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CHAPTER IX
SOME OF DIANA’S NOTIONS
“Di, dear,” said Vivian Brabazon, suddenly one evening, as the brother and sister were sitting tête-à-tête over their wine after dinner; “I’m going to be confidential.”
It was an opera night, and Adelheid was professionally engaged at Her Majesty’s, but some business of interest connected with a Parliamentary Petition on the subject of a Women’s Disabilities Bill had detained Miss Brabazon in her study until past seven, and Vivian had arranged to escort the beautiful cantatrice home to Park-lane.
“Now, don’t be agitated, my dear child; I am going to begin by a note of interrogation; and I am sure you will tell me ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,' in reply; and as the lawyers say, ‘without prejudice!’ won’t you, Di?”
He did not look at her as he spoke, but at a decanter immediately opposite, whereof the pattern appeared to possess for him at the moment a charm of overwhelming interest.
“Well, Vi,” repeated Miss Diana, exactly in the same tone as before; ”go on; you know I never betray confidences.”
She knew as well as he what question it was he was going to ask, and the effort necessary on her part to keep the black eye-brows level, and the bangles quiescent was exceedingly severe.
“Do you think then, Di,” resumed the baronet, tracing with his little finger the tendrils of a vine-festoon upon the engraved glass before him and steadily avoiding the glance of his sister’s expressive eyes – “that Adelheid cares anything – about me?”
Miss Brabazon’s excitable heart leaped into her throat with one great bound. She had known for months past that this must happen sooner or later, and Vivian’s brief prologue had amply prepared her for the
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long-expected revelation. But the words themselves were so strangely sensational, so delightfully realistic, to hear from the lips of this most unimpressionable of men, that Di Brabazon’s cheeks crimsoned with pleasure as she stretched her white transparent hand across the table and laid it caressively on her brothers.
“Oh, Vi! I am so glad! I do love Adelheid so very dearly!”
“That scarcely answers my question, dear Impulsive! It is I who wish her to love me.”
“She will, Vi. She does. She never speaks of you but with affection.”
“Oh, Di, dear! That’s a bad sign. When ladies love, and are conscious of it, they are seldom demonstrative until the engagement ring is fairly on the finger.”
“But Adelheid is a child of Nature. She does not know what it is to feign. She is not like other women, Vi; for she has never learned to act, except on the stage.”
“Ah,” said Vivian again, dreamily; “I am afraid I am too earthy an Adam to mate with so spiritual a creature as she. I am only a man – she is an angel! Di, I don’t believe I am worthy of her.”
“There are no two people,” cried Miss Brabazon, clasping her hands energetically, and firing off her words like bullets – “No – two – people whom I would so gladly see husband and wife, as my dearest Adelheid and you! Oh, Vi, darling! it has been the dream of my life ever since I knew that SWEET child!”
Brabazon senior pressed the white fluttering fingers that sought his own, and smiled.
“Why, Di! I always thought that you were not an advocate for matrimony?”
“Nor am I, Vi, in the abstract. But many long years must go by before my Utopia can be realized. And meanwhile, we have Society and popular morality to contend with.”
Diana’s voice was quite soberly restrained as she made this reply, and she began to look very grave, as people do when they speak about the
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particular creed in which they believe. Miss Brabazon’s opinions, political and social, were religious articles to her, and she was reverend and earnest in discussing them. Vivian raised his eyes to hers for the first time since the commencement of their colloquy.
“That’s a weak answer, Di. If all the supporters of your philosophy behave so inconsistently, you have not much to hope for in the way of reform, or ‘progress,’ as you call it.”
A cloud, partly perhaps of despondency, partly of doubt, gathered darkly about Miss Diana’s curled eyebrows, and she sighed.
We want a Prophet, Vi; we want a Leader.”
“You have John Stuart Mill,” said he, “and the honourable member for Manchester. Hear them! Do not they suffice?”
“They are our champions,” answered Di, a little sadly. “God bless them for their courage and their love of right! but they are not saviours.”
“Why, what's amiss with you?” asked Vivian, a little impatiently. “What do you want to be saved from, you women?”
“From oppression,” she said, earnestly, ”from enforced ignorance, from the effects and results of men’s prejudice, bigotry and jealousy, from the dominion of superstition, frivolity and idleness, and, above all, from modern religious matrimony.”
