The shadow that may not pass.
The old adage says that if there wereno women in the world the men would all be brutes; and if there were no men the women would all be fools. The mother’s ideal school might be very far indeed from a perfect one, but, as things are, one of the bitterest of her griefs is when she has to send her gentle, affectionate, pure-minded and open-souled little lad to school. She knows well that he will have to struggle alone through the dark days of initiation into school life, its cheap and shallow cynicism, its endless injustices, and its darker shadows than any that have been referred to. The mother knows she is losing her boy. She will never again read his thoughts as an open book. She casts her bread upon the waters, and may, or may not, receive it after many days. Her boy may never again be the candid, gentle, bright-spirited being whose companionship was delightful to her. His confidence may never again be hers, and she knows better than to force it, or even invite it with loving insistence. If he ever again opens his mind to her it will be as naturally as the dove returned to the ark. But the cloud of school life must come between them first And it is often a black one.
The spiritual life.
This is supposed to be a Christian land; but at how many public schools in England does a small boy dare to kneel and say his nightly prayer as he did at home? Sometimes a strong andearnest spirit among the bigger boys succeeds in living the higher life, even at school, where all traditions are dead against active religion, as the small boy who essays such a course soon finds to his cost. The mother’s ideal school would be one in which the young spirit might be free to lay some of the burden of school life at the feet of the Great Friend. But “cant,” as any sign of religious feeling is called at school, is regarded as a thing to be driven out by sneers and gibes, flickings with a damp towel, and—worse than all—hideous references to holy things and to the mother who taught them. Everything that is pure and true seems to be sullied and robbed of truth and goodness, and there appears to be nothing left for the boy to cling to while his universe is in a whirl, the things he held sacred desecrated, and a stream of lurid light thrown upon the seamy side of life so carefully concealed from him at home.
What is genius?
Mr. Andrew Lang disputes Dr. Johnson’s definition of genius as “an infinite capacity for taking pains,” and seem to make out a good case for doing so. Mr. Lang’s own definition is “an unmeasured capacity for doing things without taking pains.” What a width of worlds lies between the two conceptions! I suppose the real truth is that genius is indefinable, and so varied in character as to escape all attempts at classification. But there it is, to be reckoned with, and when the mother goes into the nursery and looks round at all the dear little people there, she can no more guess if any of them is going to be a genius than she can tell what Destiny has in store for them in the way of aches and pains and accidents. Some of the stupid ones are as likely to turn out geniuses as the bright and clever.Sir Walter Scott.Sir Walter Scott was a dull boy at school. There were things he could never learn. He loathed figures, and it is pathetic to remember what a hideous part they played in hishard-worked life. As to his attempts at poetry, they were very much in the rough at this early age, but he loved other people’s poetry so much that his mind was compact of it. He could reel it off by the furlong. He was always lovable, and his laugh was so hearty that it could often be heard long before the laugher came in sight.
But genius is not always lovable. In this way it is frequently a terrible trial to its possessor, especially in the days of childhood, when subjugation to the domestic powers often involves a considerable amount of real suffering. Read Hans Andersen’s “Ugly Duckling” in this sense, and you have some idea of the intense loneliness of a brilliant mind in early days, when no one understands it, and when every effort towards expression is checked and thwarted, every attempt at development coerced. Later on, when genius will out, and shines resplendent, seen and recognised of all men, what agonies of self-reproach do parents feel!“If I had only known.”What would they not give to have the time over again wherein they might, with comprehension added, soothe and sustain the tried young spirit, solacing it with kindness and giving it the balm of sympathy and tenderness. “If I had only known,” say the mothers, who treated the absorption and aloofness of their clever children as sullenness and bad-temper, andallowed themselves to grow apart from the lonely young spirit, which needed more than most the loving kindness of home and friends.The loneliness of genius.For genius is essentially solitary. There are depths and heights in the inner consciousness of many a child of seven that are far beyond the view of millions of educated adults. Shallowness is the rule; a comfortable shallowness, which, unknowing of better things, measures all other minds with its own limited plummet line, and can conceive of no deeper depth. How could it? And hence those solitudes in which the spirit wanders lonely, yet longing for companionship. A thirst is ever on it for a comprehending sympathy, and when the young soul looks appealingly out at us, through wistful eyes, it has no plainer language. It asks for bread, and we give it a stone.
