ll my own experience of life teaches me the contempt of cunning, not
the fear. The phrase “profound cunning” has always seemed to me a
contradiction in terms. I never knew a cunning mind which was not
either shallow, or on some point diseased. People dissemble
sometimes who yet hate dissembling, but a “cunning mind”
emphatically delights in its own cunning, and is the ready prey of
cunning. That “pleasure in deceiving and aptness to be deceived”
usually go together, was one of the wise sayings of the wisest of
men.
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93.
I
t was a saying of Paracelsus, that “Those who would understand the
course of the heavens above must first of all recognise the heaven in
man:” meaning, I suppose, that all pursuit of knowledge which is not
accompanied by praise of God and love of our fellow-creatures must
turn to bitterness, emptiness, foolishness. We must imagine him to
have come to this conclusion only late in life.
Browning, in that wonderful poem of Paracelsus,—a poem in which
there is such a profound far-seeing philosophy, set forth with such a
luxuriance of illustration and imagery, and such a wealth of glorious
eloquence, that I know nothing to be compared with it since Goethe
and Wordsworth,—represents his aspiring philosopher as at first
impelled solely by the appetite to know. He asks nothing of men, he
despises them; but he will serve them, raise them, after a sort of God-
like fashion,
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independent of their sympathy, scorning their applause, using them
like instruments, cheating them like children,—all for their good; but it
will not do. In Aprile, “who would love infinitely, and be beloved,” is
figured the type of the poet-nature, desiring only beauty, resolving all
into beauty; while in Paracelsus we have the type of the reflecting,
the inquiring mind desiring only knowledge, resolving all into
knowledge, asking nothing more to crown his being. And both find out
their mistake; both come to feel that love without knowledge is blind
and weak, and knowledge without love barren and vain.
“I too have sought to know as thou to LOVE,
Excluding love as thou refused’st knowledge;
Still thou hast beauty and I power. We wake!
*
*
*
*
*
“Are we not halves of one dissever’d world,
Whom this strange chance unites once more? Part?—
Never!
Till thou, the lover, know, and I, the knower,
Love—until both are saved!”
After all, perhaps, only the same old world-renowned myth in another
form—the marriage of Cupid and Psyche; Love and Intelligence long
parted, long suffering, again embracing, and lighted on by Beauty to
an immortal union. But to return to our poet. Aprile, exhausted by his
own aimless, dazzling visions, expires on the bosom of him who
knows; and Paracelsus, who began with a self
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sufficing scorn of his kind, dies a baffled and degraded man in the
arms of him who loves;—yet wiser in his fall than through his
aspirations, he dies trusting in the progress of humanity so long as
humanity is content to be human; to love as well as to know;—to fear,
to hope, to worship, as well as to aspire.
94.
L
ord Bacon says: “I like a plantation (in the sense of colony) in a pure
soil; that is, where people are not displanted to the end to plant in
others: for else it is rather an extirpation than a plantation.” (Bacon,
who wrote this, counselled to James I. the plantation of Ulster exactly
on the principle he has here deprecated.)
He adds, “It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of
people, and wicked condemned men, to be the people with whom
you plant” ( i. e. colonise). And it is only now that our politicians are
beginning to discover and act upon this great moral
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truth and obvious fitness of things!—like Bacon, adopting practically,
and from mere motives of expediency, a principle they would
theoretically abjure!
95.
B
ecause in real life we cannot, or do not, reconcile the high theory with
the low practice, we use our wit to render the theory ridiculous, and
our reason to reconcile us to the practice. We ought to do just the
reverse.
Many would say, if they spoke the truth, that it had cost them a life-
long effort to unlearn what they had been taught.
For as the eye becomes blinded by fashion to positive deformity, so
through social conventionalism the conscience becomes blinded to
positive immorality.
It is fatal in any mind to make the moral standard for men high and
the moral standard for women low, or vice versâ. This has appeared
to me the very
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commonest of all mistakes in men and women who have lived much
in the world, but fatal nevertheless, and in three ways; first, as
distorting the moral ideal, so far as it exists in the conscience;
secondly, as perplexing the bounds, practically, of right and wrong;
thirdly, as being at variance with the spirit and principles of
Christianity. Admit these premises, and it follows inevitably that such
a mistake is fatal in the last degree, as disturbing the consistency and
the elevation of the character, morally, practically, religiously.
