Chapter XXIII: Letter LXVI

IN WHICH OUR CORRESPONDENT ASTONISHES US BY ENGAGING IN SINGLE
COMBAT WITH M. MICHELET, AND DEMOLISHING "L'AMOUR" AND "LA
FEMME."

WASHINGTON, D. C., Sept. 4th, 1862.

While I was lounging in a banker's drawing-room this morning, my boy, waiting for the filthy lucre chap to come down and say that he was glad to see me, I chanced to see the eternal "L'Amour" and "La Femme" lying upon a table in the apartment. The sight threw me into a bad humor, for I detest those books, my boy, and wish the United States of America had never seen them.

Monsieur Michelet, a French individual of questionable morals, first writes a book about "Love," and then clinches it with one about "Woman." It is hardly necessary to add, that he treats both subjects in a thoroughly French manner, and makes one a continuation of the other. Love is a charming little story in every man's life, "complete in one number"--Number one. Woman is a love-story, "to be continued" until, like all other continued stories, it ends with marriage!

Such is the logic implied by Monsieur Michelet's two books, and whether it is calculated to elevate or degrade the weaker sex, a majority of educated American women have eagerly read the books and accepted the sentiments as so many compliments. And the men? They leisurely rove through the leaves of monsieur's mental Valambrosa, and say: "How Frenchy!" And in that natural exclamation we find the most complete and just criticism of "L'Amour" and "La Femme" possible to American lips or pen.

This Michelet, my boy, is a man of talent and remarkably clear poetical perception. He is as much like Hallam as a Frenchman can be like an Englishman, and France honors him for his development of the poetry of her history; but is that any reason why he should be accepted as the modern High-priest of Love and the Censor of Woman? By no means. Madame de Stael was thinking of a Frenchman when she wrote: "Love is only an episode in man's life"--and may have referred to herself when she added: "but it is woman's whole existence." Had an American woman spoken this, we should suspect the sentiment to be nothing more than the reproach of a disappointed passion; but of the Frenchman it is indisputably true, as well as of woman wherever we find her.

The French do not know what Fidelity means, my boy; they have chameleon souls, and remain true to one object only until another comes within their reach. Like mad bulls, they are attracted by the quiescent warmth of fiery-red; and, having attained it, tear it to pieces in their passion.

What can such people know about Love? Nothing. They call Love "L'Amour," and when we speak of a man's "amours," we mean that he "loves" like a Frenchman. Monsieur Michelet is a Frenchman; and supposing him to be an ordinary one, we must accept his sentiments regarding Woman as we would those of an Apicius regarding a delicacy he apostrophizes before devouring. But Michelet's temperament is poetical, and while he looks upon Woman as a foretaste of the sensualist's paradise, and upon Love as the means of gaining it, he covers up the grossness of his ideas with robes borrowed from the angels. Adopting Kepler's canon, that "harmony is the perfection of relations," he makes Woman, the creature, a continuation of Love, the sentiment; and the tenor of his "L'Amour" and "La Femme" is, that both must be possessed by man, in order to perfect the union which makes them a perfect One.

Wherever I go I find these books: cheek to cheek they repose on the carved table of the lady's boudoir; shoulder to shoulder they stand on the library shelf; _tete-a-tete_ they give the rich centre-table an equivocal aspect. Young men and maidens, old men and matrons, children and chambermaids read them; yet they have no social effect. Woman understands love and herself; Man thinks he understands both; and the fictitious fervor of Monsieur Michelet has no more effect upon either than so much prismatic froth. It addresses itself piquantly to the eye, and murmurs like a shell in the ear; but once out of sight and hearing, and it is only an excuse for light talk and laxity of thought.

I am glad to record this; it shows that our national morality is in no danger of being wrecked on the French coast by any such tropical gales as Michelet, Feydeau, or Dumas can blow. Let our publishers bring over a few more cargoes from the Augaean stables of French literature in English bottoms, and I will guarantee them large profits. We will read them, and immediately forget all about it.