Misunderstood!
And we put it all down to sulks!—unguessing of the tumult going on within the teeming brain and the starved heart. Mothers, be gentle with young ones you cannot understand. You little know what a dagger lies hidden in the sentence so often heard: “Well, youarequeer. I can’t understand you.” And you would be astonished if you could know how early some souls realise their own loneliness. A child of tender years soon learns its reticences. It almost intuitively feels the lack of response in others, and expressionis soon checked of all that lies behind the mere commonplaces of existence.
“No common language.”
What does Thackeray say? “To what mortal ear could I tell all, if I had a mind? Or who could understand all?” And another writer expresses a similar idea: “There are natures which ever must be silent to other natures, because there is no common language between them. In the same house, at the same board, sharing the same pillow, even, are those for ever strangers and foreigners, whose whole stock of intercourse is limited to a few brief phrases on the commonest material wants of life, and who, as soon as they try to go further, have no words that are mutually understood.”
And again Thackeray, this time in “Vanity Fair,” as before in “Pendennis”: “To how many people can any one tell all? Who will be open when there is no sympathy, or has call to speak to those who never can understand?”
Conscious aloofness.
If mothers would only understand that this conscious aloofness begins early in some natures—almost incredibly early—they would be happier in their clever children and would make them happier too. There comes a moment when the young mind that has lain clear and open as a book before one’s eyes enwraps itself in a misty veil, and entersinto the silent solitude which every human being finds within his own nature. And the mother, unguessing, is hurt and repelled, though she should be well aware that the time must come when the youthful soul must enter upon its inheritance of individuality, and separate itself and stand apart. It is at this momentous time that affection is most deeply needed, with a craving and a yearning that cannot be expressed; and yet this is the moment when the mother too often turns away, disappointed and chilled by the unwonted reticence her child displays. She has yet to learn that human affection is a wingless thing, and cannot follow the far flights of the untrammelled spirit.Recognising our limitations.It is well for mothers to recognise their limitations, and to realise that there may be far more in her child’s mind than was ever dreamed of by herself. If she fails to do this, she will chill back the love that lies, warm as ever, behind the incomprehensible reserve wherewith the youthful spirit wraps itself while it learns what all this inner tumult means. It is a trying time for both parent and son or daughter, and the only thing to keep firm hold of is the love that holds the two together. It is more important than ever at this parting of the ways, though it may seem to be disregarded. There will surely be a call upon it when the inner solitudes are foundimmeasurable, and when the spirit, almost affrighted at its own illimitable possibilities, turns back to the dear human hand and the loving glance and word that sufficed it always until now.
The need of patience.
Mothers must play a waiting game in these matters. Expostulation is worse than useless, only puzzling. Demands for explanation are worse than purposeless. Both tend to still further harass a perplexed mind. Only patience is recommendable, and always love, and plenty of it, for the young sons and daughters. They may not seem to need it, and may even appear to be indifferent to it; but it is good for them to know that when they want it, as they very surely will, it is there for them. These doves that return to the ark are often very weary, and long for rest and comfort. Too often they find coldness and repulsion.
The young genius.
Mr. Andrew Lang says that the future genius is often violent, ferocious, fond of solitude, disagreeable in society. And how is the mother to divine from these qualities a budding poet or a master of men? For there are crowds of disagreeable, rude boys to be found on every hand. Intuitive knowledge would be desirable on this point, but we cannot have it, and without it the only thing to do is to correct faults vigorously, but never to discontinue affection.Many parents are good at one or other, but it is the few who can manage both.About gentleness.Gentleness is such a delightful quality that it is often encouraged and applauded at the expense of firmness; and the moral courage necessary for exercising the latter remains untrained, and soon dies out for want of care. For this kind of courage only needs practice, like patience and the piano, and, fortunately, each effort makes it easier. Great, rough boys are wonderfully amenable to gentleness when they know that firmness lies behind it. Lacking that, it is regarded as “softness,” and played upon for their own purposes. It is deplorable to see the way the boys are treated in some families. They are noisy and ill-mannered, it is true; but they would improve if they could only be gently borne with, instead of being made to feel as if they were nuisances and interlopers. They may never be geniuses, but for all that they have a right to consideration in the only home they know. And they do not always get it. Listen to the lament of one of them:—
The Boy’s Lament.
