Chapter V (4)

In these modest households again, I find model servants. It is a saying, nowadays, that there are no good domestics to be had. People talk of the servants in old times. Read Molière and the police regulations of the days of Louis XIV., and you will find that the _grands seigneurs_ had worse attendants than we have now. Old-fashioned servants have no more disappeared than old-fashioned virtues. The virtues reign in simple, industrious homes, and there too we must look for devoted domestics. Do not expect hard work in the abodes of magnificent idleness. The servants of the unoccupied soon become unoccupied themselves; instinctively they imitate from a distance their master's example, catch the tone of the establishment, and assume irreproachable manners and lazy habits. {216} A servant knows very well when he is assisting in an ostentatious parade. He is quick to abuse opportunities, and needs often, in order to avenge himself for the inferiority of his position, merely imitate his master, even with no intention of ridiculing him. But a devoted and courageous woman who is the first to take hold of work, transforms the souls of her domestics and raises their service to the dignity of devotion. Of course, the etiquette and perfect discipline that one admires in some establishments are not to be found here. No! Good servants who are not held in immeasurable distance from their masters, assume another sort of livery, the livery of the virtues they see and study closely. They breathe a healthy, strengthening air, and in this atmosphere of industry, honesty, and confidence both masters and servants are happy. Ah! I could mention splendid mansions that are inhabited by _ennui_, (not to speak of discord,) and I could tell of the happiness and dignity I have often witnessed in the third story.

But in justice it must be added that I have not always met these virtues in the third story, nor _ennui_ and idleness in grand establishments. There, too, when industry reigns, I have seen great virtues. It must be said that all depends upon education and habits.

IX.

Bad Habits and Prejudices.

But does education as it is bestowed to-day often accomplish great things? I answer regretfully, No; too often the education of the present day offers no such advantages. It cannot resist worldly dissipation or the idle mockery lavished by empty ignorance on studious women. Connected study and attentive reflection are most of all wanting in the training of girls and the mode of life adopted by young women.

As Ozanam has said, a treatise upon instruction for girls and young women is still to be written. The subject is in no respect rightly understood; no durable fruit has yet appeared.

I know young girls whose education in music and drawing had cost twenty or thirty francs a lesson, cease cultivating these expensive talents on the first day of freedom.

I take a single instance. Most young ladies for seven or eight years of their lives spend two and sometimes three and four hours a day at the piano. But this study to which so much time is given, and which opens glorious horizons to mind and soul, generally ends in one of those _soulless talents_ spoken of by Topffer, which borrow life from vanity only, talents useless for any practical purpose, taking no root in the mind, and seldom destined to survive the wedding-day.

This charming author, rising up in indignation against the use made in educating young people in the fine arts and of what are popularly termed _talents d'agrément_, exclaims: "How much I have seen of these charming talents and how little of their charm! Young girls are interested in nothing, understand little, feel not at all. I believe, however, that they might seek in artistic pursuits, instead of mere amusing recreation, exercise for the mind, expansion for the heart, development for the imagination, and find in these faculties which are usually destroyed or left idle by feminine occupations, a perfection that would, as it were, clothe and adorn the soul."

{217}

But, as matters stand, music is a study, more or less mechanical, that never reaches the soul, and seldom arrives at the commonest comprehension of art. How many girls who pass their days at the piano have neither sense nor appreciation of what they are doing! "We had music," says P. Gratry, "a brilliant tinkling that did not even rest one's nerves." Teachers are eager to impart a facile execution, but there are few who seek to form a good style, to make their pupils understand and appreciate composers, or grasp the chain of musical ideas.

People play on the piano without any comprehension of what they are expressing; as one might recite poems by heart in a language that one did not understand. In Germany, where music claims a large share in the education of girls, it is treated more seriously. Through the study of harmony they rise from mechanism to art.

Drawing is often equally misused. I have seen persons who drew with exactitude and even with facility, and yet could not distinguish good pictures from bad, or remember whether Raphael was the master or the pupil of Perugino. Even talent had not developed in them a sense of beauty.

The world leaves the domain of music free to young girls on condition that they shall derive no spiritual elevation from it and merely waste a great deal of time. As to the plastic arts, even a taste for painting arouses criticism, and M. de Maistre shudders to see his daughter painting in oil. In one word, the arts must be restricted to accomplishments, and sumptuary laws even more severe enforced with regard to literary pursuits.

Excepting in music and drawing a girl's education must be finished at a certain age. "Ever since my eighteenth year," writes a young friend, to whom I had recommended study, "if I expressed a wish to study, I have been asked if my education was not finished." Finish one's education! that means throwing aside books, writing, embroidery, and accomplishments if one has any.

But, we are told, young ladies learn a great variety of things during the time of education. Quite true, and the very subject of my complaint. They are not destined to pass examination for a bachelor's degree, and their whole training tends to give them general notions as shallow as they are widely diffused. Nothing serious, nothing grave, nothing profound--a little of every thing. In the words of an intelligent minister, "Who does not know that what we gain in surface we lose in depth!"

