CHAPTER XVII
THE GOOSE AND THE GANDER
The case for man, the defendant – Freemasonry between women – Which is right? – Influence of plumage – The female bird – Man is not invariably wrong – 'What is good for the goose is good for the gander' – But there is a difference between the goose and the gander
Women, who seldom miss an opportunity of picking one another to pieces, invariably stand shoulder to shoulder (as much as the shape of their sleeves will allow them to do) when the question to decide is whether it is a man or a woman who is in the wrong. The freemasonry between women goes as far as that and no further.
The Queen of Roumania, well known to literary fame as Carmen Sylva, declares that the reason for a wife's infidelity is to be laid at her husband's door, and the assertion is laid down as a rule by the royal authoress. In so saying, the Queen of Roumania makes herself the mouthpiece of her sex; for most women, if not absolutely all, are of her opinion, that the wickedness of man is responsible for all the vices, faults, and even shortcomings of woman.
On the other hand, I have always heard men say that a man will stay at home if his wife makes his house attractive and cheerful, and herself pleasant in it.
It is the same story, the eternally same story.
The man stays at his club and returns home at one o'clock a.m. because Madame is dull and sulky. The woman is dull and sulky because Monsieur stays at his club and does not return home before one o'clock.
Now, which is right? or rather, which of the two began? A prejudiced person of the male gender will say:
'It is the women's fault.'
A prejudiced person of the female persuasion will answer:
'No, the men's, of course.'
(Women in their arguments always add, 'Of course.')
A fair-minded person of either sex will probably say: 'Out of that equal number of men and women, half the women are right, and half the men are not wrong.'
All this leads us to a very serious question: Of man or woman, which is the more responsible of the two for the continuance and eventually the long duration of happiness in matrimony?
And as women are ever airing their grievances on the subject, let us try to plead a little the cause of that poor, often too much abused creature that Madame Sarah Grand delights in calling 'Mere Man,' and let us do so in a friendly spirit, in an unconventional, intimate sort of way.
If women have their grievances against Nature, men have theirs, too. Nature has, indeed, treated men in a far less generous manner than the other male members of the animal kingdom. The female bird, for instance, is plain. She has no voice and no glorious feathers. All the fascinating power of beautiful song, gorgeous plumage and graceful demeanour was given to the male. It is he who has to win, and Nature, knowing this, has endowed him with the means of conquest. Not so with us. Man is about the ugliest creature of all that breathes on the face of the earth, and woman was intended to attract and charm him, and, in order to enable her to do so, Nature has given her a beautiful face, a divine figure and a taste for attractive plumage. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries men paid attention to their dress, which, in many respects, was as attractive and fascinating as that of women. But now! Man is a guy, a cure, a remedy for love-sickness, and I sometimes wonder how it is that women think his conquest worth making. To make himself lovable, man has to turn himself inside out; for only his moral and intellectual qualities can help him to get at a woman's heart. Soldiers are supposed to be more successful with women than any other men because their profession appeals to the minds of women; but I can't help thinking that their uniform has a great deal to do with it.
Now, if Nature has endowed woman with the powers of charming man by her amiability and winning grace, who is to blame if she does not avail herself of all these advantages, and does not use them carefully, discreetly, skilfully, to prevent love from flagging and cooling in matrimony?
Of course, intelligent women feel, after the wedding ceremony is over, that a man's love is not secured by a few sacramental words pronounced by a priest in solemn tones and in the presence of many witnesses. She soon discovers that man is not like woman; she understands, as the male bird does, that plumage has a great deal to do in order to excite happiness and keep it alive in matrimony, and that her cheerfulness and tactful ways will obtain what remonstrances and sulks will invariably fail to secure.
There is no doubt that many women, women spoiled by loving husbands, by lover-husbands especially, become dull and irritable when the husbands do not exactly detach themselves from their wives, but, through circumstances too numerous to enumerate, pass from the stage of lovers to that of friends.
Women are, as a rule, the embodiment of prejudice, and they will not understand. There is seldom any philosophy in them, and, when they do understand, they will not resign themselves cheerfully to the inevitable, and either make a careful study of the position and see the only possible way to revive what appears to be dying, or make the best of what, after all, is still worth having, the friendship and the protection of a devoted husband who has worked for them and made their life secure. No, they will sulk and make things wretched and hopeless.
Man is not invariably wrong, and he is not to be blamed for his coldness any more than he is to be blamed or scolded for his want of appetite. Perhaps if the dinner had been prepared with more care, he would have eaten it with avidity.
A great French poet says that happy nights make happy days in matrimony. I do not think that he is right. I rather believe in the reverse: Cheerful days, spent in delightful companionship, will make later meetings perfectly delicious. But it is on the woman, much more than on the man, that this happy result depends. There is no conceit on the part of a man in saying so. This line of conduct is dictated by the difference which exists between a man and a woman.
