needs no support; and by herself she goes. She
has no thought but to obey God; she knows that she is in
good hands, and so she hopes and trusts. All that she still
has of tender and holy aspiration, all that she has dreamed
The Simples. 263

of, longed for in vain, for the happiness of others, all that she
has planned but failed to execute—in these is the promise of
the future, through these the entrance to the other world.

The eloquent words of pious men, concerning this solemn
time (the Migrations of Reynaud, and the Consolations of
Dumesnil), sustain her and give her hope. In that book of
metamorphoses (Zhe Insect), has she not read: “ How many
things are in me which have never been developed !—another
and a better soul, perhaps, which has not strength to rise.
Why are not these upward soarers, these powerful wings, that
I have sometimes felt, stirred in life and action? These
delayed germs remain in me, too late for this life, but in time
no doubt for another.”

A Scotchman (Ferguson) has made this ingenious, but
striking and truthful observation :—“If the embryo, captive
in its mother’s womb, could reason, it would say: ‘I am pro-
vided with organs, but they serve me not here—with legs,
but I cannot walk—with teeth, but I cannot eat; but patience!
for they speak, and tell me that nature calls me out of my
present life. A time will come, when I shall always dive, and
this machinery be busy. Now it rests, it waits—for I am but
the chrysalis of man.’”

Of these prophetic senses, the one which aspires most,
“ hesitates least, and resolutely promises everything, is love.
“On this globe, love is the true motive for being; so long as
one loves, he cannot die.” (Grainville.) Such is earth, and
such man. How can he come to an end, when he has within
him so profound a reason for duration? Why, enriched by
tenderness, by charity, by every sympathy, would he have
amassed this treasure of vitality, if so many vibrating cords
were to be broken at last ?

And so she has no fear of God; but advances peacefully
towards Him, wishing only what He wishes, but sure of the
life to come, and saying: “ Lord, I still love thee.”

Such is the faith of the heart; but it does not prevent the
264, The Simples.

feebleness of age and sex from operating occasionally to pro-
duce melancholy hours. At such times she goes out to see
her flowers; and she talks to them, because she trusts them.
Her thoughts grow calmer in such discreet society, for they
are not inquisitive—they smile, but they are silent. At least
they speak so low, these flowers, that we can hardly hear
them. They are earth’s silent children.

As she fondles them, she says: “‘My dumb darlings, in me,
who have so much to say to you, you may have perfect con-
fidence. If you brood over some mystery of the future,
speak! I will not tell.”

And one of the wisest of them, some old sibyl of the Gauls
(vervain or heather, no matter which), replies: “Thou lovest
us; and we, too, love thee, and wait on thee. We are
thy future, thy immortality here below. Thy spotless
life, thy pure breath, thy sacred person, shall return to us.
And when the superior part of thee, set free, shall spread its
wings, the gift of our friend will remain to us: thy precious
and hallowed remains, widowed of thee, shall flourish again
in us.”

No vain poetry is this, but literal truth. Our physical
death is but a return to vegetable life. There is but little of
solid matter in this changing envelope; most of it is fluid
and evaporates. Thus exhaled, in a little while we are
eagerly appropriated by the greedy absorption of herbs and
leaves. The various world of verdure by which we are sur-
rounded, is the mouth and the absorbing lungs of ‘nature,
which has continual need of us, and finds her renewal in our
physical dissolution. She lies in wait, and is eager. She
does not let that escape which is so necessary to her; she
attracts it by her love, transmutes it by her desire, and blesses
it with happy processes of appropriation. She inhales us in
the ‘sprout, and exhales us in the blossom. For the body as
well as for the soul, to die is but to live again. There is
nothing but life in this world. ;
The Simples. 265

A barbarous ignorance has made death a spectre. The
loathing, the terrors of the grave should disappear. Man, »
who made the tomb, is afraid of it. Nature makes nothing
of the sort. Why do you talk to me of shadows, ‘of outer
darkness, and the cold bosom of earth? Thank God I
can smile at that. There is nothing there to detain me; I
shall hardly leave my trace in it. Go on, then, and pile an
stone, marble, and brass; you cannot hold me. Even while
you weep, and look for me below, I am already a shrub, a
tree, a flower, a child of light—and have uprisen to the dawn.