Beyond dispute the plan is comprehensive. I see many young girls who, in addition to common studies, geography, history, rhetoric, begin to learn one or two languages, play on the piano, take singing lessons, draw and paint, and learn to do all sorts of fancy work, as they succeed each other in the caprice of fashion polychromania, leather flowers, etc., etc. Of course, a life of efforts so scattered and diffused, can lead to no good result; and I have heard wise instructors sigh over the obligation imposed upon them of fulfilling such programmes. A little of everything is studied and nothing properly learned; not one talent or faculty developed, not one earnest taste acquired for anything whatsoever. Such half talents and superficial tastes achieve nothing.

{218}

If there be a danger in the study of art and literature, it is to be found in stopping precisely at the point indicated by M. de Maistre; at general notions, not solid acquirements; accomplishments, not earnest talents; a lack of something to elevate the soul and nourish the mind. Such smattering helps one to make a momentary show, but not to accomplish anything or to be any one. It indicates that nothing more will be acquired from the moment of leaving the convent.

Precisely the contrary is needed if one would train earnest and assiduous women who may one day prove useful to their husbands and children.

It is difficult to explain why indulgence is shown or exception taken by men of the world. They approve, and very properly, of a girl's speaking two or three living languages. But if, in accordance with Fénélon's advice, you learn a little Latin, hide it as a sin, or be accounted a blue-stocking. You will hardly obtain pardon for a taste for solid reading or historical studies. I have heard of a young woman who drew upon herself that sort of admiration that implies blame, from intelligent people, because she was said to read _Le Correspondent_. The same persons, on learning that she reserved the morning hours for study, testified immense astonishment and treated her as a _savante_.

What may be called study--making abstracts or taking notes of what one has read--is not considered proper for women, especially in country towns. Reading is hardly permissible and only within restricted limits. A lady of my acquaintance incurred general censure because, during the first year of her married life, she did not receive or make visits before four o'clock, that she might reserve a few hours for study, in accordance, moreover, with her husband's wishes.

Young girls should regard the close of their first studies as the commencement of a life-long work. Young women should, in the very beginning of married life, establish study as one of the duties of existence. Later, they are engrossed with the education of their children, and can no longer work to please themselves. But even then, the precious habit will cling to them as an inestimable consolation to be enjoyed in every leisure hour. Above all, it remains to fill the void that becomes so irksome when children escape from the mother's guidance, and she once more has freedom and leisure without youth, its joys or its energy.

Labor is a faithful friend that adapts itself to the age and disposition of every being who takes it as a companion for life.

That women may learn to value habits of industry, it is incumbent on us to convince young girls that their education does not end at eighteen, and that their first ball-dress has not, like a bachelor's degree, the virtue of giving to learning its perfect consummation. At that age they have barely information enough to enable them to study alone. Leading-strings are no longer needed in their education, and that is all. They are simply capable of continuing their studies, and of enjoying the pleasure of individual exertion. If a girl could be made to believe this, a serious and earnest future would be secured to her. But the present custom demands that she should study French and history until she is fifteen, and from fifteen to eighteen, piano-playing and drawing. Then comes a pink dress, the crowning glory of her education, the great day so often dreamed of. She goes into society and marries, determined to leave work behind her in accordance with universal practice. {219} This is one of the joys of marriage--to do nothing--and so she wastes a period most precious in a woman's life, a period when she has leisure, and that flame that youth and happiness alone can kindle; expansion of soul, the illumined eyes of the heart, _illuminates oculos cordis_, as St. Paul says, giving to toil facility, impetus, horizon, power. But so it is; all must be lost, squandered, sunk in those early years, even happiness! Study would have a secret power to draw this young creature from the whirl of life, and give her the calmness and recollection she so much needs, if merely to enjoy her blessings; but no, everything must be frittered away and destroyed.

Then follow years when the excitement of youth dies out, a void is left, beauty vanishes, _ennui_ comes to take possession, and there is nothing to dispute its sway. The children are in the midst of their education, and need no looking after. A mother who knows not the value of industry, is ever ready to excuse idleness in her children, and notwithstanding this indulgence, her sons think very little of their mother when they grow up, and soon regard her as beneath them.

X.

Practice.

But to come to practical results, what are the faculties to be cultivated in women? The same as in men? Must they study the exact sciences, politics, the secret of government, military art? Are they to emulate Judith, Joan of Arc, Jeanne Hachette, Hormengarde, foundress and regent of the second kingdom of Burgundy, Marguerite d'Albon, Isabella of Castile, Maria Theresa?

Certainly not. Women are to be enumerated who could be and have been all this. Providence creates these extraordinary beings. But though we recognize occasional vocations of genius, courage, and virtue, it would be folly to educate women for careers so exceptional.

Women are physically weak, but their intelligence must not be undervalued. They often have a great deal of mind and always a fund of good sense, demanding nothing but use. Why wonder at all I have implied? They acquire with remarkable ease. Who can fail to recognize the keenness and delicacy of sensibility bestowed on them by heaven, or the natural bent with which their souls turn to the vivifying rays of beauty?

