"On her face, through the tint of brown, lay the blush and flush of maidenhood, the indescribable sacred something that makes a maiden holy to every man of a manly and chivalrous nature; that makes a man utterly unselfish and perfectly content to love and be silent, to worship at a distance, as turning to the holy shrines of Mecca, to be still and bide his time; caring not to possess in the low, coarse way that characterizes your common love of to-day, but choosing rather to go to battle for her—bearing her in his heart through many lands, through storms and death, with only a word of hope, a smile, a wave of the hand from a wall, a kiss, blown far, as he mounts his steed below and plunges into the night. That is love to live for. I say the knights of Spain, bloody as they were, were a noble and a splendid type of men in their day."[34]
While the knights of Spain and other parts of mediaeval Europe doubtless professed sentiments of chivalry like those uttered by Joaquin Miller, there was as a rule nearly as much sham in their pretensions as in Ovid's rules for gallant conduct. In the days of militant chivalry, in the midst of deeds of extravagant homage to individual ladies, women in general were as much despised and maltreated as at any other time. "The chivalrous spirit is above all things a class spirit," as Freeman wrote (V., 482):
"The good knight is bound to endless fantastic courtesies toward men, and still more toward women, of a certain rank; he may treat all below that rank with any degree of scorn and cruelty."
This is still very far removed from the modern ideal; the knight may be considered to stand half-way between the boor and the gentleman: he is polite, at least, to some women, while the gentleman is polite to all, kind, gentle, sympathetic, without being any the less manly. Nevertheless there was an advantage in having some conception of gallantry, a determination and vow to protect widows and orphans, to respect and honor ladies. Though it was at first only a fashion, with all the extravagances and follies usual to fashions, it did much good by creating an ideal for later generations to live up to. From this point of view even the quixotic pranks of the knights who fought duels in support of their challenge that no other lady equalled theirs in beauty, were not without a use. They helped to enforce the fashion of paying deference to women, and made it a point of honor, thus forcing many a boor to assume at least the outward semblance and conduct of a gentleman. The seed sown in this rough and stony soil has slowly grown, until it has developed into true civilization—a word of which the last and highest import is civility or disinterested devotion to the weak and unprotected, especially to women.
In our days chivalry includes compassion for animals too. I have never read of a more gallant soldier than that colonel who, as related in Our Animal Friends (May, 1899), while riding in a Western desert at the head of five hundred horsemen, suddenly made a slight detour—which all the men had to follow—because in the direct path a meadow lark was sitting on her nest, her soft brown eyes turned upward, watching, wondering, fearing. It was a nobler deed than many of the most gallant actions in battle, for these are often done from selfish motives—ambition, the hope of promotion—while this deed was the outcome of pure unselfish sympathy.
"Five hundred horses had been turned aside, and five hundred men, as they bent over the defenceless mother and her brood, received a lesson in that broad humanity which is the essence of higher life."
To this day there are plenty of ruffians—many of them in fine clothes—who are strangers to chivalrous feelings toward defenceless women or animals—men who behave as gentlemen only under compulsion of public opinion. The encouraging thing is that public opinion has taken so strong a stand in favor of women; that it has written Place aux Dames on its shield in such large letters. While the red American squaw shared with the dogs the bones left by her contemptuous ungallant husband, the white American woman is served first at table and gets the choicest morsels; she receives the window-seat in the cars, the lower berth in the sleeper; she has precedence in society and wherever she is in her proper place; and when a ship is about to sink, the captain, if necessary (which is seldom the case), stands with drawn revolver prepared to shoot any man who would ungallantly get into a boat before all the women are saved.
"AN INSULT TO WOMAN"
This change from the primitive selfishness described in the preceding pages, this voluntary yielding by man of the place of honor and of the right of the strongest, is little less than a miracle; it is the grandest triumph of civilization. Yet there are viragoes who have had the indecency to call gallantry an "insult to woman." There is indeed a kind of gallantry—the Ovidian—which is an insult to women; but true masculine gallantry is woman's chief glory and conquest, indicating the transformation of the savage's scorn for woman's physical weakness into courteous deference to her as the nobler, more virtuous and refined sex. There are some selfish, sour, disappointed old maids, who, because of their lack of feminine traits, repel men and receive less than their share of gallant courtesy. But that is their own fault. Ninety-nine per cent. of all women have a happier lot to-day than at any previous time in history, and this change is due to the growth of the disinterested courtesy and sympathy known as gallantry. At the same time the change is strikingly illustrated in the status of old maids themselves. No one now despises an unselfish woman simply because she prefers to remain single; but formerly old maids were looked on nearly everywhere with a contempt that reached its climax among the Southern Slavs, who, according to Krauss (Ploss, II., 491), treated them no better than mangy dogs. No one associated with them; they were not tolerated in the spinning-room or at the dances; they were ridiculed and derided; were, in short, regarded as a disgrace to the family.