Antiquity, so far-seeing, so enlightened, so advanced by a
kind gleam from God, expressed this simple mystery by ap-
propriate images: Daphne became a laurel, and was not the
less beautiful for it; Narcissus, melted in tears, remains the
charm of fountains. This is poetry, but it is no deceit. La-
voisier might have said it; Berzelius could not have put it
better.

Science! science! sweet consoler of the world, and true
mother of content, thou hast been called cold, indifferent, un-
sympathetic for the Moral; but what repose was there for
the heart in the night of ignorance, thick with chimeras and
monsters? There is no joy but in the True, the light front
God.

The toughest of animal remains, those which most obsti-
nately preserve their forms, even shells, yield at last, and
dissolving into dust and atoms, enter upon the vegetable life.

Even now I have an example of this under my eyes. In
the very place where I am writing, at that port of France
where the ocean and the great Gironde meet in a combat of
love, that everlasting wrestle that continually unites them,
the torn rocks give up to the waves their old stony race, and
become sand. Then a hundred vigorous plants fix their roots
in this sand, to appropriate it to themselves, and take strength
from it; and they become so wildly fragrant that the traveller
on the road, the sailor in his bark, inhale the odor and are

12
266 The Simples.

delighted, and the very sea is intoxicated. What, then, are
these potent plants? The least, the most humble of our
Gallic simples—rosemary, sage, mint, wild thyme in abundance
—and so many,s8o very many immortelles, that whether they
live or die is neither here nor there. Old Gaul hoped and
believed. The first word she ever wrote was “Hope,” on an
antique medal; the second, in the great book which inaugurates
the Renaissance: ‘ Here lies Hope!”

May not you and I, then, find it in the tomb?

But the good, sweet woman who is left alone, who, without
fault of her own, has been betrayed by fate, where shall she
find Hope ?

Here, among these sands, on this poor but perfumed land,
which indeed is not even land, but only sea sand that once
lived ; no earth at all—nothing but life.

The poor little soul of all these marine lives becomes a
flower, and is-exhaled in odors.

In bright, sunny places, screened by oaks from the north
wind, very late in the season she breathes again in the fra-
grance and life-giving virtues of simples. Their wholesome
perfumes, sharp but agreeable, do not cloy the heart as those
of the south do. ‘These, our spirits, are true souls, per-
sistent beings, which convey to the brain the desire of life.
The phantasmagoria of tropical plants, their ephemeral qua-
lities, inspire us with languor. It is only here in the north
that a virtuous vegetation counsels us to create in our works
new reasons for existing. And not to exist alone, but to
continue in natural groups—groups of souls—loving and
beloved, acting out together a composite immortality, wherein
many are united.

Though separately feeble, they combine and live by force
of love.

Medicine may laugh at our simples. Yet, though they
act but slightly on constitutions hardened by “‘ heroic” reme-
dies, and burnt by “heroic” alimentation, they are enough
The Simples. 267

for sober people, for women of gentle manners, regular habits,
and healthy organs—women ‘sensible and pure in spite of the
times. Let woman then in her innocence trustfully store
them. It is a feminine grace to gather and preserve these
treasures of France.

On stony hills well sheltered, in the early morning, she
shares with the bee the rosemary—whose blue flowers flavor
the honey of Narbonne—to distil from it that celestial spirit
which soothes the most distracted brain. Early in autumn
she gathers berries from the bushes, in company with the
bird, beseeching him not to devour all, but leave her a part.
From these she prepares those useful conserves, which we too
easily forget.

Gentle cares are these, which prolong life and render it de-
lightful. If the humbler plants do not always heal the body,
they assuage and fortify the heart, and smoothe fori it the broad
road to vegetable existence.

Every morning, all alone, with the rising of the sun, she
offers up her heart to God, and dreams of her cherished past,
and the approaching future; and then she turns a kindly eye
upon her pretty heirs, who are so soon to inherit her life;
for these touching symbols of vegetable love are also those
of our animal absorption—what we call death. How can we
hate it, fresh and charming as it is, and sweeter under the
turf than the gentlest sleep! A worn-out, agitated life expe-

_viences among this friendly people the attractions of profound
peace.

Meanwhile, every good office is fulfilled which a sister may
perform or require, every interchange of friendship effected.
She waters them herself, covers and protects them in winter,
heaps up around them the fallen leaves and flowers, which at
the same time shelter and nourish them, and takes what is
her own from them only with thanks. If, with her still
beautiful hand, she gathers fruit from peach or cherry tree,
she smiling says: “Lend this to your sister; with all her
heart, when her turn comes, she will restore it to you.”
268 Children—Light—The Future.

