Volume I Part 6 (1/2)
_SUPERIOR BEINGS._
Every now and then one comes across the path of a Superior Being--a being who seems to imagine itself made out of a different kind of clay from that which forms the coa.r.s.er ruck of humanity, and whose presence crushes us with a sense of our own inferiority, exasperating or humiliating, according to the amount of natural pride bestowed upon us. The superior being is of either s.e.x and of all denominations; and its superiority comes from many causes--being sometimes due to a wider grasp of intellect, sometimes to a loftier standard of morals, sometimes to better birth or a longer purse, and very often to the simple conceit of itself which simulates superiority and believes in its own apery. The chief characteristic of the superior being is that exalted pity for inferiority which springs from the consciousness of excellence. In fact, one of the main elements of superiority consists in this sublime consciousness of private exaltation, and the immense interval that separates it from the grosser condition it surveys.
Rivalry is essentially angry and contentious, but confessed superiority can afford to be serene and compa.s.sionate. The little people who live in that meagre sphere of theirs, mental and social, with which not one point of its own extended circle comes in contact, are deserving of all pity and are below anything like active displeasure. That they should be content with such a meagre sphere seems inconceivable to the superior being, as it contemplates its own enlarged horizon with the complacency proper to a dweller in vastness.
Or it may be that its own world is narrow; and its superiority will then be that it is high, safe, exclusive, while its pity will flow down for those poor wayfarers who wander afield in broad lat.i.tudes, and know nothing of the pleasure found in reserved places. In any case the region in which a superior being dwells is better than the region in which any other person dwells.
Take a superior being who has made up a private account with truth, and who has, in his own mind at least, unlocked the gate of the great mysteries of life, and got to the back of that eternal Why? for ever confronting us. It does not in the least degree signify how the key is labelled. It may be High Church or Low Church, Swedenborgianism or Positivism. The name has nothing to do with the thing. It is the contented certainty of having unlocked that great gate at which others are hammering in vain which confers the superiority, and how the thing has been done does not affect the result. Neither does it disturb the equanimity of the superior being when he meets with opposing superior beings who have also made up their private accounts with truth, but in quite another handwriting and with a different sum-total at the bottom of the page; who have also unlocked the gate of the great mysteries, but with a key of contradictory wards, while the gate itself is of another order of architecture altogether. But then nothing ever does disturb the equanimity of the superior being; for, as he is above all rivalry, so is he beyond all teaching. The meeting of two superior beings of hostile creed is like the meeting of the two blind kings in the story, each claiming the crown for his own and both ignorant of the very existence of a rival. It may be that the superior being has soared away into the cold region of spiritual negation, whence he regards the praying and praising mult.i.tudes who go to church and believe in Providence as grown people regard children who still believe in ghosts and fairies. Or it may be that he has plunged into the phosph.o.r.escent atmosphere of mysticism and an all-pervading superst.i.tion; and then all who hold by scientific law, and who think the test of common sense not absolutely valueless, are Sadducees who know nothing of the glorious liberty of the light, but who prefer to live in darkness and to make themselves the agents of the great Lord of Lies.
Sometimes the superior being goes in for the doctrine of love and impulse, as against reason or experience, holding the physiologist and political economist as creatures absolutely devoid of feeling; and sometimes his superiority is shown in the application of the hardest material laws to the most subtle and delicate manifestations of the mind. But on which side soever he ranks himself--as a spiritualist to whom reason and matter are stumbling-blocks and accursed, or as a materialist denying the existence of spiritual influences at all--he is equally secure of his own superiority and serene in his own conceit. That there should be two sides to any question never seems to strike him; and that a man of another creed should have as much right as himself to a hearing and consideration is the one hard saying impossible for him to receive. With a light and airy manner of playful contempt--sometimes with a heavy and Johnsonian scorn that keeps no terms with an opponent--the superior being meets all your arguments or batters down all your objections; sometimes, indeed, he will not condescend even so far as this, but when you express your adverse opinion just lifts up his eyebrows with a good-humoured kind of surprise at your mental state, but lets you see that he thinks you too hopeless, and himself too superior, to waste powder and shot upon you. It is of the nature of things that there should be moles and that there should be eagles; so much the worse for the moles, who must be content to remain blind, not seeing things patent to the n.o.bler vision.
