Now in this generalizing, I beg that you will not accuse me of a.s.serting that these strictures are true of every man who is not an American, or that all American men are perfect. But I do wish to state clearly and frankly my admiration for American men as a race. When an American man _is_ a gentleman, he is to my mind the most perfect gentleman that any race can produce, because _his_ good manners spring from his heart, and there are a few of us old-fashioned enough to plead that politeness should go deeper than the skin.
Now if the a.s.sertion is made that the American man makes the best husband in the world, let him not think that there is no room for improvement, for with him it is much the same as it is with the wild strawberry. At first blush one would say that there could be no more delicious flavor than that of the wild strawberry. Yet everybody knows what the skilled gardeners have made of it in the form of the cultivated fruit. Nevertheless, the crude article, found growing wild upon its native heath, is much to be preferred to the candied ginger of other nations.
After admitting that the wild strawberry is capable of cultivation, and even attaining, under skilful care, the highest type of perfection, let no one make the mistake of thinking that the time for such improvement is after they have been grown and placed upon the market. If they are found to be knotty, half green, or in a state of decadence, and you are bound to buy strawberries, you can take them, and, by your native woman"s wit, you can dress them into a state of palatableness, even if you have to reduce them to a pulp in the sacred mysteries of a short-cake.
But in order to take all the comfort which strawberries are capable of giving to mankind, they should be perfect in themselves when they come from the hand of the gardener--just as it was his mother"s duty to have trained that husband of yours before he came under your influence.
It really is asking too much of a woman to expect her to bring up a husband and her children too. She vainly imagines, when she marries this piece of perfection, with whom she is so blindly in love, that he is already trained, or, rather, that he is the one human being in the world who has been perfect from infancy, and who never needed training. She never dreams of the curious fact that mothers always train their daughters to make good wives, yet rarely ever think of training their boys to make good husbands.
Therefore, unless, like Topsy, they have "just growed" good and kind and considerate, a woman has a life-work before her in training her own husband.
But the fact of the matter is that while we girls receive specific training, to the express end of making good wives, the boys of the family receive only general training of chivalry and courtesy towards all women--not with a view of having to spend the greater part of their lives with one woman, or the tact with which this one woman must be treated.
I wonder what would happen if somebody should open a Select Kindergarten for Embryo Husbands? Yet we girls have been in a similar inst.i.tution for embryo wives since childhood. We are told in our early teens: "Well, only your mother would bear that. No husband would;" or, "You will have to be more gentle and unselfish with your brother, if you want to make some man a good wife."
A good wife! It has a magic sound!
Of course, every girl expects to marry, and the shadowy idea of making a _good_ wife to this mysterious but delightfully interesting personage, who is growing up somewhere in the world, and waiting for her, even as she is waiting for him, makes the hard task of self-discipline easier, for we all wish to make "a _good_ wife."
Nor are we taught alone to be gentle and sweet and faithful. We girls have to learn that all-potent factor in a happy life--tact. We are early taught that it is not enough to master the fundamental principles which govern the genus man. We have to discover that each man must be treated differently. We must cater to individual tastes.
We must learn individual needs, and fill them. In short, we are taught to observe men, to study them, and then to hold ourselves accordingly.
Pray do not imagine that all this is put into words, or that we have certain hours for studying how to make good wives, or that it is as rigid or exhausting as a broom drill. It is the intangible, esoteric philosophy which permeates the households of thousands of American families, where the mothers are the companions and confidantes of the daughters. It is an understood thing. You would be surprised to know how young some girls are when they have thoroughly mastered this wonderful tact with men. And what is it that makes the American girl so dangerous for all the other women in the world to compete with? It is because she studies her man. And how did she learn it? By seeing her mother manage her father--or, perhaps, by seeing how easily her father could be managed, if her mother only understood him better.
There is a good deal of progressive thought among girls in this generation.
Why in the world mothers train their girls and boys alike up to a certain point in general courtesy and consideration for each other, and then go on with the girls, teaching them the gentle, faithful finesse which every wife has to understand, yet leaves her boy to "gang his ain gait" just at the formative period of his life, I am not able to say.
If I could only hear some mother say to her son, "Don"t let your slate-pencil squeak so! Try not to make distracting noises. You may have a nervous wife, and you might just as well learn to be quiet.
There is no sense in thinking just because you are a boy that you can make unnecessary and superfluous noises!" I think I should die of joy!
Or how would it sound to hear her say, "Whenever you come in and find your sister irritable, don"t simply take yourself out of her way. Look around and do something kind for her. Make a point of knowing what she likes and of doing it. Life is so much more monotonous for women than for men, you should be especially generous with your sister, so that some day you will make some sweet girl a good husband."
Can"t you just _see_ what kind of a husband that boy would make?
Romance comes later to a boy than to a girl, but it hits him just as hard when it does come, and a boy is quite as responsive as a girl to the suggestion of a personal chivalry which shall prepare him to be a better husband to a shadowy personality which he cannot do better than to keep in his mind and heart.
