"Do you think so?" said Hoffland, smiling.
"Yes: what I have said is the tritest truth. That women admire these qualities excessively, and that men, especially young men, shape their conduct by this feminine feeling, is as true as that sunlight."
"I deny it."
"Very well; that proves further, Charles, that you have not observed and studied much."
"Have you?"
"Extensively."
"And you are a great master in the wiles of women by this time, I suppose," said Hoffland satirically.
"No, you misunderstand me," replied Mowbray, without observing the boy"s smile. "I never shall pretend to understand women; but I can use my eyes, and I can read the open page before me."
"The open page? What do you mean?"
"I mean that the history of the modern world, the social history, has a great key-note--is a maze unless you keep constantly in view the existence of this element--women."
"I should say it was: we could not well get on without them."
"The middle age originated the present deification of woman,"
continued Mowbray philosophically, "and the old knights left us the legacy. We have long ago discarded for its opposite the scriptural doctrine that the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man; and we justify ourselves by the strange plea, "they are so weak.""
"Well, are they not?"
"Woman weak? Poor Charles! Parliaments, inquisitions, secret tribunals and executioners" axes are straws compared to them. They smile, and man kneels; they weep, and his moral judgment is effaced like a shadow: he is soft clay in their hands. One caress from a girl makes a fool of a giant. Have you read the history of Samson?"
"Vile misogynist!" said Hoffland, "you are really too bad!"
Mowbray smiled sadly.
"Do not understand me to say that we should return to barbarous times, and make the women labor and carry burdens, while we the men lounge in the sun and dream," he said; "not at all. All honor to the middle age!
The knight raised up woman, and she made him a reproachless chevalier in return; but it did not end there. He must needs do more--he loved, and love is so strong! Divine love is strongest--he must deify her."
"You are a great student, forsooth!"
"Deny it if you can: but you cannot, Charles. The central idea of the middle age--the age of chivalry--is woman. That word interprets all; it is the open sesame which throws wide the portals. Without it, that whole era is a mere jumble of bewildering anomalies--events without causes--actions without motives. Well, see how truly we are the descendants of those knights. To this day our social G.o.d is woman."
"Scoffer!"
"No; what I say is more in sorrow than anger. It will impede our national and spiritual growth, for I declare to you that one hundred years hence, women in my opinion will not be satisfied with this poetic and chivalric homage: they will demand a voice in the government. They will grow bolder, and learn to regard these chivalric concessions to their purity and weakness as their natural rights.
Woman"s rights!--that will be their watchword."
"And I suppose you would say they have no rights."
"Oh, many. Among others, the right to shape the characters and opinions of their infant children," said Mowbray with a grave smile.
"And no more, sir?"
"Far more; but this discussion is unprofitable. What I mean is simply this, Charles: that the middle age has left us a national idea which is dangerous--the idea that woman should, from her very weakness, rule and direct; especially among us gentlemen who hold by the traditions of the past--who reject Sir Galahad, and cling to Orlando and Amadis--who grow mad and fall down worshipping and kissing the feet of woman--happy even to be spurned by her."
"Really, sir!--but your conversation is very instructive Who, pray, was Sir Galahad?--for I have read Ariosto, and know about Orlando."
"Sir Galahad is that myth of the middle age, Charles, who went about searching for the holy Graal--the cup which our Saviour drank from in his last supper; which Joseph of Arimathea collected his precious blood in. You will understand that I merely repeat the monkish tradition."
"Well, what sort of a knight was this Sir Galahad; and why do you hold him up as superior to Orlando and Amadis?"
"Because he saw the true course, and loved woman as an earthly consoler, did not adore her as a G.o.d. Read how he fought and suffered many things for women; see how profoundly he loved them, and smiled whenever they crossed his path; how his whole strength and every thing was woman"s. Was she oppressed? Did brute strength band itself against her? His chivalric arm was thrown around her. Was she threatened with shame, or hatred and wrong? His heart, his sword, all were hers, and he would as willingly pour out his blood for her as wander on a sunny morning over flowery fields."
"Well," said Hoffland, "he was a true knight. Have you not finished?"
"By no means. With love for and readiness to protect the weak and oppressed woman--with satisfaction in her smiles, and rejoicing in the thanks she gave him--the good knight"s feelings ended. He would not give her his heart and adore her--he knelt only to his G.o.d. He refused to place his arm at her disposal in all things, and so become the tool of her caprice; he would not sell himself for a caress, and hold his hands out to be fettered, when she smiled and offered him an embrace.
A child before G.o.d, and led by a grand thought, he would not become a child before woman, and be directed by her idle fancies. He was the "knight of G.o.d," not of woman; and he grasped the prize."
Hoffland listened to these earnest words more thoughtfully.
"Well," he said, "so Sir Galahad is your model--not the mad worshipper of woman, Orlando!"
"A thousand times."
"Ah! we have neither now."
"We have no Galahads, for woman has grown stronger even than in the old days. She would not tolerate a lover who espoused her cause from duty: she wants adoring worship."
"No! no!--only love!" said Hoffland.