Akin to this mistake, or identical with it, is the belief that there are
essential masculine and feminine virtues and vices. It is not, in fact,
the quality itself, but the modification of the quality, which is
masculine or feminine: and on the manner or degree in which these
are balanced and combined in the individual, depends the perfection
of that individual character—its approximation to that of Christ. I firmly
believe that as the influences of religion are extended, and as
civilisation advances, those qualities which are now admired as
essentially feminine will be considered as essentially human, such as
gentleness, purity, the more unselfish and spiritual sense of duty, and
the dominance of the affections over the passions. This is, perhaps,
what Buffon, speaking as a naturalist, meant, when he said that with
the
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progress of humanity, “Les races se féminisent;” at least I understand
the phrase in this sense.
A man who requires from his own sex manly direct truth, and laughs
at the cowardly subterfuges and small arts of women as being
feminine;—a woman who requires from her own sex tenderness and
purity, and thinks ruffianism and sensuality pardonable in a man as
being masculine,—these have repudiated the Christian standard of
morals which Christ, in his own person, bequeathed to us—that
standard which we have accepted as Christians—theoretically at
least—and which makes no distinction between “the highest, holiest
manhood,” and the highest, holiest womanhood.
I might illustrate this position not only scripturally but philosophically,
by quoting the axiom of the Greek philosopher Antisthenes, the
disciple of Socrates,—“The virtue of the man and the woman is the
same;” which shows a perception of the moral truth, a sort of
anticipation of the Christian doctrine, even in the pagan times. But I
prefer an illustration which is at once practical and poetical, and plain
to the most prejudiced among men or women.
Every reader of Wordsworth will recollect, if he does not know by
heart, the poem entitled “The Happy Warrior.” It has been quoted
often as an
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epitome of every manly, soldierly, and elevated quality. I have heard it
applied to the Duke of Wellington. Those who make the experiment of
merely substituting the word woman for the word warrior, and
changing the feminine for the masculine pronoun, will find that it
reads equally well; that almost from beginning to end it is literally as
applicable to the one sex as to the other. As thus:—
CHARACTER OF THE HAPPY WOMAN.
Who is the happy woman? Who is she
That every woman born should wish to be?
It is the generous spirit, who, when brought
Among the tasks of real life, had wrought
Upon the plan that pleased her childish thought;
Whose high endeavours are an inward light,
That make the path before her always bright:
Who, with a natural instinct to discern
What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn;
Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,
But makes her moral being her prime care;
Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,
And Fear, and Sorrow, miserable train!
Turns that necessity to glorious gain;
In face of these doth exercise a power
Which is our human nature’s highest dower:
Controls them and subdues, transmutes,
bereaves
Of their bad influence, and their good receives;
By objects, which might force the soul to abate
Her feeling, rendered more compassionate;
Is placable—because occasions rise
So often that demand such sacrifice;
More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure
As tempted more; more able to endure,
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As more exposed to suffering and distress;
Thence, also, more alive to tenderness.
’Tis she whose law is reason; who depends
Upon that law as on the best of friends;
Whence in a state where men are tempted still
To evil for a guard against worse ill,
And what in quality or act is best,
Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,
She fixes good on good alone, and owes
To virtue every triumph that she knows.
Who, if she rise to station of command,
Rises by open means; and there will stand
On honourable terms, or else retire.
*
*
*
*
*
Who comprehends her trust, and to the same
Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim;
And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait
For wealth, or honours, or for worldly state;
Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall
Like showers of manna, if they come at all:
Whose powers shed round her in the common
strife
Or mild concerns of ordinary life,
A constant influence, a peculiar grace;
But who, if she be called upon to face
Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined
Great issue, good or bad for human kind,
Is happy as a lover; and attired
With sudden brightness, like to one inspired;
And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what she foresaw;
Or if an unexpected call succeed,
Come when it will, is equal to the need!
In all these fifty-six lines there is only one line which cannot be
feminised in its significance,—that which I have filled up with
asterisks, and which is totally at variance with our ideal of A Happy
Woman. It is the line—
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“And in himself possess his own
desire.”