I am ready to admit that women have grievances in this respect; but they are not of man's making, they are of Nature's, and no blame can be attached to man for it. How many couples, wretched and miserable, could be happy if women could, or would, realize the truth of this statement! But, as a rule, they will not. Their motto is, 'What is good for the goose is good for the gander.'
But it isn't.
Non, madame, the gander, unfortunately for your sex, is not constituted like the goose, and it is for him an impossibility to eat the dish you offer him if his appetite is not tempted. You can, but he cannot. The whole problem of happiness in matrimony lies in this nutshell.
CHAPTER XVIII
DOES JEALOUSY COME FROM TRUE LOVE?
The different kinds of girls that men seek in matrimony – Jealousy is intensified, not created, by love – Why should not a married man continue to admire women? – I want to knock down a newly-married woman's husband – 'Who would "polyg" with him?'
There are men who would not think of courting a woman with a view to marrying her if they knew she had been engaged before. On the contrary, there are others who marry women who have spent their girlhoods in flirting and have been engaged a dozen times. These women seem to have a special sort of attraction for men who feel proud of winning a 'prize' that has been so much sought after, and who are very much like those people who do not know the value of a picture until, at a sale, they hear men bid higher and higher for the purchase, and conclude that the picture must be a priceless treasure. So they bid higher still, and get it. As a rule, these men are remarkable neither for their intelligence nor for their appreciation of true womanhood.
This remark, however, would apply to Englishmen or Americans rather than to Frenchmen, because in France, when a girl has been engaged, she has only met her fiancé in the presence of her parents, whereas in England or America the young people have had lonely and sentimental walks together, indulged in many little familiarities – proper, no doubt, but still familiarities, all the same; and the young Anglo-Saxon girl who has been engaged is a flower whose bloom has been a little rubbed off. In the eyes of the real, true man, she has lost – indeed, she must have lost – some of her value, a bit of her innocence, as it were. How can a man marry such a girl and run the risk, when he gives her a kiss, of hearing her exclaim: 'Oh, Jack used to give me much better kisses than that!' He must be a very brave man, one very sure of himself, who is not afraid of competition, or a very conceited, if not a very foolish, one.
Not only are there men who court women because they are run after, but there are some who never really fall in love with their wives until they have some serious reasons to be jealous of them. Then, and then only, do they seem to realize that their wives must possess some attractions, since other men are attracted by them. But this sentiment I should not care to call love, but rather false pride, because that man might have exactly the same feeling toward a horse or a dog the possession of which other men envied him. Many a man, on hearing the beauty of his wife praised, has said to himself: 'I wonder if it is true. I must have a look at her.'
I have heard many men and women say that there is no love without jealousy – in fact, that jealousy is the natural consequence of love. St. Augustine said: 'He that is not jealous is not in love.' I believe these people are wrong, including St. Augustine, before whose authority on love and women I decline to bow. There is no room for jealousy in the heart that loves really and truly. There is no real love where there is no abandon and complete confidence.
Jealousy may be intensified by love, but not created by it. Jealousy is a characteristic of men and women which manifests itself in love as it does in friendship and in every phase of life. Love gives it a special opportunity, but it existed before the man or the woman was in love. Such men and women, who are jealous of their wives and their husbands, were jealous before of their brothers, sisters, or acquaintances, whenever they imagined that they were displaced by them in the affections of the family or of their friends.
That man who is jealous of his wife because he imagines, rightly or wrongly, that she receives and accepts the attentions of other men, will also probably be jealous of her if his children show preference to her or bestow more attentions on her than on him. Othello is a jealous brute who might have murdered a General in the Venetian army who had been promoted to a rank he would have considered himself entitled to.
And when people are jealous in love, what fools they are to let it be seen! What an idiot that man is who lets his wife suppose that he thinks she could prefer another man to him! Suggestions are terrible. What a poor diplomatist that woman is who does not let her husband think that she takes it for granted no woman could have in his eyes the charms she possesses! Jealousy can only suggest to men and women actions which would revolt them if they had absolute confidence in each other.
In love, however, jealousy should not be condemned too severely. A little of it, just a little, adds piquancy. It then becomes an emotion, a stimulant, that rouses desire, something like that short absence which the Italians call the dolce piccante, and which many artistically constituted lovers will take now and then merely to increase the pleasure of reunion. Epicures will do it, and invariably with success. A diplomatist, who loves his wife, and is sure to be loved by her, may cure her of a passing little coldness by openly paying innocent attentions to another woman. And who is the man who is such a strict monogamist that he cannot admire – in a platonic way, of course – other women besides the one he loves? And who is the woman who is not aware of that? I remember, a few years ago, greatly admiring a beautiful American girl, daughter of a great friend of mine. When, the following year, I went to America again, she introduced me to her husband. Did I admire that girl? Yes, immensely. Did I love her? Certainly not. Yet my first impulse was to knock down her husband. That is all I mean by saying that very few men are strict monogamists.