“What can a boy do, and where can a boy stay,If he always is told to get out of the way?He cannot sit here, and he mustn’t stand there,The cushions that cover that gaily-decked chairWere put there, of course, to be seen and admired;A boy has no business to feel a bit tired.The beautiful carpets with blossom and bloomOn the floor of the tempting and light-shaded room,Are not made to be walked on—at least, not by boys.The house is no place, anyway, for their noise.There’s a place for the boys. They will find it somewhere,And if our own homes are too daintily fairFor the touch of their fingers, the tread of their feet,They’ll find it, and find it, alas! in the street,’Mid the gildings of sin and the glitter of vice;And with heartaches and longings we pay a dear priceFor the getting of gain that our lifetime employsIf we fail in providing a place for our boys.Though our souls may be vexed with the problems of life,And worn with besetments and toiling and strife,Our hearts will keep younger—your tired heart and mine—If we give them a place in our innermost shrine;And till life’s latest hour ’twill be one of our joysThat we keep a small corner—a place for the boys.”
The vicious side of tidiness.
We have all heard of the fortunate lady whose “very failings leaned to virtue’s side.” Is there a converse to her? Do none of our virtues lean to vice’s side? I think I could enumerate a few, but for the moment the vicious side of tidiness is so strongly borne in upon me that I need go no further afield. Tidiness is delightful, meritorious, indispensable, admirable, estimable, praiseworthy, politic, and most precious. Untidiness is execrable, reprehensible, unseemly, and quite detestable. It is first cousin to uncleanliness, and is the mother of much domestic warfare. Tidiness is a virtue, indeed, but when carried to an extreme it becomes actually a disagreeable quality. My first impression to that effect was imbibed at the early age of nine, when I was sent to a boarding school. Separated from home and all familiar faces, I had a miserable heart-ache, even in the reception-room, but the sight of the awful tidiness of the dormitory chilled me to the very soul.Tyrannical cleanliness.The white walls, white beds, boarded floor, with its strips of carpet in a sadmonotone of tint, gave me my first definite sensation of the meaning of the word “bleak.” And ever after, when returned to school from the holidays, I dreaded the moment of entering that long dormitory, where tidiness and cleanliness reigned rampant, like tyrants, instead of inviting, like the friendly, comfortable things they really are.
Selfish neatness.
I know a mother who will not allow her children to have toys, “because they are always lying about.” Well, toys are a very good means of teaching children tidiness; but the true mother-heart must be lacking when the young ones are robbed of their childish joys for so selfish a reason. Childhood lasts so short a time, and can be so happy. Why curtail its little blisses? Just a few toys are more productive of pleasure than the plethora which so many nurseries display nowadays. And why should tidiness forbid a few?
For my part I like to see a battered old doll knocking about in the drawing-room of my friends. Generally armless, sometimes legless, occasionally headless, that doll becomes an enchanted spring of poetry when its small proprietress comes in and takes it up, loving it deeply and warmly in spite of its painful ugliness, its damaged condition, and general want of charm. Is not that what love does for us all?Ignoring our faults, it throws its glamour over us, and gives us what enriches the donor as well as the recipient—the most precious thing on earth.
About dolly.
The mother who deprives her small daughter of a doll sacrifices more than she knows to the demon of tidiness, and she robs herself of much delight. The consultations about dolly’s health are often funny enough. The discussions about the wax and bran-stuffed thing’s temper and naughtiness give many a peep into those departments of the child’s own nature, afford many a clue to the best method of treating them, and are, besides, amusing beyond expression. And where is poor Tommy, among boys, without his gun, his sword, and pistol? He is despised of his peers, and almost despises himself in consequence. It is bad for Tommy, very bad. Yes; tidiness can be very selfish. One can scarcely pardon the mothers who allow it to interfere with home joys.