I do not agree with a lady who wrote to me: "We skim over things and seem to know them; we open a book, run through a few pages, and are prepared to discuss it, to give praise or blame, recommendation or warning." I do not grant this. But beyond dispute, they have great facility for everything. It costs them little to assimilate to themselves required information, to make something out of nothing, and a great deal out of scant material. God, not destining them to long and abstract studies, has endowed them with marvellous perspicacity and intuition. They rarely speak of business because it fatigues and bores them; yet if circumstances demand their participation, how useful and sensible they almost invariably prove themselves! Generally, the restoration of family property is due to them; when left widows, they rebuild the fortunes of their children.

It is to be understood that in this vindication, as it were, of woman's right to intellectual culture, I give to study only its due share in the occupations of life. Clearly, household cares and home duties have a superior claim; husband, children, domestics, must be the first interest of a woman who understands the hierarchy of her duties. {220} My advice, if it must be precisely defined, would be, that she reserve at least two hours--if possible, three hours--of each day, for life, for intellectual culture.

So long as women content themselves with reading, looking, and listening, no great opposition is made, and men willingly grant them a place among their auditors. But if the profound emotions of the interior life seek a fuller development; if they seek in the absorption of pursuits answering to their spiritual aspirations an echo that the soul misses in the external world, then society rises up in judgment.

Some women are born artists, that is to say, they are possessed by a craving to give form to thought, to a feeling for beauty which penetrates them, and that too under conditions suitable for the development of this side of their nature. But it is precisely this exercise of the creative faculty which is denied them, and which I wonder to see withheld, since the gift comes from God himself.

Vainly does M. de Maistre maintain that "women have never produced a masterpiece, and that in wishing to emulate men, they become apes." Vainly does he add with unbecoming impertinence, "I have always thought them incomparably handsomer, more attractive, and more useful than apes. I only say and repeat, that women who would make men of themselves are nothing but apes." Or again, "A woman's _chef d'oeuvre_ in science is to understand the works of men."

But soon M. de Maistre contradicts and refutes himself: "We must exaggerate nothing," he says, "belles lettres, moralists, great orators, etc., suffice to give women all the culture they need."

A little later, he congratulates himself on having a daughter, who reads and appreciates St. Augustine, and who "passionately loves beauty of every kind; recites equally well Racine and Tasso; draws, plays, sings very prettily; and, as in her voice there are low chords that pass beyond the feminine range of tone, so are there in her character certain grave fundamental qualities, that belong especially to our sex, and which dominate the rest of her nature."

This is enough; my discussion with M. de Maistre is ended. We entertain, in fact, the same views, and I now address myself merely to worldly prejudice.

We have then, even in M. de Maistre's estimation, as studies possible for women:

1st. Belles lettres, literature both light and serious, a wide field and one as attractive as it is extensive. The range of history alone is immense. There is a philosophy, too, which the feminine mind is fully capable of grasping, and whose essential ideas are necessary to fix its natural mobility and insure to it correctness of thought. Teach a woman to reason justly, and consequently to give precedence to duty in all things, and you have secured the essential part of education as it is needed in every class and condition of life.

2d. The arts--so admirably suited to their imagination, to the delicate grace of their nature. And here I must remark that we unhesitatingly leave open to female competition the most perilous of the fine arts, the one least compatible with their duties and vocation, while shutting them out from the pure and lofty regions of the intellect. Many detractors of women, who cultivate or criticise art, would on no account suppress public singers or actresses.

{221}

But, you will tell me, that it is precisely because female _artistes_ are more or less degraded that virtuous women should not become _artistes_. I think as you do, and more strongly than you, yet I cannot help seeing that you recognize the fact of women's capacity to rise in art, since a few among them have received the gift of inspiration. If they have received this gift, it must be used; honestly and nobly of course, but used. The fact you advance brings its own application.

3d. If a woman can express the beautiful, she can do so through all the languages of the beautiful. Art is identical in principle, whatever be the mode of its expression. Painting, music, poetry, eloquence, the expression of beauty through an exquisite style, or through the accent of an inspired voice, is always beauty bound within the limits of a sensible form to render it perceptible to the soul through the medium of the senses. Each one must clothe it in a form not self-chosen. If you open to woman the most dangerous and frivolous of all the arts, why close to her the others? Because she sinks with the art that ministers to your pleasure, is it impossible for her to rise with noble, true, serious art? If a woman can be a _cantatrice_, she can be a musician in the elevated sense of the word, a writer or a painter.

Many men affirm authoritatively that women cannot and should not write. It is surprising that a question so easily settled for some persons should be so often discussed. Equal pains have not been taken to prove that women cannot be generals or ministers, yet I am not aware that the example of female warriors has been often claimed by their peers.

The present day is an ill chosen time to contest women's right to authorship, when the three works most generally read are _Le Récit d'une Soeur_, the writings of Eugénie de Guérin, and Madame Swetchine's Letters.

In becoming writers women do not infringe on the rights of men. "They do not seek to emulate man;" and when all is said, what is it, that M. de Maistre calls "emulating man"? Is it desiring to do all that he does? Of course not. Certain pursuits exclusively belong to him, and are not to be cultivated by women. But if there are points of separation, there is also a common domain where all souls may work together. The most natural is that of art and literature. Even here it may be that woman's field is more restricted than that of man; but she will find her place, and perhaps a place that men could not so well fill.

