Modern Women and What is Said of Them Part 7

PIGEONS.

Every now and then, as the fashionable season comes round, in some corner of its s.p.a.ce the daily press records a wholesale slaughter of the pigeon species. The world is informed of a series of sweepstakes, in which guardsmen and peers and foreigners of distinction take part. So many birds are shot at, so many are killed, so many get away. The quality of the birds and the skill of the shooters is specified. As the minutest details of the sport are interesting, we are even told who supplies the birds, and whether the day of their ma.s.sacre was bright or cloudy. This is quite as it should be. The British public can never hear too much of the doings of its gilded youth. Sweet to it is sporting news, but "aristocratic sporting news" is sweeter still.

And apart from this twofold source of interest, an element of deeper satisfaction mingles in the complacency with which it gloats over these pigeon holocausts. It is something to know that, in the last resort, we have these high-born and fashionable marksmen to protect our hearths and homes from the French invader and the irrepressible Beales. The nervous householder sleeps in his bed with a greater sense of security after reading of the awful havoc which Captain A. and the Earl of B. are making of the feathery tribe. In the accuracy of their aim he sees a guarantee of order, and of the maintenance of his glorious Const.i.tution.

Foreign menace and internal discord lose something of their terrors for him as often as his eyes light upon the significant little paragraph to which we have referred. Here is an item of intelligence for the haughty Prussian and the dashing Zouave to ponder. Here is something for the mole-like Fenian and the blatant Leaguesman to put in their pipes and smoke.

The fate of the pigeons awaits all who would violate our sh.o.r.es, or light up the flame of sedition in the land. If, as some philosophers aver, the pigeon does not all die, but in some tranquil limbo flutters on in an eternity of innocent cooing, it must console the poor bird to reflect that, however cheap he may be held, he has not perished altogether in vain. To serve a useful purpose is the great economy of things, to point a warning, at the cost of one's heart's blood, to England's foes and traitors--to the plotter in Munster as well as the safer conspirator of the Parks--might content even a greater ambition than that which animates the gentle bosom of a fantail.

But suppose some vindictive pouter to survive his less lucky comrades, and, escaping among the birds who are duly chronicled as "getting away,"

to perch, full of resentment at the probable extinction of his species, in the fashionable quarter of London. He would there witness a grand act of retaliation. He would learn how Belgravia avenges Hornsey and Shepherd's Bush. He would see the very men from whom his relatives had received their quietus flying to their clubs for shelter, and calling on their G.o.ddesses of the _demi-monde_ to cover them. He would perceive, by an unerring instinct, that a contest was afoot in which the conditions of that suburban sweepstakes at which he had involuntarily a.s.sisted were exactly reversed. He would see those self-same sportsmen converted into the target, the flutterers of the dovecot themselves in a flutter. And he would be more than pigeon if he could repress a thrill of savage glee at the spectacle of the enemies of his race realizing by experience all the difference between shooting and being shot at.

Suppose, further, that curious to watch the operations of "aristocratic sport," the intelligent bird, following the precedent of Edgar Poe's Raven, should alight, unseen and uninvited, on some object of art in a fashionable ballroom. Here he would find himself at once in the thick of the brilliant compet.i.tion. He would see a row of lovely archers, backed by a second row of older and more experienced markswomen. And in the human pigeons now cowering before their combined artillery he would recognise the heroes so lately engaged in dispatching thousands of the feathered branch of the family to oblivion. At first sight it might strike an animal of his well-known gallantry that there was nothing so very terrible in their impending fate. To fall slain by bright eyes, and with the strains of Coote and Tinney lingering on the ear, to sigh out one's soul over a draught of seltzer and champagne or the sweet poison of a strawberry ice, might seem to the winged spectator a blissful ending.

