Isit on the shore of the deep blue seaAs the tide comes rolling in,And wonder, as roaming in sunlit dreams,The cause of the breakers’ din.For each of the foam-crowned billowsHas a wonderful story to tell,And the surge’s mystical musicSeems wrought by a fairy spell.I wander through memory’s portals,Through mansions dim and vast,And gaze at the beautiful picturesThat hang in the halls of the past.And dream-faces gather around me,With voices soft and low,To draw me back to the pleasuresOf the lands of long ago.There are visions of beauty and splendour,And a fame that I never can win—Far out on the deep they are sailing—My ships that will never come in.
Isit on the shore of the deep blue seaAs the tide comes rolling in,And wonder, as roaming in sunlit dreams,The cause of the breakers’ din.For each of the foam-crowned billowsHas a wonderful story to tell,And the surge’s mystical musicSeems wrought by a fairy spell.I wander through memory’s portals,Through mansions dim and vast,And gaze at the beautiful picturesThat hang in the halls of the past.And dream-faces gather around me,With voices soft and low,To draw me back to the pleasuresOf the lands of long ago.There are visions of beauty and splendour,And a fame that I never can win—Far out on the deep they are sailing—My ships that will never come in.
It was a muddy down-town corner and several people stood in the cold, waiting for a street-car. A stand of daily papers was on the sidewalk, guarded by two little newsboys. One was much younger than the other, and he rolled two marbles back and forth in the mud by the curb. Suddenly his attention was attracted by something bright above him, and he looked up into a bunch of red carnations a young lady held in her hands. He watched them eagerly, seemingly unable to take his eyes from the feast of colour. She saw the hungry look in the little face, and put one into his hand. He was silent, until his brother said: “Say thanky to the lady.” He whispered his thanks, and then she bent down and pinned the blossom upon his ragged jacket, while the big policeman on the corner smiled approvingly.
“My, but you’re gay now, and you can sell all your papers,” the bigger boy said tenderly.
“Yep, I can sell ’em now, sure!”
Out of the crowd on the opposite corner came a tiny, dark-skinned Italian girl, with an accordion slung over her shoulder by a dirty ribbon; she made straight for the carnations and fearlessly cried, “Lady, please give me a flower!” She got one, and quickly vanished in the crowd.
The young woman walked up the street to a flower-stand to replenish her bunch of carnations, and when she returned, another dark-skinned mite rushed up to her without a word, only holding up grimy hands with a gesture of pathetic appeal. Another brilliant blossom went to her, and the young woman turned to follow her; on through the crowd the child fled, until she reached the corner where her mother stood, seamed and wrinkled and old, with the dark pathetic eyes of sunny Italy. She held the flower out to her, and the weary mother turned and snatched it eagerly,then pressed it to her lips, and kissed it as passionately as if it had been the child who brought it to her.
Just then the car came, and the big grey policeman helped the owner of the carnations across the street, and said as he put her on the car, “Lady, you’ve sure done them children a good turn to-day.”
Isail through the realms of the long ago,Wafted by fancy and visions frail,On the river Time with its gentle flow,In a silver boat with a golden sail.My dreams, in the silence are hurrying byOn the brooklet of Thought where I let them flow,And the “lilies nod to the sound of the stream”As I sail through the realms of the long ago.On the shores of life’s deep-flowing streamAre my countless sorrows and heartaches, too,And the hills of hope are but dimly seen,Far in the distance, near heaven’s blue.I find that my childish thoughts and dreamsLie strewn on the sands by the cruel blastThat scattered my hopes on the restless streamsThat flow through the mystic realms of the past.
Isail through the realms of the long ago,Wafted by fancy and visions frail,On the river Time with its gentle flow,In a silver boat with a golden sail.My dreams, in the silence are hurrying byOn the brooklet of Thought where I let them flow,And the “lilies nod to the sound of the stream”As I sail through the realms of the long ago.On the shores of life’s deep-flowing streamAre my countless sorrows and heartaches, too,And the hills of hope are but dimly seen,Far in the distance, near heaven’s blue.I find that my childish thoughts and dreamsLie strewn on the sands by the cruel blastThat scattered my hopes on the restless streamsThat flow through the mystic realms of the past.
Some wit has said that the worst vice in the world is advice, and it is also quite true that one ignorant, though well-meaning person can sometimes accomplish more damage in a short time, than a dozen people who start out for the purpose of doing mischief.
The newspapers and periodicals of to-day are crowded with advice to women, and while much of it is found in magazines for women, written and edited by men, it is also true that a goodly quantity of it comes from feminine writers; it is all along the same lines, however, the burden of effort being to teach the weaker sex how to become more attractive and more lovable to the lords of creation. It is, of course, all intended for our good, for if we can only please the men, and obey their slightestwish even before they take the trouble to mention the matter, we can then be perfectly happy.