Why does a woman, who finds it difficult, perhaps even impossible, to persuade her husband to do certain essential things, never take pity on the poor little girl across the street, who, in ten or fifteen years, is going to marry her son?
Take, at random, the subject of a wife"s having an allowance.
Thousands of wives have it, and therefore they are not the ones we are to consider. But where there are thousands who possess an allowance from their husbands, or who have money in their own right, there are millions who never have a cent they are not obliged to ask their husbands for.
There is no question of gift about it. At the altar he endowed her with all his worldly goods, and he thinks he has lived up to the letter of his vow when he tells her that all he has is as much hers as his. But unless that oft-quoted saying is followed up by a certain sum, no matter how small, which is in truth her very own, she feels that that clause in the marriage service might as well be stricken out.
When wives as universally share in adding to the general prosperity of the home--by managing the house, keeping their husband"s clothes in order, and caring for the children--as men always admit is the case, wives are actually adding dollars to their husband"s income. Then ought not a man to divide that same income with her in the form of an allowance, for which, if only to add to her self-respect, he has no more right to call her to account than she has to insist on seeing a list of his expenditures?
I have nothing to say about extravagant or untrustworthy wives, who do not come into the subject at all. I am only referring to the magnificent mult.i.tude of good, careful, thrifty, typical American wives, whose sole aim in life is to make a happy home for husband and children. Nor am I denying that these women have all their wishes granted, and are allowed to spend their husbands" money with reasonable freedom, provided they account for it afterwards. I am only a.s.serting that every married woman, from the farmer"s wife to that of the bank president, should have some money regularly which is sacredly her own.
Perhaps men think I am exaggerating the evil. Perhaps they do not know that the only advice married women give to engaged girls which _never_ varies is: "Be sure you ask for an allowance from the first, because, if you don"t, you may never get it."
I suppose that the majority of men do not know that their wives hate to ask them for money. Of course it does not seem so terrible to those of us whose fathers occasionally want to keep back enough money to buy coal when our daughterly demands get refused. But it never occurs to us that a girl"s lover-husband, this courteous stranger whom she has loved and married, would ever forget his theatre and American-Beauty days sufficiently to say: "What did you do with that dollar I gave you yesterday?"
Now, frankly speaking, it never occurs to unmarried girls that the honeymoon can ever wear off. We look upon husbands as only married sweethearts. We sort of halfway believe them--at least we used to, before we observed other girls" husbands--when they tell us that they long for the time when they can pay our bills and buy clothes for us.
We never thought, until we were told, that any little generous arrangement, which we expected to last, must be fixed during the first few weeks of marriage. I dare say most of us had planned to say, in answer to the money question, "Just as you like, dear. I"d rather have you manage such matters for me. You know so much more about them than I do." It is a horrible shock, from a sentimental point of view, to be told to say, "I"ll take an allowance, please," and then, if two amounts are mentioned, to grab for the biggest. Oh, it is a shame! It is a shame to be told that we shall be sorry if we don"t, and to know that we shall have no opportunity to show how unselfish and trusting we are.
It is all your fault, you men, that you do not think of these things more. You might stop a moment to consider that it _is_ rather a delicate matter for a woman to ask money of a man. If your wife is like most wives, she is doing as much to help you make your money as you are. She is keeping you well and happy and your home beautiful.
You could not keep your mind on business an hour if she did not.
Therefore she deserves every dollar which, after discussing your future life together, you feel that you can afford to give her. She ought to be made to feel that she has earned it, and that she may spend it freely and happily, or invest it, just as she chooses. Do you think that you would not get the whole of it back if you were ill and needed it? It is an ungracious thing to call her to account for every dollar. How do you know but that she wants to save a little out of the market-money to buy you a nicer birthday present than usual?
American men are the most lavish husbands in the world. It is only that they do not think what a joy it is to a woman to have even the smallest amount of money of her very own, concerning which no one on earth has a right to question her.
And yet, what is the use of trying to train a husband into a habit of thought like this, when he has been used to hearing his mother _argue_ his father into giving her money, and yet to know that she and all the world considered him generous, and that, in truth, he was?
A woman who suffers heartache because her husband never apologizes to her, or who endures mortification unspeakable because she has not a penny of her own, has no right to rebel, even in her own heart, unless she is training her son to make the sort of husband for some little girl, now in pinafores, which she would have wished for herself.
A FEW MEN WHO BORE US
THE SELF-MADE MAN
Somebody has cleverly defined a bore as "a man who talks so much about himself that I never can get a chance to talk about myself." But that is too narrow. I am broad-minded. I want somebody to find a definition large enough (if possible) to include all the bores. I do not know, however, but that I am asking too much.
Neither is this definition entirely true. For I have heard men talk about themselves for hours at a time, and they talked so well and kept their Ego so carefully hidden that I was enchanted, and never mentioned myself, even when they paused for breath. Then, too, I have been bored to the verge of suicide by some worthy soul who insisted upon talking to me of (presumably) my pet subject--myself--and who was doing his poor little best to say nice things and to be entertaining.
