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Ideala

<h2 id="id01152" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXIX.</h2> Claudia did not see the change in Ideala all at once. She said: "She is looking her best, and is our own Ideala again—faults and all! How she talked last night!" "Just in the old way," I agreed, "but with a difference; for in the old days she talked at random, but now I feel sure she has a plan and a purpose, and all that she says is part of it." This suggested new possibilities to Claudia, and when Ideala joined us presently, she asked, abruptly: "Are you going back to China?" Ideala answered deliberately: "I did think of becoming a missionary—that was why I went out there. But I know all radical reforms take time, and when I saw what the Chinese women were doing for themselves, and compared their state with our own, it seemed to me that there was work in plenty to be done at home, and so I returned. Certainly, the Chinese women of the day bind their feet. When a girl is seven or eight years old, her mother binds them for her, and everybody approves, If the mother did otherwise, the girl herself would be the first to reproach her when she grew up. It is wonderful how they endure the torture; but public opinion has sanctioned the custom for centuries, and made it as much a duty for a Chinese woman to have small feet as it is for us to wear clothes! And yet they do a wonderful thing. When they are taught how wrong the practice is, how it cripples them, and weakens them, and renders them unfit for their work in the world, they take off their bandages! Think of that! and remember that they are timid and sensitive in a womanly way to a degree that is painful. When I learnt that, and when I remembered that my countrywomen bind every organ in their bodies, though they know the harm of it, and public opinion is against it, I did not feel that I had time to stay and teach the heathen. It seemed to me that there was work enough left yet to do at home." "But, Ideala," Claudia protested, "what is the use of drawing degrading comparisons between ourselves and other nations? You gave great offence last night." "I said more than I intended," she answered; "I always do. It was Tourgenieff, was it not, who said that the age of talkers must precede the age of practical reformers? I seem to have been born in the age of talkers. But I shall not say much more. Last night I did not really intend to say anything. You led me on. But I do want to make their hearts burn within them, and if I succeed, then I shall not care about the offence. An English-woman is nothing if she is not patriotic. She will not bear the humiliation, if she is made to see that she is really no better, with all her opportunities, than a much- despised Chinese. She would not like the contempt the women of that nation feel for her if she were made to acknowledge the truth—that she deserved it. And so much depends on our women now. There are plenty of people, you know, who believe that no nation can get beyond a certain point of prosperity, and that when it reaches that point it cannot stay there, but must begin to go down again; and they say that the English nation has now reached its extreme point. They compare it with Rome in the days which immediately preceded her decline and fall—when men ceased to be brave and self-denying, and became idle, luxurious, and effeminate; and women traded on their weakness, and made light of their evil deeds. It is a question of the sanctity of marriage now, as it was in the days of the decline of Rome. De Quincey traces her fall to the loosening of the marriage tie. He says that few indeed, if any, were the obligations in a proper sense moral which pressed upon the Roman. The main fountains of moral obligation had in Rome, by law or custom, been thoroughly poisoned. Marriage had corrupted itself through the facility of divorce, and through the consequences of that facility (viz., levity in choosing, and fickleness in adhering to the choice), into so exquisite a traffic of selfishness, that it could not yield so much as a phantom model of sanctity. The relation of husband and wife had, for all moral impressions, perished amongst the Romans. And, although it is not quite so bad with ourselves at present, that is what it is coming to. "But there are two sides to every question, and the one which we must by no means lose sight of just now is not that which shows the respects in which we resemble the Romans, so much as the one which shows the respects in which we differ from them. It is therein that our hope lies. And we differ from them in two important respects. We differ from them in the matter of experience, and in the use we are disposed to make of our experiences. We are beginning to know the rocks upon which they split, and we shall soon be making use of our knowledge to steer clear of them. But there is another respect in which we differ from all the older nations, not even excepting the Jewish. I mean morality. We have the grandest and purest ideal of morality that was ever preached upon earth, and, if we do but practise it, there is no doubt that the promise will be fulfilled, and our days as a nation will be prolonged with rejoicing. "The future of the race has come to be a question of morality and a question of health. Perhaps I should reverse it, and say a question of health and morality, since the latter is so dependent on the former. We want grander minds, and we must have grander bodies to contain them. And it all rests with us women. To us is confided the care of the little ones—of the young bodies and the young minds yet unformed. Ours will be the joy of success or the shame of failure, and we should fit ourselves for the task both morally and physically by the practice of every virtue, and by every art known to the science and skill of man." "Englishwomen could not sit still and know that their lovely homes will be wrecked eventually, and left desolate: that this country of theirs will become a wilderness of ruin, such as Egypt is, but rank and overgrown, its beauty of sweet grass and stately trees, and