“Good Lord, deliver us!” concluded Vivian, with a humourous air. But then, seeing that his sister looked annoyed, he added hastily; “nevertheless, you are in the right of it, Di, I believe. I don’t really know what people find to laugh at in the catalogue or the classification of your misfortunes. The world is unjust to you. I for one, unreservedly admit. And I should be glad from the bottom of my heart to see your grievances redressed. But I am not quite sure that the grant of the Parliamentary suffrage to ladies would help you.”
“It is an established principle of our Constitution, Vi, that no body of persons can obtain social justice or political recognition, but by means of Parliamentary representation. The possession of the Franchise is the only guarantee of liberty and enlightenment, it is the master-key to all locks, – an effectual lever, now in the hands of all male constituents only, but
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by means of which we shall one day move the world, It will give us the power to agitate for new improvements and fresh reforms, to remedy crying evils and gross abuses of which men take little note: it will be our stepping-stone to a higher and nobler standard of education, our vantage ground for noble warfare, our ladder to æsthetic heights of moral and intellectual advancement. And besides all this, since no argument which supports the gift of the suffrage to men does not apply equally to women, I contend that to withhold it from us is both unjust and inconsistent.”
“Yes, obviously, – that is the key-note of the Amazonian war-cry. But, – are you not already represented through us? We vote actually, it is true, but you may always influence these votes, you know. And, mark me, Di, the indirect control you may thus exercise over our national affairs far exceeds the power you would possess were you endowed with that prerogative you desire.”
“How?” cried Di, with amazing energy; “it is then possible that an English gentleman can deliberately support such an argument! Did I not hear you, Vi, the other day condemning unreservedly the conduct of the landlords and factory owners during the last election at home? Did you not denounce that conduct as corrupt and dishonest to the last degree, and assert your unqualified opinion that every man in the country ought to go to the poll to record the true result of his own political feeling, utterly unbiased and uninfluenced by any other person soever? I am sure you did!”
“Well, yes, I did say so much,” admitted Vivian, slightly embarrassed; “and I believe I was right. What then?”
“Why then,” quoth Miss Diana, with some display of triumph, – “I throw the charge of inconsistency upon you, sir! Is it reasonable to condemn on the part of certain persons a system of pressure, or of temptation, while yet you advocate precisely the same conduct on the part of others? If it be wrong, as undoubtedly it is, for landlords to direct the votes of their tenants, or for masters to coerce their servants, it must be equally reprehensible for women to influence the choice of their male
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acquaintances. Political corruption cannot be absolutely reprehensible in one sex, and legitimate in the other! If we are judged worthy and competent to sway many votes in the hands of our friends, surely we must be judged worthy and competent to exercise one vote apiece on our own account! I find the course you propose, Vi, most unconstitutional. It is a backstairs method of getting represented, which to my English mind is exceedingly repellant and undesirable. If we are permitted to exert some influence in political affairs, – an influence indeed which no legislation could arrest, – then in the name of fair play – let us exercise that power honestly and openly, in the only legitimate manner an English Constitution ought to recognise! And, with regard to your last remark, that women already possess over national affairs an indirect influence which ought to compensate them for the non-possession of the franchise, I will only remark that all good, great, or influential men exercise a similar indirect influence, as well as a direct and personal voice in the country. But you will not argue that because they exert the first privilege, they ought to be deprived of exercising the second? Some years ago, before the electoral franchise was given to operatives, it was usual to contend that they were sufficiently represented by their employers. But this argument never contented the operatives, and it has now ceased to affect the Legislature. How unjust and unreasonable to force upon women an explanation which all classes of men refuse to accept as satisfactory! Why should a vicarious representation with which no body of men will rest content be considered sufficient for women? When everybody is striving to be free, – what wonder if we, who have been the world’s toys and slaves so long, should begin to rattle our chains a little impatiently!”
“But,” suggested the baronet feebly, “you women have different spheres of action from men, and different modes of thought. Suffer us to direct the legislation, because we are fitted to do so; you occupy a different stand-point altogether. There are scarcely two subjects of ethical or social interest, on which the masculine and feminine mind be d’accord.”