The doorway of the perfumed saloon might seem but the portal of a Mahomedan paradise, in which young and beautiful houris are deporting themselves under the guardian eye of the older and less beautiful houris. To the denizen of the air all, save the want of oxygen, might appear divine. But when he surveyed more closely that s.e.xual row of sportswomen, he would know at once that he beheld the true avengers of his race. In their stony glare, in the cold glitter of their diamonds, in the ample proportions of their well-developed shoulders, in their sliding scale of manners, now adjusted to a sugary smile and now to a stare of annihilation, he would read a deadly purpose. Nor would the diversities of skill which this fringe of amazons exhibited in the use of their weapons escape his notice. He would see some whom success had made affable, and others whom failure had made desperate; some who covered their victim with an aim of pitiless precision, and others who spoilt their chances by bungling audacity. Conspicuous among them he would observe a giddy s.e.xagenarian, whose random attempts to share in the sport made her the laughing-stock of the circle.

And as he surveyed the _battue_ he would gradually discern its tactics.

The beautiful beings in tulle he would feel, by instinct, were a lure and a decoy. Once within reach of their victims, these lovely skirmishers would be seen to inflict on them a sudden wound, leaving them to be despatched by the heavy reserve in _moire_ and lace. As he watched the terror which these formidable beings inspired, and the business-like manner in which they addressed themselves to their task, as he noticed the jaunty destroyers of his race succ.u.mbing one by one to fate, or ignominiously attempting to "get away," he would feel that the "irony of the situation" was complete. In a vague way he would grasp the fact--hitherto undreamt of in his dove's philosophy--that, if the pigeon is preyed upon by man, man in his turn is preyed upon by the dowager.

There is, however, this difference between the fate of the pigeon and his human a.n.a.logue, that, whereas the former is slain outright, the latter is often subjected to the prolonged agony of being plucked feather by feather. Not that he thinks it agony; on the contrary, he decidedly likes it, which is a wonderful proof of his simplicity, and the difference in people's tastes. But in order to pluck a human pigeon at leisure, you must first catch him. May is a good month for this operation. About now he begins to resort to the Opera and the park, and in the purlieus of either a fine specimen may be flashed. A clever sportswoman will get the earliest possible information about his movements. Much depends on forestalling her compet.i.tors.

A youthful pigeon, just emerging from his minority, or freshly alighted from the grand tour, is easily captured. There are two princ.i.p.al contrivances for catching human pigeons. The first is the matrimonial snare. This is worked by the dowager, in concert with her daughter, somewhat on the following plan. The daughter throws herself, as if by chance, in the pigeon's way. The brilliancy of her charms naturally attracts him. Small-talk ensues, in which an extraordinary similarity between her tastes and his is casually revealed. The simple pigeon, suspecting nothing, is delighted to find so congenial a soul. Is he musical? she adores the divine art. A gourmand? she owns to the possession of a cookery-book. Ritualistic? it was but the other day that she was at St. Alban's. Turfy? He must throw his eyes over her book for the Derby. Even if his pet pastime, like the Emperor Domitian's, were killing flies, she would profess her readiness to join him in it. Or she tries another dodge, and, putting on the airs of a pretty monitress, asks him with tender interest to confide in her.

The great point is never to lose sight of him; to follow him to b.a.l.l.s, concerts, or races, to cleave to him like his shadow. Then, when he is fairly caught in the toils of her encircling sympathy, the elder and more experienced ally appears on the scene. Her task is to cut off his retreat. Upon her firmness and accuracy in calculating the resisting power of her pigeon, success depends. Seizing an opportunity when he is least prepared, she sternly informs him that the time for dalliance is over, that he has said and done things of a very marked kind, and that there is only one course open to him as a pigeon of honor. And under this sort of compulsion the simple creature, with his rent-roll, Consols, family diamonds, and all, hops with a fairly good grace into the matrimonial toils.

The second contrivance to which he is apt to fall a victim is the infatuation trap. This is a much more elaborate machine, and is worked by one of those semi-attached couples who might sit to a new Hogarth for a new edition of _Marriage a la Mode_. The husband's part is very simple. It is to be as little in the way as possible, and to afford his sprightlier half every facility for pursuing her little game. The chief business devolves on the lady. It is her task to make the pigeon fall madly in love with her, and to keep him so, without overstepping the bounds of conventional propriety. Happily this can be managed nowadays without either elopement or scandal. Among the improvements of this mechanical age, it has been found possible to enlarge the limits of wedlock so as to include a third person.