“Those messy flowers.”
I know people who object to flowers in the house because “they are so messy.” They droop and die indeed. ’Tis a true indictment, but they are worth some trouble, are they not? Ultra-tidiness would banish them, and some of us would willingly be banished with them from the realms so ruled. Flowers do not last nearly so long when housed by persons of this sort aswith those who love them, tend them daily, cherish them with warmest care, anticipate their needs, as only love can do, and attract from them some subtle, scarcely comprehensible, sympathy that prolongs the existence of these exquisite, innocent things, whose companionship means so much to man.
“Tone.”
The æsthetes in their day revelled in untidiness. They made a cult of it, and in their worship included a leaning towards dirt, which they canonised under the name of “Tone.” Many of them permitted even their faces to acquire tone by this means, which was carrying the thing too far. But they did much for succeeding generations in banishing a too pronounced neatness from dress and the home.The grateful shade of the æsthete.Has not the influence of the æsthete delivered us from the terrible propriety of chairs ranged along the wall, piano to match, and the centre-table, with its unalterable rigidity of central ornament and rim of book and vase in conic sectional immutability?
Oh, it was all most beautifully tidy, but do, for a moment, recall it and compare it with the drawing-room of to-day. I do not mean the dusty litter of dilapidated draperies and orgie of over-crowded ornament to be found in some houses, but to the sane, yet artistic arrangement of table and lamp, piano and pottery, palm and vase, clustering fern and glowing blossom orsnowy flower, to be seen in thousands of English homes at the present hour. Here tidiness is not absent, but its rigours are avoided. Its essence is extracted, while its needless extremes—its suburbs, as it were—are totally ignored. We have learned how to be clean, yet decorative, in our homes and our costume, to distinguish between severity and simplicity, and, so far, good. But the point is that tidiness should not overcome us to the hurt of others, and consequently our own.A word to the wise.If husbands persist in leaving a trail of newspapers all over the house, something after the fashion of the “hare” in a paper-chase, let us calmly fold them and assuage our inner revolt as best we may. If the children scatter their toys about, we can make them put them tidily away, and that is more than we can manage with their fathers! But to be too acutely tidy leads to friction and the development of that “incompatibility of temper” which seems to be quite a modern disease, to judge from the very numerous instances of it that come before the public notice.
Woman’s influence in the home.
It is usually the wife and mother who sets the key of behaviour in the home. If she is loud and rough, her servants and her children will follow suit. If she is gentle, kindly, and patient, her example will exercise a subtle influence on even the noisest of her domestics. Sometimes, when a man has married beneath him, his first disillusionment, after the glamour of his love is past, is caused by thebrusquerieof the uneducated and ill-trained wife. And, on the other hand, when a girl or woman has married beneath her own class—run away with a handsome groom or become the wife of a good-looking jockey—her domestic experiences are calculated to be her severest punishment. A relative of one such misguided girl, having visited her in her married home, said afterwards to a friend: “His manners at table, my dear, are simply frightful, but they compare agreeably with his behaviour anywhere else, for he neither talks nor swears when he is eating.” What a life-companion for a well-bred girl! Should the husbandhave any gentleness or goodness stowed away within him, he is sure to improve as time goes on. His wife is an education to him, but at such a tremendous cost to herself as to be absolutely incalculable.
Where manners are absent.
In ordinary cases, however, it is the wife who is responsible for the home manners. And, oh! what a difference they make! In some families there is a constant jar and fret of sulks and little tempers. Politeness among the members is wholly ignored. Each one says the first disagreeable thing that occurs to him, and the others warmly follow suit. The habit grows on all, and the result is a state of things that makes the gentle-minded among the inmates of the home long for peace and rest, and seize the first opportunity of leaving it. And it is so easy, after all, to initiate a far different and more agreeable state of things. The young ones can be trained to gentleness and good manners, to self-control under provocation, and to the daily practice of those small acts of self-denial, self-control, and true courtesy, which do so much towards building up conditions of home happiness.
Churlish natures.