VII.

CHILDREN—LIGHT—-THE FUTURE.

Ovr cradle impressions are omnipotent on our death-beds.
Light, that universal mother, by whom the child was warmly
caressed at its life-waking, who received it before its own
mother, who even revealed its mother to it, in the first inter-
change of glances—light warms and blesses its decline, with
the mildness of this life’s twilight, and the dawn of the future
life.

We have the fature, the vita nuova in advance, in the society
of children. They are already the angels, the pure souls we
hope to see. Life is so active in these moving flowers, these
eager birds, so indefatigable in their sport, that a sort of
youth seems to emanate from them. The most afflicted heart,
one that broods most over the lost treasures of its memory,
and cherishes its wounds, is, in spite of itself, refreshed and
renewed by them. Won from itself by their innocent gaiety,
it exclaims, astonished: “Is it possible that I had forgotten
all this ?”

It would seem that God permits the misfortune of orphan-
age, expressly for the consolation of childless women. True,
they love all children, but much more those whose affec-
tions a mother does not engross. The unexpectedness, the
lucky chance, of this late maternity, the exclusive possession
of a young heart, happy to recline on the bosom of a loving
woman, is to them a felicity more intense than any other
happiness in nature. To the joy of being a mother after all,
is added something ardent, like the raptures of the last love.

Nothing approaches nearer to infancy, or loves it more, than
that second infancy, full of experience and reflection, which
we call old age, and which by its wisdom best understands
the voice of the young age. By a natural inclination, children.
Children—Light—The Future. 269

and aged persons are drawn toward each other—these charmed
by the spectacle of innocence, those attracted by the indul-
gence they are sure to find. And herein is one of the most
beautiful of earth’s harmonies. To realize it, I should wish—
indeed it is my dream—that orphans might no longer be col-
lected in great establishments, but distributed in small houses
in the country, each under the moral direction of a lady who
would find her true happiness in her office. The studies, the
sewing, and the husbandry (I mean a little gardening for the
family, as the Enfants of Rouen do), should be conducted by
a young schoolmistress, assisted by her husband. But the
religious and moral part of the éducation, its freer part, read-
ing for amusement and instrnction, recreations and walks,
should be the business of the lady. For children, especially
for girls, there must be certain indulgences, a certain elasticity,
and everything cannot be provided for. The mistress, repre-
senting as she does absolute order, would hardly be the best
judge of these. There should be by her side the children’s
friend, who would never decide without the mistress, but
would obtain from her such concessions, such reasonable in-
dulgences as nature might seem to require. A woman of tact
would thus leave to her upon whom devolved all the care and
all the trouble, the honors of government; but at the same
time making herself beloved by her, and rendering good
offices to the whole household, she would exert a quiet influ-
ence, would control without appearing to do so, and at length
form the mistress herself, and set her own moral seal upon
her.

Never called upon to punish—on the contrary interfering
only to soften the severities of discipline—this lady would win
the complete confidence of the little ones, They would be
happy to open their little hearts to her, concealing from her
none of their troubles, none of their faults even—so that she
could advise them. To know is everything. As soon as we
know, and see to the bottom of the difficulty, we may, by
“270 Children—Light—The Future.

modifying habits a little, render punishment superfluous, and
induce the child to reform himself. He will do so by choice—
especially if he wishes to please and be loved.

There are, in such a house, a hundred delicate matters
which the mistress cannot attend to, which require the exer-
‘cise of goodness, patience, and ingenious tendernéss. Ima-
gine a child of four years old brought to such a place. In its
distraction of grief, the imaginary fears with which its for-
lornness fills it, it will be a wonder if it lives. It must have
‘some one to envelop it with kindness and caresses, and gra-
dually calm it with quiet diversions, until the stricken flower,
torn from its parent stem, shall thrive on another by a kind
of graft. This is difficult, and is never effected by general
rules. I saw one of these poor desolates who died in a great
establishment at Paris. The kind sisters had put some toys
on his bed, but he would not touch them. He wanted a
woman to hold him in her arms, kiss him, mingle her heart
with his, and take him back again into the maternal bosom.

