All the false glitter of the Corsair school is due solely to the capacity for loving ascribed to the heroes thereof. Though a man's name be 'linked with one virtue and a thousand crimes,' the one virtue, being love, outweighs the thousand crimes in the estimation of women and of the more effeminate kind of poets; and so long as the 'heart is framed for softness,' it may be 'warped to wrong' without doing any Conrad much injury with them. The absolute rightness and justness of a man count for little in comparison with his tenderness; and we know of no woman whose ideal man would be one neither a saint nor a lover.
The reason why the men of a softer civilization are in general so successful with the women of the harder and more northerly countries is because of the comparative softness of their manners and the larger place which love and love-making hold among them. All who know France know the Frenchman's jealous hatred of Italian men; which hatred we share here in England, only we add the Frenchman to the list. We affect to despise the arts by which the men succeed and the women are gained over; but we cannot deny their potency, nor shut our eyes to the esteem in which they are held by women. This is not saying that the chivalrous habit of deference taught by civilization is not a good thing in itself, but it is saying that it is not worth the stronger and more essentially masculine qualities. But to women the art of love-making is worth all the other virtues in a lump; indeed, it comprises them all, and without it the best are valueless. It is the crown and glory of life—the one thing to live for; and where it is not, there is no life worthy of the name. Not that women are insensible to the charms of public fame. If a man has made himself a great reputation, he may throw the handkerchief where he likes, and he will find plenty of women to pick it up. In this case they are not too rigid in their requirements; and if his ways are a little hard and cold, they hold themselves indemnified for the loss of personal tenderness by the glory which surrounds a name which is now theirs. A woman must be exceptionally silly if she cannot take comfort in her husband's public repute for her disappointment in his private manners. But this is only with recognized and fully successful heroes. As a rule, no amount of manly virtues will excuse the want of the softer graces; and the finest fellow that ever lived, the true anax andrôn among men, must be content to be measured by women merely according to his own estimate of them, and the power which the passion of love has over him.
Nothing surprises men more than the odd ignorance of women concerning them; and half the unhappiness in married life, at least in England, springs from that ignorance. They cannot be made to understand the differences between a man's nature and requirements and their own; and they condemn all that they cannot understand. In those few rational homes where men's sports and gatherings, undisturbed by the presence of petticoats, are not made occasions for suspicion nor remonstrance, the stock of love and happiness with which married life began is more like the widow's cruse than elsewhere; but unfortunately for both husbands and wives, these homes are rare; while those are common where an extramural game of billiards in the evening is occasion for tears or pouting, and deadly offence is taken at club dinners or a week's shooting. The consequence of which is deceit or dissension; and sometimes both.
The woman's ideal man has none of these erratic tendencies. His business done, he comes home with the docility of a well-bred pointer sent to heel, and finds energy enough after his hard day's work for a variety of caressing cares which make him more precious in her eyes than all the tact, the temper, the judgment, the uprightness he has manifested in his dealings with the outside world. And the domesticity which she claims from her husband she demands from her son. Latchkeys are her abomination, and the 'gas left burning' is as a beacon-light on the way of destruction. She has the profoundest suspicion of all the men whom her boy calls his friends. She never knows into what mischief they may lead him; but she is sure it is mischief if they keep him away from his home in the evening. She would prescribe the same social restraints and moral regimen for her son as for her daughter, and she thinks the energies of masculine nature require no wider field and no looser rein. But though she likes those tame and tender men whom she can tie up close to her apron-strings and lovingly imprison in the narrow domain of home, she succumbs without a struggle to the square-jawed brute of the Rochester type, the man who dominates her by the mere force of superior strength; and she is not too severe on Don Juan, if only she can flatter herself that she is the best loved—and the last. That these are the men most liked by women is shown both by their own novels and by daily observation; and it seems to us that, among the many subjects for extended study of late proposed for women, a better acquaintance with men's minds, a higher regard for the nobler kind of man and the ability to accept love as only one of many qualities, and not always the strongest nor the most praiseworthy of his impulses, would not be out of place.
HOTEL LIFE IN ENGLAND.
If any one wants to see human nature stripped of certain conventional disguises and reduced to some of its primitive elements, let him try a boarding-house or family hotel for a while. If not always a profitable, it is generally an amusing, exhibition of character; and materials are never wanting to the student of human life. The predominating quality of most people will be found to be selfishness. There is a kind of fighting for self that goes on which is very funny, because concentrated on such mean objects. Who shall have the most comfortable chair, the best place at the window, the cosiest by the fire—such are the favourite prizes to be gained by superior craft or boldness; and the ladies chiefly interested have recourse to a series of manœuvres to circumvent their rivals, or steal a march on them unprepared, more ingenious at times than well-bred. Then there is the lady who appropriates the only footstool, and the lady who disputes the appropriation and sometimes 'comes to words' on the same; the couple who monopolize the bagatelle board, and the couple waiting savagely for their turn, which comes only when the gong sounds for dinner or the sky clears up for a walk. The quartet who settle themselves to whist every evening as to a regular part of the business of life, without caring to inquire whether others would like to cut in or not, are more justified in their exclusiveness; else it may happen that a Club man who can make his bad cards beat his opponent's good ones is mated with a partner who inquires anxiously 'Is that the queen to beat?' then, with the king in his hand, quietly drops the deuce, and gives the adversaries the game. All these however, are regarded with equally hostile feelings by the rest of the community; and sharp sermons are administered on the sin of selfishness by the bolder sort, with the application too evident to be misunderstood.
At meal times the same kind of odd fighting for self goes on. The table is set as for a dinner party; but it is the hands of Esau and the voice of Jacob. Instead of the silent waiting for one's turn, with the quiet acceptance of fate in the shape of the butler and his underlings, that belongs to a private dinner-table, here, at the table d'hôte, there is an incessant call for this or that out of time; an angry demand to be served sooner or better than one's neighbours; a greedy 'taking care of number one' at the head of the table that excites as greedy apprehensions in number two at the foot; a running fire of criticism on the dishes—that does not help the illusion of the private dinner-party; and, with people who live much about in hotels, there is a continual comparison with this and that, here and there, always to the disadvantage of the place and the thing under present consideration.
Among the inmates are sure to be some who are fastidious and peevish about their food; women who come down late and complain that things are not as fresh as when first served up; men who always want fried fish when the management has provided boiled, and boiled when the menu says fried; dyspeptic bodies who cannot eat bread unless it is two days old, and bodies defiant of dyspepsia who will not eat it at all unless it is hot from the oven; plain feeders who turn up their noses at the made dishes, and dainty livers who call simple roast and boiled coarse. And for all these societies the management has to cater impartially; and probably miss the reward of thanks at the end.