There are, of course, churlish natures which nothing could ever influence in the direction of true politeness, which always means self-effacement to a certain extent. It is of such as these that astudent of human nature has said, “Grattez le Russe, et vous trouvez le Tartare.” Would that such beings were confined to Russia! How happy would other countries be in their absence! The smallest touch to their vanity, their enormously developed self-love, their triumphant self-conceit, robs them in a moment of any surface polish they may ever have acquired.Their rampant egotism.As a breath upon a mirror dulls its brightness, and renders it useless for the purposes for which it is made, so does the merest suggestion or shadow of a shade of blame or criticism dull the touchy human subject, for a day, for a week, perhaps longer, rendering him or her unfit for ordinary social intercourse The egotism of such an one is ever rampant. It pervades his atmosphere, so that one can touch and hurt it from afar, with the most genuine absence of any intention to do so.
Their presence a blight.
Oh, how disagreeable they are! What cloudy blackness they spread over the home! How they kill the little joys and blisses that might otherwise surround the domestic hearth, giving human creatures solace for much suffering! And, worse still, how completely they destroy the affection that might be theirs, if only they could unwrap themselves from the envelope of self in which they are enshrouded. No love, not even the strongest, can sustain itselfagainst years of brutal roughness, intermittent it is true, but ever imminent. For who can tell how innocently or unconsciously one may wound the outrageous self-conceit of one of these? Martyrs in their own idea, they offer a spectacle to gods and men which, could they but see it with clearness in its true aspect, would be so mortifying and humiliating that it would convey a highly salutary lesson. But they can never see anything in its true light that is connected with themselves. If love is blind, what on earth is self-love?
A brighter picture.
But fortunately these dreadful people are comparatively rare; and the majority of English homes—thousands and thousands of them, thank God!—are abodes of peace and love, refuges from the cares of business and the coldness of the outer world. The gentle courtesies of look and manner are not reserved for strangers, but freely dispensed in the domestic circle. The smile, the word of sympathy spoken in season, whether in the happiness or troubles of the others, the thoughtfulness translated into actions of kindly care for the well-being of all within the house; all these are of almost angelic import in daily life. One is inclined to deify gentleness and the sweet humility that is never exacting when one realises how immensely they act and re-act on home-life. It is, perhaps, possible to rate them too highly; but there are moments inwhich they appear to be virtues of the very first order.
The mother’s duty to her children.
It is the mother’s duty to teach children to behave well at home and elsewhere. Too often she fails in it, and the young ones are unruly. The great lesson of obedience has not been learned; not even begun. And yet it means so much that is beyond and above mere obedience! It is the beginning of moral training. It is like the mastering of the clefs and notes in music. That done, the learner may teach himself. Left undone, there is nothing but discord to be evolved from his best efforts.
Tyrants of Nursery-land.
Fathers have not the same chance of spoiling the children. When they do, they chiefly incline to pet the girls. Mothers prefer, as a rule, to spoil the boys; and many a wife owes half her married misery to the injudicious years of misrule in which her husband’s boyhood was passed. Even now the girls are taught in many a nursery to give up at once anything that the boys may wish for. Is it not true? And, being true, is it surprising that the age of chivalry is fading, fading? And often, in Nursery-land, there is a tyrant girl. That tyrant girl, generally the eldest child, rules the little ones with a rod of iron, supplies the lacking discipline of parents with a terrorism which is founded on no principles of order orof justice, and nourishes in infant breasts a like sentiment of tyranny to her own, that of the trampled slave who waits only for opportunity to be tyrant in his turn. That is what the carelessness of elders does in the nursery!
The home of the ideal house-ruler.
But the gentle firmness of the ideal house-ruler is as genially expansive as the warm southern airs that come in April, and make us forget, in a moment, the long bitterness of winter. If every one is not happy in the homes where it is to be found, at least every one has a chance of happiness. There is a wonderful solace in even the superficial sweetness of politeness in such a home. The stranger within its gates is at once aware of a balmy moral atmosphere, from which harsh words, frowning looks, recriminations, scowls, sulks, and all their kin are wholly banished, and where the amenities of life are at least as much studied as its more substantial needs. Has not Solomon himself given us a precedent for according more importance to the former than to the latter? Has he not told us that—“Better is the dinner of herbs where love is than the stalled ox and hatred therewith”?