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"Why there you furnish me with a fresh argument. Vi!” cried Diana, thoroughly excited. And the kindling eyes dilated with eagerness and determination, as might the eyes of a gladiator prepared for contest.
“Men and women,” she proceeded, with an expression of intense earnestness, “are so radically different that all the Americanism in the world will never succeed in assimilating their natures. They differ as palpably and as necessarily in intellectual calibre and in moral disposition as they do in physical adaptation and outward appearance. It is absurd to suppose that the two sexes could ever be made identical, and if such an identity were possible to establish, I believe that the result would be utter social confusion and misery. But it is just exactly the difference which does exist between men and women which renders it so imperative that both men and women should act together in forming the laws and in regulating the national affairs. A centre of political government is nothing else than an expanded home, the people are the children of the State, the lawgivers should be their parents. What, therefore, the man is within the limits of his own circle, as towards his family, such should he also be in the broader sphere of legislation as towards the people; what the woman is within the boundary of her own house as towards her children and her dependents, such also should she be in a more public office, as towards her kindred of the outer world. Every individual, of women as well as men, bears a definite relationship to the State, and owes it a definite duty. Just that which each one of us aims to be in his or her own house, he or she should also seek to be to the Commonwealth. For the Commonwealth is but an expansion of the family, public life is but the growth and enlargement of the domestic circle. Man is the guardian, defender, and maintainer of home; it is his part to assist in the guarding, defending, and maintaining of the State. Woman is the arranger, the orderer, the beautifier of home; it is her part to assist in the arrangement, order, and comfort of the State. Together men and women make the rules and ties of the hearth; together they should also make the laws and bond of the realm. We women are the mothers of the nation, no less than you are the nation’s
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defenders. It is always spoken of as a sad thing, isn’t it, Vi? when a family loses the mother, for with her is lost a guidance and a care that all the virtues of a father cannot replace. Well, it is the same with a nation, for a nation is only a large family. And at present this nation is a motherless one; the sweet influence and the moral guidance and the careful ordering of the womanly element is wanting in the Legislature; and so, because of that want, the Legislature blunders in just the very questions that women know how to deal with, and the people fail in these very points of virtue and purity which it is peculiarly the office of a mother to inculcate.”
“I suppose, Di,” said Vivian, more seriously, “that you speak of social questions?”
“Yes, chiefly. I think that women have a political and national function to discharge, exactly corresponding to their private duties. Women in particular are regarded as the orderers of a household, as the instructors of children, as the teachers of pure morality, as the mirrors and patterns of all gentle virtue and grace and beauty and consolation. These are just the attributes they ought to be enabled to carry into a wider sphere. There are many questions connected with popular morality, with the ordering of poor-houses, with the education of children, with the treatment and lodgment of the lower classes, which Parliament is manifestly incompetent to settle. All of them, and especially subjects affecting popular morality, are eminently women’s questions, and until women have a voice in giving the laws of the land, such subjects as these will never be fairly dealt with.”
“You are aiming now, Di, at the traffic of the London streets?”
“I am. In a case where women are mainly concerned, women certainly are fittest to judge of the complaint and to suggest a remedy. Am I not in the right?”
“But, my dearest sister, you are more Utopian than I had believed it possible for even you to be! Do you think that you, or any other of your sex, if you held all the power of the government in your hands, could put down the ‘Social Evil?’ The traffic is just like any other; so long as there is a demand, the supply must inevitably continue.”
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“True,” returned Miss Brabazon, with glittering eyes, “but I would put down the demand. I know that it takes a long time to get rid of old prejudices and to engraft on the public mind new views of morality, but there is no other way of rooting out so gross a vice as this we speak of, except that of destroying its origin. It is not natural to be vicious, the real source of all crime is artificial; and this particular evil of which we speak, is the result of a necessity created by unnatural institutions and the pretended adoption of a code of morality which few men can strictly observe, the whole religion and ethical standard of the nation are false, and are grounded on a false Ideal. That is the mistake that must be got rid of first, before we can have national virtue and national health.”
Vivian laughed. “Ah; Di, Di!” said he, “what a dreamer you are!”
“So was Joseph,” returned she, “yet he lived to be Ruler of Egypt.”
“And of what do you expect to be Ruler, Di?”
