The Ralstons

by F. Marion Crawford

CHAPTER XXVII.

Katharine had been intimate with Hester Crowdie from the time when they had both been children, though Hester was several years older than she. Possibly the friendship had been one of Katharine’s mistakes. For his part, Ralston, as has been seen, did not place great confidence in the married woman’s nature, and if he did not tell Katharine exactly what he thought, it was not from lack of conviction but because he felt that the conviction itself was intuitive rather than logical. Men, as well as women, have intuitions which they cannot explain, but they are much more inclined to conceal them than women are, because they have been taught not to trust to them. They judge others, and especially they judge women, from small facts which they are often ashamed of seeming to value so highly. At least, when they analyze their feelings about any given woman, it often happens that their reasoning leads up to some detail which, standing alone, must and does appear altogether insignificant. It is not easy to decide whether such very small causes among the realities actually produce the whole consequence which affects the mind, or whether man’s view of woman and woman’s view of man, as distinguished from the judgments each forms upon his and her own sex, is not dependent upon a very subtle sense of truth, acting by paths shorter than logical deduction.

In illustration and as an example it may be noticed that the eyes of the majority of persons convey the consciousness of numbers precisely, up to a certain point, without any operation of counting. Most people can say at a glance, of any small group of objects, that there are two, three, four, or even seven. With almost all individuals, counting, and counting from the beginning, becomes necessary when there are eight or more objects together. For though the eye embraces seven, as seven, it cannot embrace seven out of eight and count one more to make up the number. If there is any counting it must be done from the very beginning.

Similarly, in reading rapidly, there are many who do not read every word. Their eyes and intelligence seize upon and comprehend blocks of words and even of lines, by a series of spasmodic leaps, as it were, after each one of which there is a pause of very short and hardly perceptible duration. Those who have been obliged to read very quickly, such as readers of manuscripts, and especially professional critics of second-class literature, are perfectly well aware of this faculty. Such men often read through and judge several volumes in a day, a fact which would not be possible if they had to read each word of every sentence. It is not well done, as Dr. Johnson would have said, but we are surprised to see it done at all. The result, in the modern phrase, is not judgment, but tasting. But it is a result, all the same. By force of a habit which cannot by any means be acquired by every one, words and even blocks of words to a great number have become to such a reader as symbols, which convey to his mind an idea all at once. There is no doubt but that by easy stages real symbols could, in our ordinary books, take the place of long sentences, and convey meaning without words at all. All forms of religion have made use of such symbols, and there is no reason why they could not be used in printing, though there may be excellent reasons why they should not be adopted. But in reading, as in counting, when the meaning of a whole sentence is not understood at a glance, it becomes necessary to read it from the beginning, word by word, or by shorter blocks of words, just as it is necessary to spell out a single word, such as a name, if it is not familiar at first sight, and is not made up of familiar syllables.

And in this way, perhaps, the mind of one individual judges the whole personality of another, without going through any form of analysis or any enumeration of qualities and defects. The instinctive attraction of opposite sexes for one another sharpens the faculties of all living creatures, and hence it may possibly be, that men generally understand women better than men, and the converse, that women are better judges of men than they are of other women. It is often true that the combined judgment passed by a man and woman in consultation upon any individual is vague and worthless, though in rare cases where a profound and wide-reaching sympathy really exists, such joint judgment is the best in the world.

This may be a mere theory, or it may be the truth, but at all events it seems simpler to believe that what we call intuition is founded upon some such appreciation of each individual as a symbol representing a set of thoughts, than to suppose that it is a sort of sixth sense, sometimes amounting to second sight. Every one may judge of that out of his own experience.

Ralston, who was familiar enough with the character of his family in all its branches, thought that he saw in Hester Crowdie a sort of modification of the same love of possession which made a miser of Alexander Junior, and which, if opposed, would be as ruthless and as dangerous. He might have been willing to admit that he had a share of the same peculiarity, quality, or defect, himself. The tenacity of his love for Katharine proved that he had it. But as he disliked Crowdie so sincerely, Hester’s passion for her husband seemed abnormal in his eyes. He fancied that if it were crossed or thwarted she would be capable of going to any extremity for its sake. Her friendship for Katharine, in his opinion, might be turned to hatred at a moment’s notice.

The friendship of a passionate woman who seeks an outlet for the confidences of her overflowing nature, rather than the companionship and mutual respect which friendship means, if it means anything, is always selfish and generally dangerous. It has no elements of stability in it. When she has no more confidences to make she is silent, not companionable. When she has exhausted sympathy by the often repeated tale of her own minor experiences or of her woes, real or imaginary, and when the response of the worn-out listener grows more dull or slow, she believes that she has exhausted also her friend’s heart, that it is shallow and arid, and she turns away in disgust and disappointment, seeking a kindred soul. And that is the end of many friendships between women. As often as not, they are founded upon the irresistible desire to make confidences, experienced by one or both of the fancied friends, and they come to an end when confidence no longer elicits sympathy. There is neither the simple delight in companionship which requires no emotion, nor the active intellectual principle on both sides which finds pleasure in the free trade of thought without subjection to the exigent tariff which exacts the duty of pity or admiration and unhesitatingly excludes those who have neither to pay, from intellectual commerce.

The less impulsive, the less passionate woman of the two, she who receives all this outpouring of the shallow but easily agitated soul, is the one who is imposed upon. Until she has had experience, she believes in sufferings and joys commensurate with the words which express both, and even greater. Her pity is really excited; her admiration is genuine; she sheds tears sympathetic, and glows with pride vicarious. Her slow nature is roused, and its activity continues after the truth begins to dawn upon her. Then, all at once, she finds out that truth, and suffers the rude shock which a less stable being would scarcely feel. She is the one who suffers. The other merely wonders why her confidences no longer interest her friend, and lets them boil over in a new direction. Not knowing what real friendship means, she who loses it loses nothing. What she misses is the pity and also the admiration which helped her to pity and admire herself, and she can get both elsewhere. But the stronger, more silent woman, broods over her disenchantment and loses her belief in human nature, which is the key to human happiness, as faith in God is the key to heaven. She will not easily be drawn into such friendship again, and is quick to scoff at it in others.

For the disenchantment of broken friendship is less violent but more deep-reaching than the disenchantment of broken love-faith. Love is for the one, friendship is, or may be, for the many. There is no natural reason why any man or woman whom we meet, should never become our friend. To lose faith in human nature may sometimes render love impossible. But though one woman have betrayed us, and though we say in our heart that men and women are faithless in love, yet we have not therefore said that all humanity is faithless in all that which makes up friendship.