A man can sit down any day and give us directions enough to keep us busy for a lifetime, and we seldom or never return the compliment. This is manifestly unfair, and so this little preachment is meant for the neglected and deserving men, and for them only, so that all women who have read thus far are invited to leave the matter right here and turn their attention to the column of “Advice to Women” which they can find in almost any periodical.
In the first place, gentlemen, we must admit that you do keep us guessing, though we do not sit up nights nor lose much sleep over your queer notions.
We can’t ask you many questions, either, dear brethren, for, as you know, you rather like to fib to us, and sometimes we are able to find it out, and then we never believe you any more.
We may venture, however, to ask small favours of you, and one of these is that youdo not wear red ties. You look so nice in quiet colours that we dislike exceedingly to have you make crazy quilts of yourselves, and that is just what you do when you begin experimenting with colours which we naturally associate with the “cullud pussons.”
And a cane may be very ornamental, but it’s of no earthly use, and we would rather you would not carry it when you go out with us.
Never tell us you haven’t had time to come and see us, or write to us, because we know perfectly well that if you wanted to badly enough, you would take the time, so the excuse makes us even madder than does the neglect. Still, when you don’t want to come, we would not have you do it for anything.
There is an old saying that “absence makes the heart grow fonder”—so it does—of the other fellow. We don’t propose to shed any tears over you; we simply go to the theatre with the other man and have an extremely good time. When you arevery, very bright, you can manage some way not to allow us to forget you for a minute, nor give us much time to think of anything else.
When we are angry, for heaven’s sake don’t ask us why, because that shows your lack of penetration. Just simply call yourself a brute, and say you are utterly unworthy of even our faint regard, and you will soon realise that this covers a lot of ground, and everything will be all right in a few minutes.
And whatever you do, don’t show any temper yourself. A woman requires of a man that he shall be as immovable as the rock of Gibraltar, no matter what she does to him. And you play your strongest card when you don’t mind our tantrums—even though it’s a state secret we are telling you.
Don’t get huffy when you meet us with another man; in nine cases out of ten, that’s just what we do it for. And don’t make the mistake of retaliating by asking another girl somewhere. You’ll have a perfectlymiserable time if you do, both then and afterward.
When you do come to see us, it is not at all nice to spend the entire evening talking about some other girl. How would you like to have the graces of some other man continually dinned into your ears? Sometimes we take that way in order to get a rest from your overweening raptures over the absent girl.
We have a well-defined suspicion that you talk us over with your chums and compare notes. But, bless you, it can’t possibly hold a candle to the thorough and impartial discussions that some of you get when girls are together, either in small bevies, or with only one chosen friend. And we don’t very much care what you say about us, for a man never judges a woman by the opinion of any one else, but another woman’s opinion counts for a great deal with us, so you would better be careful.
If you are going to say things that you don’t mean, try to stamp them with the air of sincerity—if you can once get awoman to fully believe in your sincerity, you have gone a long way toward her heart.
Haven’t you found out that women are not particularly interested in anecdotes? Please don’t tell us more than fifteen in the same evening.
And don’t begin to make love to us before you have had time to make a favourable impression along several lines—a man, as well as a woman, loses ground and forfeits respect by making himself too cheap.
If a girl runs and screams when she has been caught standing under the mistletoe, it means that she will not object; if she stiffens up and glares at you, it means that she does. The same idea is sometimes delicately conveyed by the point of a pin. But a woman will be able to forgive almost anything which you can make her believe was prompted by her own attractiveness, at least unless she knows men fairly well.
You know, of course, that we will not show your letters, nor tell when you ask us to marry you and are refused. This much a woman owes to any man who hashonoured her with an offer of marriage—to keep his perfect trust sacredly in her own heart. Even her future husband has no business to know of this—it is her lover’s secret, and she has no right to betray it.
Keeping the love-letters and the offers of marriage from any honourable man safe from a prying world are points of honour which all good women possess, although we may sometimes quote certain things from your letters, as you do from ours.
There’s nothing you can tell a woman which will please her quite so much as that knowing her has made you better, especially if you can prove it by showing a decided upward tendency in your morals. That’s your good right bower, but don’t play it too often—keep it for special occasions.
There’s one mistake you make, dear brethren, and that is telling a woman you love her as soon as you find it out yourself, and the most of you will do that very thing. There is one case on record where a man waited fifteen minutes, but he nearly diedof the strain. The trouble is that you seldom stop to consider whether we are ready to hear you or not, nor whether the coast is clear, nor what the chances are in your favour. You simply relieve your mind, and trust in your own wonderful charms to accomplish the rest.