The old, old story.
Has any one ever met, in real life, the woman who screams and jumps on a chair at the sight of a mouse? I have never heard of her out of the servants’ hall, where ladies’ maids appear to carry on the traditions of sensibility kept up by their betters two or three generations since, when nerves, swoonings, and burnt feathers played a prominent part in the lives of fashionable women. A little mouse has nothing terrible about it, vermin though it be in strict classification. Now, if it had been a rat! Or a blackbeetle! A large, long-legged, rattling cockroach! Truly, these are awesome things, and even the strongest-minded of women hate the sight of them. Very few women, I take it, are afraid of mice. And yet, as the world rolls on, that little story of a small grey mouse and screeching women will reappear again and again, dressed up in fresh fancy costumes, when news is scarce and a corner of the paper has to be filled up.
Are we moral cowards?
But though we can watch with interest and amusement, and a sort ofkindly feeling, the actions of a mouse, we are sad cowards all the same. Some of us are physically cowardly, though by no means all; but very few of us are morally brave. I heard a sermon not long ago on moral cowardice as shown in the home. And who shall deny that it is very, very difficult to obey the old dictum: “Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra,” and to deal faithfully with the members of the home circle, from paterfamilias himself down to the little maid in the basement territory? The responsibility of the whole matter lies with the wife and mother, involving many a hard task, many a battle fought against the secret shrinking from giving pain, or causing disappointment, or rousing temper.The children.How difficult it is to refuse some pleasure to the children we love, because it is injudicious for them, and how fatally easy to give in weakly, and prove ourselves cowardly! And sometimes the punishment comes quickly: “Oh, if I had only been firm, all this might have been prevented!” we cry in pain and sorrow when all the evil consequences we had dimly foreseen have become actual fact.One need not fear to be brave.Some of us are so afraid that the children will love us less if we interfere with their childish joys and pleasures. But, after all, this need not be taken into account, for the youngsters possess adivining crystal in their own clear thoughts, and know well when Love is at the helm. They can discern in a moment whether an arbitrary self-will dictates the course of things or that single-minded affection that seeks the truest good of those who are in its charge. They will not love us less, but more, as time goes on.
Besides, it is ignoble to be influenced by consequences that may result to ourselves, even possible loss of affection, the only earthly thing that is worth living for. “Advienne que pourra” are the grand old words.
A difficult task.
A friend of mine, whose husband became a drunkard, told me that the most difficult thing she had ever done in her life was to remonstrate with him when he first began to drink too much. It was a clear duty, and she did it, but it required the summoning up of all her fortitude, as some who read these words may know but too well from their own experience. “When I began,” she told me, “my knees trembled, and at last I shook as if I had been in an ague. It was quite dreadful to me to speak to him, and yet he took it as though I were out of temper, and merely shrewish.” “And did it do any good?” I asked, and she told me that he was better for a few weeks, and seemed to be struggling against the love of drink, but that after a couple of months things were as bad as ever again.
Cowardice with friends.
I do not know any one possessed of sufficient moral courage to deal faithfully with their friends and relatives on the subject of objectionable little ways in eating or drinking, or in the hundred and one little actions of daily life. We endure silently the sight of excessively disagreeable habits rather than risk giving mortal offence. In fact, we are sad cowards. “How dreadful it is to sit opposite So-and-so when he is eating,” says one member of the family to another. “He ought to be told about it.” “Oh, I couldn’t! I simply could not,” is the instant reply, and the other echoes, “Nor I. Not for worlds!” And So-and-so goes on in his ugly ways, throwing food into his mouth as though the latter were a cave without a door, and everywhere he goes this lack of good manners makes people take a dislike to him. He certainly ought to be told of it; but who is to tell him?
A penalty of eminence.