There are differences between the masculine and the feminine intellect; and it is on this fact that M. de Maistre founds his assertion that because one sex can write the other cannot. We may found upon it a different conclusion, that, bringing another kind of genius into intellectual regions, women will cultivate them after a fashion of their own, adapting their talents in preference to more delicate subjects. In a concert all dissimilar voices must be moulded together: why should not women bear their part in the great harmony of human thought expressed through art? There are notes they only can reach. Silvio Pellico says something similar when, after vainly trying to give women a pendent to the _Treatise on the Duties of Men_, he exclaims! "Only a woman could write such a book." In a woman's writing there is always a certain touch that reveals her sex. A female author must ever remain a woman. Thus may we reassure the susceptibilities of M. de Maistre and quiet our own fears as to the result of wishing to emulate man.

{222}

"Woman is a weak creature, ignorant, timid, and indolent," says Mme. de ----; "possessed of violent passions and petty ideas, a being full of inconsistency and caprice. ... Capable of displaying charming defects every day of her life; a treasure of cruelty and of hope." Then mourning over the almost complete disappearance of this type, she seeks an explanation of the fact: "Women have lost in attractions what they have gained in virtues. ... Woman was not made to share men's toils, but to afford them recreation." And, finally, summing up in one word the errors that have ruined her sex, she exclaims indignantly, "Woman has aspired to be the companion of man."

Thus, to be a companion instead of a plaything, a Christian rather than a pagan, a being to be respected, trusted, relied upon, rather than one who holds you by a passing attraction, amusing you by her frivolity, and distracting you from graver thoughts--this is a culpable mistake of judgment, and moreover, it is a woman who dares to bring forward such a doctrine.

4th. In my first letters I gave it as my opinion that, in a measure, a woman could occupy herself with sciences, and even with agriculture. The latter assertion provoked some surprise. Let me answer them by a few fragments of a letter written to me upon the subject, by a very sensible and distinguished woman:

"How wisely, monseigneur, you have advised women to interest
themselves in business matters and other serious subjects, even
studying agriculture. My own observation confirms your opinion.
At present, while my son is in the service, and I am separated
from all my family, living in the country, and almost always in
_tête-à-tête_, what would become of me if my mother had
not given me the habit, from childhood, of interesting myself
in every thing about me? Agriculture, with its obstacles and
its progress, affords an inexhaustible source of conversation
with one's husband, with cures, village notaries, farmers,
country neighbors, and _petits bourgeois_. It is a less
inflammatory subject than politics, and one that adapts itself
to every understanding. My husband does not disdain to discuss
crops and manuring with me--I have my own theories upon
drainage, beets, [Footnote 32] and cabbages, [Footnote 33] and
he finds me very progressive in my ideas, perhaps too much so;
he, however, never builds a stable without consulting me, and
before a lease is signed, I must hear it read several times. I
believe it to be very important to themselves and to their
children that women should understand business, the investment
of funds, the management of property. They should not
_decide_, but listen and advise. Husbands, generally, ask
nothing better than to talk openly of these things, because
such subjects interest them more than any others; but usually
no one listens. When a man meets with yawning inattention, all
is over; he has recourse to silence, adopts the habit of
managing everything for himself, of following his own bent. In
the beginning, a young husband is full of confiding openness;
later, he becomes more suspicious of control which wounds him
in proportion as it is needed. Capacity and earnestness are
indispensable to a woman."

[Footnote 32: La bette rave, the kind of beet from which
sugar is made, and therefore an important subject to theorize
upon. Berthollet is said to have lost his place by failing to
answer satisfactorily a question suddenly put to him by
Napoleon, concerning la bette rave.]

[Footnote 33: Colza, a cabbage used for making oil, and a
topic almost as engrossing as beets.]

{223}

I ask that women should be allowed to cultivate any art or science they may choose, and even aim at some eminence in its acquirement, without being annoyed in their honorable pursuit by the terrible anathema which the world launches against (for once we will use the coarse expression) _blue-stockings_. [Footnote 34] If there are women who, while attending thoroughly and seriously to their household affairs, rise above material life by a love and appreciation of the beautiful, seeking therein a delicate pleasure and pure emotions, enjoying the cultivation of the soul, and listening attentively to the claims of truth and goodness, it is a shame to cast reproach upon them.

[Footnote 34: In the language of unreflecting persons who
instinctively love to attack every thing elevated, perhaps in
order to drag others down to their own level, the word
"blue-stocking" signifies a woman who reads, and greatest of
all offences converses.]

5th. Above all things should rank the earnest study of religion. I dwelt long upon this subject in my "Letters to Men and Women of the World;" I will therefore simply say that it is above all in the higher classes, where fortune authorizes a free use of the luxury of education, that religious instruction should be pushed as far as the individual capacity of man and women allows; doctrine, proofs of religion, explanation of ceremonies, church history, selected works of the fathers, great pulpit orators, lives of the saints, etc., etc. all this I have explained and taught in detail. In a course of education there should be an appropriate progressive study of all that concerns religion. Religious facts are so intimately connected with those of modern history, that one can sometimes have a true idea of the latter only by becoming acquainted with the former.