No woman could exist happily or virtuously in such complete
independence of all external affections as these words express. “Her
desire is to her husband,”—this is the sort of subjection prophesied
for the daughters of Eve. A woman doomed to exist without this
earthly rest for her affections, does not “in herself possess her own
desire;” she turns towards God; and if she does not make her life a
life of worship, she makes it a life of charity, (which in itself is
worship,) or she dies a spiritual and a moral death. Is it much better
with the man who concentrates his aspirations in himself? I should
think not.
Swift, as a man and a writer, is one of those who had least sympathy
with women; and I have sometimes thought that the exaggeration,
even to morbidity, of the coarse and the cruel in his character, arose
from this want of sympathy; but his strong sense showed him the one
great moral truth as regards the two sexes, and gave him the courage
to avow it.
He says, “I am ignorant of any one quality that is amiable in a woman
which is not equally so in a man. I do not except even modesty and
gentleness of nature; nor do I know one vice or folly which is
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not equally detestable in both.” Then, remarking that cowardice is an
infirmity generally allowed to women, he wonders that they should
fancy it becoming or graceful, or think it worth improving by
affectation, particularly as it is generally allied to cruelty.
Here is a passage from one of Humboldt’s letters, which I have seen
quoted with sympathy and admiration, as applied to the manly
character only:—
“Masculine independence of mind I hold to be in reality the first
requisite for the formation of a character of real manly worth. The
man who suffers himself to be deceived and carried away by his own
weakness, may be a very amiable person in other respects, but
cannot be called a good man; such beings should not find favour in
the eyes of a woman, for a truly beautiful and purely feminine nature
should be attracted only by what is highest and noblest in the
character of man.”
Now we will take this bit of moral philosophy, and, without the
slightest alteration of the context, apply it to the female character.
“Feminine independence of mind I hold to be in reality the first
requisite for the formation of a character of real feminine worth. The
woman who allows herself to be deceived and carried away by
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her own weakness may be a very amiable person in other respects,
but cannot be called a good woman; such beings should not find
favour in the eyes of a man, for the truly beautiful and purely manly
nature should be attracted only by what is highest and noblest in the
character of woman.”
After reading the above extracts, does it not seem clear, that by the
exclusive or emphatic use of certain phrases and epithets, as more
applicable to one sex than to the other, we have introduced a most
un-christian confusion into the conscience, and have prejudiced it
early against the acceptance of the larger truth?
It might seem, that where we reject the distinction between masculine
and feminine virtues, one and the same type of perfection should
suffice for the two sexes; yet it is clear that the moment we come to
consider the personality, the same type will not suffice: and it is worth
consideration that when we place before us the highest type of
manhood, as exemplified in Christ, we do not imagine him as the
father, but as the son; and if we think of the most perfect type of
womanhood, we never can exclude the mother.
Montaigne deals with the whole question in his own homely
straightforward fashion:—
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“Je dis que les mâles et les fémelles sont jettés en même moule; sauf
l’institution et l’usage la différence n’y est pas grande. Platon appelle
indifféremment les uns et les autres à la société de touts études,
exercises, charges, et vocations guerrières et paisibles en sa
république, et le philosophe Antisthènes ôtait toute distinction entre
leur vertu et la nôtre. Il est bien plus aisé d’accuser un sexe que
d’excuser l’autre: c’est ce qu’on dit, ‘le fourgon se moque de la
poële.’”
Not that I agree with Plato,—rather would leave all the fighting,
military and political, if there must be fighting, to the men.
Among the absurdities talked about women, one hears, perhaps,
such an aphorism as the following quoted with a sort of ludicrous
complacency,—“The woman’s strength consists in her weakness!” as
if it were not the weakness of a woman which makes her in her
violence at once so aggravating and so contemptible, in her
dissimulation at once so shallow and so dangerous, and in her
vengeance at once so cowardly and so cruel.
I should not say, from my experience of my own sex, that a woman’s
nature is flexible and impressible,
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though her feelings are. I know very few instances of a very inferior
man ruling the mind of a superior woman, whereas I know twenty—
fifty—of a very inferior woman ruling a superior man. If he love her,
the chances are that she will in the end weaken and demoralise him.
