Part 4 (1/2)

Now, you cannot, indeed, have here in England, woods eighteen miles deep to the centre; but you can, perhaps, keep a fairy or two for your children yet, if you wish to keep them. But DO you wish it?

Suppose you had each, at the back of your houses, a garden, large enough for your children to play in, with just as much lawn as would give them room to run,--no more--and that you could not change your abode; but that, if you chose, you could double your income, or quadruple it, by digging a coal shaft in the middle of the lawn, and turning the flower-beds into heaps of c.o.ke. Would you do it? I hope not. I can tell you, you would be wrong if you did, though it gave you income sixty-fold instead of four-fold.

Yet this is what you are doing with all England. The whole country is but a little garden, not more than enough for your children to run on the lawns of, if you would let them all run there. And this little garden you will turn into furnace ground, and fill with heaps of cinders, if you can; and those children of yours, not you, will suffer for it. For the fairies will not be all banished; there are fairies of the furnace as of the wood, and their first gifts seem to be ”sharp arrows of the mighty;” but their last gifts are ”coals of juniper.”

And yet I cannot--though there is no part of my subject that I feel more--press this upon you; for we made so little use of the power of nature while we had it that we shall hardly feel what we have lost.

Just on the other side of the Mersey you have your Snowdon, and your Menai Straits, and that mighty granite rock beyond the moors of Anglesea, splendid in its heathery crest, and foot planted in the deep sea, once thought of as sacred--a divine promontory, looking westward; the Holy Head or Headland, still not without awe when its red light glares first through storm. These are the hills, and these the bays and blue inlets, which, among the Greeks, would have been always loved, always fateful in influence on the national mind.

That Snowdon is your Parna.s.sus; but where are its Muses? That Holyhead mountain is your Island of AEgina; but where is its Temple to Minerva?

Shall I read you what the Christian Minerva had achieved under the shadow of our Parna.s.sus up to the year 1848?--Here is a little account of a Welsh school, from page 261 of the Report on Wales, published by the Committee of Council on Education. This is a school close to a town containing 5,000 persons:-

”I then called up a larger cla.s.s, most of whom had recently come to the school. Three girls repeatedly declared they had never heard of Christ, and two that they had never heard of G.o.d. Two out of six thought Christ was on earth now” (they might have had a worse thought perhaps), ”three knew nothing about the Crucifixion. Four out of seven did not know the names of the months nor the number of days in a year. They had no notion of addition beyond two and two, or three and three; their minds were perfect blanks.”

Oh, ye women of England! from the Princess of that Wales to the simplest of you, do not think your own children can be brought into their true fold of rest, while these are scattered on the hills, as sheep having no shepherd. And do not think your daughters can be trained to the truth of their own human beauty, while the pleasant places, which G.o.d made at once for their schoolroom and their playground, lie desolate and defiled. You cannot baptize them rightly in those inch-deep fonts of yours, unless you baptize them also in the sweet waters which the great Lawgiver strikes forth for ever from the rocks of your native land--waters which a Pagan would have wors.h.i.+pped in their purity, and you wors.h.i.+p only with pollution. You cannot lead your children faithfully to those narrow axe-hewn church altars of yours, while the dark azure altars in heaven--the mountains that sustain your island throne,--mountains on which a Pagan would have seen the powers of heaven rest in every wreathed cloud--remain for you without inscription; altars built, not to, but by an Unknown G.o.d.

(III.) Thus far, then, of the nature, thus far of the teaching, of woman, and thus of her household office, and queenliness. We now come to our last, our widest question.--What is her queenly office with respect to the state?

Generally, we are under an impression that a man's duties are public, and a woman's private. But this is not altogether so. A man has a personal work or duty, relating to his own home, and a public work or duty, which is the expansion of the other, relating to the state. So a woman has a personal work or duty, relating to her own home, and a public work or duty, which is also the expansion of that.

Now the man's work for his own home is, as has been said, to secure its maintenance, progress, and defence; the woman's to secure its order, comfort, and loveliness.

Expand both these functions. The man's duty as a member of a commonwealth, is to a.s.sist in the maintenance, in the advance, in the defence of the state. The woman's duty, as a member of the commonwealth, is to a.s.sist in the ordering, in the comforting, and in the beautiful adornment of the state.

What the man is at his own gate, defending it, if need be, against insult and spoil, that also, not in a less, but in a more devoted measure, he is to be at the gate of his country, leaving his home, if need be, even to the spoiler, to do his more inc.u.mbent work there.

And, in like manner, what the woman is to be within her gates, as the centre of order, the balm of distress, and the mirror of beauty: that she is also to be without her gates, where order is more difficult, distress more imminent, loveliness more rare.

And as within the human heart there is always set an instinct for all its real duties,--an instinct which you cannot quench, but only warp and corrupt if you withdraw it from its true purpose:- as there is the intense instinct of love, which, rightly disciplined, maintains all the sanct.i.ties of life, and, misdirected, undermines them; and MUST do either the one or the other;--so there is in the human heart an inextinguishable instinct, the love of power, which, rightly directed, maintains all the majesty of law and life, and, misdirected, wrecks them.

Deep rooted in the innermost life of the heart of man, and of the heart of woman, G.o.d set it there, and G.o.d keeps it there.--Vainly, as falsely, you blame or rebuke the desire of power!--For Heaven's sake, and for Man's sake, desire it all you can. But WHAT power?