A life-long _tete-a-tete_, which was the old conception of marriage, is quite obsolete. It has given way to the triangular theory, by which a new element, in the shape of a parasitical adorer, has been introduced into the holy state. Matrimony, as reconst.i.tuted by fashionable scholiasts, comprises husband, wife, and, to relieve the tedium of the situation, a good-looking appendage of the male s.e.x, who is an agreeable companion of the one and the devoted slave of the other. Each contributes to the harmony of the arrangement--the husband, a background; the wife, the charms of her presence; the adorer, cash.

Whatever other experience it brings, marriage generally sharpens the appreciation of the value of money; sentiment is sweet, but it is an article of confectionery, for which its fair dispensers in the married ranks exact an equivalent.

In trapping her victim, therefore, a sharp young matron is careful to let her choice fall on a plump specimen of the pigeon species--a pigeon with a long purse and little brains. Once reduced to a state of infatuation, almost anything may be done with him. The luxury of plucking him will employ her delicate fingers for a long time to come.

He may be sponged upon to any extent. The one thing he can do really well is to pay. His yacht, his drag, his brougham, his riding-horses, his shooting-box, all are at her disposal. At his expense she dines at Greenwich; at his expense she views the Derby; at his expense she enjoys an opera-box. And in return for all this she has only to smile and murmur "_so_ nice," for the soft simpleton to fancy himself amply repaid. Then she exacts a great many costly presents, to say nothing of gloves, trinkets, and _bouquets_. It is curious to note how the code of propriety has altered in this particular.

In old-fashioned novels the stereotyped dodge for compromising a lady's reputation is to force a present or a loan of money on her. Nowadays Lovelace's anxiety is just the other way--to keep the acquisitive propensity of his liege lady within tolerable bounds. It would be a great mistake to suppose that a woman can play this game without special gifts and apt.i.tudes for it. It requires peculiar talents, and peculiar antecedents. First and foremost, she must have married a man whom she both dislikes and despises. And, further, she must be proof against the weakness which some of her s.e.x exhibit, of growing fond of husbands who, without being Admirable Crichtons, treat them kindly and with forbearance. Next, she must have thrown overboard all the twaddle about domestic duties and responsibilities. If her child sickens of the measles just as she is starting for her bivouac in Norway, or a course of dinners in the Palais Royal, her duty is to call in the doctor and go. Weeks afterwards you will find the little darling picking up flesh, in mamma's absence, at some obscure watering-place. Then her temperament must be cool, calculating, and pa.s.sionless in no ordinary degree, and this character is written in the hard lines of her mouth and the cold light of her fine eyes.

Lastly, she must have, not a superst.i.tious, but an intelligent regard for the world's opinion, or rather for the opinion of the influential part of it. No one has a nicer perception of the difference in the relative importance of stupid country gossip and ostracism from certain great houses in London. No one takes more pains to study appearances so long as they don't clash with her amus.e.m.e.nts. Indeed, you will generally find that her dear friend is a young lady of great simplicity and irreproachable principles, whom she admits just enough, but not too far, into her confidence, and who finds it worth while to enact the part, now of a blind, and now of a foil.

If any one a.s.serts that this treatment of the human pigeon is cruel, we can only reply, with a correspondent of the _Times_ who writes to rebuke the humanitarians who would rob a poor boa of his squealing rabbit--away with such cant! Is a married woman to be stinted of her "small pleasures" because prudes affect to think the means by which they are obtained unfeminine? As well might they think it unfeline in p.u.s.s.y to play with her mouse.

The walking pigeon is as much intended for the prey of a stronger species as the pigeon that flies. The plucking which he receives at the hands of his fair manipulator is nothing to what he would get at the hands of his own s.e.x, in the army, on the turf, or in the city. If the pigeon has reason to think himself lucky in faring no worse, the non-pigeon section of society has no less reason to be grateful for a new ill.u.s.tration of female character. Not that the mercenary development in some of our young matrons is altogether new. It is only an old domestic virtue, carried to an extreme--thrift, running into an engaging rapacity.

AMBITIOUS WIVES.

