University of Virginia Library

28. CHAPTER XXVIII.

At length the day of trial came, and Keizer had
not yet made his appearance. Yet I saw no sign
that either Balcombe or his wife at all doubted that
he would be forthcoming in due time. I had not
expected to see the ladies at breakfast on the
morning of that day, but they were both present.
Mrs. Robinson commanded herself, but her pale
lip and unsteady eye showed that she did so with
difficulty. But Mrs. Balcombe appeared with a
firm step and erect countenance, her cheek flushed,
her eye flashing with unusual brightness, but it
was slightly reddened, and the veins of her forehead
and temples were full and corded. She was
silent, and I observed that she ate little, but her

deportment was steady and majestic. Balcombe
was composed and calm as a spring morning. He
said little, for the subject of his thoughts was not
a fit subject for conversation; but his whole air
betokened the same cheerful confidence in himself
which I had always seen him manifest, chastened
and subdued by a sense of decorum, and respect
for the feelings of others. Young Scott, whose
faith in him seemed greater even than my own,
and who had spent the last few weeks with a book
in his hand, as if nothing had happened, now
seemed to reflect his feelings. He looked on Balcombe's
face, and read there that all was well, and
he was satisfied. At length we rose to depart.
Balcombe now tenderly took his wife by the arm
to lead her out; but she stopped short, and said,
firmly,

“No, my husband, we part here; I have no
woman's weakness to hide.”

“Bless you, my child!” said Balcombe, tenderly
folding her in his arms. “May God bless you and
be with you, my noble girl!”

“God is with you,” said she. “Then go, my
husband, go; and in his strength and in the strength
of innocence and courage, and the resources of
your own mind, baffle and confound your enemies,
as you have always done.”

We set out, and whether it were accident, or
that I was drawn towards Balcombe by admiration
and sympathy, we fell together in the narrow road
where only two could ride abreast. We rode in

profound silence for some time. At length Balcombe
turned to me, and with a face beaming with
a degree of animation which showed that its
spirit had shaken off its load, he said,

“I cannot help it; my wife has infected me with
the contagion of her own feelings. It is not, I
know, selon les regles; but she has talked about me
until I must talk about her.”

“If you will give me leave to do so too,” said I,
“I will say that a worthier theme of praise could
not be found.”

“You say true, William. She is a noble creature.
The noblest of God's works—a right woman
—a genuine unsophisticated woman. You may be
inclined, perhaps, to think differently, and regard
the strength of mind and firmness she displays as
rather unfeminine.”

“I acknowledge,” said I, “that I was unprepared
for an exhibition of character so much at
variance with the shrinking reserve which marked
her deportment until this prosecution commenced.
Both are admirable; but the union of both in the
same person puzzles me.”

“They are but different phases of the same object,”
replied he. “The moon has not lost her
brightness because the side next you is dark. It
is so because the other is full of light. There is
good philosophy in that mythology which makes
the sun a man and the moon a woman. Man
should always shine by his own light, woman by
that which is cast upon her. In the heart of

woman, uncorrupted by a false philosophy which
would unfit her for her proper sphere, the proudest
feeling is that of admiration of her husband.
Her strength is in her reliance on his prowess;
her hope is in her confidence in his fortunes. The
master of her heart and person is, in her eyes, the
master of her destiny and his own. This is as
God meant it should be. To this state the natural
feelings of a woman's heart will tend, let quacks
in education do what they will. While woman
remains what she is, in this relation she will settle
down. That is no fiction of municipal law which
merges the existence of a woman in her husband.
It is the fiat of nature. Generous, devoted, trusting,
tender, and weak, she registers this decree in
her heart, and executes it on herself. Take from
her these qualities, make her something that God
did not make her, nor mean that she should be,
and she will struggle for supremacy, and contend
for distinction with her husband. But leave her
heart uncorrupt, and she will put from her, as a
deadly bane, whatever may tempt it to insubordination
to him she loves. Respect for him is so
essential to her comfort, that, if she cannot raise
him above herself, she will sink herself below him.
What he does not know she will try to forget, or
learn to undervalue. This is woman's nature,
William, and war against it as you will, thank
God you cannot destroy it. `Naturam expellas
furca tamen usque recurret.'