When they live and grow, then comes another danger—a
kind of hardening. All who feel deserted, and know that
their friends have been cruel to them, enter upon life by the
iron gate of war, and are prone to regard society as their
enemy. Other children fling in their faces the odious “ bas-
tard ;” and they are soured, embittered, filled with hate for
their comrades and all human nature. Thus are they on the
high road to crime, and in a fair way to deserve the scorn
that at first was so unjust. Such is misanthropy at ten. If
the child is a girl, the scorn of any one is enough to make
her self-abandoned, reckless, and ripe for evil. Oh! for a good
heart to care for her young soul, to make her feel by tender-
ness all the good there still is in her, to show her that in spite
of her misfortune the world is still her friend, to teach her
to respect herself and honor those who love her.

There comes a time, a peculiarly critical time, when collec-
tive kindnesses are entirély inadequate, and personal affection is
Children—Light—The Future. 271

necessary. Imagine the poor child subjected to the unfriendly
formalities of a common table, the great crowded dormitories,
those dreary galleries wherein a chilling cleanliness is the
only idea of health: subject to harsh rules, rising early to
be washed in the cold, shivering, trembling, yet afraid to
speak, ashamed of her own suffering, and weeping, she knows
not why. Where, at this moment, are the dear old family com-
forts, a mother’s heart melting in sweet caresses, in excesses
of attention, in a thousand useful and useless cares—all
around the little one an atmosphere of warmth, eager solici-
tudes, and anxious oversight ? But for mother and family, the
orphan has only the hospital, with its great grim walls and its
grimmer officials, who, according to rule, distribute their ser-
vices indifferently, fond of no one, and cold to all. It is not
easy, especially in those establishments in which order is every-
thing, to be kind without appearing unjust and partial. Now
nature demands strict personality in kindness, that ardor of
tenderness and warmth of love with which a mother clasps
her child to her bosom. How necessary then, that there
should at least be one friend, some conscientious, tender,
intelligent woman, to supply, however imperfectly, what the
poor thing needs so much.

And this need is the more serious because, just at this time,
that only mother to the orphan, the Law, is going to desert
her. The State has done its duty, and now the hospital is
about to exclude the child from its cold shelter and bar its
doors against her. She must go forth into the unknown,
the vast mysterious World, which to her ignorance seems a
frightful chaos.

And where will you put her? “In a farmer’s family ? In
some respects that would be well; but those rude peasants,
who are doing their best to exterminate themselves, will
treat her as they treat each other, and kill her off with labor.
She is but poorly prepared for so terrible a life, wavering as
she still is in her crisis of transition. But there are greater
a

272 Children—Light—The Future.

dangers than this for her ; if, for instance, she is drawn into
some great industrial vortex, if her lot is to confront the cor--
ruption of cities, that pitiless world wherein every woman is
fairgame. A girl without relatives isso little respected! Even
the head of the family to which she has been entrusted, will often
abuse his authority; the man will make sport of her, the
women will drive her in, the “ young gentleman” will run her
down; and so behold her taken. Otherwise she will find her-
self en gaged in an implacable war—a very hell—while outside,
there is another hunt, of passers-by and all, and (worst of all)
of friends, who attract, console, caress, only to betray her.

I do not know on the face of the earth anything more
pitiful than this poor bird, without a nest, without a refuge—
this innocent young flower, ignorant of all things, incapable
of protecting itself—this poor little woman (for she is one
already), abandoned to chance, just at the critical moment
when nature endows her with a charm and a peril.

Behold her, alone, on the threshold of the hospital which
she has never passed before, and which now she steps over
trembling, her little bundle in her hand; already tall and
pretty, and, alas! so much the more exposed, she goes—
whither? God only knows.

No, she shall not go! The good fairy who serves her for a
godmother shall save her. If our orphan, having led a half
rural life, can support herself, partly by the needle, partly by
gardening, it will cost the establishment but little to keep for
a while a skilful, industrious young girl; who can maintain
herself. And meantime her protectors will cultivate her, and
complete in her that sort of education which will render her
a desirable wife for some worthy laborer, manufacturer, mer-
chant, or farmer, who will find his true safety in taking
from such a house, and from such worthy hands, a girl care-
fully fitted for a life of toil. Never having had fireside or
family, she will so much the more delight in her home,
and, even in the humblest circumstances, will be altogether
Children—Light—The Future. 293

happy, a hundred times gayer and more charming than the
young lady who always thinks she is conferring a favor, and
is never satisfied. At present, our good farmers are at a loss
to find Wives in their own class, or if they do find them they
are ruined; for their women look higher—to marry a black
coat or a clerkship (that is gone to-morrow). They have
not the simple, energetic habits, nor the intelligence, that
the noble life of agriculture requires. But our orphan,
instructed in all useful things, zealous for her husband, proud
to manage a large farm-house, would make the man’s happi-
ness and his fortune also.