The recent death of Mrs. Proudie, who was so well known and so little loved by the readers of Mr. Trollope's novels, is one of those occasions which ought not to be allowed to pa.s.s away without being improved. To many men it will suggest many things. She was a type. As a type ought to be, she was perfect and full-blown. But her characteristics enter into other women in varying degrees, and with all sorts of minor colors. The Proudie element in wives and women is one of those unrecognised yet potent conditions of life which master us all, and yet are admitted and taken into calculation and account by none. It is in the nature of things that such an element should exist, and should be powerful in this peculiar and oblique way. We deny women the direct exercise of their capacities, and the immediate gratification of an overt ambition. The natural result is that they run to artifice, and that a good-natured husband is made the conductor between an ambitious wife and the outer world where the prizes of ambition are scrambled for. He is the wretched buffer through which the impetuous forces of his wife impinge upon his neighbors. That is to say, he leads an uneasy life between two ever colliding bodies, being equally misunderstood and equally reviled by either.

This is the evil result of a state of things in which natural distinctions and conventional distinctions are a very long way from coinciding. The theory is that women are peaceful domestic beings, with no object beyond household cares, no wish nor will outside the objects of the man and his children, no active opinion or concern in the larger affairs of the State. Every man, on the other hand, is supposed to have views and principles about public topics, and to be anxious to make more or less of a figure in the enforcement of his views, to exercise in some shape an influence among his fellows, and to win renown of one sort or another. Of course if this division of the male and female natures covered the whole ground, society would be in a very well-balanced state, and things would go on very smoothly in consequence of the perfect equilibrium established by the exceeding contentedness of women and the constant activity and ambition of men.

But a very small observation of life is quite enough to disclose how ill the facts correspond with the accepted hypothesis about them. We are constantly being told of some aspiring man that he is, in truth, no more than the representative of an aspiring wife. He would fain live his life in dignified or undignified serenity, and cares not a jot for a seat in the House of Commons, or for being made a bishop, or for any of those other objects which allure men out of a tranquil and independent existence. But he has a wife who does care for these things. She cannot be a member of Parliament or a bishop in her own person, but it is something to be the wife of somebody who can be these things.

A part of the glory of the man is reflected upon the head of the woman.

She receives her reward in a second-hand way, but still it is glory of its own sort. She becomes a leading lady in a provincial town, and during the season in town she is asked out to houses which she is very eager to get into, and of which she can talk with easily a.s.sumed familiarity when she returns to the provinces again. She is presented at Court too, and this makes her descend to the provincial plain with an aroma of Celestial dignity like that of Venus when she descended from Olympus. A bishop's wife is still more amply rewarded. Without being so imperious as the late Mrs. Proudie was, she has still a thousand of those opportunities for displaying power which are so dear to people who are fict.i.tiously supposed to be too weak to care for power. Minor canons, inc.u.mbents, curates, and all their wives, pay her profound deference; or, if they do not, she can "put the screw on" in a gushing manner which is exceedingly effective.

There are women, it is true, with souls above these light social matters. They do not particularly value the privilege of figuring as lady-patroness of a ball or bazaar, or the delights of trampling on a curate, or of being distantly adored by the wife of a minor canon. But they really have an interest in politics, or in some one or two special departments of that comprehensive subject. They would like to pa.s.s an Act of Parliament making it a capital offence for any guardian of the poor or relieving-officer to refuse to give the paupers as much as they should choose to ask for. Drainage is the strong point of some women.

Sewage with them is the key to civilization.

Perhaps most political women are actively interested in public affairs simply because they perceive that this is the most openly recognised sphere of influence and power; and what they yearn after is to be influential, and to stand on something higher than the ordinary level in the world, for no other reason than that it is higher than the ordinary level. n.o.body has any right to find fault with this temper, provided the ladies who are possessed by it do not mistake mere domineering for the extraordinary elevation after which they aspire. It is through this temper, whether in one s.e.x or the other, that the world is made better.

If a certain number of men and women were not ambitious, what would become of the rest of us who possess our souls in patience and moderation?

