University of Virginia Library

23. CHAPTER XXIII.
I RECEIVE A MORAL SHOWER-BATH.

A DAY or two after, as I was sitting in my room, busy
writing, I heard a light footstep on the stairs, and
a voice saying, “Oh yes! this is Mr. Henderson's
room—thank you,” and the next moment a jaunty, dashing
young woman, with bold blue eyes, and curling brown hair,
with a little wicked looking cap with nodding cock's-feather
set askew on her head, came marching up and seated
herself at my writing-table. I gazed in blank amazement.
The apparition burst out laughing, and seizing me frankly
by the hand, said—

“Look here, Hal! don't you know me? Well, my dear
fellow, if you don't it's time you did! I read your last
`thingumajig' in the Milky Way, and came round to make
your acquaintance.”

I gazed in dumb amazement while she went on,

“My dear fellow, I have come to enlighten you,”—and as
she said this she drew somewhat near to me, and laid her
arm confidingly on my shoulder, and looked coaxingly in
my face. The look of amazement which I gave, under
these circumstances, seemed to cause her great amusement.

“Ha! ha!” she said, “didn't I tell 'em so? You ain't half
out of the shell yet. You ain't really hatched. You go
for the emancipation of woman; but bless you, boy, you
haven't the least idea what it means—not a bit of it, sonny,
have you now? Confess!” she said, stroking my shoulder
caressingly.

“Really, madam—I confess,” I said, hesitatingly, “I
haven't the honor”—

“Not the honor of my acquaintance, you was going to
say; well, that's exactly what you're getting now. I read

[ILLUSTRATION]

THE ADVANCED WOMAN OF THE PERIOD.
" 'You go for the emancipation of woman; but bless you, boy, you
haven't the least idea what it means—not a bit of it, sonny, have you now?
Confess?' she said, stroking my whiskers coaxingly."

[Description: 467EAF. Image of Harry sitting in a chair at a writing desk in a salon. He is in the midst of dropping his pen as a woman, dressed in a long frilled dress and hat with feather, sits on the corner of his desk and strokes his chin.]

your piece in the Milky Way, and, said I, that boy's in
heathen darkness yet, and I'm going round to enlighten
him. You mean well, Hal! but this is a great subject. You
haven't seen through it. Lord bless you, child! you ain't
a woman, and I am—that's just the difference.”

Now, I ask any of my readers, what is a modest young
man, in this nineteenth century,—having been brought up
to adore and reverence woman as a goddess—to do, when
he finds himself suddenly vis-à-vis with her, in such embarrassing
relations as mine were becoming? I had heard before
of Miss Audacia Dangyereyes, as a somewhat noted
character in New York circles, but did not expect to be
brought so unceremoniously, and without the least preparation
of mind, into such very intimate relations with her.

“Now, look here, bub!” she said, “I'm just a-going
to prove to you, in five minutes, that you've been writing
about what you don't know anything about. You've
been asserting, in your blind way, the rights of woman
to liberty and equality; the rights of women, in short, to do
anything that men do. Well, here comes a woman to your
room who takes her rights, practically, and does just what
a man would do. I claim my right to smoke, if I please, and
to drink if I please; and to come up into your room and
make you a call, and have a good time with you, if I please,
and tell you that I like your looks, as I do. Furthermore,
to invite you to come and call on me at my room. Here's
my card. You may call me 'Dacia, if you like—I don't go
on ceremony. Come round and take a smoke with me, this
evening, won't you? I've got the nicest little chamber that
ever you saw. What rent do you pay for yours? Say, will
you come round?”

“Indeed—thank you, miss—”

“Call me 'Dacia for short. I don't stand on ceremony.
Just look on me as another fellow. And now confess that
you've been tied and fettered by those vapid conventionalities
which bind down women till there is no strength in
'em. You visit in those false, artificial circles, where women

are slaves, kept like canary birds in gilded cages.
And you are afraid of your own principles when you see
them carried out in a real free woman. Now, I'm a woman
that not only dares say, but I dare do. Why hasn't a
woman as much a right to go round and make herself
agreeable to men, as to sit still at home and wait for men to
come and make themselves agreeable to her? I know you
don't like this, I can see you don't, but it's only because
you are a slave to old prejudices. But I'm going to make
you like me in spite of yourself. Come, now, be consistent
with your principles; allow me my equality as a woman,
a human being.”

I was in such a state of blank amazement by this time as
seemed to deprive me of all power of self-possession. At
this moment the door opened, and Jim Fellows appeared.
A most ludicrous grimace passed over his face as he saw
the position and he cut a silent pirouette in the air, behind
her. She turned her head, and he advanced.

“Fairest of the sex! (with some slight exceptions)—to
what happy accident are we to attribute this meeting?”

“Hallo, Jim! is this you?” she replied.

“Oh, certainly, it's me,” said Jim, seating himself familiarly.
“How is the brightest star of womanhood—the
Northern Light; the Aurora Borealis; the fairest of the
fair? Bless its little heart, has it got its rights yet? Did
it want to drink and smoke? Come along with Jim, now,
and let's have a social cocktail.”

“Keep your distance, sir,” said she, giving him a slight box
on his ear. “I prefer to do my own courting. I have been
trying to show your friend here how little he knows of the
true equality of women, and of the good time coming, when
we shall have our rights, and do just as we darn please,
as you do. I'll bet now there aint one of those Van Arsdel
girls that would dare to do as I'm doing. But we're opening
the way sir, we're opening the way. The time will come
when all women will be just as free to life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness, as men.”