A little anecdote, à propos of polygamy, to finish.
Not long ago one of the most popular novelists of England was calling on a lady, one of the most popular novelists of America. That Englishman is, perhaps, the plainest man I have ever set my eyes on. He, too, held, in conversation, that every man was born a polygamist. The lady said nothing. But when he had gone, she turned towards her guests, and said: 'Well, I should like to know who would "polyg" with him!'
CHAPTER XIX
DO WOMEN DRESS TO PLEASE MEN?
The female attire – Women dress for breakfast and undress for dinner – You don't know them from Eve – Society likes to be exposed – How French, English, German and American women dress – Simplicity in dress the coquetry of some women – What would happen if two women remained alone on the face of the earth
Never in the history of female attire have women dressed so exquisitely as they do in this year of grace 1901. The figure is gracefully accentuated; all the sculptural lines are discreetly indicated without any exaggeration. No more bustle, no more outrageous sleeves, no more deformities of any sort. Many a woman would have been in despair if Nature had made her as fashion has often made her appear.
To-day it is the female form divine, beautifully draped in beautiful limp materials of soft, delicate hues, gracefully relieved by lovely lace and refined trimmings, the whole with a touch of simplicity that never fails to enhance the beauty of the wearer. No, never since the classical days of Athenian dress have women looked so beautiful as they do now.
The majority of us men are, I believe, conceited enough to think that women dress and try to look as beautiful as possible to please us. My firm conviction is that women dress to please themselves – or to kill other women with envy. To the question, Do women dress to please men? I answer most emphatically, No, they do not. Quite the contrary.
And now, may I be permitted to remark that when I reflect that Eve, after eating an apple, discovered that she was naked, I cannot help thinking that a little bite at that fruit might be of service to many ladies before they leave their dressing-rooms to go to a ball, a theatre, or a dinner party? Is it that the fashion of the day requires the train to be so long that there remains no material to make a corsage with? From the way in which women dress in the evening, you might almost mistake them for Eve.
The fact is that it is practically impossible for you to say what it is that the women wear around a dinner-table. Women dress for breakfast and undress for dinner. As for the sight offered to our gaze from the boxes at the opera, we might as well be in a Turkish bath. And the most amusing and edifying part of it is that this fashion is more flourishing in puritanical England than in any country I know, and that most of those beautiful daughters of Albion whom you see so much of are the very same ones who are presidents, vice-presidents and secretaries of the societies for the suppression of the nude in the public parks, the museums and art-galleries and other British institutions for the suggestion of indecency.
Who says that the world is sad?
'Society ought to be exposed,' I once remarked to a beautiful member of the English aristocracy, 'for giving that bad example.' 'You are quite right,' she said; 'but that will do no good, because I believe that there is nothing that English society enjoys more than being exposed.' 'Evidently!' I thought, as I looked at the glorious shoulders exposed to my gaze.
I was quite right when I once exclaimed: 'Provided an English woman does not show her feet, she is safe and feels comfortable.'
In the way of dressing, of all the women of Europe and America, the Germans are the worst, the French the best, and the Americans the smartest. The German women are covered, the English clothed, the Americans arrayed, and the French dressed. I am not now speaking of high life – these people are the same all the world over; and whenever a writer publishes a criticism on the life and manners of any nation he ought to place the following epigraph at the top of every page he writes, so that the reader may not lose sight of it: 'All civilized nations in the world are alike in one respect: they are composed of two kinds of people – those that are ladies and gentlemen, and those that are not.' Then there could be no misunderstanding about what he writes.
I think it is acknowledged that the French women are the best dressed women in the world, and that French dressmakers are the authority on what should be worn and how it should be worn. Next I should say decidedly the American woman. In the United States the latest French fashions are worn in all their freshness and glory, but too often with exaggeration. And, when the French fashions are already outrageous in their extravagance of style and size, then the Lord help the American women! I shall never forget the remark that that most delightful of men and writers, Oliver Wendell Holmes, made to me some years ago, as we were talking on the subject of women's dress: 'By the time a French milliner has been six months in New York she will make you a bonnet to frighten a Choctaw Indian.' But then, Dr. Holmes was a refined Bostonian.
The French woman, at an afternoon or evening party, may be as beautifully and stylishly dressed as you like, there is always about her dress a certain little touch of simplicity that will make you think that somewhere in her wardrobe she keeps some frock or gown still more beautiful, stylish and expensive. Very often at breakfast-time an American woman will make you think that she has on her very best and smartest dress. I have seen some at the leading hotels of Jacksonville and St. Augustine, Florida, with diamond brooches and bracelets at breakfast. The American woman has a supreme contempt for what is not silk, satin, velvet or crêpe de chine. She generally looks dressed for conquest. With her it is paint and feathers and hooray all the time! On board a steamer across the Atlantic she wears silk and fifty-dollar hats. But, of course, these ladies do not belong to the Olympian sets.
