Right against Might, women! Be with the men now in their manliest, most pressing time of action! Forget their petty carping and cavilling at “the female element” in workmanship and endeavour; laugh at the rough and childish hands that beat and batter the woman’s breast with all the petulance of spoilt children; fling every other thought aside but the will and intent to help them on to victory! Make, and buckle on their armour—let your hands prepare them for both attack and defence. Nothing nobler will you ever find to do than this!
In old Arthurian legends, many were the fair women eager to buckle on the armour of the peerless Knight Lancelot; but to-day there are a million and more Lancelots in the field—young, brave, dauntless—heroes all! Arm them, women!—and by arming them, defend them! Thousands of you, strong and willing, are already at work—but we want thousands more! Even you “toy-women” who dance half-nude o’ nights at restaurants and in basement saloons of “fashionable” hotels, wreaking a sly vengeance on men by poisonous lure and seduction, even you can be brave and helpful if you will! Give up your foolish sensualities, and take to sturdy, sensible Work; wash the paint from your cheeks, the dye from your hair, and clothe yourselves as fit women who mean to help, and not to destroy men.
And you, too—you who turn your private homes into “Bridge Clubs” where “officers on leave” may become members “without the payment of a fee”—rookeries, where silly young subalterns are “rooked” indeed, of every penny, losing not only cash but honour—can you not give up this unprincipled and unwomanly “way of doing business” and come out of your dens? You have hands deft enough for something better than “Bridge”—and eyes that can see how to make shells for killing the enemy, which is better than studying how to change a card that shall cheat a friend! Put these ephemeral nothings of an ephemeral “society” aside, and WORK! Work is the saviour of both body and soul!
I admit that as Women, we have long and old scores to settle with the men who have denied us any place in their counsels, and who elect of themselves to treat us merely as “toys” and fools. We shall have our revenge upon them, but not now. Now is the time when we have the chance to show our ability, our powers of organisation, our reasonableness, our courage, our industry, and patience. Let us not fail! The curse of the Jew who wrote Genesis and swore to Eve “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow” has been upon woman ever since the days when courteous old Abraham yoked her with his cattle and drove her with his sheep; but there are evidences nowadays that the modern Abraham will not always triumph, even though every true son of Israel who attends religious service in his synagogue still says with Pecksniffian fervour:—
“Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast not made me a woman!” (See Authorised Jewish Daily Prayer Book.)
But, despite this most manly thanksgiving, it is paramount that now, whether Jew or Gentile, men want the women!—not for pleasure, not for fooling, not for seduction, not for betrayal, but for work! Man’s work must be done in the absence of men. For men must be set free, like uncaged wolves and lions, to fly at the throat of the foe and strangle him for good and all! Therefore, man’s work must be accomplished by women. O women, be glad and proud of this! Lady Frances Balfour, who has a brain sufficing for three of our modern statesmen, has recently written on “The Discovery of Women,” describing it wittily as similar to “the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus.” She reminds us of Lord Lansdowne’s “early Victorian” pronouncement that “the place for women is the home.” But the worthy peer forgot to mention that it is not given to every woman to have a home, or to run the cooking, the child-bearing, and general washing-up business for any special one of the male sex. On the other hand, there are thousands of women who not only earn the money to make a home and keep it, but who also have the affectionate unwisdom to keep a lazy loafer of a man also; some drone who finds as many plausible excuses for idleness as he does for living on the woman’s work. He, by the way, is generally the sort of fellow who speaks of woman with sniggering contempt, and while taking her earnings with the left hand stabs her in the back with the right. But even such rogues as these have to go forth to the battle to-day; so let us not grudge the buckling on of their armour if we can inspire courage in cowards! Just now, when omens and portents are thick in the air, and unnatural threatenings hover above us like shapeless spectres of evil, our Ministers and statesmen are chattering for all the world like the feeblest “patriarchs of the village” that ever waggled grey pates over pipes of tobacco. They who complain of women’s “talk” are talking the heads of the nation off into impatience and fury; let women not talk, therefore, but act! Come to work, women of all classes!—the more the better!—the more silently, the more swiftly! There is a great climax at hand; the “push” is about to begin. Every Able-Bodied Man Is Needed to Ensure Victory. Let us make no mistake about that! Every woman is likewise needed, to put her hand to the plough, and NOT look back. Munitions must not fail us. Show your resolve, brave women of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and nerve your slender hands to the task of turning out the weapons of attack and defence that shall flame our conquest of the foe on land and sea and in the air! And—when the war is over—when “Peace with Honour” shines once more above us like a glorious rainbow after storm—shall we—we Women who have worked, sink to our old footing of debasement and exclusion from the counsels of men? No! To paraphrase a famous Asquith utterance: “We have taken our place, and we shall continue to take it, and to keep it!”
THE QUALITY OF MERCY
AN APPEAL TO AMERICA FOR SUFFERERS IN THE GREAT WAR (Written by special request for the American “Committee of Mercy”)
There is no greater virtue in the human character than mercy; it is the nearest attribute and approach to the Divine Perfection towards Whom all creation instinctively moves. We, the offspring of that infinite Thought and Will, are still far away from such sweet and strong attainment of power as can find infinitude of joy in the infinitude of Giving—but we can in some measure bless and purify our brief poor lives with somewhat of that everlasting plenitude and beauty by an effort, no matter how feeble, towards a God-like perpetuity of grace and pity. The golden opportunity for that effort is Now and Here; we may never have so great a chance again. For Now and Here, in the fair days of spring and summer, when singing, blossoming Nature breaks out in its Te Deum of thankfulness for yet another space of time wherein to express the gladness and glory of life, we are confronted with the hideous, ravaging spectacle of War; War, in its most cruel, pitiless, and appalling shape—War, to the grimmest death! The groans and shrieks of wounded, tortured, and dying men are forced upon our ears; a monstrous Devil of Self, black with the crimes of treachery, lust, and murder, stalks abroad seeking what it may devour of faith, freedom, and civilisation—a demon possibly born of mankind’s own neglect of the highest ideals, and indifference to countless blessings long bestowed.