But to return to Michelet again. Our women read his "Woman," and imagine that it compliments their sex--flatters them. Fortunate is it, that flattery very seldom changes a woman's character, though it may sway her judgment. She accepts it as her right, but seldom believes it. Queen Elizabeth graciously extended her hand to be kissed when her noble lover compared her to "the sun, whose faintest ray extinguishes the brightest planet;" yet that same hand had signed the flatterer's death-warrant. At the moment she was pleased, and her good sense dazed; but her heart was not reached. Flattery, skillfully administered, may add fuel to a woman's love; but the fire must first be kindled with something more sympathetic. An American woman may read "La Femme," and complacently receive its subtle _equivoques_ as so much fuel added to her vanity; but that vanity was kindled into existence in the first place by the genuine homage of some honest man.

It was Michelet's "Woman," my boy, that suggested this letter; yet I did not intend, at the outset, to devote so much space to his unwholesome sophistry. If I have shown, however, that Michelet's "Woman" is only such a being as he would have created under that name, could he have changed places with the Deity, I have not wasted time and ink. Thank fortune, there is but one French deity, and his proper name commences with a D.

Now, let me give my own idea of Woman--not "La Femme."

As she stands before me in the light of Nature, she is no "enigma," as voluntarily-puzzled poets have called her; but a being easily defined, and not more nearly related to the angels than man. To the best of her sex we attribute one natural weakness and one virtue--Curiosity and Modesty. Everybody must allow this much. But why should we make such a distinction between these two qualities? Let us trace them back to their exemplar:

Eve's curiosity was the first effect of her serpentine temptation. Was it not? Well, that curiosity caused her to eat the forbidden fruit. Having eaten it, and caused Adam to eat, she suddenly became possessed of modesty, and made herself an apron of fig-leaves. It is but natural to infer that her first blush was worn at the same time, though Milton attributes blushes to the angels. As angels are immaterial beings, I think Milton was mistaken. Now, if modesty, as well as curiosity, was the result of Satanic temptation, why should one be called a weakness and the other a virtue? Are not both the fruits of original sin?

Woman's love is said to be stronger and more lasting than man's. Is it so? Let us trace it back to its beginning:

Eve's love for Adam did not prevent her fall. She met the Prince of Darkness and listened to his blandishments, as too many ladies of the present time prefer the society of bogus courtiers to that of their Adams of husbands. She forever disgraced Adam, herself, and her future family, just to please the tempter. Was this a proof the depth and vitality of Woman's love? And Adam? Why, rather than refuse any request of the woman he loved, however extravagant, he voluntarily shared in her ruin, and courted the curse of her fall. Did this prove that Man's love is weaker and shorter-lived than Woman's?

Now, I should like to see some one impudent enough to assert that Eve was more curious, or less modest, or more fickle than are the best of her female descendants. Such impudence is not compatible with the present position of civilization. Then, as Eve was the great exemplar of her sex in Modesty and Fidelity as well as Curiosity, it follows that Woman's Modesty is the result of inherited sin, and her Fidelity in Love no greater than Man's.

Alas! for the "angels" of the poets, my boy. Prove that her Modesty and Love are anything but heavenly, and what remains to make Woman angelic?

I could honor, love, and might obey the Best of Her Sex; but I shall never worship her. She is not a Deity--only a Woman. I believe that God intends each woman for a wife; yet six marriages out of every dozen are unhappy ones. And what is the reason? Simply this:

Before marriage, man generally accepts one of the two poetical theories respecting Woman. He either supposes her to be an angel, purer and more elevated in her nature than he in his; or gloats over her as a delicate morsel prepared for his special delectation by the gods. In either case, he finds out his mistake when it is too late to rectify it, and his disappointment is but the refinement of disgust. He either discovers that woman is only a human being, and very much like himself by nature; or that constant familiarity with her brings her down to the level of a man in his estimation. There is but one possibility of escape from disappointment in either case; the death of husband or wife within a year of the wedding day!

Husbands and wives, have I spoken truly?

But there are exceptions to every rule. Some men marry women for the sake of having homes of their own; others, for money; still others, because it is the fashion. The man who marries for a comfortable home often gets what he desired, and is contented; the mercenary husband is likely to do and feel the same; the fashionable husband generally cuts his throat. These exceptions do not break the rule.