The only question is whether what we may call vicarious ambition, or aspirations by proxy, are particularly desirable forms of a confessedly useful and desirable sentiment. For the peace of mind of the man who is not ambitious, but is only pretending to be so, we may be pretty sure that the domestic stimulus has some drawbacks. We do not mean drawbacks after the manner of Mrs. Caudle. These show a coa.r.s.e and vulgar conception of the goads which a man may have applied to him in his inner circle. There are moral and unheard reproofs. There is a consciousness in the mind of a man that his wife thinks him (with all possible affection and tenderness) rather a poor creature for not taking his position in the world. And if he happens to be a man of anything like fine sensibility, this will make him exceedingly uneasy.

The uneasiness may then become sufficiently decided to make him willing to undergo any amount of labor and outlay, rather than endure the presence of this aethereal skeleton in the family closet. He is quite right. He could barely preserve his self-respect otherwise. But he is mistaken if he fancies that a single step or a single series of steps will demolish the skeleton entirely. One compliance with the ambition of his wife will speedily beget the necessity for another. It is notorious that a thoroughly aspiring man is never content without the prospect of scaling new heights. No more is an aspiring woman. Whether you are directly ambitious, as a man is, and for yourself, or indirectly and for somebody else, as a woman is, in either case the law is the same. New summits ever glitter in the distance. You have got your husband into the House of Commons. That glory suffices for a month.

At the end of two months it seems a very dim glory indeed, and having long been at an end, it by this time sinks into the second place of a means. The sacrificial calf must next be made to speak. He must acquire a reputation. Here in a good many cases, we suspect, the process finally stops. A man may be got into the House, but the coveted exaltation of that atmosphere does not convert a quiet, peaceable, dull man into an orator. It does not give him ideas and the faculty of articulate speech.

At this point, if he be wise, he draws the line. He endures the skeleton as best he may, or else his wife, quenching her ambition, resigns herself to incurable destiny, and learns to be content with the limits set by the fates to her lord's capacities. There are still certain fields open to her own powers, irrespective of what he is able to do.

For example, she may open a _salon_, and there may exert unspeakable influence over all kinds of important people. This is not at present particularly congenial to English ground. As yet, the most vigorous intellectual people seem to have felt an active social life as something beneath them, and the highly social people have not been conspicuous for the activity of their intellectual life. The people who go so greatly to parties do not care for what they sum up, with an admirably comprehensive vagueness, as "intellect;" while, on the other hand, scholars and thinkers are wont to look on time given to society as something very like time absolutely wasted. In such a state of feeling, it is difficult for a clever woman to exercise much power.

But, as other things improve, this unsocial feeling will dissolve.

Clever men will see that a couple of hours spent with other clever men are not wasted just because a lady is of the party. n.o.body would seriously maintain that this is so even now, but people are very often strongly under the influence of vague notions which they would never dream of seriously maintaining. When women get their rights, the _salon_ will become an inst.i.tution. It will create a very fine field for the cultivation of their talents. And in proportion as it allows a woman to make a career for herself, it will bring relief to many excellent husbands who will then no longer have to make careers for them at the expense of overstraining their own too slender powers.

It is possible, however, that even then the husband of an ambitious wife may not be fully contented. For people with any degree of weakness or incapacity in them are always more p.r.o.ne than their neighbors to littlenesses and meannesses, and a man who is not able to win much renown on his own account may possibly not be too well pleased to see his Wife surrounded by his intellectual betters. Indeed, he may even, if he is of a very mean nature indeed, resent the spectacle of her own predominance. It is some comfort to think that in such case the man's own temper will be his severest punishment.

As a rule, however, it is pleasant to think that with ambition in women, which is not their peculiarity, is yoked tact, which is their peculiarity emphatically. Hence, therefore, wives who are ambitious for their lords have often the discretion to conceal their mood. They may rule with a hand of iron, but the hand is sagely concealed in a glove of velvet. A man may be the creature of his wife's lofty projects, and yet dream all the time that he is altogether chalking out his own course.

George II. used to be humored in this way by Queen Caroline. Bishop Proudie, on the other hand, was ruled by his wife, and knew that he was a mere weapon in her hands; and, what was even worse than all, knew that the rest of mankind knew this. This must be uncommonly unpleasant, we should suppose. The middle position of the husband who only now and then suspects in a dreamy way that he is being prompted and urged on and directed by an ambitious wife, and has sense enough not to inflame himself with chimerical notions about the superiority and grandeur of the male s.e.x--this perhaps is not so bad. If the tide of ambition runs rather sluggish in yourself, it is a plain advantage to have somebody at your side with enthusiasm enough to atone for the deficiency.