And we wish that when the proper time comes for you to speak your mind you’d try to do it artistically. Of course you can’t write it, unless you are far away from her, for if you can manage an opportunity to speak, a resort to the pen is cowardly. And don’t mind our evading the subject—we always do that on principle, but please don’t be scared, or at least don’t show it, whatever you may feel. If there is one thing a woman dislikes more than another it is a man who shows cowardice at the crucial point in life.
Every man, except yourself, dear reader, is conceited. And one particular sort of it makes us very, very weary. You are so blinded by your own perfections, so sure that we are desperately in love with you,that you sometimes give us little unspoken suggestions to that effect, and then our disgust is beyond words.
Another cowardly thing you sometimes do, and that is to say that we have spoiled your life—that we could have made you anything we pleased—and that you are going straight to perdition. If one woman is all that keeps you from going to ruin, you have secured a through ticket anyway, and it’s too late to save you. You don’t want a woman who might marry you only out of pity, and you are not going to die of a broken heart. Men die of broken vanity, sometimes, but their hearts are pretty tough, being made of healthy muscle.
You get married very much as you go down town in the morning. You run, like all possessed, until you catch your car, and then you sit down and read your newspaper. When you think your wife looks unusually well, it would not hurt you in the least to tell her so, and the way you leave her in the morning is going to settle her happiness for the day, though she may betoo proud to let you know that it makes any difference. Women are quick to detect a sham, and they don’t want you to say anything that you don’t feel, but you are pretty sure to feel tenderly toward her sometimes, careless though you may be, and then is the time to tell her so. You don’t want to wait until she is dead, and then buy a lily to put on her coffin. You’d better bring her the lily some time when you’ve been cross and grumpy.
But don’t imagine that a present of any kind ever atones for a hurt that has been given in words. There’s nothing you can say which is more manly or which will do you both so much good as the simple “forgive me” when you have been wrong.
Rest assured, gentlemen, that you who spend the most of your evenings in other company, and too often find fault with your meals when you come home, are the cause of many sorrowful talks among the women who are wise enough to know, even though your loyal wife may put up a brave front in your defense.
How often do you suppose the brave woman who loves you has been actually driven in her agony to some married friend whom she can trust and upon her sympathetic bosom has cried until she could weep no more, simply because of your thoughtless neglect? How often do you think she has planned little things to make your home-coming pleasant, which you have never noticed? And how often do you suppose she has desperately fought down the heartache and tried to believe that your absorption in business is the reason for your forgetfulness of her?
Do you ever think of these things? Do you ever think of the days before you were sure of her, when you treasured every line of her letters, and would have bartered your very hopes of heaven for the earthly life with her?
But perhaps you can hardly be expected to remember the wild sprint that you made from the breakfast table to the street-car.
Iam thy Pleasure. See, my face is fair—With silken strands of joy I twine thee round;Life has enough of stress—forget with me!Wilt thou not stay? Then go, thou art not bound.I am thy Pastime. Let me be to theeA daily refuge from the haunting fearsThat bind thee, choke thee, fill thy soul with woe.Seek thou my hand, let me assuage thy tears.I am thy Habit. Nay, start not, thy willIs yet supreme, for art thou not a man?Then draw me close to thee, for life is brief—A little space to pass as best one can.I am thy Passion. Thou shalt cling to meThrough all the years to come. The silken cordOf Pleasure has become a stronger bond,Not to be cleft, nor loosened at a word.I am thy Master. Thou shalt crush for meThe grapes of truth for wine of sacrifice;My clanking chains were forged for such as thee,I am thy Master—yea, I am thy vice!
Iam thy Pleasure. See, my face is fair—With silken strands of joy I twine thee round;Life has enough of stress—forget with me!Wilt thou not stay? Then go, thou art not bound.I am thy Pastime. Let me be to theeA daily refuge from the haunting fearsThat bind thee, choke thee, fill thy soul with woe.Seek thou my hand, let me assuage thy tears.I am thy Habit. Nay, start not, thy willIs yet supreme, for art thou not a man?Then draw me close to thee, for life is brief—A little space to pass as best one can.I am thy Passion. Thou shalt cling to meThrough all the years to come. The silken cordOf Pleasure has become a stronger bond,Not to be cleft, nor loosened at a word.I am thy Master. Thou shalt crush for meThe grapes of truth for wine of sacrifice;My clanking chains were forged for such as thee,I am thy Master—yea, I am thy vice!
Without pausing to inquire why savages and barbarians are capable of producing college professors, who sneer at the source from which they sprung, we may accept for the moment the masculine hypothesis of intellectual superiority. Some women have been heard to say that they wish they had been born men, but there is no man bold enough to say that he would like to be a woman.