“Now what have you seen in Elizabeth? A

woman who while her husband's light was above
the horizon, hid herself beneath it, or if she appeared
at all, modestly paled her lustre in his presence.
But let him sink, and she rises, in all her
glory, to show the world that his beams, though
hidden, are not extinguished.

“When you told me that Ann said `that she had
no turn for the 'ologies,' my heart warmed towards
her. I see by what you say of her that she
is gentle as a dove. Cherish her indisposition for
those useless acquirements, that rather dazzle than
enlighten, and she will nestle in your bosom, and
only look out with her meek eyes upon the world,
seeing without caring to be seen. But let her
sanctuary be invaded, let a blow be aimed at your
honour or your heart, and she will guard her nest
with the beak and talons of an eagle.”

“Do you mean, then, to say,” asked I, “that the
faculties of the female mind should not be cultivated?”

“I mean to say,” he replied, “that woman ought
not to be made ambitious of intellectual distinction,
or distinction of any kind. Such a feeling unsexes
her. The feeling which disposes a woman to see
her name in print, is hardly less meretricious than
that which makes her show her ankles. If woman
should insist that her limbs were as shapely as
ours, and complain of the custom which condemns
their symmetry to concealment, should we hearken
to the plea? If she can add to the light that is in
the world let her do so. But there is no need that

she should show herself. If she will do it, let her,
like Mrs. Hannah More, renounce her sex, disclaim
all thoughts of matrimonial connection, for which
she is unfit, and make herself a sort of working bee
in the hive, neither male nor female. I have no objection
to that; but in this country, where husbands
are plenty and few women are in danger of being
driven to such a pis aller, I suspect they would
not accede to the terms. Be it so. Let them
figure in the world, and make themselves conspicuous
as lady patronesses and lady presidents of
societies, and put their names to prize essays and
prize poems if they will. Let such a woman still
hold herself out to society as a marrying character,
and let her marry. Of one thing she may be sure.
A man of delicacy will not marry her. He will
require that she be not only chaste but intact.
Fanned by the sweet breath of heaven, but not
blown upon by the corrupting gale of public praise.
He will never consent that the `tender bloom of
the heart' shall have been rubbed off by other
hands. He will never consent, that, glutted with
popular applause, the delicate hint of admiration
shall be valueless, and a husband's love and a husband's
calm discriminating approbation be rejected
as flat and insipid, to an appetite already palled by
the loud acclaim of the world. A wealthy or
titled libertine will marry an actress from the theatre.
Would you? Would I? `Be she as chaste
as ice, as pure as snow,' would either of us marry
her? Why not? Because she has been pawed
and mouthed by the nauseous wretches that caricature
love upon the stage! Not that alone; but
because
Now I can tell those learned ladies that `there are
secrets in heaven and earth not dreamed of in their
philosophy.' That whether it be their personal or
intellectual charms which are made
such men as they would choose to marry, will not
be very eager to appropriate the leavings of the
public.”

“But,” said I, “will not a general standard of
female education, more elevated than heretofore
adopted, have a tendency to raise that of the men,
by stimulating them to improvement, that they
may win the favour of intellectual women?”

“Yes,” said he, “whenever marriage is more
necessary to men than to women. But when will
that be? Do not you see that marriage is an invention
of civilized society for the benefit of women

and the protection of children? Woman must
marry. `Wo is me! if I do not marry,' she may
well say. And she must and will marry man as
she finds him. It is their fate to take such husbands
as Heaven sends. Suppose there was not a
woman in the community fit to be the wife of a
fool. What then? Would the fools go without
wives? No such thing. But the women would
be unqualified for happiness with such husbands as
they must put up with.”

“But should we not afford such means of education
as may qualify women to be the wives of
men of sense?”

“By all means.”

“Would you not then educate highly at least as
many as practicable for their benefit?”

“Yes, when I see that men of sense want highly
educated wives. But if I can understand the run
of the market, such women are commonly left to
men of cultivated but effeminate minds, of pretty
talents, not of masculine sense; while they whose
names live in the mouths of men, prefer the plain
housewifely girl, who reads her Bible, works her
sampler, darns her stockings, and boils her bacon
and greens together.”

“But is not that a perverted taste?”

