 | Dorothy |  |
Venit summa dies, et ineluctabilis hora!
Yes—we have come to the end, come to the Colonel, at last.
Where has he gone? Why, of course he has gone to the South, for the winter:
When shall we see him again? Why, with the Session, of course.
Session, or rather, indeed, that happier period, the Season;
Not for St. Stephen's alone lives the society man:
When the asparagus comes; when salmon is fresh at the table;
When from their premature beds strawberries enter, and cream;
When there are people in town, and one rides in the park as a duty,
Then too shall you, the Advanced, welcome your Colonel again.
Ah, he will come with his Bill to Regulate Female Employment!
Ready for action again: true to each popular cry:
Ready once more to preside, with eloquence sweet and perennial,
Over his feminine friends, champions of Freedom and Light:
He, with his crotchety men and his masculine angular women,
Fighting—and who is their foe? Only Dame Nature herself.—
‘See,’ cry the feminine men and the gaunt irrepressible women,
‘See, how a woman goes bound, fetter'd, and crippled, through life!
‘Robb'd, by the envy of man, of all share in his active employments:
‘Left to her piteous career—sewing, or teaching, or shame!’
Granted, O eloquent men, O gaunt irrepressible ladies!
Granted: and what would you have? What do you wish us to do?—
‘Do? Why, admit her, of course, to a share in those active employments;
‘Give her the option at least, whether she'll have it or no;
‘Give her a voice and a vote: if we must have laws to be bound by,
‘Let her at any rate feel she had a hand in them all.’—
Oh, my adorable friends, my eager irascible females,
Have you such faith in your sex? Do you, ah, do you desire
They should be free to work; no longer confounded with children
(‘Women and Children,’ you know—that is the Parliament phrase);
Using what labour they like, as strength and as Nature allows it,
Freely and fairly, like men: shut out from nothing, save crime?
Then I demand your applause for my tale, just happily ended:
How you must love and admire hardworking Dorothy George!
‘Love and admire?’ cry they, with screams of angry derision—
‘Love and admire a wench, following horses at plough!
‘Love and admire hard hands, all rugged and horny with labour—
‘Thick red muscular arms—shoulders as broad as a man's!
‘What! Do you seriously think that these are the rights of us women?
‘Booby! and can you suppose this is the goal we desire?
‘No, we have loftier views: if we offer to share your employments,
‘'Tis but the higher we want—such as are pretty and nice:
‘Such as bring fortune and fame, and honour and early preferment:
‘Such as our Colonel enjoys—such as would never suit you!
As for those coarse-grain'd slaves, those ignorant arduous creatures
‘Brutal with open-air work, toiling like Dorothy George,
They shall be stopp'd—that's all! Their work isn't fit for a woman:
Man, the sole drudge of the earth, man shall perform it, alone.’—
Yes—we have come to the end, come to the Colonel, at last.
Where has he gone? Why, of course he has gone to the South, for the winter:
When shall we see him again? Why, with the Session, of course.
Session, or rather, indeed, that happier period, the Season;
Not for St. Stephen's alone lives the society man:
When the asparagus comes; when salmon is fresh at the table;
When from their premature beds strawberries enter, and cream;
When there are people in town, and one rides in the park as a duty,
Then too shall you, the Advanced, welcome your Colonel again.
Ah, he will come with his Bill to Regulate Female Employment!
Ready for action again: true to each popular cry:
Ready once more to preside, with eloquence sweet and perennial,
Over his feminine friends, champions of Freedom and Light:
He, with his crotchety men and his masculine angular women,
Fighting—and who is their foe? Only Dame Nature herself.—
‘See,’ cry the feminine men and the gaunt irrepressible women,
‘See, how a woman goes bound, fetter'd, and crippled, through life!
‘Robb'd, by the envy of man, of all share in his active employments:
‘Left to her piteous career—sewing, or teaching, or shame!’
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Granted: and what would you have? What do you wish us to do?—
‘Do? Why, admit her, of course, to a share in those active employments;
‘Give her the option at least, whether she'll have it or no;
‘Give her a voice and a vote: if we must have laws to be bound by,
‘Let her at any rate feel she had a hand in them all.’—
Oh, my adorable friends, my eager irascible females,
Have you such faith in your sex? Do you, ah, do you desire
They should be free to work; no longer confounded with children
(‘Women and Children,’ you know—that is the Parliament phrase);
Using what labour they like, as strength and as Nature allows it,
Freely and fairly, like men: shut out from nothing, save crime?
Then I demand your applause for my tale, just happily ended:
How you must love and admire hardworking Dorothy George!
