“It may be an open question whether any individual woman suffers more severely in body or mind than any individual man. There are some who say that all our passions matched with theirs
‘Are as moonlight is to sunlight, and as water is to wine.’
A sentiment, which I am happy to tell you, Lord Tennyson has angrily disclaimed as his own, declaring that he only ‘put it into the mouth of an impatient fool.’ But that our whole sex together suffers more physical pain, more want, more grief, than the other, is not, I think, open to doubt. Even if we put aside the poor Chinese women maimed from infancy, the Hindoo women against whose cruel wrongs their noble countryman, Malabari, has just been pleading so eloquently in London,—if we put these and all the other prisoners of Eastern Harems, and miserable wives of African and Australian savages out of question, and think only of the comparatively free and happy women of Christendom, how much more liable to suffering, if not always actually condemned to suffer, is the life of women! ‘To be weak is to be miserable,’ and we are weak; always comparatively to our companions, and weak often, absolutely, and in reference to the wants we must supply, the duties we must perform. Now, it seems to me that just in proportion as any one is possessed of strength of mind or of body, or of wealth or influence, so far it behoves him, or her, to turn with sympathy and tender helpfulness to the weakest and most forlorn of God’s creatures, whether it be man or woman or child, or even brute. The weight of the claim is in exact ratio of the feebleness and helplessness and misery of the claimant.
“Thus, then, I would sum up the counsels which I am presuming to offer to you. You will all remember the famous line of Terence, at which the old Roman audience rose in a tumult of applause: ‘I am a Man—nothing human is alien to me.’ I would have each of you add to this in an emphatic way. ‘Mulier sum. Nihil muliebre a me alienum puto.’ ‘I am a woman. Nothing concerning the interests of women is alien to me.’ Take the sorrows, the wants, the dangers (above all the dangers) of our sisters closely to heart, and, without ceasing to interest yourself in charities having men and boys for their objects, recognise that your earlier care should be for the weakest, the poorest, those whose dangers are worst of all—for, (after all) ruin can only drive a Man to the workhouse; it may drive a woman to perdition! Think of all the weak, the helpless, the wronged women and little children, and the harmless brutes; and save and shield them as best you can; even as the mother-bird will shelter and fight for her little helpless fledgelings. This is the natural field of feminine courage. Then, when you have found your work, whatever it be, give yourself to it with all your heart, and make the resolution in God’s sight never to go to your rest leaving a stone unturned which may help your aims. Half-and-half charity does very little good to the objects; and is a miserable, slovenly affair for the workers. And when the end comes and the night closes in, the long, last night of earth, when no man can work any more in this world, your milk-and-water, half-hearted charities will bring no memories of comfort to you. They are not so many ‘good works’ which you can place on the credit side of your account, in the mean, commercial spirit taught by some of the churches. Nay, rather they are only solemn evidences that you knew your duty, knew you might do good, and did it not, or did it half-heartedly! What a thought for those last days when we know ourselves to be going home to God, God—whom at bottom after all, we have loved and shall love for ever;—that we might have served Him here, might have blessed his creatures, might have done His will on earth as it is done in Heaven, but we have let the glorious chance slip by us for ever.”
CHAPTER
XX.
CLAIMS OF BRUTES.
Readers who have reached this twentieth Chapter of my Life will smile (as I have often done of late years) at the ascription to me in sundry not very friendly publications, of exclusive sympathy for animals and total indifference to human interests. I have seen myself frequently described as a woman “who would sacrifice any number of men, women and children, sooner than that a few rabbits should be inconvenienced.” Many good people apparently suppose me to represent a personal survival of Totemism in England; and to worship Dogs and Cats, while ready to consign the human race generally to destruction.
The foregoing pages, describing my life in old days in Ireland and the years which I spent afterwards working in the slums in Bristol, ought, I think, to suffice to dissipate this fancy picture. As a matter of fact, it has only been of late years and since their wrongs have appealed alike to my feelings of pity and to my moral sense, that I have come to bestow any peculiar attention on animals; or have been concerned with them more than is common with the daughters of country squires to whom dogs, horses and cattle are familiar subjects of interest from childhood. I have indeed always felt much affection for dogs: that is to say, for those who exhibit the true Dog-character,—which is far from being the case of every canine creature! Their eagerness, their joyousness, their transparent little wiles, their caressing and devoted affection, are to me more winning, even I may say, more really and intensely human (in the sense in which a child is human), than the artificial, cold and selfish characters one meets too often in the guise of ladies and gentlemen. It is not the four legs, nor the silky or shaggy coat of the dog which should prevent us from discerning his inner nature of Thought and Love; limited Thought, it is true; but quite unlimited Love. That he is dumb, is, to me, only another claim (as it would be in a human child) on my consideration. But because I love good dogs, and, in their measure also, good horses and cats and birds, (I had once a dear and lovely white pea-hen), I am not therefore a morbid Zoophilist. I should be very sorry indeed to say or think like Byron when my dog dies, that I “had but one true friend, and here he lies!” I have,—thank God!—known many men and women, who have all a dog’s merits of honesty and single-hearted devotion plus the virtues which can only flourish on the high level of humanity; and to them I give a friendship which the best of dogs cannot share.
That there are some Timons in the world whose hearts, embittered by human ingratitude, have turned with relief to the faithful love of a dog, I am very well aware. Surely the fact makes one appeal the more on behalf of the creatures who thus by their humble devotion heal the wounds of disappointed or betrayed affection; and who come to cheer the lonely, the unloved, the dull-witted, the blind, the poverty-stricken whom the world forsakes? I think Lamartine was right to treat this love of the Dog for Man as a special provision of Divine mercy, and to marvel,—
“Par quelle pitié pour nos cœurs Il vous donne