all its rich luxuriance of flowers and fruits and foliage plants, only accentuating the ruin—bearing witness to the neglect. No, our greatness shall not depart. The decay may have begun, but it shall be arrested. I am not afraid." "But if it is the fate of nations, Ideala——" "I propose to conquer fate," said Ideala. "Fate itself is no match for one woman with a will, let alone for thousands! When horrid war is threatened, men flock to fight for their country; and they volunteer for every other arduous duty to be done. Do you think women are less brave? No. When they realise the truth they will fight for it. They will fly to arms. They will use the weapons with which Nature has provided them; love, constancy, self-sacrifice, their intellectual strength, and will. And so they will save the nation." Claudia, the unimaginative, sat silent and perplexed. "I would join," she said at last, "if I were quite sure——Oh, Ideala! it is not a sort of Woman's Rights business, and all that, you are going in for, is it? A woman can do good in her own sphere only." Ideala laughed. "But 'her own sphere' is such a very indefinite phrase," she observed. "It is nonsense, really. A woman may do anything which she can do in a womanly way. They say that our brains are lighter, and that therefore we must not be taught too much. But why not educate us to the limit of our capacity, and leave it there? Why, if we are inferior, should there be any fear of making us superior? We must stop when we cannot go any further, and all this old-womanish cackle on the subject, the everlasting trying to prove what is already said to be proved—the looking for the square in space after laying it down as a law that only the circle exists—is a curious way of showing us how to control the 'exuberance of our own verbosity.' They say we shall not be content when we get what we want, and there they are right, for as soon as our own 'higher education' is secure we shall begin to clamour for the higher education of men. For the prayer of every woman worth the name is not 'Make me superior to my husband,' but, 'Lord, make my husband superior to me!' Is there any more pitiful position in the world than that of a right-minded woman who is her husband's superior, and knows it! There is in every educated and refined woman an inborn desire to submit, and she must do violence to what is best in herself when she cannot. You know what the history of such marriages is. The girl has been taught to expect to find a guide, philosopher, and friend in her husband. He is to be head of the house and lord of her life and liberty, sole arbiter on all occasions. It is right and convenient to have him so; the world requires him to fill that position, and the wife prefers that he should. But the probabilities are about equal that he, being morally her inferior, will not be fit for it, and that, therefore, she will find herself in a false position. There will then be an interval of intense misery for the wife. Her education and prejudices will make her try to submit at first to what her sense knows to be impossible; but eventually she is forced out of her unnatural position by circumstances. To save her house and family she must rebel, take the reins of government into her own hands, and face life, a disappointed and lonely woman." "Heaven help her!" said Claudia. "One knows that the future of a woman in that state of mind is only a question of circumstance and temperament; she may rise, but——" Ideala looked up quickly. "But she may fall, you were going to say— yes. But you know if she does it is her own fault. She must know better." "She may not be quite mistress of herself at the time—she may be fascinated; she may be led on!" I interposed, quickly. Claudia seemed to have forgotten. "But one thing is certain, if she has any real good in her she will always stop before it is too late." "I think," said Claudia, "it would be better, after all, if women were taught to expect to find themselves their husbands' equals—the disappointment would not be so great if the husband proved inferior; but when a woman has been led to look for so much, her imagination is full of dreams in which he figures as an infallible being; she expects him to be her refuge, support, and comfort at all times; and when a man has such a height to fall from in any one's estimation, there can be but little of him left if he does fall." Ideala sighed, and after a short pause she said: "I have been wondering what makes it possible for a woman to love a man? Not the flesh that she sees and can touch, though that may attract her as the colour of the flower attracts. It must be the mind that is in him—the scent of the flower, as it were. If she finds eventually that his mind is corrupt, she must shrink from it as from any other form of corruption, and finally abandon him on account of it, as she would abandon the flower if she found its odour fetid—indeed, she has already abandoned her husband when she acknowledges that he is not what she thought him." She paused a moment, and then went on passionately: "I cannot tell you what it was—the battling day by day with a power that was irresistible because it had to put forth no strength to accomplish its work; it simply was itself, and by being itself it lowered me. I cannot tell you what it was to feel myself going down, and not to be able to help it, try as I would; to feel the gradual change in my mind as it grew to harbour thoughts which were reflections of his thoughts, low thoughts; and to be filled with ideas, recollections of his conversations, which had caused me infinite disgust at the time, but remained with me like the taste of a nauseous drug, until I almost acquired a morbid liking for them. Oh, if I could save other women from that!" Claudia hastily interposed to divert her. "That is a good idea, the higher education of men," she said. "I don't know whether they have abandoned hope, or whether they think themselves already perfect, certain it is the idea of improving themselves does not seem to occur to them often. And we want good men in society. If the clergy and priests are good, it