If woman can produce a reasoning being, it follows that she herself must be capable of reasoning, since a stream can rise no higher than its fountain. And yet the bitter truth stares us in the face. We have no Shakespeare, Michelangelo, or Beethoven; our Darwins, our Schumanns are mute and inglorious; our Miltons, Raphaels, and Herbert Spencers have not arrived.
Call the roll of the great and how many women’s names will be found there? Scarcely enough to enable you to call the company mixed.
No woman in her senses wishes to be merely the female of man. She aspires to be distinctly different—to exercise her varied powers in wholly different ways. Ex-President Roosevelt said: “Equality does not imply identity of function.” We do not care to put in telephones or to collect fares on a street-car.
Primitive man set forth from his cave to kill an animal or two, then repaired to a secluded nook in the jungle, with other primitive men, to discuss the beginnings of politics. Primitive woman in the cave not only dressed his game, but she cooked the animal for food, made clothing of its skin, necklaces and bracelets of its teeth, passementerie of its claws, and needles of its sharper bones. What wonder that she had no time for an afternoon tea?
The man of the twentieth century has progressed immeasurably beyond this, buthis wife, industrially speaking, has not gone half so far. Is she not still in some cases a cave-dweller, while he roams the highways of the world?
If a woman mends men’s socks, should he not darn her lisle-thread hosiery, and run a line of machine stitching around the middle of the hem to prevent a disastrous run from a broken stitch? If she presses his ties, why should he not learn to iron her bits of fine lace?
Some one will say: “But he supports her. It is her duty.”
“Yes, dear friend, but similarly does he ‘support’ the servant who does the same duties. He also gives her seven dollars every Monday morning, or she leaves.” Are we to suppose that a wife is a woman who does general housework for board and clothes, with a few kind words thrown in?
A German lady, whom we well knew, worked all the morning attending to the comforts of her liege lord. In the dining room he was stretched out in an easy chair, while the queen of his heart brushed andrepaired his clothes—yes, and blacked his boots! Doubtless for a single kiss, redolent of beer and sausages, she would have pressed his trousers. Kind words and the fragrant osculation had already saved him three dollars at his tailor’s.
By such gold-brick methods, dear friends, do men get good service cheap. Would that we could do the same! Here, and gladly, we admit masculine superiority.
Our short-sightedness, our weakness for kind words, our graceful acceptance of the entire responsibility for the home, have chained us to the earth, while our lords soar. After having worked steadily for some six thousand years to populate the earth passably, some of us may now be excused from that duty.
Motherhood is a career for which especial talents are required. Very few women know how to bring up children properly. If you don’t believe it, look at the difference between our angelic offspring, and the little imps next door! It is as unreasonable to suppose that all women can be goodmothers as it is to suppose that all women can sing in grand opera.
And yet, let us hug to our weary hearts, in our most discouraged moments, the great soul-satisfying truth that men, no matter what they say or write, think that we are smarter than they are. Otherwise, they would not expect of us so much more than they can possibly do themselves.
In every field of woman’s work outside the house, the same illustration applies. They also think that we possess greater physical strength. They chivalrously shield us from the exhausting effort of voting, but allow us to stand in the street-cars, wash dishes, push a baby carriage, and scrub the kitchen floor. Should we not be proud because they consider us so much stronger and wiser than they? Interruptions are fatal to their work, as the wife of even a business man will testify.
What would have become of Spencer’sData of Ethicsif, while he was writing it, he had two dressmakers in the house? Should we have hadHamlet, if at the completionof the first act Mr. Shakespeare had given birth to twins, when he had made clothes for only one?
The great charm of marriage, as of life itself, is its unexpectedness. The only way to test a man is to marry him. If you live, it’s a mushroom; if you die, it’s a toadstool!
Or, as another saying goes: “Happiness after marriage is like the soap in the bath-tub; you knew it was there when you got in.”
Man’s clothes are ugly, but the styles change gradually. A judge on the bench may try a case lasting two weeks, and his hat will not be hopelessly behind the times when it is finished. A man can stoop to pick up a fallen magazine without pausing to remember that his front steels are not so flexible this year as they were last.
He is not distressed by the fear that some other man may have a suit just like his, or that the neighbours will think it is his last year’s suit dyed.
We women fritter ourselves away upon athousand unnecessary things. We waste our creative energies and our inspired moments upon pursuits so ephemeral that they are forgotten to-morrow. Our day’s work counts for nothing when tested by the standards of eternity. We are unjust, not only to ourselves, but to the men who strive for us, for civilisation must progress very slowly when half of us are dragged by pots and pans.