If it is difficult in the home, what must it be in the case of the high ones of the earth, to whom all the world turns a courtier face? Some time ago I was asked to meet at luncheon a very great lady, one whom in my thoughts I had placed on a sort of pedestal on account of her beauty, her high place in the world, and her many sorrows. I was delighted, and eagerly accepted the invitation. The lady was beautiful still, in spite of her grey hair, but all her charm isspoiled by a habit of almost incessant snorting—no less vivid word will express it! At the luncheon table it was not only excessively pronounced, but additionally disagreeable. Romance had shone like a star in all my thoughts about this great lady until then, but the radiance died away on the instant and has never again returned—“Alles ist weg!” And such a trifle, too, after all! If only some one had dared to deal faithfully with that great lady there would be nothing to disgust or offend about her.
Glass houses?
We know ourselves so little that we should carefully cherish an acute distrust, and be ready to suspect in our own persons the existence of some flaw or imperfection for every one we detect in others. Perhaps it is an inward consciousness that we live in a glass house that makes us fear to throw stones.
Correcting the maids.
It is with a quaking heart that the mistress of a household remonstrates with her maids on any point in which they have failed in duty. It needs considerable moral courage to discharge oneself of this necessary task. One puts off the evil moment as long as possible, and meditates in the night watches as to the most feasible plan of getting it done. And very often the point is weakly abandoned. We cannot risk exposing ourselves to the “tongue-thrashing” in which some of thebasement ladies are such gifted performers.A recipe for fault-finding.The safest way is always to mingle praise with blame, just as we hide a powder in jam. “You are always so very neat, Mary, that I am sure this cannot be neglect, but just a little bit of forgetfulness.” Or, “Your soups are generally so excellent, cook, that,” &c. This is a good recipe for fault-finding, and it works well, too, with our equals, though, of course, one has to be doubly careful in dealing courteously with so sensitive a class as servants.
Cowards all!
The fact is, we are cowards all, in face of any duty that threatens to affect the sunshiny atmosphere of home. We dread the clouds with a mortal fear, and are prone to sacrifice far more than we ought on the altar of Peace and Love. They are good and beautiful things, but they may be too dearly bought. And, above all, we must beware of indulging ourselves in them to the detriment of the best interests of others.
The Duchess of Teck, with all herbonhomieand graciousness of manner, was one of the most dignified of women. She could administer a rebuke, too, without uttering a word. I shall never forget her look when, on a semi-public, outdoor occasion, an individual of the civic kind approached her with his hat on his head. He had taken it off on his approach, but calmly replaced it as he stood before the Duchess and herhusband. A gleam of fun shone in the Duke’s eyes as he watched the episode. The Duchess, meanwhile, in dead silence, simply looked at the hat. The look was enough. Those large grey eyes of hers were eloquent. They said, as plainly as if the words had been spoken, “My good man, you are guilty of a very flagrant breach of etiquette. What a very ignorant person you must be!”
The wearer of the hat looked puzzled for a single instant as he marked the eyes of the Duchess fixed firmly on his head-gear. In another moment his hat was in his hand, and his face, ears, and neck were suffused with a most painful scarlet. He was all one abject apology. The Duchess, then, with a significant glance, quietly proceeded with the matter in hand.
Manly abstention.
I am no advocate of total abstinence. Quite the contrary! I am sorry for the man who has to bind himself down by oaths and vows to refrain from drink, because he knows that he cannot leave off when he has had enough. But if he abstains, not from any knowledge of inward weakness, but from the same motive that urged St. Paul to say: “I would not eat meat while the world lasts, lest I make my brother to offend,” then I honour him with all my heart. And this is honestly the principle on which many become total abstainers, women as well as men.
But what I want to get at is the ordinary everyday practice of drinking wine, which most of us follow in some degree or other. I do not refer to excessive drinking, inebriety, or anything of that kind, but merely the customary glass or two of wine at lunch, and two or three glasses at dinner. This can in no possible way be regarded as a bad habit. It is, in fact, the usual thing in polite society, and girls are brought up to it, and when they marry,and perhaps find that among other expensive habits this one has to be given up, they miss their glass of wine rather badly at first.Why should we have wine?Why should we have wine? That is the real question. There is no very particular reason why those who can afford it shouldnotdrink wine; but why should they do it? I think I could give a better set of reasonscontrathanproin this matter.
Reasons against the habits.
First comes the one already referred to: that circumstances may not always admit of their indulging themselves in this rather expensive habit. Good wine costs money, and cheap wine is often highly injurious.