‘Love and admire?’ cry they, with screams of angry derision—
‘Love and admire a wench, following horses at plough!
‘Love and admire hard hands, all rugged and horny with labour—
‘Thick red muscular arms—shoulders as broad as a man's!
‘What! Do you seriously think that these are the rights of us women?
‘Booby! and can you suppose this is the goal we desire?
‘No, we have loftier views: if we offer to share your employments,
‘'Tis but the higher we want—such as are pretty and nice:
‘Such as bring fortune and fame, and honour and early preferment:
‘Such as our Colonel enjoys—such as would never suit you!
As for those coarse-grain'd slaves, those ignorant arduous creatures
‘Brutal with open-air work, toiling like Dorothy George,
They shall be stopp'd—that's all! Their work isn't fit for a woman:
Man, the sole drudge of the earth, man shall perform it, alone.’—
Ah then, my logical friends, most courteous and candid of ladies,
Now we can quite understand—now we conceive you, at last!
Now it is clear that your Bill to Regulate Female Employment
(‘Regulate’—excellent word! same as abolish, I see)
Means to abolish at least one half of Woman's employments:
Means to diminish her rights: means to imprison her will.
This, we perceive, is the use you would make of your votes, if you had them:
Voting restriction of rights sacred and strong as your own!
Now we can quite understand—now we conceive you, at last!
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(‘Regulate’—excellent word! same as abolish, I see)
Means to abolish at least one half of Woman's employments:
Means to diminish her rights: means to imprison her will.
This, we perceive, is the use you would make of your votes, if you had them:
Voting restriction of rights sacred and strong as your own!
Thus, if a maiden there be (thank God, there are many in England)
Muscular, hearty, and strong; fitted for out o' door work;
Eager to do it, and apt for farm work, field work, pit work;
She must abandon it all: she must be govern'd by you!
True, she has strength and skill, and liking and taste, for her labour:
True, that the labour itself has not a touch of reproach:
Yet she must yield, and withdraw to the ways and the work of a weakling;
Wasting her strength indoors, losing her cherish'd employ.
Facts? What are facts, if you please, when theories choose to ignore them?
When, in the place of good-sense, sentiment models the law?
Muscular, hearty, and strong; fitted for out o' door work;
Eager to do it, and apt for farm work, field work, pit work;
She must abandon it all: she must be govern'd by you!
True, she has strength and skill, and liking and taste, for her labour:
True, that the labour itself has not a touch of reproach:
Yet she must yield, and withdraw to the ways and the work of a weakling;
Wasting her strength indoors, losing her cherish'd employ.
Facts? What are facts, if you please, when theories choose to ignore them?
When, in the place of good-sense, sentiment models the law?
Fools! (for I answer you now in your own sweet method and manner)—
Fools! If she chooses to work, who has the right to say No?
Ay, if she choose to fulfil the rudest masculine labour—
Vain of her prowess, perhaps; glad of a livelier world—
If she be earning her bread as a soldier, a sailor, a navvy;
Brawny and swink'd at the forge, black in the deeps of the mine;
Or (as myself have known a comely and virtuous woman)
Bred to the ostler's trade, breeches and gaiters and all:
Ay, if she even do that; who are you, who am I, to forbid her?
She a grown woman, who says, ‘This is the work I enjoy:’
She a grown woman, and free; a wife with consent of her husband;
Widow, or damsel adult, needing no sanction at all?
Fools! If she chooses to work, who has the right to say No?
Ay, if she choose to fulfil the rudest masculine labour—
Vain of her prowess, perhaps; glad of a livelier world—
If she be earning her bread as a soldier, a sailor, a navvy;
Brawny and swink'd at the forge, black in the deeps of the mine;
Or (as myself have known a comely and virtuous woman)
Bred to the ostler's trade, breeches and gaiters and all:
Ay, if she even do that; who are you, who am I, to forbid her?
She a grown woman, who says, ‘This is the work I enjoy:’
She a grown woman, and free; a wife with consent of her husband;
Widow, or damsel adult, needing no sanction at all?
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What? Does it lie in your mouths to prohibit a woman from working?
You, who are always at hand, telling all women to work?
You, who so warmly resent the lofty pretensions of manhood,
Would you bring down on your sex laws that are fashion'd by men?
Parliament? Marry come up! The State is the Parliament's master,
Surely; and who are the State? Women, or only the men?
Why, all the men in the land, with the ‘women and children’ to back them,
Have not the right to forbid labour that is not a crime!