It may be asked: Why do widowers so often marry again, if they were so disappointed in their first wives? My boy, you are no philosopher. How many men have learned wisdom by experience? Only a few, and they are all dead. If a sailor is shipwrecked, and nearly killed on his first voyage, does he forsake the sea forever after? If a man buys an image supposed to be made of marble, and discovers that it is plaster, does he never buy another image? Because you and your neighbors chance to buy a barrel of bad eggs, are you satisfied that good ones are not to be had?

An enthusiastic young man marries a girl whom he supposes to be an "angel." A year passes, and he mourns over his mistake. A few more roll away, and she dies. Does the widower profit by his experience? No! He says to himself: "My late wife was not an 'angel;' but that sweet girl I saw yesterday certainly is. She is entirely different from my late wife." Well, he marries angel No. 2. She proves to be No. 1 in a different dress.

A tropical young man is infatuated with the physical beauty of a girl, and marries her with the idea that he will never weary of looking at her. A year passes, and he is heartily tired of her. She dies. Does the widower profit by his experience? No! He says to himself: "I was wearied of my late wife because her hair, eyes and complexion were the same as mine. Physiologists say that opposites are necessary to matrimonial bliss. There is Miss ----, with her hair, eyes and complexion, in direct antithesis with mine. I am _sure_ I should never weary of her!" He marries her. And tires of her.

Do you see, my boy?

And now to remedy this evil: Let us look upon woman as she is. If an "angel" with golden hair, snowy complexion, pearly teeth, heaven blue eyes, and no appetite, sounds better in poetry than a true woman, with auburn hair, fair complexion, clean teeth, and nice blue eyes, why, let the poets rant about "angels." But poetry has nothing to do with so practical an event as marriage, and its "angels" will not do for wives. A man cannot be guilty of a more absurd and unprovoked piece of injustice, than that of persisting in believing his bride more of an angel than human. He might as well go to a jeweller's, and insist upon buying a pearl for a diamond, when the certain result of such folly would be his denunciation of the pearl as a swindle, when time convinced him of its real character. No true woman desires to be looked upon as an "angel," nor to have her beauty valued as a joy imperishable.

It is very common for women to lament the indifference of husbands who were the most attentive and obedient of lovers. I have explained the cause of the defection.

To secure happiness--or contentment, at least--in the marriage state, we must regard woman as our equal by nature, whatever superiority or inferiority she may possess by virtue of her mental or social education. We must not look _up_ to her, nor _down_ upon her, but straight _at_ her. We must not base our love for her upon supposed angelic qualities. If we desire to make her happy, and be happy ourselves, we must recognize her human origin in common with our own, and accept her physical inferiority as security for the continuance of our own love in all its normal strength.

Of course there are grades in human nature. Some natures are more refined than others, from the effects of their surroundings and education. But the lover should recognize no degree higher than his own when he selects his mistress. Then, if hers proves higher than his, after marriage, he is delighted; if the same as his, he is satisfied. But suppose it should prove lower than his? Such a supposition is untenable in a marriage of mutual affection. A superior nature will never gravitate to an inferior one by the attraction of real love. There must be a natural sympathy; and sympathy is the rock upon which all true love is founded.

Love never yet blended incompatible natures in marriage. Money often does--brute-insanity sometimes.

You have probably concluded, by this time, my boy, that my ideas of the true Woman and Monsieur Michelet's views of "La Femme" are decidedly at variance.

I have sufficient faith in the good sense of Woman to believe that she will give preference to my doctrine. If so, she will not translate "La Femme" as "Woman," but as "grisette," "lorette," or "camelia lady." To christen such a work "Woman," is to lay a snare for the Best of Her Sex, and catch the Weakest in it. The female who allows it to affect her may possibly make "a neatly-shod grisette," but never a good wife.

It may be asked why I have made "Woman" the subject of this letter, and why I have adopted such a Frenchy style?

Simply because there is no subject less understood, my boy, by the generality of young mankind; and because I deem it best to practice the doctrine of _similia similibus curantur_ (in style) while quarreling with Monsieur Michelet.

Yours, sentimentally,
ORPHEUS C. KERR.