Mowbray smiled sadly.
"Do not understand me to say that we should return to barbarous times, and make the women labor and carry burdens, while we the men lounge in the sun and dream," he said; "not at all. All honor to the middle age! The knight raised up woman, and she made him a reproachless chevalier in return; but it did not end there. He must needs do more—he loved, and love is so strong! Divine love is strongest—he must deify her."
"You are a great student, forsooth!"
"Deny it if you can: but you cannot, Charles. The central idea of the middle age—the age of chivalry—is woman. That word interprets all; it is the open sesame which throws wide the portals. Without it, that whole era is a mere jumble of bewildering anomalies—events without causes—actions without motives. Well, see how truly we are the descendants of those knights. To this day our social god is woman."
"Scoffer!"
"No; what I say is more in sorrow than anger. It will impede our national and spiritual growth, for I declare to you that one hundred years hence, women in my opinion will not be satisfied with this poetic and chivalric homage: they will demand a voice in the government. They will grow bolder, and learn to regard these chivalric concessions to their purity and weakness as their natural rights. Woman's rights!—that will be their watchword."
"And I suppose you would say they have no rights."
"Oh, many. Among others, the right to shape the characters and opinions of their infant children," said Mowbray with a grave smile.
"And no more, sir?"
"Far more; but this discussion is unprofitable. What I mean is simply this, Charles: that the middle age has left us a national idea which is dangerous—the idea that woman should, from her very weakness, rule and direct; especially among us gentlemen who hold by the traditions of the past—who reject Sir Galahad, and cling to Orlando and Amadis—who grow mad and fall down worshipping and kissing the feet of woman—happy even to be spurned by her."