“Does it become us to sit in judgment on the
tastes of such men as we speak of? Is it not
rather the part of wisdom to inquire whether this
thing has not its foundation in truth and nature?
How shall we try this? By experience. If such

women make the homes of their husbands happy,
is that no proof? If such women train up their
sons to walk in the paths of science, honour, and
virtue, is that no proof? What more would you
have? That they should train up their daughters
to be such as themselves. But that the modern
inventions in education will not allow. A girl of
fifteen, who does not think her mother a fool, will
not pass an examination now. The whole is in
order. Let her grow up in contempt of her mother,
and spend her days in contempt of her husband,
and let God's commandment and God's
established order of domestic society be exploded
as an antiquated fashion.”

“I am afraid,” said I, “that I shall find you an
uncompromising opponent of what I had regarded
as one of the greatest improvements of the age.”

“What is that?”

“Female education.”

“Female education! I know nothing more important.”

“Then, to be more precise, the degree of attention
paid to it.”

“That can never be too great. There is no
object which requires such unremitting attention.
The heart of woman is the fabled garden of the
Hesperides. Its golden fruits require all the vigilance
of the sleepless dragon that guards them for
the rightful owners, her husband and her God. It
is you who would break up the privacy of its imbowered
recesses, and let in the gaudy glare of

day, and the common eye, and the foot of the multitude,
where I would have shade and quiet, and
the dewy freshness of the morning.”

“Still you misapprehend me. It is not the
degree of attention of which I speak, but the subjects
of instruction—science and literature.”

“I understand you perfectly; but I choose to
make you state accurately the point of difference
between us. This is one of those controversies in
which, from its nature, nearly all that is written is
on your side. You are the bookmakers, not we.
You are of the allies of the trade, as it is called,
and from the printer's devil to the great bookselling
capitalist, all the fellows of the craft are on
your side. Let you state the question your own
way, and impute to us the maintenance of an absurd
proposition, and you have nothing to do but
to refute it. But state your own, and prove that.”

“But the reductio ad absurdum is sometimes the
only mode of proof.”

“What are the proper subjects of it? Cases
where you can put two things together and show
that they don't fit. I am willing to abide that
test.”

“What, then, is your proposition?”

“I have none to make. Sto bene. I am very
well as I am, and wish to be let alone.”

“You maintain, then, that female education is
as good already as it can be.”

“It is as good as anything that is no better.
Show me what you think better and I will choose.

You are terribly afraid of that reductio ad absurdum
that you wish to use against me.”

“You seem to fear it too; for you refuse to
state what you contend for.”

“I contend for nothing. I am merely satisfied
with woman as she is. And how do I shrink from
the reductio ad absurdum? Nothing can be more
definite than my proposition. I show you woman
as she is. Look at her. Now find her place in
society, and if she does not fit it, then my proposition
is condemned; and if you can make her fit it
better you shall be my Apollo.”

“But what is her place in society?”

“That which must be filled, and which she
alone can fill. My dear William, you propose to
be a husband and a father. In this relation, on
which the whole happiness of your life will depend,
what you want is a wife and a mother. This is
woman's place in society. What more exalted
would you have for her than that compound relation
in which she constitutes the chief happiness of
man.”

“But will she not be more or less qualified to
fill that place according to her education?”

“Assuredly. And if I be asked what education
fits her best for it, I will take the practical wisdom
of the wise and good for my guide, and choose that
as my standard, which I find to be, in point of fact,
the education of the sort of women they choose for
wives. As I remarked a while ago, instead of

wondering at or censuring their choice, I make it
my business to look for the reason of it?”

“And have you found one?”

“I think I have. The education I speak of prepares
a woman to receive instruction from her
husband, and does not impair the natural and
healthy disposition of her mind to receive his instructions
as the teachings of truth and wisdom.
You have never married, William; but you have
been brought up in the house with her you loved.
You are her senior, and have had means of instruction
denied to her. I will not ask if you have been
in the habit of communicating their benefits to her.
I know you have; and I know that that occupation
has afforded you the sweetest, the purest, the most
refined and delicate enjoyment of your life. Would
you have been willing to be forestalled in this?
You will not say `yes;' and unless you do, I need
not continue the argument.”

I could not say “yes;” and though I will not
admit that I was convinced, yet this argumentum
ad hominem fairly knocked my heels from under
me, and silenced me for the time.