“Of as rich a World, at least,” she said, “of a fertile soil, wealthy with precious stores of budding thought and sustaining power that may furnish life and nourishment some day to a famine-stricken Israel – the heart and mind of Adelheid Stern.”
“Oh,” said Vivian, and his brow lowered.
Diana saw the shadow and took advantage of it for a leading question.
“How is it, Vi,” she asked him, ”that you, and such as you, are ready enough to countenance, even to assist reformatory measures generally, and to encourage the workers and ministers of such reform, but yet, if those who are specially dear to you desire to involve themselves prominently in the self-same labour, you are either offended, disgusted, or annoyed?”
“It is natural, Di, I suppose,” said the baronet, twirling his wineglass between his fingers. “We all admire Schneider, for instance, and we all adore – – several other ladies I could name, who are well-known in public life, but few of us would care to be intimately related to any of them.”
“Pooh!” said Miss Brabazon, effably, – “SCHNEIDER!”
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The bangles glistened and clattered ominously.
“Come, come, Di!” said Vivian, “I am a little provoking perhaps. But I will be serious now, and I mean to hear you talk a little more. Finish your argument, madam, and take another glass of your favourite Amontillado to help you through the intricate mazes of disquisition. You were observing that women ought to have a voice in the government of the country?”
“Certainly,” resumed Diana, greatly mollified. ”The nation is composed of men and of women. Half the population is feminine.”
“More than half, by a long way,” interpolated Vivian. “The women in Great Britain outnumber the men by something like a million.”
“Well then,” said Diana, “is it fair that more than half the nation should be thus peremptorily excluded from the liberties and privileges which the smaller portion enjoys? Is it fair that more than one half of the nation should be compelled to submit to statutes and methods of government framed and instituted by men who are chosen exclusively by the lesser number? It is imperative that delegated representatives should attend to the interests of their electors, but women have no delegates, and consequently their interests are invariably neglected in the Houses of Legislature. Besides, we are forced to obey the laws, but we are not allowed a voice in making them. It is absurd to suppose that one sex can legislate correctly and suitably for the other, and I am amused sometimes, when the motives and characteristics of women have become a topic of debate or allusion in the House, to observe the egregious errors which the speakers commit in attempting to pourtray the sentiments or motives of action which commonly affect feminine minds. Where two distinct parties and two separate interests are concerned, if justice is to be done equally to each party, then each party must be equally represented. We accept this axiom in another instance, for we give to the two great divisions of rank in the nation, two distinct Senates. For our aristocracy we have a House of Lords, for our commonality, a House of Commons, that the interests of each of these sections of the community may be separately asserted, and receive due and equal attention. Men
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and women can never be assimilated in character nor in interests, and men alone are incapable and unfit to legislate for both sexes,”
“Ah?” said Vivian. “Do you know, sister, to what goal your argument tends? Practically, you are in favour of not merely feminine electorship, but of establishing a third House of Parliament, a ‘House of Ladies.’ “
“Well,” said Miss Diana, “What then?”
“Why then,” answered Vivian, “the members of that third House would never agree.”
“You cannot prove a negative, Vi.”
“I judge by precedent. Did you ever know a feminine committee to be unanimous or an assembly composed exclusively of ladies to be a genial meeting? Are you not divided among yourselves by numberless small rivalries, petty jealousies, and absurd prejudices?”