If our good lady were only good, she would simply adopt
the child, and take this nice girl home, to make a jewel of
her, that she herself might every hour have a festival of inno-
cence and gaiety in the possession of a daughter who adored
her, and who, under her hands, would become an elegant
young lady.

But she is wary of that; she chooses rather to deny her-
self, and not force the child into a condition where marriage
would be difficult. Let her but put on a hat some day, and
all would be lost. So she leaves her to her cap, or better
still, her own pretty hair; she leaves her half peasant, with
all the possibilities of reading and music, as we see in Switzer-
land and Germany. And thus the future is rendered easy to
her; midway of all, she may easily rise, or descend, if it be
necessary.

To see what has not yet come to pass, is a gift of advanced
age, of a various experience and a pure life. Now the admi-
rable and delightful woman of whom this book is a biography,
is clearly impressed with the approaching future of European
societies. Great and profound renewals there are to be.
Women and families will necessarily be surrounded by new
circumstances. Will the rudimentary woman of “ L? Amour,”
or the cultivated lady of “La Femme,” suffice? By no means.
The latter, herself, clearly perceives that the wife of the com-

12* ,
274 Children—Light—The Future.

ing man must be more complete and stronger, harmonized
with him in thought and action; and such she would have
her orphan be. Her prudent effort, is to render this beloved
child different from herself, and ready for a better, state of
things, for a society more masculine by labor and equality.

And what then? is this but a dream of hers? in the reali-
ties around us we note already the forecast shadow, the imper-
fect image, of the coming beauty. ;

In the “ Backwoods” of the west, on the very confines of a
savage world, the American woman—wife or widow—who
works and tills the ground all day, in the evening none the
less reads, none the less explains the Bible to her children.

Once passing into Switzerland, over the dreariest of fron-
tiers, the fir forests of Jura, I was surprised to see in the fields
the daughters of watchmakers, beautiful and well-bred girls,
well-informed, and quite ladies, working in velvet bodices, at
hay-making. Nothing could be more charming. By that amia-
ble alliance of art and agriculture, the earth seemed to flourish
under their delicate hands, and evidently the flowers were
proud to be handled by a clever person.

But what impressed me most, and made me fancy for a
moment that I was already “assisting” at the next century,
was ameeting I had, on Lake Lucerne, with a wealthy family
of Alsatian peasants. The picture was in no respect unworthy
ofthe sublime frame in which I had the happiness to see it. The
father, mother, and young daughter wore, with proud simpli-
city, the ancient but beautiful costume of their country. The
parents were true Alsatians, of stout hearts, fair talents, and
wise heads, square and solid; the daughter much more
French, refined at Lorraine, her iron changed to steel. De-
cidedly young, she was slender, active, and full of vitality;
with a slight figure and yellow arms, astonishingly strong ;
but they were very brown. Her father said: “That is be-
cause she will work in the fields; she lives in the fields, labors
there, and reads there.
Children—Light—The Future. 275

“The oxen know her well and love her. When she is tired,
she mounts one, and they draw all the better for that. But
that does not hinder the little one from reading Goethe or
Lamartine to me in the evening, or playing Weber or Mozart
for me.” I wish our lady-patroness of orphans had seen
that charming realization of her own ideal. It is doubtless
towards an analogous or identical type that the world to come
will tend.

To form such a treasure, to realize in her that vision of a
pure and vigorous life, with its fruitful equalities and noble
simplicities, which shall free man, and prompt him to produce
works of liberty in the name of love, is a great religious
act. For so long as our women take no part in labor and
action, we are serfs and can do nothing.

Give that vision to the world, Madam. Let it be your che-
rished thought, the worthy occupation of your declining years.
Put into it all the graces of your heart, your matured wisdom,
your strong and noble will. Should you serve God by doing
so much good in the land, with what confidence could yon
return unto Him!