You, who are always at hand, telling all women to work?
You, who so warmly resent the lofty pretensions of manhood,
Would you bring down on your sex laws that are fashion'd by men?
Parliament? Marry come up! The State is the Parliament's master,
Surely; and who are the State? Women, or only the men?
Why, all the men in the land, with the ‘women and children’ to back them,
Have not the right to forbid labour that is not a crime!
No, my political friend, my Colonel accepted of women,
Leading your boisterous nymphs, graceful Lyæus, around;
Whether in Parliament pent, or careering at large on a platform,
You and your virulent nymphs have not converted us yet!
No—there may certainly be, as the prophet says, in our England,
So many millions of folk, chiefly and hopelessly fools;
But we can most of us see, we commonplace practical English,
That which is true holds good whether one likes it or not.
If it be true and confest that a woman (remembering always
Nature has laid upon her tasks of her own to endure)—
If it be true and confest that a woman has courage to labour;
If she has sinews and strength, if she has heart for the work,
And if the labour itself be such as Humanity bears with,
Then she may do it, of course; whether we like it, or not.
Leading your boisterous nymphs, graceful Lyæus, around;
Whether in Parliament pent, or careering at large on a platform,
You and your virulent nymphs have not converted us yet!
No—there may certainly be, as the prophet says, in our England,
So many millions of folk, chiefly and hopelessly fools;
But we can most of us see, we commonplace practical English,
That which is true holds good whether one likes it or not.
If it be true and confest that a woman (remembering always
Nature has laid upon her tasks of her own to endure)—
If it be true and confest that a woman has courage to labour;
If she has sinews and strength, if she has heart for the work,
And if the labour itself be such as Humanity bears with,
Then she may do it, of course; whether we like it, or not.
Ah, but I think he is changed, our stately yet affable Colonel,
Since he came back to the club, since he saw Dorothy George.
Finding a daughter like her—obscure, unacknowledged, a servant;
Whom an aristocrat sire never could venture to own;
Finding, however, that she, hardhanded, clumsy with labour,
Still had a beautiful face, still had a womanly heart,
Still, through her hardworking life (or, haply, because of it, even?)
Kept herself healthy and pure, grew to be stalwart and strong,
Kept herself tender and true, till her warm unsullied affection
Flow'd, at the touch of his love, all to her Robert alone:
Seeing all this for himself, with his own eyes, not with another's,
Surely, I think, he is changed; come to a happier mind.
Surely, ashamed of his Bill to Regulate Female Employment,
He will have sense to avow that which his senses have seen:
Leaving to doctrinaire dames the impertinent crazy endeavour
Thus to give women restraints none would impose upon men.
So that, deliver'd at last (for doctrinaire follies, unaided
Save by the breath of conceit, sullenly whimper and die),
Still may the peasant girls and the sturdy matrons of England,
Bred to an open-air life such as their elders enjoy'd,
Duly become, like them, the mothers of masculine workers,
Fit to maintain, to enlarge, England's historic renown:
So that each lustier lass, who breathes the sweet air of the country—
Or if, unhappy, she dwell deep in the horrible town—
Still may have part with her men, in the work of the land that she lives in;
Still may be seen, if she will, following horses at plough.
Since he came back to the club, since he saw Dorothy George.
Finding a daughter like her—obscure, unacknowledged, a servant;
Whom an aristocrat sire never could venture to own;
Finding, however, that she, hardhanded, clumsy with labour,
Still had a beautiful face, still had a womanly heart,
85
Kept herself healthy and pure, grew to be stalwart and strong,
Kept herself tender and true, till her warm unsullied affection
Flow'd, at the touch of his love, all to her Robert alone:
Seeing all this for himself, with his own eyes, not with another's,
Surely, I think, he is changed; come to a happier mind.
Surely, ashamed of his Bill to Regulate Female Employment,
He will have sense to avow that which his senses have seen:
Leaving to doctrinaire dames the impertinent crazy endeavour
Thus to give women restraints none would impose upon men.
So that, deliver'd at last (for doctrinaire follies, unaided
Save by the breath of conceit, sullenly whimper and die),
Still may the peasant girls and the sturdy matrons of England,
Bred to an open-air life such as their elders enjoy'd,
Duly become, like them, the mothers of masculine workers,
Fit to maintain, to enlarge, England's historic renown:
So that each lustier lass, who breathes the sweet air of the country—
Or if, unhappy, she dwell deep in the horrible town—
Still may have part with her men, in the work of the land that she lives in;
Still may be seen, if she will, following horses at plough.
| Dorothy | |