That is all the question. Power to destroy? the lion's limb, and the dragon's breath? Not so. Power to heal, to redeem, to guide, and to guard. Power of the sceptre and s.h.i.+eld; the power of the royal hand that heals in touching,--that binds the fiend, and looses the captive; the throne that is founded on the rock of Justice, and descended from only by steps of Mercy. Will you not covet such power as this, and seek such throne as this, and be no more housewives, but queens?

It is now long since the women of England arrogated, universally, a t.i.tle which once belonged to n.o.bility only; and, having once been in the habit of accepting the simple t.i.tle of gentlewoman as correspondent to that of gentleman, insisted on the privilege of a.s.suming the t.i.tle of ”Lady,” {27} which properly corresponds only to the t.i.tle of ”Lord.”

I do not blame them for this; but only for their narrow motive in this. I would have them desire and claim the t.i.tle of Lady, provided they claim, not merely the t.i.tle, but the office and duty signified by it. Lady means ”bread-giver” or ”loaf-giver,” and Lord means ”maintainer of laws,” and both t.i.tles have reference, not to the law which is maintained in the house, nor to the bread which is given to the household; but to law maintained for the mult.i.tude, and to bread broken among the mult.i.tude. So that a Lord has legal claim only to his t.i.tle in so far as he is the maintainer of the justice of the Lord of lords; and a Lady has legal claim to her t.i.tle only so far as she communicates that help to the poor representatives of her Master, which women once, ministering to Him of their substance, were permitted to extend to that Master Himself; and when she is known, as He Himself once was, in breaking of bread.

And this beneficent and legal dominion, this power of the Dominus, or House-Lord, and of the Domina, or House-Lady, is great and venerable, not in the number of those through whom it has lineally descended, but in the number of those whom it grasps within its sway; it is always regarded with reverent wors.h.i.+p wherever its dynasty is founded on its duty, and its ambition correlative with its beneficence. Your fancy is pleased with the thought of being n.o.ble ladies, with a train of va.s.sals. Be it so; you cannot be too n.o.ble, and your train cannot be too great; but see to it that your train is of va.s.sals whom you serve and feed, not merely of slaves who serve and feed you; and that the mult.i.tude which obeys you is of those whom you have comforted, not oppressed,--whom you have redeemed, not led into captivity.

And this, which is true of the lower or household dominion, is equally true of the queenly dominion; that highest dignity is open to you, if you will also accept that highest duty. Rex et Regina-- Roi et Reine--”RIGHT-doers;” they differ but from the Lady and Lord, in that their power is supreme over the mind as over the person-- that they not only feed and clothe, but direct and teach. And whether consciously or not, you must be, in many a heart, enthroned: there is no putting by that crown; queens you must always be: queens to your lovers; queens to your husbands and your sons; queens of higher mystery to the world beyond, which bows itself, and will for ever bow, before the myrtle crown and the stainless sceptre of womanhood. But, alas! you are too often idle and careless queens, grasping at majesty in the least things, while you abdicate it in the greatest; and leaving misrule and violence to work their will among men, in defiance of the power which, holding straight in gift from the Prince of all Peace, the wicked among you betray, and the good forget.

”Prince of Peace.” Note that name. When kings rule in that name, and n.o.bles, and the judges of the earth, they also, in their narrow place, and mortal measure, receive the power of it. There are no other rulers than they; other rule than theirs is but MISrule; they who govern verily ”Dei Gratia” are all princes, yes, or princesses of Peace. There is not a war in the world, no, nor an injustice, but you women are answerable for it; not in that you have provoked, but in that you have not hindered. Men, by their nature, are p.r.o.ne to fight; they will fight for any cause, or for none. It is for you to choose their cause for them, and to forbid them when there is no cause. There is no suffering, no injustice, no misery, in the earth, but the guilt of it lies with you. Men can bear the sight of it, but you should not be able to bear it. Men may tread it down without sympathy in their own struggle; but men are feeble in sympathy, and contracted in hope; it is you only who can feel the depths of pain, and conceive the way of its healing. Instead of trying to do this, you turn away from it; you shut yourselves within your park walls and garden gates; and you are content to know that there is beyond them a whole world in wilderness--a world of secrets which you dare not penetrate; and of suffering which you dare not conceive.

I tell you that this is to me quite the most amazing among the phenomena of humanity. I am surprised at no depths to which, when once warped from its honour, that humanity can be degraded. I do not wonder at the miser's death, with his hands, as they relax, dropping gold. I do not wonder at the sensualist's life, with the shroud wrapped about his feet. I do not wonder at the single-handed murder of a single victim, done by the a.s.sa.s.sin in the darkness of the railway, or reed shadow of the marsh. I do not even wonder at the myriad-handed murder of mult.i.tudes, done boastfully in the daylight, by the frenzy of nations, and the immeasurable, unimaginable guilt heaped up from h.e.l.l to heaven, of their priests, and kings. But this is wonderful to me--oh, how wonderful!--to see the tender and delicate woman among you, with her child at her breast, and a power, if she would wield it, over it, and over its father, purer than the air of heaven, and stronger than the seas of earth--nay, a magnitude of blessing which her husband would not part with for all that earth itself, though it were made of one entire and perfect chrysolite:- to see her abdicate this majesty to play at precedence with her next-door neighbour! This is wonderful--oh, wonderful!--to see her, with every innocent feeling fresh within her, go out in the morning into her garden to play with the fringes of its guarded flowers, and lift their heads when they are drooping, with her happy smile upon her face, and no cloud upon her brow, because there is a little wall around her place of peace: and yet she knows, in her heart, if she would only look for its knowledge, that, outside of that little rose-covered wall, the wild gra.s.s, to the horizon, is torn up by the agony of men, and beat level by the drift of their life-blood.