A house is a material fact, but a home is a fine spiritual essence which may pervade even the humblest abode. If love means harmony, why not try a little of it in the kitchen? Better a perfect salad than a poor poem; better a fine picture than an immaculate house.
Asigh for the spring, full flowered, promised spring,Laid on the tender earth, and those dear daysWhen apple blossoms gleamed against the blue!Ah, how the world of joyous robins sang:“I love but you, Sweetheart, I love but you!”A sigh for summer fled. In warm, sweet airHer thousand singers sped on shining wing;And all the inward life of budding grainThrobbed with a thousand pulses, while I clingTo you, my Sweet, with passion near to pain.A sigh for autumn past. The garnered fieldsLie desolate to-day. My heart is chillAs with a sense of dread, and on the shoreThe waves beat grey and cold, and seem to say:“No more, oh, waiting soul, oh nevermore!”A sigh for winter come. No singing bird,Nor harvest field, is near the path I tread;An empty husk is all I have to keep.The largess of my giving left me bare,And I ask God but for His Lethe—sleep.
Asigh for the spring, full flowered, promised spring,Laid on the tender earth, and those dear daysWhen apple blossoms gleamed against the blue!Ah, how the world of joyous robins sang:“I love but you, Sweetheart, I love but you!”A sigh for summer fled. In warm, sweet airHer thousand singers sped on shining wing;And all the inward life of budding grainThrobbed with a thousand pulses, while I clingTo you, my Sweet, with passion near to pain.A sigh for autumn past. The garnered fieldsLie desolate to-day. My heart is chillAs with a sense of dread, and on the shoreThe waves beat grey and cold, and seem to say:“No more, oh, waiting soul, oh nevermore!”A sigh for winter come. No singing bird,Nor harvest field, is near the path I tread;An empty husk is all I have to keep.The largess of my giving left me bare,And I ask God but for His Lethe—sleep.
The real man is not at all on the outskirts of civilisation. He is very much in evidence and everybody knows him. He has faults and virtues, and sometimes they get so mixed up that “you cannot tell one from t’other.”
He is erratic and often queer. He believes, with Emerson, that “with consistency a great soul has nothing to do.” And he is, of course, “a great soul.” Logical, isn’t it?
The average manthinksthat he is a born genius at love-making. Henders, inThe Professor’s Love Story, states it thus:
“Effie, ye ken there are some men ha’ a power o’er women.... They’re what ye might call ‘dead shots.’ Ye canna deny, Effie, that I’m one o’ those men!”
“Effie, ye ken there are some men ha’ a power o’er women.... They’re what ye might call ‘dead shots.’ Ye canna deny, Effie, that I’m one o’ those men!”
Even though a man may be obliged toadmit, in strict confidence between himself and his mirror, that he is not at all handsome, nevertheless he is certain that he has some occult influence over that strange, mystifying, and altogether unreasonable organ—a woman’s heart.
The real man is conceited. Of course you are not, dear masculine reader, for you are one of the bright particular exceptions, but all of your men friends are conceited—aren’t they?
And then he makes fun of his women folks because they spend so much time in front of the mirror in arranging hats and veils. But when a high wind comes up and disarranges coiffures and chapeaux alike, he takes “my ladye fair” into some obscure corner, and saying, “Pardon me, but your hat isn’t quite straight,” he will deftly restore that piece of millinery to its pristine position. That’s nice of him, isn’t it? He does very nice things quite often, this real man.
He says women are fickle. So they are, but men are fickle too, and will forget allabout the absent sweetheart while contemplating the pretty girls in the street. For while “absence makes the heart grow fonder” in the case of a woman, it is presence that plays the mischief with a man, and Miss Beauty present has a very unfair advantage over Miss Sweetheart absent.
The average man thinks he is a connoisseur of feminine attractiveness. He thinks he has tact, too, but there never was a man who was blessed with much of this valuable commodity. Still, as that is a favourite delusion with so large a majority of the human race, the conceit of the ordinary masculine individual ought not to be censured too strongly.
The real man is quite an expert at flattery. Every girl he meets, if she is at all attractive, is considered the most charming lady that he ever knew. He is sure she isn’t prudish enough to refuse him a kiss, and if she is, she wins not only his admiration, but that which is vastly better—his respect.
If she hates to be considered a prude and gives him the kiss, he is very sweet and appreciative at the time, but later on he confides to his chum that she is a silly sort of a girl, without a great deal of self-respect!
There are two things that the average man likes to be told. One is that his taste in dress is exceptional; the other that he is a deep student of human nature and knows the world thoroughly. This remark will make him your lifelong friend.
Again, the real man will put on more agony when he is in love than is needed for a first-class tragedy. But there’s no denying that most women like that sort of thing, you, dear dainty feminine reader, being almost the only exception to this rule.