The objection of want of time, the grand objection so often brought forward, remains to be examined. Have women the time to devote to intellectual pursuits? Let us be honest and confess that there are two obstacles to the leisure required: talking and dress.

Yes, the great misfortune of women is, that they indulge in long hours of conversation among themselves, and about what, if not dress, gossip, and housekeeping?

Now, nothing lowers the mind and soul like talking about trifles for hours, and there is but one method of remedying the evil; increase the time devoted to study, thus shortening in an equal degree the hours frittered away in conversation, and supplying mental food far superior to the vulgar subjects that now exhaust so many minds and souls.

As for dress, too much cannot be said against it, not only as a cause of ruin to women of the world, but as a dissolvent of all earnestness even among virtuous Christian women.

Dress! That is what wastes the time and exhausts the spirit of women; that is what takes them from their domestic duties, and not these poor calumniated books. Every attentive observer will recognize, as I do, that it is a taste for the world and for dress that detaches them from home interests far more than a taste for study.

For my own part, I can assert that the truly superior women I have known, those whose superiority was genuine and not a pretence or an affectation, were models of practical wisdom.

There are, on the other hand, certain households admirable in every respect but one--that on an average they discuss dress four or five hours a day. The mother of the family is a woman of great merit and virtue; she dresses with great simplicity; and yet there are no preoccupations so serious, no anxieties or sufferings so pressing, that they cannot be dissipated at least for the moment by the interest of ordering a new gown or bonnet.

{224}

These affairs are of vast importance; life slips away while the mind is wasting itself in their service.

Mothers of great merit teach their daughters to consider dress as one of their interests and principal duties, discussing and letting them discuss _toilette_ for hours every day, and judging every earthly thing from the standpoint of _toilette_. The business of dressing, shopping, choosing materials, talking with shopkeepers and dressmakers, and the time passed by young girls, and even young women, with lady's maids in more confidential intercourse than is becoming; these are in truth the great obstacles to habits of industry.

But leaving the subject of frivolous persons and unoccupied lives, how, you will ask, can a mother who owes all her time to her family find leisure to study?

It is hardly necessary to remark that I am speaking of women in easy circumstances, for the reason that they especially have the means of putting in practice these suggestions. Poor women who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, are not less precious in the eyes of God or in our own than the favorites of fortune; but daily toil can hardly leave them opportunity to cultivate their minds. And yet even among them there are many not called upon to support their families who, without being rich, keep one domestic, or do the housework themselves with ease and quickness, and thus have nearly as much leisure as women of wealth. How many women there are in business, shop-girls, for instance, or bookkeepers, who surely have time for reading, since they do read--and read--what?

It is well known that a taste for reading is now penetrating even into country villages, affording a means of spending pleasantly the long winter evenings. There are useful directions, an elevated impulse to be given to the class of women of whom we have just spoken; but however worthy of interest such a subject may be, it is not our present theme. Perhaps we may enter on it at some future day.

We address ourselves then to women in easy circumstances. Can the head of a grand establishment, a wife, a mother, find time to study.

Beyond a doubt, yes! To begin with, she can devote to study the time that other women give to worldly entertainments that consume their nights, and to personal adornments that devour their fortunes. They can lay aside all the pursuits that, while absorbing them without offering any advantage, prepare them ill for the duties toward their children that belong to them as mothers of immortal souls.

Does not the secret of living lie in the reconciliation of apparent difficulties? Do not duties, tastes, affections often appear to contradict each other? I have often seen that habits of orderly activity combined with a simplicity that suppresses useless exactions multiply an industrious woman's hours and make it possible to meet every demand. It is a woman's science to understand how to give herself and yet reserve herself: a science composed of gentleness and activity, of devotion and firmness, whose first result is the retrenching of idle indulgences, and the keeping within due bounds the tribute to be paid to the claims of society.

{225}

In preceding writings I have shown in detail that there are more empty hours, even in a busy woman's life, than is supposed. When once her children are grown up, she has often too much liberty on her hands. I once knew a lady who had six children. Her two elder sons were at a boarding-school; her three daughters passed the whole day with their governess; even the youngest had his lesson hours. This lonely mother said to me mournfully on one occasion, "I pass the whole day alone with my sewing, and poor company it is;" and she was reduced, poor lady, to seeking outside distractions, innocent but futile. If she had had a taste for study and habits of industry, she would not have been driven from home. Study makes women love their homes, the attraction of work commenced always drawing them thither. How little need of visits and society such persons feel! It is a joy to steal off to one's room and continue one's reading or drawing. It is with a light step that one turns toward home when heart and life are filled with a love of study instead of with an immoderate, ruinous taste for dress and luxury.

Much firmness, sweetness, and perseverance are necessary to secure one's liberty in a household, to make one's working hours respected, without failing in any other duty; in one word, to give and reserve one's self discreetly. It is a question of degree, like most other questions of conduct. But, in order to acquire courage for the struggle, women must be very sure that the right is on their side. They are too apt to mistake for a mere personal taste the duty of cultivating their mental faculties.

