The New Penelope, and Other Stories and Poems

by Frances Fuller Victor

"Very rapidly such thoughts whirl through the brain under great excitement. The instant that I hesitated seemed an age of cool deliberation to me. Then the wickedness of my self-gratulation rushed into my mind, making me feel like a murderer. 'O, God,' I cried in anguish of spirit, 'why have I been put to this test?' The next instant I was working with might and main to extinguish the fire, which with the aid of blankets and a pitcher of water was soon suppressed.

"Through it all he slept on, breathing heavily, an object of disgust to my senses and my feelings. When all was safe I returned to my room, thankful that I had been able on the spot to expiate my murderous impulses. The next day he took occasion to say to me, 'I shouldn't have expected a visit of mercy from you, Mrs. Seabrook. If I had known you were coming, I should have tried to keep awake!' 'If ever you refer to such a subject again,' I replied, 'I will set fire to you myself, and let you burn;' and either the threat deterred him, or some spark of generosity in his nature was struck by the benefit received, but he never afterwards offered me any annoyance of that kind."

"How did Mr. Seabrook usually treat your son? Was he kind to him?"

"He was not unkind. Perhaps you cannot understand such a character; but he was one who would be kind to man, woman, or child who would be governed by him; yet resistance to his will, however just, roused a tyranny that sought for opportunities to exhibit itself. Such a one passes in general society for a 'good fellow,' because 'the iron hand in the velvet glove' is scarcely perceptible there, while its ungloved force is felt most heavily in the relations of private life. If I had been in a position to flatter Mr. Seabrook, undoubtedly he would have shown me a corresponding consideration, notwithstanding his selfishness. It would have been one way of gratifying his own vanity, by putting me in a humor to pander to it. But knowing how I hated and despised him, he felt toward me all the rancor of his vain and tyrannical nature. It is always more dangerous to hate justly than unjustly, and that is the reason why domestic differences are so bitter. Somebody has always done wrong and knows it, and cannot bear to suffer the natural consequences—the disapprobation of the injured party, in addition to the stings of conscience."

"I suppose, then," I said, "it has been the perception of this truth that has caused the sweetest and purest women in all time to ignore the baser sins of man, while calling their own sex to strict account. And yet I cannot think but that this degree of mercy is injurious to their own purity and derogatory to their dignity. I remember being excessively shocked several years ago by having this trait of forgiveness in woman placed in its true light by an accidental publication in a New York paper, which was intended to have just the opposite effect. It was headed 'A Model Woman,' and appeared in the Evening Post—Bryant's paper. With a curious desire to know the poet's model for a woman—though the article may have never come under his eye—I commenced reading it. It ran to this effect: A certain man in New York had a good wife and two interesting little children. But he met and fell in love with a handsome, dashing, and rather coarse girl; and the affair had gone so far as to lead to serious expostulation on the part of the wife. The writer did not relate whether or not the girl knew the man to be married; but only that the two were infatuated with each other.

"As the story ran, the wife expostulated, and the husband was firm in his determination to possess the girl at all hazards, concluding his declaration with this business-like statement: 'I shall take the girl, and go to California. If you keep quiet about it, I will leave a provision for you and the children; if you do not, I shall go just the same, but without leaving you anything.' The wife acquiesced in the terms. Her husband went to California with his paramour, and tired of her (it was in old steamer times), about as soon as he got there. Very soon he deserted her and returned to New York a la prodigal, and was received back to the arms of his forgiving wife. The girl followed her faithless lover to New York, and failing to win a kind word from him by the most piteous appeals, finally committed suicide at her hotel in that city. The wife continued to live with the author of this misery upon the most affectionate terms.

"That was the whole story. Is it possible, I asked myself, that the writer of that article, whoever he may be, could have meant its title in anything but irony? Yet, there it stood on the front page of a most respectable journal, indorsed by an editor of the highest reputation. To my way of thinking, the wife was accessory to the crime; had no womanly self-respect, no delicacy, no Christian feeling for her husband's victim; was, in short, morally, as guilty as he was; and yet a newspaper of high standing made her out to be a model for wives. For what? Plainly for consenting to, or for forgiving three of the most heinous crimes in the decalogue, because committed by her husband. I confess that since that day I have been prone to examine into the claims of men to be forgiven, or the moral right of women to forgive them certain offenses."

"When you examine into the motives of women," said Mrs. Greyfield, "I think you will find there is a large measure of sordid self-interest in their mercy, as in the case you have just quoted. While some women are so weak, and so foolishly fond of the men to whom they became early attached, as to be willing to overlook everything rather than part with them; a far greater number yield an unwilling submission to wrongs imposed upon them, simply because they do not know how to do without the pecuniary support afforded them by their husbands. The bread-and-butter question is demoralizing to women as well as to men, the difference being that men have a wider field to be demoralized in; and that the demoralization of women is greatly consequent upon their circumscribed field of action."

"Do you think that the enlargement of woman's sphere of work would have a tendency to elevate her moral influence?"

"The way the subject presents itself to me is, that it is degrading to have sex determine everything for us: our employments, our position in society, the obedience we owe to others, the influence we are permitted to exercise, all and everything to be dependent upon the delicate matter of a merely physical function. It affects me so unpleasantly to hear such frequent reference to a physiological fact, that I have often wished the word female stricken from our literature. And when you reflect, that we are born and bred to this narrow view of ourselves, as altogether the creatures of sex, you cannot but recognize its belittleing, not to say depraving effect, or fail to see the temptation; we have to seize any base advantage it may give us."