I picture to myself this beloved lady, on a beautiful winter
day, when the weather is mild ; she has had an attack of fever,
and is still weak, but convalescent, and wishes to go down
and sit in the garden. Supported by the arm of her dear
adopted daughter, she is going to see her little ones play
again, her children whom she has not seen for a week. As
she approaches their sports cease, and her darlings encircle
her. She looks upon them, but sees them only confusedly ;
still she fondles them, and kisses those of four or five years
old. Is she in pain? Not at all; but her sight is failing.
She wishes most of all to see the fading light, which is
still reflected from her silver hair. She gazes in vain, in
276 Children—Light—The Future.

vain—dimmer and dimmer. A kind of twilight has tinted her
pale cheeks, and her hands arejoined. Thenher little ones speak
very low: “Oh! how she has changed! And how young and
beautiful she is!” A youthful smile has indeed passed over
her lips, as though she communed with an invisible spirit.

For her own spirit, emancipated by God, has taken its free
flight, and soared upwards into light.
NotTEs
Nores.
NOTE 1.

Tae Morau Caaracrer or THIs Work.

[See Translator’s Preface.]

NOTE 2.
Epvcation, Cuitpren’s WorksHoPs AND GARDENS.

The true exponents of the Middle Ages were Speech and Imitation ;
those of the present age, Action and Creation. What education is
suited to a creative age? That which teaches how to create. ‘It is
not sufficient to appeal to the inspiration of the moment (as according
to Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Jacotot, Fourier, Coignet, and Issaurat), but
we must assist the mind to discover the rail on which it may dash for-
ward. The genius of Froebel has effected this. When in last January
his amiable follower, Madame de Marenholz, explained his system to
me, I saw at once that it was the education for the times, the only true
method. Rousseau, with his system, creates a Robinson Crusoe, a her-
mit; Fourier has recourse to the apish instinct, and makes the child a
mere imitator; Jacotot developes the specialty of speech and argu-
ment. But Froebel puts an end to all this nonsense, by proscribing °
imitation; his system of education is neither external nor imposed,
but evolved from the child itself; nor is it arbitrary. Thus history has
a new beginning in the child, in the creative activity of the human race.
Read the charming Manual of Madame de Marenholz—not to follow it
servilely, but to derive suggestions from it. And see the Paris School,
under the direction of Madame Keechlin.
280 Notes.

NOTE 3.
Justice 1x Love, ann tae Hussann’s Dury.

In this age, apparently a cold one, love has nevertheless revealed
itself under countless new aspects of passion, Never before has it
spoken in such mighty tones; never has it so longed for the infinite.
She was living only yesterday—she who wrote such burning measures
—she, the muse of eternal love, with its tempests and its tears, Madame
Valmore.

The striking feature of our time is, s, that love now suffers and weeps
for a profound and: absolute possession, which hitherto was neither
desired nor thought of. ‘To this demand Science replies with her sa-
cred revelation: “ You long for perféct unity ; and you have it already,
in that absolute interchange of lives, that transmutation of beings which
constitutes marriage.” But is love satisfied with this? No, not yet:
the ordained oneness of the flesh is a eae if there be not with it
a free union.of hearts.

And in order that this may exist, iba should create in themselves,
by life-long study, a common basis "ak ideas, and a language which will
incite them continually to communicate with each other. The silent
tongue of love, its communion, must again assume its sacred function,
which, ignoring all selfish pleasure, implies the alliance of two wills.

_ The casuist, without heart or soul, has made no stipulation on behalf
of the woman. But to-day it is the man himself, who in magnanimous
justice must plead her cause—even, if necessary, against himself; for
she has a right to three things :—

Ist. She should never be impregnated without her unqualified assent.
It is for her to say whether or not she is strong enough to accept that
chance of death. If she is ill, feeble, or badly formed, her husband
should spare her—especially at the time when the ovum is exposed
(during menstruation and the ten days following). Is the intermediate
period sterile? It certainly ought to be, since the ovum is wanting;
but passion may cause its reappearance. M. Coste thinks it is in this
condition for at least three days previous to menstruation, which is also
the opinion advanced in the Memoir approved by the Academy of
Sciences. ;