But, resuming the special line of thought, man firmly believes that woman cannot sharpen a pencil, select a necktie, throw a stone, drive a nail, or kill a mouse, and it is very certain that she cannot cook a beef-steak in the finished style of which his lordship is capable.
Yes, man has his faults as well as woman. There is a vast room for improvement on both sides, but as long as this old earth of ours turns through shadow and sunlight, through sorrow and happiness, men and women will forgive and try to forget, and will cling to, and love each other.
Idreamt I saw an angel in the night,And she held forth Love’s book, limned o’er with gold,That I might read of days of chivalryAnd how men’s hearts were wont to thrill of old.Half wondering, I turned the musty leaves,For Love’s book counts out centuries as years,And here and there a page shone out undimmed,And here and there a page was blurred with tears.I read of Grief, Doubt, Silence unexplained—Of many-featured Wrong, Distrust, and Blame,Renunciation—bitterest of all—And yet I wandered not beyond Love’s name.At last I cried to her who held the book,So fair and calm she stood, I see her yet;“Why write these things within this book of Love?Why may we not pass onward and forget?”Her voice was tender when she answered me:“Half child, half woman, earthy as thou art,How should’st thou dream that Love is never LoveUnless these things beat vainly on the heart?”
Idreamt I saw an angel in the night,And she held forth Love’s book, limned o’er with gold,That I might read of days of chivalryAnd how men’s hearts were wont to thrill of old.Half wondering, I turned the musty leaves,For Love’s book counts out centuries as years,And here and there a page shone out undimmed,And here and there a page was blurred with tears.I read of Grief, Doubt, Silence unexplained—Of many-featured Wrong, Distrust, and Blame,Renunciation—bitterest of all—And yet I wandered not beyond Love’s name.At last I cried to her who held the book,So fair and calm she stood, I see her yet;“Why write these things within this book of Love?Why may we not pass onward and forget?”Her voice was tender when she answered me:“Half child, half woman, earthy as thou art,How should’st thou dream that Love is never LoveUnless these things beat vainly on the heart?”
He isn’t nearly so scarce as one might think, but happy is the woman who finds him, for he is often a bit out of the beaten paths, sometimes in the very suburbs of our modern civilisation. He is, however, coming to the front rather slowly, to be sure, but nevertheless he is coming.
He wouldn’t do for the hero of a dime novel—he isn’t melancholy in his mien, nor Byronic in his morals. It is a frank, honest, manly face that looks into the other end of our observation telescope when we sweep the horizon to find something higher and better than the rank and file of humanity.
He is a gentleman, invariably courteous and refined. He is careful in his attire, but not foppish. He is chivalrous in hisattitude toward woman, and as politely kind to the wrinkled old woman who scrubs his office floor as to the aristocratic belle who bows to him from her carriage.
He is scrupulously honest in all his dealings with his fellow men, and meanness of any sort is utterly beneath him. He has a happy way of seeing the humorous side of life, and he is an exceedingly pleasant companion.
When the love light shines in his eyes, kindled at the only fire where it may be lighted, he has nothing in his past of which he need be ashamed. He stands beside her and pleads earnestly and manfully for the treasure he seeks. Slowly he turns the pages of his life before her, for there is not one which can call a blush to his cheek, or to hers.
Truth, purity, honesty, chivalry, the highest manliness—all these are written therein, and she gladly accepts the clean heart which is offered for her keeping.
Her life is now another open book. To him her nature seems like a harp of athousand strings, and every note, though it may not be strong and high, is truth itself, and most refined in tone.
So they join hands, these two: the sweetheart becomes the wife; the lover is the husband.
He is still chivalrous to every woman, but to his wife he pays the gentler deference which was the sweetheart’s due. He loves her, and is not ashamed to show it. He brings her flowers and books, just as he used to do when he was teaching her to love him. He is broad-minded, and far-seeing—he believes in “a white life for two.” He knows his wife has the same right to demand purity in thought, word, and deed from him, as he has to ask absolute stainlessness from her. That is why he has kept clean the pages of his life—why he keeps the record unsullied as the years go by.
He is tender in his feelings; if he goes home and finds his wife in tears, he doesn’t tell her angrily to “brace up,” or say, “this is a pretty welcome for a man!” Hedoesn’t slam the door and whistle as if nothing was the matter. But he takes her in his comforting arms and speaks soothing words. If his comrades speak lightly of his devotion, he simply thinks out other blessings for the little woman who presides at his fireside.