If a superior woman marry a vulgar or inferior man he makes her
miserable, but he seldom governs her mind, or vulgarises her nature,
and if there be love on his side the chances are that in the end she
will elevate and refine him.
The most dangerous man to a woman is a man of high intellectual
endowments morally perverted; for in a woman’s nature there is such
a necessity to approve where she admires, and to believe where she
loves,—a devotion compounded of love and faith is so much a part of
her being,—that while the instincts remain true and the feelings
uncorrupted, the conscience and the will may both be led far astray.
Thus fell “our general mother,”—type of her sex,—overpowered,
rather than deceived, by the colossal intellect,—half serpent, half
angelic.
Coleridge speaks, and with a just indignant scorn, of those who
consider chastity as if it were a thing—a thing which might be lost or
kept by external accident—a thing of which one might be
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robbed, instead of a state of being. According to law and custom, the
chastity of Woman is as the property of Man, to whom she is
accountable for it, rather than to God and her own conscience.
Whatever people may say, such is the common, the social, the legal
view of the case. It is a remnant of Oriental barbarism. It tends to
much vice, or, at the best, to a low standard of morality, in both sexes.
This idea of property in the woman survives still in our present social
state, particularly among the lower orders, and is one cause of the ill
treatment of wives. All those who are particularly acquainted with the
manners and condition of the people will testify to this; namely, that
when a child or any weaker individual is ill treated, those standing by
will interfere and protect the victim; but if the sufferer be the wife of
the oppressor, it is a point of etiquette to look on, to take no part in
the fray, and to leave the brute man to do what he likes “with his
own.” Even the victim herself, if she be not pummelled to death,
frequently deprecates such an interference with the dignity and the
rights of her owner. Like the poor woman in the “Médecin malgré
lui:”—“Voyez un peu cet impertinent qui vent empêcher les maris de
battre leurs femmes!—et si je veux qu’il me batte, moi?”—and so
ends by giving her defender a box on the ear.
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“Au milieu de tous les obstacles que la nature et la société out semés
sur les pas de la femme, la seule condition de repos pour elle est de
s’entourer de barrières que les passions ne puissent franchir;
incapable de s’approprier l’existence, elle est toujours semblable a la
Chinoise dont les pieds ont été mutilés et pour laquelle toute liberté
est un leurre, toute espace ouverte une cause de chute. En attendant
que l’éducation ait donné aux femmes leur véritable place, malheur à
celles qui brisent les lisses accoutumées! pour elles l’indépendance
ne sera, comme la gloire, qu’un deuil éclatant du bonheur!”— B.
Constant.
This also is one of those common-places of well-sounding eloquence,
in which a fallacy is so wrapt up in words we have to dig it out. If this
be true, it is true only so long as you compress the feet and compress
the intellect,—no longer.
Here is another:—
“L’expérience lui avait appris que quel que fut leur âge, ou leur
caractère, toutes les femmes vivaient avec le même rêve, et qu’elles
avaient toutes au fond du cœur un roman commencé dont elles
attendaient jusqu’à la mort le héros, comme les juifs attendent le
Messie.”
This “roman commencé,” (et qui ne finit jamais), is true as regards
women who are idle, and who have not replaced dreams by duties.
And what are the
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“barrières” which passion cannot overleap, from the moment it has
subjugated the will? How fine, how true that scene in Calderon’s
“Magico Prodigioso,” where Justina conquers the fiend only by not
consenting to ill!
——“This agony
Of passion which afflicts my heart and
soul
May sweep imagination in its storm;
The will is firm.”
And the baffled demon shrinks back,—
“Woman, thou hast subdued me
Only by not owning thyself
subdued!”
A friend of mine was once using some mincing elegancies of
language to describe a high degree of moral turpitude, when a man
near her interposed, with stern sarcasm, “Speak out! Give things their
proper names! Half words are the perdition of women! ”
“I observe,” said Sydney Smith, “that generally about the age of forty,
women get tired of being
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virtuous and men of being honest.” This was said and received with a
laugh as one of his good things; but, like many of his good things,
how dreadfully true! And why? because, generally, education has
made the virtue of the woman and the honesty of the man a matter of
external opinion, not a law of the inward life.
Dante, in his lowest hell