2d. The husband owes his wife enough of the etiquette of love not
Notes. 281

to-make her a passive minister to his pleasure; there should be none
for him unless shared by her. A Catholic physician of Lyons, a regu-
lar professor, gives it as his deliberate opinion, in a popular work pub-
lished this year, that the seourge which decimates women originates
chiefly in the fact, that the greater part of them, though married, are in
reality widows. Solitary in pleasure itself, the selfish impatience of
the man, desiring only self-gratification, and that for a single instant,
arouses her emotions only to disappoint. To excite, but always in
vain, is to provoke disease, irritate the body, and desiccate the soul.
The wife submits to it; but she becomes melancholy and sarcastic, and
her bitterness affects her blood. With the exception of occasional
business talk, there is no conversation between them; at heart, no mar-
riage. For marriage exists only through the sustained study of the
heart's duties, in the interchange of those salutary raptures which re-
new life. If this be wanting, the espoused pair become estranged, and
ill at ease with each other; the children of such a marriage are to be
pitied, for the family is dissolved. Does the man pretend to be satisfied
with the brief pleasure he takes by force from ice and marble? He
derives from it only wretchedness, for though practically a materialist,
his mind has all the requirements of a far-advanced age, which demands
in everything the very depths of the profound; in a word, he would
penetrate even to the soul.

3d. Another physician, himself an excellent husband, said to me:
“The best thing in your work (L'Amour) is what everybody has
Jaughed at—that portion about the half-maternal duties of love, those
willing offices which suppress the dressing-maid. That tiresome and dan-
gerous third person is as a wall between husband and wife, rendering
their relations quite fortuitous; so that a man gets to visiting his wife,
as if she were his kept mistress. The advantage of marriage is to be
able to be together at all times, and consequently at those rare mo-
ments when your wife—like all women, somewhat cold—may be in-
spired by a natural longing. Affection and gratitude have much effect
with women in this respect. They are much more promptly moved
by him who understands the management of their little mysteries, and
who tenderly nurses them during their periods of weakness.

If you wish to understand women, remember how, in natural his-
tory, moulting enfeebles, and destroys life among animals. Terrible in
the inferior species, it leaves them wholly at the mercy of their ene-
282 Notes.

mies. Man, in whom, fortunately, it is not violent, changes continu-
ally as to his skin, and even his internal epidermis. In his intestinal
processes, day by day he “sheds” part of himself, and is enfeebled by
it. Woman loses far more than he, having in addition her peculiar
function every month. She has at such times, in common with all
animals during their moulting season, a desire to hide herself, but also
to lean upon something. She is the Melusina of the fairy tale: the
beautiful fay, who on earth often assumed the form of a pretty, timid,
little adder, and hid herself to cast her skin. Happy he who can
soothe his Melusina, who can comfort her, and make himself her nurse.
Who, indeed, can supply his place? It is profanation to expose her
beloved person, so timid about so innocent a matter, to the tricks of a
silly maid, who would make a jest of her. Such an extreme of inti-
macy should be granted only to him to whom it can be a joy and a
favor—a favor, which at first costs her some pain, but which, little by
little, she will find so full of comfort, that she would on no account
withdraw it. Nature loves habit; and she makes free use of the per-
fect liberties of childhood.

Those are happy moments of grace and complaisance, and easy com-
pliance, when her cherished confidant enthrals her with his harmless
magnetism. The charming humility of her who knows so well that
she is queen, is without defence, and yields without a struggle—in pro-
found forgetfulness, abandonment without reserve! Love, hitherto
experienced only as a half-conscious dream, has now a chance to assert
itself in complete bliss—in that salutary crisis (so profound with woman)
in which she gives up her very life, to have it returned to hera thou-
sand fold, in new beauty and new embellishments according to the
law of Nature.

 

NOTE 4.
Woman in Socrery.

What society ? Past or future? I have not spoken of the first,
nor repeated the history of the Salons, which is given at sufficient
length in my Louis XIV. There is much talk of the good these Salons
effected, none of the good they prevented, of the genius they stifled.
Madame Henriette exerted a happy influence for ten years. But
Madame de Montespan, by her viciousness, and Madame de Mainté-
Notes. 283

non, by her negative mediocrity, rendered France barren for forty
years. The society of the future, we can only imagine. In the third
book it has been my endeavor simply to point out the position which
the widow and the single woman will occupy—that of an emancipator,
through goodness, of all enslaved souls; for even in a free society
there will always be slaves—slaves to poverty, to age, to prejudice, to
passion. Ina perfectly harmonious community, a great-hearted wo-
man would be the good genius of maternal power, interposing in every
case that the law does not reach,—a supplement to Liberty, a higher
order of Liberty, a direct interposition of God.

THE END.
IN COURSE OF PUBLICATION.
THE NOVELS AND TALES

OF

M. HONORE DE BALZAC.

Translated from the Original French, by
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AND
FRANK B. GOODRICH, (« Dick Tinto.”)

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