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 s.p.a.ce 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 circ.u.mstances. 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 circ.u.mstance 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 pa.s.sionately: "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 n.o.ble 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. G.o.d 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.
CHAPTER x.x.x.
We soon found that Ideala, having at last put her hand to the plough, worked with a will, and although she was true to her principle that a woman"s best work is done beneath the surface, I think her own labours will eventually make themselves felt with a good result in the world.
But the life she has chosen for herself is martyrdom, and her womanly shrinking from the suffering she would alleviate is never lessened by use. Yet she does not waver. Other women admire her devotion, and follow in her footsteps; they do not doubt but that she has chosen the better part; but I fancy that most men who have seen her draw the little children about her and forget everything for a moment but her delight in them, have felt that there must be something wrong in the world when such a woman misses her vocation, and has to scatter her love to the four winds of heaven, for want of an object upon which to concentrate it in all its strength.
I do not know if her feeling for Lorrimer has changed. My sister declares in her positive way that of course it has, completely; but my sister is not always right. Ideala has never mentioned his name since she returned to us, nor given us any other clue by which we could judge. Only on one occasion, when some allusion was made to the course she had intended to pursue in the past, she exclaimed: "Oh, how could I!" and covered her face with her hands.
From where I sit just now I can see her walking up the avenue. She is as straight as an arrow, young-looking, and fresh. Her step is firm and light and elastic, and she moves with an easy grace only possible when every muscle is unconstrained. Her dress is a work of art, light in weight, but rich in colour and texture.
"What a beautiful woman!" I think involuntarily. I see her daily, and pay her that tribute every time we meet, for--
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety.
Her intellect and selflessness preserve her youth. She is changed, certainly. She has arisen, and can return no more to the lower walks, to the old purposeless life, and desultory ways; but yet she is the same Ideala, and holds you always expectant--you, who see beneath the surface. The world will call her cold and self-contained till the end, and so she is and will be--a snow-crowned volcano, with wonderful force of fire working within. And she will not stop where she is; there is something yet to come--some further development--something more-- something beyond! and she makes you feel that there is. What she says of other women is true of herself. "Do not stand in their way," she begs; "do not hinder them--above all, do not stop them. They are running water; if you check them they stagnate, and you must suffer yourself from their noisome exhalations. For the moral nature is like water; it must have movement and air and sunshine to stay corruption and keep it sweet and wholesome; and its movement is good works; its air, faith in their efficiency; its sunshine, the evidence of this and hope."
Comparative anatomists have proved that the human brain, from its first appearance as a semi-fluid and shapeless ma.s.s, pa.s.ses in succession through the several structures that const.i.tute the permanent and perfect brains of fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammalia; but ultimately it pa.s.ses beyond them all, and acquires a marvellous development of its own. And so it is with the human soul. It must rise through a.n.a.logous stages, and add to its own strength and beauty by daily bread of love and thought, growing to greatness by help of these aliments only, and reaching ultimately to such perfection as we cannot divine, for the end is not here. But we might reach it sooner than we do were it not for our own impatience. Growth is so exquisitely minute, it bursts upon us an accomplished fact. We know this, and yet we would see the process; and not seeing it we lose faith, waver, hesitate, stop, and recoil--a going back _pour mieux sauter_ it is with the choicer spirit; but we all are deficient in hope, all have our retrograde moments of despair. We do not look about us enough to see what is being done for others, how they are progressing, by what strange paths they are led.
We keep our eyes on our own ground too much, and, because we will not compare cheerfully, we think our own way the roughest, our own journey the longest--if there be any end to it at all! Yet all the time we might see the end if only we would look up. And we need never despair and lag, need never be cold and comfortless, if we would but love and remember.
For, while the tired waves, vainly breaking, Seem here no painful inch to gain, Far out, through creeks and inlets making, Comes silent, flooding in, the main!
Ideala raises her eyes to mine now, and smiles as she pa.s.ses beneath my window.
Another woman--a woman whom Claudia had long refused to know--is leaning on her arm, talking to her earnestly. And that is Ideala"s att.i.tude always. She gathers the useless units of society about her, and makes them worthy women. There is no kind of sorrow for which she has not found comfort, no folly she has not been successful in checking, no vice she has not managed to cure, and no form of despair which she has not relieved with hope. Her own experiences have taught her to sympathise with every phase of feeling, and be lenient to every shortcoming and excess. Wherever she is you may be sure that another woman is there also--some one with a sorrowful history, probably; and you may be equally sure that she is leaning on Ideala. G.o.d bless her!