I have given strong and unanswerable arguments for the necessity of a rule of life. But in this, as in every human affair, temperament must be consulted. Though it may easily be made an illusion and a convenient pretext to cover self-indulgence, yet one can easily believe that some women, with the best will in the world, must plead the impossibility of having a rule of life, or must submit to see it violated so often as to become a dead letter.

The mistress of a household rises in the morning, she feels unwell, or her husband comes in to discuss plans, business, no matter what; work-people, children little and big, invade her room: the mother of a family has not an hour when she can shut herself up and forbid intrusion. There are women and even girls whose lives slip away under the oppression of these absolutely tyrannical customs, from which it is the more difficult to escape because they assert themselves in the name of devotion and domestic virtue.

If we tell these young people, "crushed and flattened out," as M. de Maistre expresses it, "under the enormous weight of nothing," to create an individual life for themselves, and seek occasional retirement, they answer: "But I cannot; I have not one moment absolutely my own. If I leave the parlor, my room is invaded; somebody wants to speak to me, and so somebody stands about for a quarter of an hour and then sits down. Then some one else comes, and so the time is devoured. With all the efforts in the world to keep my patience, I cannot conceal the annoyance this is to me skilfully enough to avoid being voted a strong-minded woman," [Footnote 35] the correlative term of blue-stocking.

[Footnote 35: Caractère roide, femmes affairée.]

Very well, I say, for want of regular hours let a woman devote odd minutes to study. There are always some in the busiest lives; moments that occur between the various occupations of the day; and she must learn to work by fits and starts, in a desultory fashion. There is a wide difference between the woman who reads sometimes and the woman who never reads.

{226}

If the desire to reserve a short time for study led to nothing more than the acquisition of the _science of odd minutes_, the result would be very important. _The science of odd minutes!_ It multiplies and fertilizes time, but books cannot impart it. It gives habits of order, attention, and precision that react from the external upon the moral life. The most cheerful women, the most equable, serviceable, and, I may add, the healthiest women, are those who are intelligent and industrious, and who, through the medium of a well-ordered activity, have discovered the secret of reconciling the duties they owe to God, to their families, and to themselves.

Between the spiritual and the material life, which answer to two orders of duty, the intellectual life must have its place; a place at present usurped by frivolity.

The intellectual life should be the porch of the spiritual life, material existence the support and instrument of the other two. But alas! it is far otherwise. Material existence usurps, suffocates, extinguishes the light of mind and soul. Art and literature elevate the heart, excite a distaste for gross enjoyments, and spiritualize life. They afford nourishment to mental activity, which is now the prey of levity, especially among women, seducing them to vain and dangerous pleasures. All grand and beautiful things, so worthy of the human intellect, betray the emptiness of material enjoyments, ennoble the soul and lead it to heights that approach heaven.

The culture of art and letters would occupy the feminine imagination profitably. It would create, or rather reveal to women admirable resources conducive to happiness, virtue, in short to a complete existence; whether in society, where woman's influence can elevate or debase ideas, occupations, interests, and sentiments; or at home, where talents and information, while conferring a great charm, would render her more skilful in the direction of children and in the exercise of salutary influence as a wife.

Thus the intellectual and the spiritual life would be united under the blessing of God; thus we should find in the various classes of society, intelligent Christian women, elevated above frivolity, capable of sustaining and inspiring every noble idea, every useful effort, every productive life; women who at home and in the world would be more enlightened, energetic, influential, estimable, forceful than the women of the present day.

--------

{227}

Baby.

I've got a baby, you know. There! if you laugh, I'll not tell you a single word about it. _You won't laugh any more?_ Very well; then don't. My dear old toad--husband, I mean--Dan, who is the born image of baby--oh! yes, a very pretty _ruse_, indeed, pretending to blow your nose. Can't I see you laughing behind your handkerchief? _I've got sharp eyes!_ Of course I have. All mothers have. Now, be good, and sit up like a man, and--there--don't be putting your hand up that way over your face, because I can see clean through it. What do you say? _Good gracious!_ That remark is not appropriate. However, I forgive you, for it might be if you knew what I'm going to tell you. My dear old toa--husband--is so fond of baby that I don't think I am fonder of him myself; and that is saying all I can say, and all I could wish to say, because baby's me, and I'm baby, as I love to imagine sometimes when I ask myself how much I want Dan to love his foolish little wife and Our Baby. Really, please don't hold your breath in that style; I'm always dreadfully frightened when baby does it.