Another good reason for not drinking wine habitually at table is that when the health is impaired by illness or low vitality arising from any cause, the invigorating effect of good wine is quite lost, owing to the system having become accustomed to it. This prevents it from acting upon the nerves and tissues as it would do most beneficially if there were any novelty about it.
A third reason for not doing it is that for patients who have made a continual practice of wine-drinking at meals, doctors are obliged, in quite nine cases out of ten, to forbid it, especially to women. And almost always they order whiskey instead. How often one hears people say nowadays—both men and women—“My doctorwon’t let me drink wine. He says I must have whiskey and water,if I drink anything.”
Sir Henry Thompson’s verdict.
No doubt the doctor would generally prefer that his patients should not drink even the whiskey, but he knows very well that the habit of a lifetime is not to be overcome without an amount of resolution which is by no means always forthcoming. Sir Henry Thompson, in his admirable book, “Food and Feeding,” gives it as his opinion that “thehabitualuse of wine, beer, or spirits is a dietetic error.” He adds to this very straight and direct pronouncement: “In other words, the great majority of people, at any age or of either sex,“A dietetic error.”will enjoy better health, both of body and mind, and will live longer, without alcoholic drinks whatever than with habitual indulgence in their use, even though such use be what is popularly understood as moderate. But I do not aver that any particular harm results from the habit of now and then enjoying a glass of really fine, pure wine, just as one may occasionally enjoy a particularly choice dish; neither the one nor the other, perhaps, being sufficiently innocuous or digestible for frequent, much less habitual, use.” And there is much more to practically the same effect. So that this eminent authority regards the habit of daily drinking wine as one that islikely to produce more or less injurious results upon the body, and possibly upon the mind as well.
The greatest danger.
And I have kept to the last another reason, and perhaps the strongest of any, against it. That is, the ever-present danger of learning to like wine too well, and of falling into the awful fault of drunkenness. I will add no word to this argument, for the miseries, degradation, and horrors of this kind of thing are only too well known.
A telling example.
Madame Sarah Bernhardt, who is as healthy, vigorous, and charming a woman of her age (I won’t mention what it is!) as it would be possible to find, and who has preserved in a marvellous manner her dramatic powers, attributes her condition of blithe well-being to her life-long habit of abstinence from drinking wine or alcoholic beverages of any kind. It is not that she never touches them. Not at all! TheGrande Sarahcan enjoy a glass of champagne or Burgundy as well as any one—better, in fact, than most, since she has never accustomed herself to their constant use. She likes milk, and if any woman wants to keep her complexion at its best she should take to this unsophisticated beverage at once and abide by it.
The habitual use only deprecated.
There is no reason whatever that we should not enjoy wine at dinner-parties. I am so afraid of being misunderstoodthat I must run some risk of repeating myself. It is only with the habitual daily use of wine at lunch and dinner that I am finding fault. It serves no good end. But, on occasion, let it be enjoyed like other good gifts of a kindly Providence. Because some misuse it and abuse it there is no compulsion to avoid it upon those who do neither. If every one of the moderate drinkers in England were to become teetotallers there would be just the same number of drunkards left in the land, pursuing their own courses. They would not be affected by the abstinence of others.
A mournful dinner-party.
A dinner-party without wine is rather a mournful business. I was at one once. It was several years ago, but I have never forgotten it. It was the first occasion on which I ever tasted a frightful temperance drink called “gooseberry champagne.” It is also likely to be the last! Oh, no! Do not let us have wineless dinner-parties! The very point of my argument is that if we refrain from the habit of drinking it daily our enjoyment of it on such social occasions is very greatly enhanced. But what are we to drink? I fully admit that the perfect drink has yet to be invented. Water would be good enough for most of us if we could only get it pure. But this is difficult indeed. And even if our water supply were to be immaculate we should lackfaith in its perfection! Could we have our glass jugs filled at some far-off mountain rill, miles away from London smoke and its infected atmosphere, we should have to look no further for a delicious drink, pure, invigorating, and of so simple a character as leaves the flavours of food unimpaired for the palate.