“Good heavens!” said I, under my breath.

“My beloved Audacia,” said Jim, “allow me to remark
one little thing, and that is, that men also must be left free
to the pursuit of happiness, and also, as the Scripture says,
new wine must not be put into old bottles. Now my
friend Hal—begging his pardon—is an old bottle, and I
think you have already put as much new wine into him as
his constitution will bear. And as he and I both have got
to make our living by scratching, and tempus fugit, and
we've got articles to write, and there is always, so to speak,
the devil after us folks that write for the press, may I humbly
request that you will withdraw the confusing light
of your bright eyes from us for the present, and, in short,
take your divine self somewhere else?”

As Jim spoke these words, he passed his arm round Miss
Audacia's waist, and drew her to the door of the apartment,
which he threw open, and handed her out, bowing with
great ceremony,

“Stop!” she cried, “I aint going to be put out that way.
I haven't done what I came for. You both of you have
got to subscribe for my paper, The Emancipated Woman.”

“Couldn't do it, divinest charmer,” said Jim, “couldn't
do it; too poor; mill runs low; no water; modest merit
not rewarded. Wait till my ship comes in, and I'll subscribe
for anything you like.”

“Well, now, you don't get rid of me that way. I tell you
I came in to get a subscription, and I am going to stay till I
get one,” said Miss Audacia. “Come, Hal,” she said, crossing
once more to me, and sitting down by me and taking
my hand, “write your name there, there's a good fellow.”

I wrote my name in desperation, while Jim stood by,
laughing.

“Jim,” I said, “come, put yours down quick, and let's
have it over.”

“Well, now,” said she, “fork out the stamps—five dollars
each.”

We both obeyed mechanically.

“Well, well,” said she, good naturedly, “that'll do for this
time, good morning,” and she vanished from the apartment
with a jaunty toss of the head and a nod of the cock's
feathers in her hat.

Jim closed the door smartly after her.

“Mercy upon us! Jim,” said I, “who, and what is this
creature?”

“Oh, one of the harbingers of the new millennium,” said
Jim. “Won't it be jolly when all the girls are like her?
But we shall have to keep our doors locked then.”

“But,” said I, “is it possible, Jim, that this is a respectable
woman?”

“She's precisely what you see,” said Jim; “whether that's
respectable, is a matter of opinion. There's a woman that's
undertaken, in good faith, to run and jostle in all the ways
that men run in. Her principle is, that whatever a young
fellow in New York could do, she'll do.”

“Good heavens!” said I, “what would the Van Arsdels
think of us, if they should know that she had been in our
company?”

“It's lucky that they don't, and can't,” said Jim. “But
you see what you get for belonging to the new dispensation.”

“Boys, what's all this fuss?” said Bolton, coming in at
this moment.

“Oh, nothing, only Dacia Dangyeeyes has been here,” said
Jim, “and poor Hal is ready to faint away and sink through
the floor. He isn't up to snuff yet, for all he writes such
magnificent articles about the nineteenth century.”

“Well,” said I, “it was woman as woman that I was
speaking of, and not this kind of creature. If I believed
that granting larger liberty and wider opportunities was
going to change the women we reverence to things like
these, you would never find me advocating it.”

“Well, my dear Hal,” said Bolton, “be comforted; you're
not the first reformer that has had to cry out, `Deliver me
from my friends.' Always when the waters of any noble,

generous enthusiasm rise and overflow their banks, there
must come down the drift-wood—the wood, hay, and stubble.
Luther had more trouble with the fanatics of his day,
who ran his principles into the ground, as they say, than
he had with the Pope and the Emporor, both together. As
to this Miss Audacia, she is one of the phenomenal creations
of our times; this time, when every kind of practical experiment
in life has got to be tried, and stand or fall on its
own merits. So don't be ashamed of having spoken the
truth, because crazy people and fools caricature it. It is
true, as you have said, that women ought to be allowed a
freer, stronger, and more generous education and scope for
their faculties. It is true that they ought, everywhere, to
have equal privileges with men; and because some crack-brained
women draw false inferences from this, it is none
the less true. For my part, I always said that one must
have a strong conviction for a cause, if he could stand the
things its friends say for it, or read a weekly paper devoted
to it. If I could have been made a pro-slavery man, it
would have been by reading anti-slavery papers, and vice
versa. I had to keep myself on a good diet of pro-slavery
papers, to keep my zeal up.”

“But,” said I, anxiously, to Jim, “do you suppose that
we're going to be exposed to the visits of this young
woman?”

“Well,” said Jim, “as you've subscribed for her paper,
perhaps she'll let us alone till she has some other point to
carry.”

“Subscribe!” said I; “I did it from compulsion, to get
her out of the office; I didn't think the situation respectable;
and yet I don't want her paper, and I don't want my
name on her subscription list. What if the Van Arsdels
should find it out? People are apt enough to think that our
doctrines lead to all sorts of outré consequences; and if
Mrs. Wouverman, their Aunt Maria, should once get hold
of this, and it should get all through the circle in which
they move, how disagreeable it would be.”

“Oh, never fear,” said Jim; “I guess we can manage to
keep our own secrets; and as to any of them ever knowing,
or seeing, anything about that paper, it's out of the
question. Bless you! they wouldn't touch it with a pair of
tongs!”