Now, husband loving baby and me as he does, there's not the least doubt in the world that I am the happiest little woman, and the most contented little wife, that the world ever saw. Perhaps I may exaggerate, but ask dear Dan. If his opinion differs from mine, I'll modify it; for _I_ think he has the best judgment of any man I ever saw. "Tot," he often says, (the dear old toad always calls me Tot, because I'm small,) "my opinion coincides precisely with yours, and, if I have any amendment to make, I feel sure that you yourself would have made it under the circumstances." Of course, I ask if any amendment occurs to _his_ mind. Then he tells me, and, in fact, I see that it is just such an amendment as I _would_ make under the circumstances. Oh! he has the most perfect judgment, has my husband. He not only knows what is best, but he knows just what I would think best. For instance, about what name baby should be christened. If it was to be a boy, I settled at once in my mind that he should be called Daniel, after his papa, to be sure. To think of any other name would be sheer nonsense. But now see the judgment of my old toad. "I was thinking just the same as you, Tot," said he, "and your choice of my own name for the little stranger is the very one I had hoped you would choose; but, knowing how much you and I loved poor brother Alf--who was drowned at sea--I determined to renounce my name in his favor, and so dear brother Alf with his sunny face would live again in our child. If little Tot thinks of that, she will be sure to agree with me." _Did I agree with him?_ Of course I did. What foolish questions you men will ask. I'd no more think of calling him Daniel after that, than of calling him, well--Nebuchodonosor--or some other such heathen name. So the priest christened him Alfred.

Oh! we had such fun at the party. Old Mr. Pillikins--the old gentleman, you recollect, you met here last winter, with the gold spectacles and shiny bald head--was so droll. {228} He wanted to drink baby's health, but somehow he had not heard his name, so looking over to me he says:

"And his name is--"

"Begins with an A," said I.

"Begins with an A," he says after me. "Good, very good. First letter of the alphabet, where all good children ought to begin,

'A was an apple that hung on a tree:'

and the second letter is--"

"Is L, to be sure," said I.

"L! what else could it be?" Mr. Pillikins accented the word _else_, and then, after he had explained it to us, we had such a good laugh. Wasn't it an excellent pun? Then he thought he had it. So, taking up his glass in his right hand and putting the thumb of his left hand in the armhole of his waistcoat, he says;

"Alexander!"

"No, no," says I, "_not_ Alexander."

"_Not_ Alexander! True," says he, putting his glass down again. "I was about to add that Alexander had an A and an L, but did not have an--"

"F after it," cried Mrs. Gowsky, from the bottom of the table.

"Madam, you are quite right," replied Mr. Pillikins, bowing. "It has not an F after it, as the baby's name undoubtedly has, and the _ef_fect is certainly, more in_ef_able on account of it. Ha, ha! you understand?" Never was there such a punster as the old gentleman. "And then follows a--"

"All the rest," said I, "is just what you did with your _Herald_ this morning, Mr. Pillikins. What was that?"

"Madam, I tore it up."

"No, no. What was the first thing you did with it?"

"Madam, I dried it before the grate. The newspapers nowadays come so damp to one that it is enough to give one the gout in the fingers to hold them."

"Think again," I continued. "What did you do with it after having dried it?"

"Madam, I glanced over its contents, and--"

"O you tease!" said I, "you didn't do anything of the kind. You read it. There!"

"Yes, madam. I read it."

"Well, there's the baby's name, then," I exclaimed, almost losing my patience. "Don't you see?"

"Positively, madam, I did not. It is not the fashion to record births nowadays. Only the marriages and deaths."

"Well," said I, after the laugh this raised had somewhat subsided, "It might have been recorded there, for all I care. It would have been a happy piece of information, and giving a good example--" Now what are you laughing at?--"A happy piece of information," says I, "and that's more than can be said of many other items to be found in its columns."

Having got at the name, at last, Mr. Pillikins made a very pretty speech, at which everybody clapped their hands and smiled, and everything went off pleasantly, except Mr. Gowsky's son, Peter, who broke his wine-glass by hammering it on the table, and then fell backward, sprawling on the floor, from a bad habit he has of tilting his chair up. He scared baby so, that, to tell the truth, I had no pity for him in his confusion, and rather enjoyed his blushes, which never left him all the rest of the evening.

_I am malicious?_ Not I; but a poor, dear baby that cannot protect itself must not be abused with impunity. I was near fainting with fright, too, when I heard the sound; for I thought it must be the baby that had fallen out of its nurse's arms. {229} _First thought always about baby?_ To be sure, bless his little heart, and the last too! You can sit there twiddling your thumbs as if you did not agree with me; but I don't mind you; for what do you know about babies? Dan says, and very truly, that a mother whose first and last thought is not about her baby is not likely to give much thought at all, either first or last, to her husband. I can't understand it; but Dan tells me that nowadays Protestant wives have a horror of babies. I never thought of it before; but there is Mrs. Johnson, she has only one child; and there is Mrs. Thompson, who has but two; and Mrs. Simpson, who is married now six years, and has no children at all. It is so all through the Protestant community, Dan says; and that there are actually more Protestants die than are born. It must be their religion, I suppose, but I cannot imagine how a woman, if she had no religion at all--and the Protestants have got some kind of one or other--could hate babies.

As for me, I can hardly tell you how much I love baby, and how proud I am of him; and well I may be. Dinah Jenkins, his nurse, says that she has nursed a good many babies, but such a baby as Our Baby she never yet saw.

"Hi, missus," said she one day, "dis colored woman t'ought she knowed all kinds o' babies as ever war or ever could _be_. G'way, Dinah, says I, soon as I luff my eyes on to _dis_ child," (that's Our Baby,) "dis baby ain't no mo' like de babies you's nussed, an' I'se nussed a heap on 'em in my time, dan--dan--stick yer head in de fire!" And as I often say to dear Dan, she is the most truthful woman I ever met.

