III.
PRONOUNCETH ON LESSER MORALS.
III. PRONOUNCETH ON LESSER MORALS.
I think if everybody would only be as frank as I am, they would confess we haven't such a thing as a Little Moral left, except in the copy-books. Big Morals are everywhere, writ large for all the world to see; we don't trouble about them because they do not individually concern us—they are merely the names and forms that help to keep things going. But little morals are gone out of fashion entirely. It is rather perplexing when we come to think of it. Because we ought to be moral, strictly moral; and feeling that we ought to be, we have to pretend that we are. Sometimes we find it difficult to keep up the game, but as a rule we succeed fairly well. Only we know, you know, that a "little moral" is a bore. That is why, in our heart of hearts, we will have nothing to do with it. For example, it is not on the lines of "little morality" that we should run up bills. But we do run them up. Sometimes, too, without the smallest intention of paying them. It is not in the path of unselfish virtue that we should give our dear friends wine from the "stores" at "store" prices, while we carefully reserve our old Chambertin and Chateau d'Yquem for our own special drinking; but we do this sort of thing every day. And yet we love our dear friends—oh! how we love them! we would do anything for them, anything—except produce our Chambertin. And it is not, I believe, a "little moral," i.e., a copy-book maxim, that we should fall in love with our neighbour's wife. But that is just precisely the most delightful among our modern fashionable amusements. Our neighbour's wife is the most interesting woman in our social set. Our neighbour's daughter is not half so interesting. Because our neighbour's daughter is generally marriageable; our neighbour's wife is only divorceable—hence her superior charm. The scandalous and rude statement, "Whoso looketh on his neighbour's wife to lust after her, hath already committed——" No, no! I will not defile delicate ears polite with pure New Testament language. It is too strong; it is painfully strong—quite unpleasant—a thunderous speech uttered by the holiest lips that ever breathed man's breath, but it is shocking, and gives our nerves an unpleasant thrill. Because we do look after our neighbour's wife a good deal nowadays; "neigh" after her is the old Scriptural term for our latter-day custom, which has been set in vogue by the most distinguished examples of aristocracy among us. And our neighbour's wife's husband is a capital butt for our "chaff"; we like him, oh yes, we always like him: we go and stay with him for weeks, and shoot game in his preserves, and ride his best horses; he is a capital fellow, by Jove, but an awful fool. Yes, so he is. Our neighbour's wife's husband is generally a fool. His dense noddle never discerns any way out of his dishonour but the crooked path of the law. I haven't got a wife—praise be to heaven!—but if I had, and I found any "noble" personage disposed to "neigh" after her, I know what I should do with him. I should trounce him with a tough cowhide thong till his "blue blood" declared itself, till his "nobility" roared for mercy. Whether he were prince, duke, lord, or plain "Mister," he would be black as well as "blue" before I had done with him. Of course the law would have to come in afterwards by way of a summons for assault, but who would not pay liberally for the satisfaction of thrashing a low scoundrel? Besides, viewed in the most practical light, it would cost less than the business of divorce, besides having the immense advantage of giving no satisfaction to the guilty parties concerned.
By Heaven, there are some men I know whom I would kick in the way of pure friendship, if a kick would rouse them to a sense of their position—men whose wives are openly shamed, the whole public knowing of their flagrant, unblushing infidelity—men who stand by and look on at their own disgrace, and yet presume to offer the "example" of a public career to the "lower" classes. And how these "lower" despise them; how they who still do call a spade a spade are filled with honest scorn for such "distinguished" cowards! Well, well, I shall do no good, I warrant, by heating my blood in the cause of the worthless and degraded; fidelity in wives, manly principle in husbands, are "little morals," and seem to have gone out with the jewelled snuff-boxes and rapiers of old time.
Among other of these "little morals" it used to be tacitly understood that "gentlemen" should preserve a certain delicacy of speech when conversing before "ladies." This idea appears to be almost obsolete. Men have no scruple nowadays in talking about their special ailments to women (and not old women either), and they will allude to the various parts of their bodies affected by those ailments in the most frankly disgusting manner. At a supper-party given by one of the most exalted of noble dames not long ago, I heard a brute detailing the ins and outs of his "liver" trouble to an embarrassed looking young woman of about eighteen. As for the ugly word "stomach," it is commonly used in various circles of the beau-monde, and the most revolting details of medicine and surgery are frequently dealt with in what used to be termed "polite conversation." That ugly old women, and fat, greasy matrons love to chatter about their own and their friends' illnesses, is of course an accepted fact, but that men should do so before a casual company of the married and unmarried "fair" is a new and highly repulsive phase of "social intercourse." I remember hearing the editor of a well-known magazine talk with a pretty young unmarried woman concerning the possibilities of her sex in Art, and after the utterance of many foolish platitudes, he brought his remarks to a brusque conclusion with the following words: "Oh yes, I admire gifted women, but, after all, their genius is bound to be interfered with and marred by the bearing of children." Coarse ruffian as he was, I suppose the surprised, hot blush that stained the poor girl's face was agreeable to his low little soul, while I, for my part, yearned to knock him down. His words, and above all, his manner, implied that he in his fatuous mind considered every woman bound, willy-nilly, to submit herself to the passions of man, be she saint or sinner. "The bearing of children," as he put it, is, according to natural animal law, the prime business of the average woman's life, average women being seldom fit for anything else. But it has to be conceded that there are women above the average, who, gifted with singular powers of ambition and attainment, sweep on from one intellectual triumph to another, and do so succeed in quelling the natural animalism that they do not consider themselves bound to "bring forth and multiply" their kind. With brilliant, fiery-souled Bashkirtseff, they exclaim: "Me marier et avoir des enfants! Mais chaque blanchisseuse peut en faire autant!"
And in her next sentence the captive genius cries: "Mais qu'est ce que je veux? Oh, vous le savez bien. Je veux la gloire!" And "la gloire," despite the opinions of the vulgar little editor aforementioned, does not precisely consist in having babies, in hushing their frantic yells hour after hour, and wiping their perpetually dribbling noses, what time the fathers of these "blessings" sleep and snore in peace. "La gloire" assumes an inviting aspect to many feminine souls to-day, and the "joys of marriage" pale in comparison. It is rather a dangerous seed to sow, this "la gloire," in the hitherto tame fields of woman's life and labour, and the harvest promises to astonish the whole world. That is, provided women will be original and not imitate men. At present they imitate us too closely, and even in the question of coarse freedom of speech they ape the masculine example. If a man insists on talking about his "liver" a woman will bring her "leg" into the conversation in order to be even with him. The vulgar word "ripping" slips off the tongue of a well-bred young woman as easily as though she were a rough schoolboy. And so on through the whole gamut of slang. As a casually interested spectator of these things, I would respectfully inform the "fair" that as long as they elect to "follow" instead of "lead," so long will their efforts to attain eminence be laughed at and contemptuously condemned. A painful flabby-mindedness distinguishes many of the sex feminine, an inviting readiness to be "sat upon" which is perhaps touching, but also ridiculous. If you take up an art, dear ladies, you require to be strong if you ever wish to consummate anything worth doing. Art accepts no half measures. You will need to live solitary and eat the bread of bitterness, with tears for wine. Consolations you will have doubtless, but they will come slowly, and not from without, only from within. An ethereal ice-air will surround and sever you from the common lot, you will be lifted higher and higher into a cold, pure atmosphere that will require all your force of lung to breathe without losing life in the effort. If you can stand it—well! if not, better be Bashkirtseff's "blanchisseuse qui pent faire autant."