A bore is a man or a woman who never knows How or When. There are times in the lives of all of us when it bores us to be talked to of home or friends or wife or husband or mother or religion. There are times when nothing but a large, comfortable silence can soothe the worry and fret of a trying day. At such times let the tactless woman and the thoughtless man beware, because everything they say will be a bore.
It is not wilful cruelty which makes us say that (to a woman) the word "bore" is in the masculine gender and objective case, object of our deepest detestation. Men are oftener bores than women, for two reasons: One is that they seldom stop to think that they could be a bore to anybody; and the second is that we women never let them see that we are being bored, for it is our aim in life to look pleasant and to keep the men"s vanity done up in pink cotton, no matter if we are secretly almost dropping from our chairs with weariness--the utter, unspeakable weariness of the soul, compared to which weariness of the body is a luxury.
Women are too tender-hearted. A woman cannot bear to hurt a man"s feelings by letting him know that he is killing her by his stupidity.
And even if she did, in the n.o.ble spirit of altruism, rather than selfishness, the next woman, with one reproachful glance at her, would pick up the mutilated remains of the man"s vanity and apply the splints of her respectful attention and the balm of her admiration, partly to add a new scalp to her belt, and partly to show off the unamiability of her sister woman.
So it is of no use to kick against the p.r.i.c.ks. Bores are in this world for a purpose--to chasten the proud spirit of women, who otherwise might become too indolent and ease-loving to be of any use--and they are here to stay. We have no conscience concerning women bores. We escape from them ruthlessly. And, perhaps, because women are quicker to take a hint is the reason there are fewer of them. It is only the men who are left helpless in their ignorance, because no woman has the courage to tell them.
Our only defence is in telling the men in bulk what we have not the courage nor the wish to tell the individual, and letting them sit down and think hard, applying the relentless microscope of self-a.n.a.lysis to their carefully tended Ego, to see if, haply, any of these things we say apply to themselves.
Of course, this is hard on men, because very likely some of those who have been led by women to believe that they are entertaining, even to the verge of fascination, are the very ones who are the greatest bores. But we women do our best. We are hampered by our supposed amiability, and bound up by a thousand invisible cords of tact and policy to a line of action which dupes the cleverest of men. And we are shrewd enough to know that if we should become what they now, in the smart of their wounded vanity, would call honest, they would simply turn their broadcloth backs upon our uncalled-for frankness and seek the honeyed society of some sweet woman who flattered them exactly as we used to flatter them before we became so "honest."
Ah, well-a-day! Enter the self-made man. And with him the commercial spirit of the age. Enter the clink of coin and the unctuous corpulence of a roll of bills. Enter the essence of self-satisfaction, the glorious spectacle of a man who spells "myself" with a capital M.
Have you never noticed the change in conversation with the entrance of a new person? How, when a lovely girl enters, the men all straighten their ties and the women moisten their lips? How, when the new person is a self-made man, with his newness so apparent that he seems to exhale the odor of varnish and gilt--how all repose vanishes, and whatever of crudity there is anywhere suddenly makes itself known, and rushes forth to meet the wave of self-boasting which sweeps all before it when the self-made man speaks?
And yet I approve of the self-made man in the abstract. It is the true spirit of Americanism which caused him to raise himself from the ranks of the poor and obscure, and educate himself, or, more likely still, grow rich without education. But is it necessary for him to have the bad taste to boast of it, and never let you forget for one moment that he is the product of man"s hand and that the Creator only acted in the capacity of sponsor?
I admire the pluck, the perseverance, the indomitable energy, the ambition which produced the man of prominence from the raw boy; but, kind Heaven, let us forget for one brief moment, if we can, that he did this thing.
It is not the fact that he is a self-made man that bores us--we honor him for that. But it is his vain boasting--the tactless forcing of his unwelcome personality into general conversation, his weak vanity, which demands our admiration for the toil and hardships he has undergone, which, if they had served the purpose they should have done, would have made him too strong a man, and too much of a man, to force either pity or admiration from people when it was not freely offered.
The favorite gibe of the self-made man is directed against the college graduate. Let there be a young fellow present who is fresh from college, and let him mention any subject connected with college life, from honors to athletics, and then, if you are hostess, sit still and let the icy waves of misery creep over your sensitive soul, for this is the opportunity of his life to the self-made man. Hear him tear colleges limb from limb, and cite all the failures of which he ever has known to be those of college men. Hear him tell of the futile efforts of college boys to get into business. Hear him drag in all the evidences of shattered const.i.tutions, ruined by study, and then hold your breath; for all this is but preliminary to the telling of the story of a colossal success--the history of the self-made man. You might as well lean back and let him have his say, for he has only been waiting all this time for an opening in the conversation to insert the wedge of his Ego.