“You exaggerate, Vi; and, as regards unanimity, I do not think that either of the present Houses exhibit striking examples of that particular virtue. I suppose we must have Government and Opposition everywhere, must we not? But I will admit that dissension is more common among women than among men. Why is it commoner? There is nothing normally implanted in the nature of women to render them quarrelsome or suspicious, – they have grown to be so through outward influence, and by force of the education they receive. I use the term ‘education’ in a large sense, and I mean by it the whole course of their moral, intellectual, and social training and treatment. Now, Vi, I assert that men, – to whom belongs exclusively, not only the power of the State, but the supremacy of the social world, – have so narrowed the orbit of women, and so restrained the scope of our functions, energies, and action, that there is positively but one ambition recognized as proper to us, – the desire for admiration on the score of our physical charms. You have long laboured to teach us that the fit end and purpose of our existence is to render life tolerable to you, and that no woman ought to aim at a higher object than to please the man whom she desires to make her partner for life. You have given us for a kingdom the arena of Love, –
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there we reign, – there – so long as Nature gives us grace, we are supreme. But our numbers are many, and our kingdom is small, and we cannot bear rivals. Consequently, women are wont to view one another with suspicion and with jealously. We say in our hearts, – each one of us – ‘I have a little power because I am beautiful, or witty, or fascinating, or clever. Such-and-such a woman has attributes akin to mine, and she is dangerous to my prosperity. By-and-by she will dethrone me. I have only a little royalty, – only a little supremacy, and I cannot afford to share it with her. I must elbow my rival from her place before she imperils mine.’ Don’t you see the whole thing, Vi? Isn’t it a logical sequence of your folly in putting such limits as you do on woman's sphere? Don’t you know that if any one profession or trade is overcrowded, there must be rivalries and jealousies and distrust among the struggling competitors? You place one exclusive object before a nation of women, and expect that no unfriendly feeling will result! We are all to be beautiful, all charming, all amiable, all unenvious; our united efforts are to be exerted solely, continually, and individually, to please and attract the opposite sex; one of us must never be disturbed when her small share of power, – her sole heritage, – is rent away from her by a more brilliant queen, and she is bereft of the only good thing life is suffered to bestow upon women. You expect angelic things truly, you infallible logicians! Are you so Divine yourselves? Or can you seriously believe that the liberty which makes every man who receives it more manly would make every woman less womanly? Can you believe that while his nature best expands in freedom, hers must develop only in repression? How can that which is morally best for man be morally worst for woman? Has any physiological or psychological deterioration been detected in male constituents as a consequence of their political enfranchisement? Until one hears of some such instances, it must surely be illogical and impertinent to conclude that the exercise of the same prerogative on the part of women at long intervals, would produce any lamentable change of mind or heart!
And again, there is the property qualification! Under the present
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system much important property remains wholly unrepresented, because it is in the hands of lady proprietors. I have always heard that in this country it is not the man, but the property which votes, – the right of voting is inherent, – not in him, but in that which he represents. We have household suffrage, – not manhood suffrage. Yet by a curious anomaly, although a woman may possess sufficient property to qualify a hundred voters, she cannot exercise one vote! Her sex is no reason for suspending the imposition of taxation, because, we are told, – it is not she but her property which pays. But if so, why should that property forfeit the representation it earns by such payment, because its owner is a woman?”
“But, Di, you forget that the burdens of the State are not confined to paying taxes, they consist also in these personal exertions by which the prosperity of the State is maintained. Do you pretend to qualify women to serve as soldiers, sailors, or otherwise; for these are the liabilities of the men who possess votes?”
“My dear brother, do you really consider that member of the State, whose physical characteristics fit him to undertake muscular work in any rare emergency which may arise, a more valuable unit to the country than that member who gives to it its sons, who nourishes, trains, rears, and teaches the youth of the nation? Is the Divine task of giving life, and of yielding nurture and support to the future generation a wholly unimportant office in the commonwealth, and are the risks and sufferings incurred by women in this their vocation, of no account or importance when measured beside the dangers rarely encountered by men in the service of the State? Is not the work of every wife and mother, compared with that of the possible soldier or sailor, at least equal to his in extent and value? Ah, Vi, indeed, I think that women fairly earn their equal rights with you, if personal service to the country be the test of citizenship! Surely we may be held entitled to corresponding respect and consideration at the hands of our lawgivers!”
“Yes, dear enthusiast but reflect upon another point. Do
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you know, I am really afraid most of you ladies would encounter so much violence and inconvenience in recording your votes at the polling-booths, that you might be apt hereafter to deplore your rights?”
“Indeed, Vi? Then l submit, if that be the probability that the argument directs itself not against Women’s Suffrage, but against polling-booths.” (1)
“A palpable hit, Di; cleverly and neatly put in! I score one to you! But now, a truce to fencing! Talking is so very wearisome. I presume that, in celestial regions, beings of another order converse by electricity. Is that brougham ready yet I wonder?”
NOTES
(87:1) Since this was written the introduction of the Ballot system has greatly smoothed the way for Women Suffrage.
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