I have mentioned all this because woman's character is very much the same all over this little planet of ours. Now, of all these women, the Americans are those who devote most time and spend most money over their appearance, and as they would be least of all accused of thinking for one moment how they look for the sake of the men, I say I have proved my answer to be right, that women do not dress for men.
Indeed, if the end of the world were to witness the presence of two women only on the face of the earth, each would be discovered striving to outshine the other and look the better dressed of the two.
CHAPTER XX
THE FRENCH WIFE
Her keenness and common-sense – Her power of observation and her native adaptability – Her graceful ways – Her tact – Her artistic refinement – Monsieur et Madame – 'Did I hear you knock at my door, dear?'
The wealthy classes of society in every civilized nation in the world are so much alike in their manners, habits, and customs, that they offer very little food to the observer of national characteristics. The men follow the London fashions, the women the Paris ones. They all cultivate sport, art, and literature; they all enjoy the same luxuries of life, they all have good cooks, they all have discovered the same way of living. If you want to see how differently people live in France, in England, in Germany, in Italy, in America, wherever you like, live among the middle and lower classes. Once, in South Africa, I spent a whole day in a Zulu kraal, living with the natives and like the natives, and I found that day spent in a far more interesting manner than if I had spent it among the hosts of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, Mayfair, or Fifth Avenue.
France is the only country that I know where, outside of the aristocracy and the wealthy classes, you can find people who live daintily. The French labourer eats a more appetizing dinner than English and German well-to-do shopkeepers eat and than is served in the hotels of the small American towns. That French labourer would refuse to swallow, and even to look at, that wretched meal which I have seen English working-men eat at noon, when resting their backs against a wall or fence on the road – bread and pickles, or a slice of something looking very much like cat's-meat, and stale beer that had been stewing for hours in the sun in a badly-corked can.
The French wife, immensely superior to her husband in intelligence, in shrewdness, in savoir vivre and savoir faire, thanks to her common-sense, her knowledge of financial matters, her instinct for good order and management, her artistic refinement, her keen power of observation, her native adaptability, her talent for cookery, makes a husband enjoying but a small income lead the life that a rich foreigner might envy.
She may have two dresses and one hat only to her name, but, by constant skilful changes, the little humbug will make you believe that she possesses a well-furnished wardrobe. It is not the cowl that makes the monk any more than it is the dress that makes the woman. A woman is stylish or not, according to the manner she puts her clothes on, and that is where the French woman is irresistible. To lift her dress modestly, gracefully, and daintily as she crosses a muddy street, she has not her equal in the world. She has a little bustling, fluttering way about her that will always keep your interest in her alive. She is always tidy and smart, her hair well dressed, her hands well gloved, her stockings well drawn, and her dainty little feet well shod. When she speaks to you, you can seldom guess, from the way she is dressed, from the way she behaves, from the language she uses, whether she is the wife of what society calls a gentleman or not.
She has the knack, the inborn genius, for getting twenty sou worth out of every franc she spends. She is no snob, does not play at At Homes, and saves her tea and sugar, which in France are expensive luxuries. She does not play the piano, and saves her husband's ears. She makes her own frocks, and saves dressmakers' bills; she eats light, healthy meals of her own make, and saves cooks' wages; she goes to bed early, and saves her candles. She is rich, as most of us might be, not in what she actually possesses, but in what she knows how to do without. Thanks to that woman, a Frenchman who has £100 to spend in the year lives like an Englishman who has an income of £500.
In the most modest little flat she has her dressing-room, out of which she issues in the morning neatly trimmed, a perfect transformation. She will do without a drawing-room, but never without a dressing-room, for she understands to a supreme degree that poetry of matrimony which has not two years to live if the apartment does not possess a dressing-room.
Better than that, the French wife of that class will play at being an aristocrat, if you please. She will insist on having Monsieur's apartment and Madame's apartment quite separate, so that they shall not be compelled to impose their society on each other if they don't feel in the mood.
And in that very humble class of French society I know men who are trained to knock at the door of their wives' apartments in good Faubourg Saint-Germain style, when they wish for the company of Madame.
And if Monsieur should fail to knock at Madame's door when the latter would be pleased to receive his attentions and enjoy the pleasure of his company, it is just possible that she would go to her husband's appartements, knock at his door gently and discreetly, and whisper: 'Did I hear you knock at my door just now, dear?'
'Silly nonsense!' some people will say.
Well, my dear friends, let me tell you that happiness is made up of thousands of little foolish trifles of that sort.