University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.
SENTIMENTS OF A DISAPPOINTED LOVER ON THE SUBJECT OF
WOMEN.

HOFFLAND had just met and made friends with
Jack Denis—“embraced him figuratively,” to use
his expression; and he and Mowbray were walking
down Gloucester street, inhaling the pleasant air of the
fine morning joyously.

Hoffland was smiling as usual. Mowbray's countenance
wore its habitual expression of collected calmness
—his clear eye as usual betrayed no emotion of any
description.

“I feel better than if I was dead,” said Hoffland,
laughing, “and I know you are glad, Ernest, that I
am still alive.”

“Sincerely,” said Mowbray, smiling.

“Was n't it a good idea of mine to carry on all the
correspondence?”

“Yes; the result proves it in this instance. I thought
that I could arrange the unhappy affair, but I believe
you were right in taking it out of my hands—or rather,
in never delivering it to me. Well, I am delighted
that it is over. I could ill spare you or Denis; and
God forbid that you should ever fall victims to this
barbarous child's play, duelling.”

“Ah! my dear fellow,” replied Hoffland, “we men

must have some tribunal above the courts of law; and
then you know the women dote upon a duellist.

“Yes, Hoffland, as they dote upon an interesting
monstrosity—the worse portion. Women admire courage,
because it is the quality they lack—I mean animal
courage, the mere faculty of looking into a pistol-muzzle
calmly; and their admiration is so great that they are
carried away by it. They admire in the same way a
gay wild fellow; they do not dislike even a `poor
fellow—ah! very dissipated!' and this arises from the
fact that they admire decided `character' of any description,
more than the want of character—even when
the possesser of character is led into vice by it.”

“A great injustice!—a deep injustice!” said Hoffland;
“I wonder how you can say so!”

“I can say so because I believe it to be true—nay, I
know it.”

“Conceited!—you know women indeed!”

“Not even remotely; but listen. I was about to add
that women admire reckless courage and excessive animal
spirits. But let that courage lead a man to shed another's
blood for a jest, or let that animal spirit draw
a man into degrading and bestial advice—presto! they
leave him!”

“And they are right!”

“Certainly.”

“Well, sir?”

“But they are not the less wrong at first: the importance
they attach to courage leads many boys and
young men into murderous affrays—just as their satirical
comments upon `milky dispositions' lead thousands into
vice.”

“Oh, Ernest!”

“Do you deny it?”

“Wholly.”

“Well, that only proves to me once more that you
know nothing of women.”

“Do you think so?” said Hoffland, smiling.

“Yes: what I have said is the tritest truth. That
women admire these qualities excessively, and that men,
especially young men, shape their conduct by this feminine
feeling, is as true as that sunlight.”

“I deny it.”

“Very well; that proves further, Charles, that you
have not observed and studied much.”

“Have you?”

“Extensively.”

“And you are a great master in the wiles of women
by this time, I suppose,” said Hoffland satirically.

“No, you misunderstand me,” replied Mowbray,
without observing the boy's smile. “I never shall pretend
to understand women; but I can use my eyes, and
I can read the open page before me.”

“The open page? What do you mean?”

“I mean that the history of the modern world, the
social history, has a great key-note—is a maze unless
you keep constantly in view the existence of this element—woman.”

“I should say it was: we could not well get on without
them.”

“The middle age originated the present deification of
woman,” continued Mowbray philosophically, “and the
old knights left us the legacy. We have long ago discarded
for its opposite the scriptural doctrine that

the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the
man; and we justify ourselves by the strange plea,
`they are so weak.' ”

“Well, are they not?”

“Woman weak? Poor Charles! Parliaments, inquisitions,
secret tribunals and executioners' axes are straws
compared to them. They smile, and man kneels; they
weep, and his moral judgment is effaced like a shadow:
he is soft clay in their hands. One caress from a girl
makes a fool of a giant. Have you read the history of
Samson?”

“Vile misogynist!” said Hoffland, “you are really too
bad!”

Mowbray smiled sadly.

“Do not understand me to say that we should return
to barbarous times, and make the women labor and
carry burdens, while we the men lounge in the sun and
dream,” he said; “not at all. All honor to the middle
age! The knight raised up woman, and she made him
a reproachless chevalier in return; but it did not end
there. He must needs do more—he loved, and love is
so strong! Divine love is strongest—he must deify her.”