_Have I a black woman for a wet-nurse?_ No, I have'nt a black woman for a wet-nurse, nor a white woman either. Oh! you are _such_ a stupid!

I am the child's mother, am I not? That's enough. I hope I shall never be reduced to such an extremity as that. I pity poor mothers who are. If you were a mother, you would say the same. _People have wet-nurses?_ Yes, just as they have the cholera or the typhoid fever, I suppose, because they cannot help it. As to any woman, any mother, choosing to have one, I should say that is the sheerest nonsense ever dreamed of. _Great people have them, queens and empresses, and I needn't be above them?_ Thank Heaven, I am neither a queen nor an empress, but the devoted wife of my dear old toad of a husband, Dan Gaylark, and the mother of Our Baby!

What is that you are saying to relieve your mind? _Good gracious!_ You have made that remark once before, and equally to the point, as it seems to me. I was going to tell you all about the baby, but you are such a tease, Ned, and interrupt one so often with your exceedingly strange remarks, that I feel very much as one might suppose the "skirmishun" train feels in being "generally switched off into a sidin'." But, when I'm not switched off, I am good as the "skirmishun" at any rate. I "doos all as lays in my power" to get on. I suppose you call yourself the express train that is too proud even to whistle a salute in passing a poor, heavy-laden freight train, and utterly despises a modest country station as it goes thundering by, as if that was no place fit for its majesty to "stop at and blow at," as Professor Haman says in his _Cavalry Tactics. I study military tactics?_ Yes, infantry tactics, you rogue, under Mrs. Professor Dinah Jenkins; but I read that in a book of Dan's one day. Dan has a great fancy for horses and dogs. _Which of course, I'm jealous of?_ Not the least. It only makes me love horses and dogs more than I otherwise would. {230} _Simply because Dan loves them?_ Simply because Dan loves them; and if that is not good enough reason, I don't know what is. Ah! smile away as you please. What do _you_ know about it, you wretched old bachelor!

Here! Dixie! Dixie! Dixie! Come here, you good-for-nothing old black ---- There, then, that's enough now. Say "How d'ye" to Mr. Ned. Oh! you needn't be afraid of him. He barks loud, I know, but he won't bite. And he is _so_ knowing. I sometimes wish he did not know quite so much. And so affectionate. He takes a great fancy for everything he sees that Dan and I are fond of. I do think he would die for baby any day. Yes, you would, wouldn't you, you dear old fellow? There, you see, he says yes; he always grins and wags his tail that way when he wants to say yes.

It was about Dixie and baby I was going to tell you. He was so fond of baby that he wanted to take him out to walk and play with him on the Palisades. Ah! I shudder when I think of it.

You recollect that hot Thursday in July? The very air seemed to be holding its own breath. I felt so oppressed with the heat and the closeness of the atmosphere that I could bear the inside of the house no longer, and after taking a look--_and a kiss?_--yes, and a kiss of baby, who was sleeping soundly in his cradle, I went out to saunter down the shady lane that leads to the Palisades. I noticed that Dinah was asleep in a chair, too, beside the window, and thought that, if she could sleep in such weather, it was a mercy, and so I left her undisturbed. As I went out of the room, I left the door open, so that, if any little breeze might spring up, it would refresh baby in his sleep. I'm sorry enough now that I did.

You know what curious notions presentiments, or whatever you choose to call them, will come into people's heads without their being able to give any reason for them? So it was with me then. I had no sooner got out of the house than I thought about my leaving the door open, and half-determined to go back and close it. The same thought came to me again as I was turning the lane; and when I was once upon the green sward under the pine-trees, looking down the dizzy height from the top of the Palisades upon the river, I would most assuredly have returned and closed the door, had it not been for the intense heat, and I may say the cool and refreshing appearance the water had at that time. _You don't believe in presentiments?_ Well, I acknowledge that it savors a little of the fanciful and the romantic--reason enough, I suppose, for you to reject any such notion, you matter-of-fact old stick. But we women cannot take life as you men do, or, at least, as some men do. What! _you are very glad we cannot?_ Pray, what do you mean by that? Oh! I see, you incorrigible old bachelor, our different habits, idiosyncrasies, and tastes lead us to avoid (not your company, you know better) but your own pet schemes and fancies. _I_, for one, don't ask either to meddle with them or to share them. But you are very fond of getting our approbation of them, nevertheless. Dan says that there is not an orator in the country who would not prefer the waving of a lady's handkerchief to all that abominable rat-a-tat-tat you men make with your heels and canes. The more silent the sign of one's appreciation is, the better. Sincerity, Ned, is seldom noisy. True love is dumb as well as blind. But this is hardly _à propos_ of Dixie and the baby. Where was I? Oh! the Palisades, yes. {231} If you were anything of a listener, I might take the trouble to give you a nice little bit of description of the sunny afternoon and the beautiful scene which the river presented to my gaze; but I won't, because I see you are gaping.