The superior being is sometimes a person who is above all the pa.s.sions and weaknesses of ordinary men; a philosopher, or an etherealized woman dwelling on serene Olympian heights which no clouds obscure and where no earth-fogs rise. The pa.s.sions which shake the human soul, as tempests shake the forest trees, and warp men's lives according to the run of their own lines, are unknown to these Olympian personages who cannot understand their power. They look on these tempestuous souls with a curious a.n.a.lytical gaze, speculating on the geography of their Gethsemane, and wondering why they cannot keep as calm and quiet as they themselves are. They sit in scornful judgment on the mysterious impulses regulating human nature--regulating and disturbing--and think how perfect all things would be if only pa.s.sions and instincts were cut out of the great plan, and men and women were left to the dominion of pure reason. But they do not take into account the law of const.i.tutional necessity, and they are utterly unable to strike a balance between the good and evil wrought both by the tempests of souls and by those of nature. They only know that storms are inconvenient, and that for themselves they have no need of such convulsions to clear off stagnant humours; nor are they made of elements which kindle and explode at the contact of such or such materials. And if they know nothing of all this, why then should others? If they can sit on Olympian heights serene above all pa.s.sion, why should not the whole world sit with them, and fogs and fires, earthquakes and deluges, be conditions unknown?
When this kind of superior being is a woman, there is something pretty in the sublime a.s.sumption of her supremacy and the sweeping range of her condemnation. Sheltered from temptation and secure from danger, she looks out on life from the serene heights of her safe place, and wonders how men can fail and women fall before the power of trials of which she knows only the name. Her circulation is languid and her temperament phlegmatic; and the burning desire of life which sends the strong into danger, perhaps into sin, is as much unknown to her as is the fever of the tropics to a Laplander crouching in his snow-hut. But she judges none the less positively because of her ignorance; and, as she looks into your quivering face with her untroubled eyes, lets you see plainly enough how she despises all the human frailties under which you may have tripped and stumbled. Sometimes she rebukes you loftily. Your soul is sore with the consciousness of your sin, your heart is weak with the pain of life; but the superior being tells you that repentance cannot undo the evil that has been done, and that to feel pain is weak.
The superiority which some women a.s.sume over men is very odd. It is like the grave rebuke of a child, not knowing what it is that it rebukes. When women take up their parable and censure men for the wild or evil things they do, not understanding how or why it has come about that they have done them, and knowing as little of the inner causes as of the outer, they are in the position of superior beings talking unmitigated rubbish. To be sure, it is very sweet and innocent rubbish, and has a lofty air about it that redeems what else would be mere presumption; but there is no more practical worth in what they say than there is in the child's rebuke when its doll will not stand upright on sawdust legs, nor eat a crumb of cake with waxen lips. This is one reason why women of the order of superior beings have so little influence over men; they judge without knowledge and condemn without insight. If they could thoroughly fathom man's nature, so as to understand his difficulties, they would then have moral power if their aims were higher than his, their principles more lofty, their practice more pure. As it is, they have next to none; and the very men who seem to yield most go only so far as to conceal what the superior being disapproves of; they do not change because of her greater weight of doctrine.
Men show themselves as superior beings to women on another count--intellectually, rather than morally. While women rebuke men for their sins, men snub women for their follies; the one wields the spiritual, the other the intellectual, weapon of castigation, and both hold themselves superior, beyond all possibility of rivalry, according to the chance of s.e.x. The masculine view of a subject always imposes itself on women as something unattainable by the feminine mind. Nine times out of ten it brings them to a due sense of their own inferiority, save in the case of the superior being, to whom of course the masculine view counts for nothing against her own. But even when women do not accept a man's opinions, they instinctively recognize his greater value, his greater breadth and strength. Perhaps they cry out against his hardness, if he is a political economist and they are emotional; or against his lower morality if he goes in for universal charity and philosophical lat.i.tudinarianism, and they are enthusiasts with a clearly-defined faith and a belief in its infallibility. These are wide tracts of difference between the two minds, not to be settled by the _ipse dixit_ of even a superior being; but in general the superiority of the man makes itself more felt than the superiority of the woman. While one preaches, the other ridicules; and snubbing does more than condemnation.
_FEMININE AMENITIES._
A man's foes are those of his own household, and the keenest enemies of women are women themselves. No one can inflict such humiliation on a woman as can a woman when she chooses; for if the art of high-handed snubbing belongs to men, that of subtle wounding is peculiarly feminine, and is practised by the best-bred of the s.e.x. Women are always more or less antagonistic to each other. They are gregarious in fas.h.i.+ons and emulative in follies, but they cannot combine; they never support their weak sisters; they shrink from those who are stronger than the average; and if they would speak the truth boldly, they would confess to a radical contempt for each other's intellect--which perhaps is the real reason why the sect of the 'emanc.i.p.ated' commands so small a following.