“You are a great student, forsooth!”

“Deny it if you can; but you cannot, Charles. The
central idea of the middle age—the age of chivalry—is
woman. That word interprets all; it is the open sesame
which throws wide the portals. Without it, that whole
era is a mere jumble of bewildering anomalies—events
without causes—actions without motives. Well, see
how truly we are the descendants of those knights. To
this day our social god is woman.”

“Scoffer!”

“No; what I say is more in sorrow than anger. It
will impede our national and spiritual growth, for I declare
to you that one hundred years hence, women in
my opinion will not be satisfied with this poetic and
chivalric homage: they will demand a voice in the
government. They will grow bolder, and learn to regard
these chivalric concessions to their purity and
weakness as their natural rights. Woman's rights!—
that will be their watchword.”

“And I suppose you would say they have no rights.”

“Oh, many. Among others, the right to shape the
characters and opinions of their infant children,” said
Mowbray with a grave smile.

“And no more, sir?”

“Far more; but this discussion is unprofitable. What
I mean is simply this, Charles: that the middle age has
left us a national idea which is dangerous—the idea that
woman should, from her very weakness, rule and direct;
especially among us gentlemen who hold by the traditions
of the past—who reject Sir Galahad, and cling
to Orlando and Amadis—who grow mad and fall down
worshipping and kissing the feet of woman—happy even
to be spurned by her.”

“Really, sir!—but your conversation is very instructive!
Who, pray, was Sir Galahad?—for I have read
Ariosto, and know about Orlando.”

“Sir Galahad is that myth of the middle age, Charles,
who went about searching for the holy Graal—the cup
which our Saviour drank from in his last supper; which
Joseph of Arimathea collected his precious blood in.
You will understand that I merely repeat the monkish
tradition.”

“Well, what sort of a knight was this Sir Galahad;
and why do you hold him up as superior to Orlando and
Amadis?”

“Because he saw the true course, and loved woman
as an earthly consoler, did not adore her as a god. Read
how he fought and suffered many things for women;
see how profoundly he loved them, and smiled whenever
they crossed his path; how his whole strength and
every thing was woman's. Was she oppressed? Did
brute strength band itself against her? His chivalric
arm was thrown around her. Was she threatened with
shame, or hatred and wrong? His heart, his sword, all
were hers, and he would as willingly pour out his blood
for her as wander on a sunny morning over flowery
fields.”

“Well,” said Hoffland, “he was a true knight. Have
you not finished?”

“By no means. With love for and readiness to protect
the weak and oppressed woman—with satisfaction
in her smiles, and rejoicing in the thanks she gave him
—the good knight's feelings ended. He would not give
her his heart and adore her—he knelt only to his God.
He refused to place his arm at her disposal in all things,
and so become the tool of her caprice; he would not
sell himself for a caress, and hold his hands out to be
fettered, when she smiled and offered him an embrace.
A child before God, and led by a grand thought, he
would not become a child before woman, and be directed
by her idle fancies. He was the `knight of God,'
not of woman; and he grasped the prize.”

Hoffland listened to these earnest words more thoughtfully.

“Well,” he said, “so Sir Galahad is your model—not
the mad worshipper of woman, Orlando?”

“A thousand times.”

“Ah! we have neither now.”

“We have no Galahads, for woman has grown stronger
even than in the old days. She would not tolerate a
lover who espoused her cause from duty: she wants
adoring worship.”

“No! no!—only love!” said Hoffland.

“A mistake,” said Mowbray; “she does not wish a
mere knightly respect and love—that of the real knight;
she demands an Amadis, to grow mad for her—to be
crazed by her beauty, and kneel down and sell himself
for a kiss. She wishes power, and scouts the mere
chivalric smile and homage. She claims and exacts the
fullest obedience, and her claim is pronounced just. She
says to-day—returning to what we commenced with—
she says, `Go and murder that man: he has uttered a
jest;' or, `On penalty of my pity and contempt, make
yourself the slave of my caprice, and kill your friend,
who has said laughing that I am not an angel.' The
unhappy part of all this is,” said Mowbray, “that the
men, especially young men, obey. And then, when the
blood is poured out, the tragedy consummated; when
the body which was a breathing man is taken from the
bloody grass where it lies like a wounded bird, its heart-blood
welling out—when it is borne cold and pale before
her, and the mother, sister, daughter wail and moan—
then the beautiful goddess who has gotten up this little
drama for her amusement, finds her false philosophy
broken in her breast, her deity overthrown, her supreme
resolution crushed in presence of this terrible spectacle;