His wife is inexpressibly dear to him, and every day he shows this, and takes pains, also, to tell her so. He admires her pretty gowns, and is glad to speak appreciatively of the becoming things she wears. He knows instinctively that it is the thoughtfulness and the little tenderness which make a woman’s happiness, and he tries to make her realise that his love for her grew brighter, instead of fading, when the sweetheart blossomed into the wife. For every woman, old, wrinkled, and grey, or young and charming, likes to be loved.
The ideal man will do his utmost to make his wife realise that his devotion intensifies as the years go by.
What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joinedfor life—to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest upon each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting?
God bless the ideal man and hasten his coming in greater numbers.
Good-night, Sweetheart; the wingèd hours have flown;I have forgotten all the world but thee.Across the moon-lit deep, where stars have shone,The surge sounds softly from the sleeping sea.Thy heart at last hath opened to Love’s key;Remembered Aprils, glorious blooms have sown,And now there comes the questing honey bee.Good-night, Sweetheart; the wingèd hours have flown.My singing soul makes music in thine own,Thy hand upon my harp makes melody;So close the theme and harmony have grownI have forsaken all the world for thee.Before thy whiteness do I bend the knee;Thou art a queen upon a stainless throne,Like Dian making royal jubilee,Across the vaulted dark where stars are blown.Within my heart thy face shines out alone,Ah, dearest! Say for once thou lovest me!A whisper, even, like the undertoneThe surge sings slowly from the rhythmic sea.Thy downcast eyes make answer to my plea;A crimson mantle o’er thy cheek is thrownAssurance more than this, there need not be,For thus, within the silence, love is known.Good-night, Sweetheart.
Good-night, Sweetheart; the wingèd hours have flown;I have forgotten all the world but thee.Across the moon-lit deep, where stars have shone,The surge sounds softly from the sleeping sea.Thy heart at last hath opened to Love’s key;Remembered Aprils, glorious blooms have sown,And now there comes the questing honey bee.Good-night, Sweetheart; the wingèd hours have flown.My singing soul makes music in thine own,Thy hand upon my harp makes melody;So close the theme and harmony have grownI have forsaken all the world for thee.Before thy whiteness do I bend the knee;Thou art a queen upon a stainless throne,Like Dian making royal jubilee,Across the vaulted dark where stars are blown.Within my heart thy face shines out alone,Ah, dearest! Say for once thou lovest me!A whisper, even, like the undertoneThe surge sings slowly from the rhythmic sea.Thy downcast eyes make answer to my plea;A crimson mantle o’er thy cheek is thrownAssurance more than this, there need not be,For thus, within the silence, love is known.Good-night, Sweetheart.
The trend of modern thought in art and literature is toward the real, but fortunately the cherishing of the ideal has not vanished.
All of us, though we may profess to be realists, are at heart idealists, for every woman in the innermost sanctuary of her thoughts cherishes an ideal man. And every man, practical and commonplace though he be, has before him in his quiet moments a living picture of grace and beauty, which, consciously or not, is his ideal woman.
Every man instinctively admires a beautiful woman. But when he seeks a wife, he demands other qualities besides that wonderful one which is, as the proverb tells us, “only skin deep.”
If men were not such strangely inconsistentbeings, the world would lose half its charm. Each sex rails at the other for its inconsistency, when the real truth is that nowhere exists much of that beautiful quality which is aptly termed a “jewel.”
But humanity must learn with Emerson to seek other things than consistency, and to look upon the lightning play of thought and feeling as an index of mental and moral growth.
For those who possess the happy faculty of “making the best of things,” men are really the most amusing people in existence. To hear a man dilate upon the virtues and accomplishments of the ideal woman he would make his wife is a most interesting diversion, besides being a source of what may be called decorative instruction.
She must, first of all, be beautiful. No man, even in his wildest moments, ever dreamed of marrying any but a beautiful woman, yet, in nine cases out of ten when he does go to the altar, he is leading there one who is lovely only in his own eyes.
He has read Swinburne and Tennysonand is very sure he won’t have anything but “a daughter of the gods, divinely tall, and most divinely fair.” Then, of course, there is the “classic profile,” the “deep, unfathomable eyes,” the “lily-white skin,” and “hair like the raven’s wing,” not to mention the “swan-like neck” and “tapering, shapely fingers.”
Mr. Ideal is really a man of refined taste, and the women who hear this impassioned outburst are supremely conscious of their own imperfections.
But beauty is not the only demand of this fastidious gentleman; the fortunate woman whom he deigns to honour must be a paragon of sweetness and docility. No “woman’s rights” or “suffrage rant” for him, and none of those high-stepping professional women need apply either—oh, no! And then all of her interests must be his, for of all things on earth, he “does despise a woman with a hobby!” None of these “broad-minded women” were ever intended for Mr. Ideal. He is very certain of that, because away down in his secretheart he was sure he had found the right woman once, but when he did, he learned also that she was somewhat particular about the man she wanted to marry, and the applicant then present did not fill the bill! He is therefore very sure that “a man does not want an intellectual instructor: he wants a wife.”