"A mistake," said Mowbray; "she does not wish a mere knightly respect and love--that of the real knight; she demands an Amadis, to grow mad for her--to be crazed by her beauty, and kneel down and sell himself for a kiss. She wishes power, and scouts the mere chivalric smile and homage. She claims and exacts the fullest obedience, and her claim is p.r.o.nounced just. She says to-day--returning to what we commenced with--she says, "Go and murder that man: he has uttered a jest;" or, "On penalty of my pity and contempt, make yourself the slave of my caprice, and kill your friend, who has said laughing that I am not an angel." The unhappy part of all this is," said Mowbray, "that the men, especially young men, obey. And then, when the blood is poured out, the tragedy consummated; when the body which was a breathing man is taken from the b.l.o.o.d.y gra.s.s where it lies like a wounded bird, its heart-blood welling out--when it is home cold and pale before her, and the mother, sister, daughter wail and moan--then the beautiful G.o.ddess who has gotten up this little drama for her amus.e.m.e.nt, finds her false philosophy broken in her breast, her deity overthrown, her supreme resolution crushed in presence of this terrible spectacle; and she wrings her hands, and sobs and cries out at the evil she has done; but cries much louder, that the hearts of men are horrible and b.l.o.o.d.y; that their instincts are barbarous and terrible; that she alone is tender and soft-hearted and forgiving; that she would never have plunged the sword into the bosom, or sent the ball tearing its way through the heart; that man alone is horrible and cruel and depraved; that she is n.o.ble and pure-hearted, true and innocent; that woman is above this miserable humanity--great like Diana of the Ephesians, pure and strong and immaculate--without reproach! That is a tolerably accurate history of most duels," added Mowbray coldly; "you will not deny it."
Hoffland made no reply.
"You will not deny it because it is true," said Mowbray; "it is what every man knows and feels and sees. You think it strange, then, that they act as they do, in this perfect subservience to woman, knowing what I have said is true. It is not more strange than any other ludicrous inconsequence which men are guilty of. Look at me! I know that what I have said is as true as the existence of this earth; and now, what would I do? I will tell you. Were I in love with a woman, I would make myself a child, and adore her, and sell my soul for her caresses; and make my brain the tool of my infatuation by yielding to her false, fatal sophistry, because that sophistry would be uttered by red lips, and would become truth in the dazzling light of her seductive smiles. Do you expect me, because I know it is all a lie, to resist sighs and murmurs, and those languid glances, which women employ to gain their ends? If you wish me to resist them, give me a lump of ice instead of a heart--a freezing stream instead of a warm current in my veins--make me a thinking machine, all brain; but take care how you leave one particle of the man! That particle will fire all; for the age tells me that woman is all pure, all-knowing, all true--how can I go astray? I am not a machine--the atmosphere of that old woman-worshipping world has nourished me, because I breathe it now; and if the woman I loved madly wished a little murder enacted for the benefit of her enemies, why, I cannot, dare not say, I would not go and murder for her, thinking I was serving nothing but the cause of purity and justice."
Hoffland listened to these coldly uttered words with some agitation, but made no reply. They walked on for some moments in silence, and Mowbray then said:
"The discussion is getting too grave, Charles; and I am afraid I have spoken very harshly of women--led away in the discussion of this subject. But remember that most of these unhappy affairs indirectly arise from this fatal philosophy; and I have reason to suppose that the present one, which has so nearly taken from me one or both of my dearest friends, originated indirectly in such a source. Do not understand me as undervaluing the fine old chivalrous devotion to women: the hard task is for me to believe that any devotion to a good and pure woman is exaggerated. They are above us, Charles, in all the finer and n.o.bler traits, and we are responsible for this weakness in them. What wonder if they believed us when we told them that they were more than human, something angelic? Their duty was to listen to us, and act by our judgment; and when we have told them now for ages that our place is at their feet, the hem of their garments for our lips, their smiles brighter than the sunshine of heaven, should we feel surprise at their acquiescing in our _dicta_, and a.s.suming the enormous social influence which we yield to them, beg them upon our knees to take? For my part, I rejoice that man has not a power as unlimited; and if one s.e.x must rule, spite of every thing, I am almost ready to give up to the women. They go right oftener; and if this tyranny must really exist, I know not that Providence has not mercifully placed the sceptre in her hands. See where all my great philosophy ends--I can"t help loving while I speak against them. The sneer upon my lips turns to a smile--my indignation to good-humor.
Oh, Charles! Charles! right or wrong, they rule us; and if we must have s.e.xual tyranny, it is best in the hands of mothers. But rather let us have no tyranny at all: let the man take his place as lord without, the woman her sovereignty over the inner world. Let her grace perfect his strength; her bosom hold his rude head and dusty brow; let her heart crown his intellect--each fill the void in each. Vain thought, I am afraid; and this, I fear, is scarcely more than dreaming. Let us leave the subject."
And Mowbray sighed; nodding, as he pa.s.sed on, to a young gentleman on horseback. This was Jacques.
CHAPTER XVI.
ADVANCE OF THE ENEMY UPON SIR ASINUS.