and she wrings her hands, and sobs and cries out at the
evil she has done; but cries much louder, that the hearts
of men are horrible and bloody; that their instincts are
barbarous and terrible; that she alone is tender and softhearted
and forgiving; that she would never have
plunged the sword into the bosom, or sent the ball tearing
its way through the heart; that man alone is horrible
and cruel and depraved; that she is noble and pure-hearted,
true and innocent; that woman is above this
miserable humanity—great like Diana of the Ephesians,
pure and strong and immaculate—without reproach!
That is a tolerably accurate history of most duels,” added
Mowbray coldly; “you will not deny it.”

Hoffland made no reply.

“You will not deny it because it is true,” said Mowbray;
“it is what every man knows and feels and sees.
You think it strange, then, that they act as they do, in
this perfect subservience to woman, knowing what I have
said is true. It is not more strange than any other
ludicrous inconsequence which men are guilty of. Look
at me! I know that what I have said is as true as the
existence of this earth; and now, what would I do? I
will tell you. Were I in love with a woman, I would
make myself a child, and adore her, and sell my soul for
her caresses; and make my brain the tool of my infatuation
by yielding to her false, fatal sophistry, because that
sophistry would be uttered by red lips, and would become
truth in the dazzling light of her seductive smiles.
Do you expect me, because I know it is all a lie, to resist
sighs and murmurs, and those languid glances, which
women employ to gain their ends? If you wish me to
resist them, give me a lump of ice instead of a heart—a

freezing stream instead of a warm current in my veins—
make me a thinking machine, all brain; but take care
how you leave one particle of the man! That particle
will fire all; for the age tells me that woman is all pure,
all-knowing, all true—how can I go astray? I am not
a machine—the atmosphere of that old woman-worshipping
world has nourished me, because I breathe it now;
and if the woman I loved madly wished a little murder
enacted for the benefit of her enemies, why, I cannot,
dare not say, I would not go and murder for her, thinking
I was serving nothing but the cause of purity and
justice.”

Hoffland listened to these coldly uttered words with
some agitation, but made no reply. They walked on for
some moments in silence, and Mowbray then said:

“The discussion is getting too grave, Charles; and I
am afraid I have spoken very harshly of women—led
away in the discussion of this subject. But remember
that most of these unhappy affairs indirectly arise from
this fatal philosophy; and I have reason to suppose that
the present one, which has so nearly taken from me one
or both of my dearest friends, orginated indirectly in
such a source. Do not understand me as undervaluing
the fine old chivalrous devotion to women: the hard
task is for me to believe that any devotion to a good
and pure woman is exaggerated. They are above us,
Charles, in all the finer and nobler traits, and we are responsible
for this weakness in them. What wonder if
they believed us when we told them that they were more
than human, something angelic? Their duty was to listen
to us, and act by our judgment; and when we have
told them now for ages that our place is at their feet, the

of their garments for our lips, their smiles brighter
than the sunshine of heaven, should we feel surprise at
their acquiescing in our dicta, and assuming the enormous
social influence which we yield to them, beg them
upon our knees to take? For my part, I rejoice that
man has not a power as unlimited; and if one sex must
rule, spite of every thing, I am almost ready to give up
to the women. They go right oftener; and if this tyranny
must really exist, I know not that Providence has
not mercifully placed the sceptre in her hands. See where
all my great philosophy ends—I can't help loving while
I speak against them. The sneer upon my lips turns to
a smile—my indignation to good-humor. Oh, Charles!
Charles! right or wrong, they rule us; and if we must
have sexual tyranny, it is best in the hands of mothers.
But rather let us have no tyranny at all: let the man
take his place as lord without, the woman her sovereignty
over the inner world. Let her grace perfect his strength;
her bosom hold his rude head and dusty brow; let her
heart crown his intellect—each fill the void in each.
Vain thought, I am afraid; and this, I fear, is scarcely
more than dreaming. Let us leave the subject.”

And Mowbray sighed; nodding, as he passed on, to a
young gentleman on horseback. This was Jacques.