Half a dozen ordinary men advocating 'emanc.i.p.ation' doctrines would do more towards leavening the whole bulk of womankind than any number of first-cla.s.s women. Where these do stand by each other it is from instinctive or personal affection rather than from cla.s.s solidarity.
And this is one of the most striking distinctions of s.e.x, and one cause, among others, why men have the upper hand, and why they are able to keep it. Certainly there are reasons, sufficiently good, why women do not more readily coalesce; and one is the immense difference between the two extremes--the silly being too silly to appreciate the wise, and the weak too weak to bear the armour of the strong. There is more difference between outsiders among women than there is among men; the feminine characteristic of exaggeration making a gap which the medium or average man fills. The ways of women with each other more than all else show the great difference between their _morale_ and that of men. They flatter and coax as men could not do, but they are also more rude to each other than any man would be to his fellow. It is amazing to see the things they can do and will bear--things which no man would dream of standing and which no man would dare to attempt.
This is because they are not taught to respect each other, and because they have no fear of consequences. If one woman is insulted by another, she cannot demand satisfaction nor knock the offender down; and it is unladylike to swear and call names. She must bear what she can repay only in kind; but, to do her justice, she repays in a manner undeniably effective and to the point.
There is nothing very p.r.o.nounced about the feminine modes of aggression and retaliation; and yet each is eloquent and sufficient for its purpose. It may be only a stare, a shrug, a toss of the head; but women can throw an intensity of disdain into the simplest gesture which answers the end perfectly. The unabashed serenity and unflinching constancy with which one woman can stare down another is in itself an art that requires a certain amount of natural genius, as well as careful cultivation. She puts up her eyegla.s.s--not being shortsighted--and surveys the enemy standing two feet from her, with a sublime contempt for her whole condition, or with a still more sublime ignoring of her sentient existence, that no words could give. If the enemy be sensitive and unused to the kind of thing, she is absolutely crushed, destroyed for the time, and reduced to the most pitiable state of self-abas.e.m.e.nt. If she be of a tougher fibre, and has had some experience of feminine warfare, she returns the stare with a corresponding amount of contempt or of obliviousness; and from that moment a contest is begun which never ceases and which continually gains in bitterness. The stare is the weapon of offence most in use among women, and is specially favoured by the experienced against the younger and less seasoned. It is one of the instinctive arms native to the s.e.x; and we have only to watch the introduction of two girls to each other to see this, and to learn how even in youth is begun the exercise which time and use raise to such deadly perfection.
In the conversations of women with each other we again meet with examples of their peculiar amenities to their own s.e.x. They never refrain from showing how much they are bored; they contradict flatly, without the flimsiest veil of apology to hide their rudeness; and they interrupt ruthlessly, whatever the subject in hand may be.
One lady was giving another a minute account of how the bride looked yesterday when she was married to Mr. A., of somewhat formidable boudoir repute, with whom her listener had had sundry tender pa.s.sages which made the mention of his marriage a notoriously sore subject.
'Ah! I see _you_ have taken that old silk which Madame Josephine wanted to palm off on me last year,' said the tortured listener brusquely breaking into the narrative without a lead of any kind. And the speaker was silenced. In this case it was the interchange of doubtful courtesies, wherein neither deserved pity; but to make a disparaging remark about a gown, in revenge for turning the knife in a wound, was a thoroughly feminine manner of retaliation, and one that would not have touched a man. Such shafts fall blunted against the rugged skin of the coa.r.s.er creature; and the date or pattern of a bit of cloth would not have told much against the loss of a lover. But as most women pa.s.sionately care for dress, their toilet is one of their most vulnerable parts. Ashamed to be unfas.h.i.+onable, they tolerate anything in each other rather than shabbiness or eccentricity, even when picturesque; hence a sarcastic allusion to the age of a few yards of silk as a set-off against a grossly cruel stab was a return wound of considerable depth cleverly given.
The introduction of the womankind belonging to a favourite male acquaintance of somewhat lower social condition affords a splendid opportunity for the display of feminine amenity. The presentation cannot be refused, yet it is resented as an intrusion. 'Another daughter, Mr. C.! You must have a dozen daughters surely,' a peeress said disdainfully to a commoner whom personally she liked, but whose family she did not want to know. The poor man had but two; and this was the introduction of the second.
