“I remember now,” said Mrs. Buzzell, smiling. “Why, her fate was not so bad, for her suffering was but momentary. Her lover was a god. That must be quite an advantage; and then he loved perfectly, and she also, I suppose.” Mrs. Buzzell was in a complaisant mood, or she would not have treated any heathen mythology so considerately. “I never thought of it before in that light,” replied the doctor. “She must have been the only woman whom any lover ever satisfied. Your sex is very exacting. You expect men to keep up to concert-pitch all the time; but, you see, we have to go out into the world and purvey for bread-and-butter. Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus, you know.”
“Sine Cerere,” repeated Susie, laboring with the Latin, of which she knew a little.
“‘Without corn and wine love freezes’ will do,” said the doctor.
“True,” said Mrs. Buzzell; “but it is just where corn and wine are abundant, that you feed us on dry husks—not to mention that you seek pastures new, for yourselves.”
“I see I must defend my sex,” said the doctor, with mock gravity. “Now we do not feed you on dry husks, but we assume to know what is best for you. Are we not your heaven-appointed keepers? You would live forever on ambrosia, and that is not good for the constitution as a regular diet; besides the supply is limited, I am sorry to say. The truth is, dear ladies—I am serious now—you women have not yet found the secret of your power. What we call the material forces, in the beginning rule the world. Man gains his freedom first, then women, then children. Women are not free yet. They should be independent, should travel, mix with the world, conduct enterprises, and never be forced to marry from any pecuniary motives. That is the way the ‘statelier Eden’ is coming back to man. Man cannot be happy, and morally strong, until women have worked out their social salvation. No one should stake everything on the throw of a die. Women do that, and are taught that it is wise. They keep their interests narrowed to a point, and what with petty household cares and ‘tying baby sashes,’ as Mrs. Browning says, they cease to grow, except in one direction. They live as though they had but one organ, and that the heart; figuratively speaking, I mean,” added the anatomist. “This is their fate when they are sensitive and emotional. When they are colder in temperament, they gangrene with social ambition; spend their lives in scheming to out-do their neighbors in fashion and display. This would not be possible if they had other resources, but they have not; because at the start, they have no education to speak of, and few are interested in any literature but that of novels and romances, which they waste time over without much discrimination. Good Lord! what an amount of trash they wade through! But then, very few people have the culture implied in the art of getting the nuts out of a book without swallowing husk and all. It is one of the last things learned by the student, and women are rarely students.”
“So, in the end,” said Mrs. Buzzell, “man, mixing with the world and interesting his mind with politics and science, finds his intellectual needs supplied outside of home. Well, he has other needs.”
“Yes, certainly. Home is the nucleus of all his affections; and because it is the nucleus or centre, it should include the possibilities of answering to the greater part of his needs. The woman who responds most fully to a man’s various attractions, will keep his love fresh the longest; but when she can respond to little else except his desire to be petted and caressed, she is in danger of responding too fully to that, and so clogs his appetite with her very sweetness.”
“Women learn this,” said Susie, “and that is why so many become heartless flirts. Who can wonder?”
“That is true of some very lovely women; but not of the finest, Susie. It would not be possible to you, nor to Clara.”
To be compared in any way to the superb Clara, was a compliment that Susie was keenly sensitive to; and her love and gratitude grew with the self-respect and womanly dignity that the nobler course of her few friends, insensibly and continually stimulated into action.