It is a beautiful passage, and an unabashed magnificent masculine egotism speaks in every line of it. Whenever I read it I think of the little girl in Punch whose little brother called to her, "Come here, Effie. I wants you." And Effie answered, "Thank you, Archie, but I wants myself!" Herr Riehl quotes the passage at the end of his own exhortations to his countrywomen, which are all in the same spirit, and were not needed by them. German women have always been devoted to their homes and their families, and they are as subservient to their menfolk as the Japanese. They do not actually fall on their knees before their lords, but the tone of voice in which a woman of the old school speaks of die Herren is enough to make a French, American, or Englishwoman think there is something to be said for the modern revolt against men. For any woman with a spice of feminine perversity in her nature will be driven to the other camp when she meets extremes; so that in Germany she feels ready to rise against overbearing males; whilst in America she misses some of the regard for masculine judgment and authority that German women show in excess. At least, it seems an excess of duty to us when we hear of a German bride who will not go down to dinner with the man appointed by her hostess till she has asked her husband's permission; and when we hear of another writing from Germany that, although in England she had ardently believed in total abstention, she had now changed her opinion because her husband drank beer and desired her to approve of it. But it was an Englishwoman who, when asked about some question of politics, said quite simply and honestly, "I think what Jack thinks."
The truth is, that the women of the two great Germanic races are kin. There are differences, chiefly those of history, manners, and environment. The likeness is profound.
"Par une rencontre singulière," says M. Taine, "les femmes sont plus femmes et les hommes plus hommes ici qu'ailleurs. Les deux natures vont chacune à son extrême; chez les uns vers l'audace, l'esprit d'entreprise et de resistance, le caractère guerrier, impérieux et rude; chez les autres vers la douceur, l'abnégation, la patience, l'affection inépuisable; chose inconnue dans les pays lointains, surtout en France, la femme ici se donne sans se reprendre et met sa gloire et son devoir à obeir, à pardonner, à adorer, sans souhaiter ni pretendre autre chose que se fondre et s'absorber chaque jour davantage en celui qu'elle a volontairement et pour toujours choisi. C'est cet instinct, un antique instinct Germanique, que ces grands peintres de l'instinct mettent tous ici en lumière!... L'âme dans cette race, est à la fois primitive et serieuse. La candeur chez les femmes y subsiste plus longtemps qu'ailleurs. Elles perdent moins vite le respect, elles pèsent moins vite les valeurs et les caractères: elles sont moins promptes à deviner le mal et à mesurer leurs maris.... Elles n'ont pas la netteté, la hardiesse d'idées, l'assurance de conduite, la précocité qui chez nous en six mois font d'une jeune fille une femme d'intrigue et une reine de salon. La vie enfermée et l'obéissance leur sont plus faciles. Plus pliantes et plus sédentaires elles sont en même temps plus concentrées, plus intérieures, plus disposées à suivre des yeux le noble rêve qu'on nomme le devoir...."
I cannot imagine what M. Taine means by saying that Englishwomen lead a more sedentary and sequestered life than Frenchwomen, but the rest of his description presents a well-known type in England and Germany. "Voir la peinture de ce caractère dans toute la littérature anglaise et allemande," he says in a footnote. "Le plus grand des observateurs, Stendhal tout imprégné des moeurs et des idées Italiennes et françaises, est stupéfait à cette vue. Il ne comprend rien à cette espèce de dévouement, 'à cette servitude, que les maris Anglais, sous le nom de devoir, out eu l'esprit d'imposer à leurs femmes.' Ce sont 'des moeurs de sérail.'"
Here the "greatest of all observers" seems to talk nonsense, for marriage in the seraglio does not hinge on the submission of one wife to one husband, but on a plurality of wives that English and German women have only endured in certain historic cases. In both western countries marriage has its roots in the fidelity of one man and one woman to each other. A well-known English novelist once said quite truly that an Englishman very rarely distrusts his wife, and never by any chance distrusts the girl who is to become his wife; and just the same may be said of the German of the better classes. In both countries you will find sections of society above and below where morals are lax and manners corrupt. German professors write sketches of London in which our busy grimy city is held up to a virtuous Germania as the modern Sodom and Gomorrah; and the Continental Anglophobe likes nothing better than to entertain you with pictures of our decadent society, pictures that really do credit to the vividness and detail of his imagination. Meanwhile our press assures the respectable Briton that Berlin is the most profligate city in Europe, and that scurrilous German novels about the German army will show him what the rotten state of things really is in that much over-rated organisation. But these national amenities are misleading. The bulk of the nation in both countries is sound, and family life still flourishes both here and there. The men of the race, in spite of Herr Riehl's prognostications, still have the whip hand, as much as is good for them in England, a little more than is good for them in Germany. If you go to Germany you must not expect a man to open a door for you, or to wait on you at afternoon tea, or to carry a parcel for you in the street. He will kiss your hand when he greets you, he will address you as gracious lady or gracious miss, he will put his heels together and make you beautiful bows, he will pay you compliments that are manifestly, almost admittedly, artificial. That at least is one type of man. He may leave out the kisses and the bows and the compliments and be quite undisguisedly bearish; or he may be something betwixt and between, kindly, concerned for your pleasure and welfare. But whatever he is he will never forget for a moment that you are "only a woman." If you marry him he will expect to rule everywhere except in the kitchen, and as you value a quiet life you had better take care that the kitchen produces what pleases him. On occasion he will assert his authority with some violence and naïveté. No one can be long amongst Germans, or even read many German novels, without coming across instances of what I mean. For example, there was once a quarrel between lovers that all turned upon a second glass of champagne. The girl did not want it, and the man insisted that she should drink it whether she wanted it or not. What happened in the end is forgotten and does not matter. It is the comment of the historian that remains in the memory.
"Her family had spoilt her," said he. "When they are married and my friend gets her to himself she will not behave so."
"But why should she drink a second glass of champagne if she did not want it?" I asked.
"Because he commanded her to," said this Petruchio, beginning to bristle at once; and he straightway told me another story about a man who threw his lady-love's dog into a pond, not because the dog needed a bath, but in assertion of his authority. The lady had wished to keep her dog out of the water.
"Did she ever forgive the man?" said I.
"Forgive!—What was there to forgive? The man wished to put the dog in the pond. A man must know how to enforce his will ... or he is no man."