It is impossible to tell how much good the world gets, which otherwise it would miss, simply out of the fact that women are discontented with their position. Now and then, it is understood, the husband who is thus made a mere conductor for the mental electricity of a wife who is too clever for him may feel a little bored, and almost wish that he had married a girl instead. But enthusiasm spreads, and in a general way the fervor of the wife who aspires to distinction proves catching to the husband. Some ladies are found to prefer this position to any other.

They are full of power, and have abundance of room for energy, and yet they have no responsibility. They get their ample share of the spoil, and yet they do not bear the public heat and burden of the day. It is only the more martial souls among them for whom this is not enough.

PLATONIC WOMAN.

In the wearier hours of life, when the season is over, and the boredom of country visits is beginning to tell on the hardy const.i.tutions that have weathered out crush and ball-room, there is usually a moment when the heroine of twenty summers bemoans the hardships of her lot. Her brother snuffed her out yesterday when she tried politics, and the clerical uncle who comes in with the vacation extinguished a well-meant attempt at theology by a vague but severe reference to the Fathers. If the afternoon is particularly rainy, and Mudie's box is exhausted, the sufferer possibly goes further, and rises into eloquent revolt against the decorums of life.

There is indeed one career left to woman, but a general looseness of grammar, and a conscious insecurity in the matter of spelling, stand in the way of literary expression of the burning thoughts within her. All she can do is to moan over her lot and to take refuge in the works of Miss Hominy. There she learns the great theory of the equality of the s.e.xes, the advancement of woman and the tyranny of man. If her head doesn't ache, and holds out for a few pages more, she is comforted to find that her aspirations have a philosophic character. She is able to tell the heavy Guardsman who takes her down to dinner and parries her observations with a joke that they have the sanction of the deepest of Athenian thinkers.

It is, we suppose, necessary that woman should have her philosopher, but it must be owned that she has made an odd choice in Plato. No one would be more astonished than the severe dialectician of the Academy at the feminine conception of a sage of dreamy and poetic temperament, who spends half his time in a.s.serting woman's rights, and half in inventing a peculiar species of flirtation. Platonic attachments, whatever their real origin may be, will scarcely be traced in the pages of Plato; and the rights of woman, as they are advocated in the Republic, are sadly deficient in the essential points of free love and elective affinity.

The appearance of a real Platonic woman in the midst of a caucus of such female agitators as those who were lately engaged in stumping with singular ill success the American States of the West would, we imagine, give a somewhat novel turn to the discussion, and strip of a good deal of adoring admiration the philosopher in whom strong-minded woman has of late found a patron and friend. Plato is a little too logical and too fond of stating plain facts in plain words to suit the Miss Hominys who would put the legs of every pianoforte in petticoats, and if the Platonic woman were to prove as outspoken as her inventor, the conference would, we fear, come abruptly to an end. But if once the difficulty of decorum could be got over, some instruction and no little amus.e.m.e.nt might be derived from the inquiry which the discussion would open, as to how far the modern att.i.tude of woman fulfils the dreams of her favorite philosopher.

The inst.i.tution of Ladies' Colleges is a sufficient proof that woman has arrived at Plato's conception of an ident.i.ty of education for the two s.e.xes. Professors, lecturers, cla.s.s-rooms, note-books, the whole machinery of University teaching, is at her disposal. Logic and the long-envied cla.s.sics are in the curriculum. Governesses are abolished, and the fair girl-graduates may listen to the sterner teachings of academical tutors. It is amusing to see how utterly discomfited the new Professor generally is when he comes in sight of his cla.s.s. He feels that he must be interesting, but he is haunted above all with the sense that he must be proper. He remembers that when, in reply to the lady-princ.i.p.al's inquiry how he liked his cla.s.s, he answered, with the strictest intellectual reference, that they were "charming," the stern matron suggested that another adjective would perhaps be more appropriate. He felt his whole moral sense as a teacher ebbing away.