is only what is required of them, what everybody expects, and, therefore, their goodness is accepted as a matter of course, and is viewed as indifferently as other matters of course. One good man in society has more effect as an example than ten priests." "But you have not told us what you propose to do, Ideala?" I said. "I hope it is nothing unwomanly," Claudia interposed, anxiously. Ideala looked at her and laughed, and Claudia laughed too, the moment after she had spoken. The fear of Ideala doing anything unwomanly was absurd, even to herself. "An unwomanly woman is such a dreadful creature," Claudia added, apologetically. "Yes," said Ideala, "but you should pity her. In nine cases out of ten there is a great wrong or a great grief at the bottom of all her unwomanliness—perhaps both; and if she shrieks you may be sure that she is suffering; ease her pain, and she will be quiet enough. The average woman who is happy in her marriage does not care to know more of the world than she can learn in her own nursery, nor to see more of it, as a rule, than she can see from her own garden gate. She is a great power; but, unfortunately, there is so very little of her! "What I want to do is to make women discontented—you have heard of a noble spirit of discontent? I thought for a long time that everything had been done that could be done to make the world better; but now I see that there is still one thing more to be tried. Women have never yet united to use their influence steadily and all together against that of which they disapprove. They work too much for themselves, each trying to make their own life happier. They have yet to learn to take a wider view of things, and to be shown that the only way to gain their end is by working for everybody else, with intent to make the whole world better, which means happier. And in order to accomplish this they must be taught that they have only to will it—each in her own family and amongst her own friends; that, after having agreed with the rest about what they mean to put down, they have only to go home and use their influence to that end, quietly, consistently, and without wavering, and the thing will be done. Our influence is like those strong currents which run beneath the surface of the ocean without disturbing it, and yet with irresistible force, and at a rate that may be calculated. It is to help in the direction of that force that I am going to devote my life. Do not imagine," she went on hurriedly, "that I think myself fit for such a work. I have had conscientious scruples— been sorely troubled about my own unworthiness, which seemed to unfit me for any good work. But now I see things differently. One may be made an instrument for good without merit of one's own. So long as we do not deceive ourselves by thinking we are worthy, and so long as we are trying our best to become so, I think we may hope; I think we may even know that we shall eventually——" She stopped and looked at me. "Be made worthy," said Claudia, kissing her; "and if it were not so, Ideala, if everybody had to begin by being as good themselves as they want others to be, there would be no good workers left in the world at all." At this moment a noisy party burst in upon our grave debate and carried Ideala off for a ride. We saw them leave the house, and watched them ride away until the last glimpse of them was veiled by the misty brightness of the frosty air and the morning sunshine. "How well she looks!" Claudia exclaimed; "better than any of them. She has quite recovered, and is none the worse." "I do not know about recovery," I answered, dubiously. "She will never ——" But Claudia interrupted hotly: "I know what you are going to say, and I do wish you would leave off speaking of Ideala in that way. Any one to hear you would suppose she had committed a sin, and you know quite well that that was not the case. If she acted without common prudence—and I will not deny that she did—it was entirely your own fault. She has never been intimate with any man but yourself, and you have made her believe that all men are like you. How could she harbour suspicion when she did not know what to suspect? Of course she saw everything wrongly and awry. The old life had become impossible to her, and she nearly made a mistake as to what the new one should be, that was all. I know she wavered for a moment, but the weakness was more physical than moral, I think. Her vision was clouded at the time, but as soon as she was restored to health she saw things clearly enough. She is a great and good woman, pure-hearted and full of charity. God bless her for all her tenderness, and for her wonderful power to love. He alone can count the number who have reason to wish her well." "That is true," I answered. "And I was merely going to remark, when you interrupted me, that she will never think herself 'none the worse'—" "I don't see what difference that makes," Claudia again interposed. "She always did think herself least of the least when she thought of herself at all, and that was not often. You are dwelling too long on the past, really, and making too much of it. Men, when they are saints, are twice as bad as women." I pointed out to my sister something confusing in her way of expressing the fact, but my kindness seemed to exasperate her. "You know what I mean quite well," she said tartly. "Yes, I know," I rejoined; "but I wanted to help you to make yourself intelligible to other people." Claudia made a gesture of impatience, but laughed, and left me; and I remained for a long time thinking over all that Ideala had said, and also thinking of her as she looked at the time; and the subject was so inspiring that, although my strong point is landscape, in an ambitious mood I began to paint an allegorical picture of her as a mother nursing the Infant Goodness of the race. She saw it when it was nearly finished, but did not recognise herself, and exclaimed; "What a gaunt creature! and that baby weighs at least twelve stone!" The picture was never finished. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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