Just like the most of them after all, isn’t he?
The year goes round and Mr. Ideal goes away on a summer vacation. There are some pleasant people in the little town to which he goes, and there is a girl in the party with her mother and brother. Mr. Ideal looks her over disapprovingly. She isn’t pretty—no, she isn’t even good-looking. Her hair is almost red, her eyes are a pale blue, and she wears glasses. Her nose isn’t even straight, and it turns up too much besides. Her skin is covered with tiny golden-brown blotches. “Freckles!” exclaims Mr. Ideal,sotto voce. Her mouth isn’t bad, the lips are red and full and her teeth are white and even. Shewears a blue boating suit with an Eton jacket. “So common!” and Mr. Ideal goes away from his secluded point of observation.
A merry laugh reaches his ear, and he turns around. The tall brother is chasing her through the bushes, and she waves a letter tantalisingly at him as she goes, and finally bounds over a low fence and runs across the field, with her big brother in close pursuit. “Hoydenish!” and Mr. Ideal hums softly to himself and goes off to find Smith. Smith is a good fellow and asks Mr. Ideal to go fishing. They go, but don’t have a bite, and come home rather cross. Does Smith know the little red-headed girl who was on the piazza this morning?
Yes, he has met her. She has been here about a week. “Rather nice, but not especially attractive, you know.” No, she isn’t, but he will introduce Mr. Ideal.
Days pass, and Mr. Ideal and Miss Practical are much together. He finds her the jolliest girl he ever knew. She is anenthusiastic advocate of “woman” in every available sphere.
She herself is going to be a trained nurse after she learns to “keep house.” “For you know that every woman should be a good housekeeper,” she says demurely.
He doesn’t exactly like “that trained nurse business,” but he admits to himself that, if he were ill, he should like to have Miss Practical smooth his pillow and take care of him.
And so the time goes on, and he is often the companion of the girl. At times, she fairly scintillates with merriment, but she is so dignified, and so womanly—so very careful to keep him at his proper distance—that, well, “she is a type!”
In due course of time, he plans to return to the city, and to the theatres and parties he used to find so pleasant. All his friends are there. No, Miss Practical is not in the city; she is right here. Like a flash a revelation comes over him, and he paces the veranda angrily. Well, there’s only one thing to be done—he must tell her about it.Perhaps—and he sees a flash of blue through the shrubbery, which he seeks with the air of a man who has an object in view.
His circle of friends are very much surprised when he introduces Mrs. Ideal, for she is surely different from the ideal woman about whom they have heard so much. They naturally think he is inconsistent, but he isn’t, for some subtle alchemy has transfigured the homely little girl into the dearest, best, and altogether most beautiful woman Mr. Ideal has ever seen.
She is domestic in her tastes now, and has abandoned the professional nurse idea. She knows a great deal about Greek and Latin, and still more about Shakespeare and Browning and other authors.
But she neglects neither her books nor her housekeeping, and her husband spends his evenings at home, not because Mrs. Ideal would cry and make a fuss if he didn’t, but because his heart is in her keeping, and because his own fireside, withits sweet-faced guardian angel, is to him the most beautiful place on earth, and he has sense enough to appreciate what a noble wife is to him.
The plain truth is, when “any whatsoever” Mr. Ideal loves a woman, he immediately finds her perfect, and transfers to her the attributes which only exist in his imagination. His heart and happiness are there—not with the creatures of his dreams, but the warm, living, loving human being beside him, and to him, henceforth, the ideal is the real.
For “the ideal woman is as gentle as she is strong.” She wins her way among her friends and fellow human beings, even though they may be strangers, by doing many a kindness which the most of us are too apt to overlook or ignore.
No heights of thought or feeling are beyond her eager reach, and no human creature has sunk too low for her sympathy and her helping hand. Even the forlorn and friendless dog in the alleylooks instinctively into her face for help.
She is in every man’s thoughts and always will be, as she always has been—the ideal who shall lead him step by step, and star by star, to the heights which he cannot reach alone.
Ruskin says: “No man ever lived a right life who has not been chastened by a woman’s love, strengthened by her courage and guided by her discretion.”
The steady flow of the twentieth-century progress has not swept away woman’s influence, nor has it crushed out her womanliness. She lives in the hearts of men, a queen as royal as in the days of chivalry, and men shall do and dare for her dear sake as long as time shall last.
The sweet, lovable, loyal woman of the past is not lost; she is only intensified in the brave wifehood and motherhood of our own times. The modern ideal, like that of olden times, is and ever will be, above all things—womanly.