Very painful to a high-spirited gentlewoman must be the way in which a superior creature of this kind receives her, if not of the same set as herself. The husband of the inferior creature may be adored, as men are adored by fas.h.i.+onable women who love only themselves, and care only for their own pleasures. Artist, man of letters, _beau sabreur_, he is the pa.s.sing idol, the temporary toy, of a certain circle; and his wife has to be tolerated for his sake, and because she is a lady and fit to be presented, though an outsider. So they patronize her till the poor woman's blood is on fire; or they snub her till she has no moral consistency left in her, and is reduced to a mere ma.s.s of pulp. They keep her in another room while they talk to her husband with their other intimates; or they admit her into their circle, where she is made to feel like a Gentile among the faithful, for either they leave her unnoticed altogether or else speak to her on subjects quite apart from the general conversation, as if she were incapable of understanding them on their own ground. They ask her to dinner without her husband, and take care that there is no one to meet her whom she would like to see; but they ask him when they are at their grandest, and express their deep regret that his wife (uninvited) cannot accompany him. They know every turn and twist that can humiliate her if she has pretensions which they choose to demolish. They praise her toilet for its good taste in simplicity, when she thinks she is one of the finest on an occasion on which no one can be too fine. They tell her that pattern of hers is perfect, and made just like the dear d.u.c.h.ess's famous dress last season, when she believes that she has Madame Josephine's last, freshly imported from Paris. They celebrate her dinner as the very perfection of a refined family dinner without parade or cost, though it has all been had from the crack confectioner's, and though the bill for the entertainment will cause many a day of family pinching. These are the things which women say to one another when they wish to pain and humiliate; things which pain and humiliate some more than would a positive disgrace. For some women are distressingly sensitive about these little matters. Their lives are made up of trifles, and a failure in a trifle is a failure in their object of life.
Women can do each other no end of despite in a small way in society, not to speak of mischief of a graver kind. A hostess who has a grudge against one of her more famous lady-guests can always ensure her a disappointing evening under cover of doing her supreme honour and paying her extra attention. If she sees the enemy engaged in a pleasant conversation with one of the male stars, down she swoops, and in the sweetest manner possible carries her off to another part of the room, to introduce her to some school-girl who can only say yes or no in the wrong places--'who is dying for the honour of talking to you, my dear;' or to some unfledged stripling who blushes and grows hot and cannot stammer out two consecutive sentences, but who is presented as a rising genius and to be treated with the consideration due to his future. As her persecution is done under the guise of extra friendliness, the poor victim cannot cry out, nor yet resist; but she knows that whenever she goes to Mrs. So and So's she will be seated next the stupidest man at table, and prevented from talking to any one she likes in the evening; and that every visit to that lady is made in some occult manner unpleasant to her. And yet what has she to complain of? She cannot complain in that her hostess trusts to her for help in the success of her entertainment, and moves her about the room as a perambulating attraction which she has to dispense fairly among her guests, lest some should be jealous of the others. She may know that the meaning is to annoy; but who can act on meaning as against manner?
How crooked soever the first may be, if the last is straight the case falls to the ground, and there is no room for remonstrance.
Often women flirt as much to annoy other women as to attract men or amuse themselves. If a wife has crossed swords with a friend, and the husband is in any way endurable, let her look out for retaliation.
The woman she has offended will take her revenge by flirting more or less openly with the husband, all the while loading the enemy with flattery if she be afraid of her, or snubbing her without much disguise if she feel herself the stronger. The wife cannot help herself, unless things go too far for public patience. A jealous woman without proof is the b.u.t.t of her society, and brings the whole world of women like a nest of wasps about her ears. If wise, she will ignore what she cannot laugh at; if sensitive, she will fret; if vindictive, she will repay. Nine times out of ten she does the last, and, may be, with interest; and so goes on the duel, though all the time the fighters appear to be intimate friends and on the best possible terms together.
But the range of these feminine amenities is not confined to women; it includes men as well; and women continually take advantage of their position to insult the stronger s.e.x by saying to them things which can be neither answered nor resented. A woman can with the quietest face and the gentlest voice imaginable insinuate that you have just cheated at cards; she can give you the lie direct as coolly as if she were correcting a misprint; and you cannot defend yourself. To brawl with her would be unpardonable; to contradict her is useless; and the sense of society does not allow you to show her any active displeasure.