One of the houses I most delight to enter in a certain town is one where I am always sure to see a devoted and happy wife and beautiful, playful children clustering around the armchair in which sits a man who committed one of the most cold-blooded assassinations you can imagine. He is an honored, esteemed and model citizen. His acquittal was a miracle in a million chances. He has justified it. It is beautiful to see those happy children clinging to the hand that—

Well, dear friends, the dentist is not a cruel man in his social capacity, and you can get delicious viands instead of nauseous medicines at the doctor's private table.

That is why beginning novel readers should take no advice. Strike out alone through the highways and lanes of story, character and experience. The best novelist is the one who fears not to tell you the truth, which is more wonderful than fiction. It is always the best hearts that bend to mistakes. Absolute virtue is as sterile as granite rock; absolute vice is as poisonous as a stagnant pond. No healthy interest or speculation can linger about either. Enter into the struggle and know human nature; don't stay outside and try to appear superior.

For, which of us has not his crimes of thought to account for? Think not, because Andy Johnson or William Sykes or Dr. Webster actually killed his man, that you are guiltless, because you haven't. Have you never wanted to? Answer that, in your conscience and in solitude—not to me. Speak up to yourself and then say whether the difference between you and the recorded criminal is not merely the difference between the overt act and the faltering wish. It is a matter of courage or of custom. Speaking for one gentleman, who knows himself and is not afraid to confess, I can say that, while he could not kill a mouse with his own hand, he has often murdered men in his heart. It may have been in fiery youth over the wrong name on a dancing card, or, later, when a rival got the better of him in discussion, or, when the dreary bore came and wouldn't go, or, when misdirected goodness insisted on thrusting upon him intended kindness that was wormwood and poison to the soul. Are we not covetous (not confessedly, of course, but actually)? Is not covetousness the thwarted desire of theft without courage? How many of us, now—speaking man to man—can open up our veiled thoughts and desires and then look the Ten Commandments in the eye without blushing?

* * * * *

The bravest, noblest, gentlest gentleman I have ever known was the Count de la Fere, whom we at the Hotel de Troisville, in old Paris, called "Athos." He was not merely sans peur et sans reproche as Bayard, but was positive in his virtues. He fought for his friends without even asking the cause of the fray. Yet, what a prig he seemed to be at first, with his eternal gentle melancholy, his irreproachable courtesy, unvarying kindness and complete unselfishness. You cannot—quite—warm—to—a— man—who —is—so—perfectly—right—that—he—embarrasses—everybody— but—the—angels.

But, when he ordered the gloomy and awful death of the treacherous Miladi, woman though she was, and thus as a perfect gentleman took on human frailty also, ah! how attractively noble and strong he became I In that respect he was the antithetical corollary of William Sykes, who was a purposeless, useless and uninterestingly regular scoundrel, thief and brute, until he redeemed himself by becoming the instrument of social justice and pounding that unendurable lady, Miss Nancy, of his name, into absence from the world. Perhaps I have remarked before—and even if I have it is pleasant to repeat it—that Bill Sykes had his faults, as also have most of us, but it was given to him to earn forgiveness by the aid of a cheap chair and the providential propinquity of Miss Nancy. I never think of it without regretting that poor Bill Whally is dead. He did it—so—much—to—my—taste!

Who shall we say is the most loved and respected criminal in fiction? Not Monsignor Rodin, of "The Wandering Jew;" not Thenardier in "Les Miserables." These are really not criminals; they are allegorical figures of perfect crime. They are solar centers, so far off and fixed that one may regard them only with awe, reverence and fear. They are types of fate, desire, temptation and chastisement. Let us turn to our own flesh and blood and speak gratefully of them.

* * * * *

Who says Count Fosco? Now there is a criminal worthy of affection and confidence. What an expansive nature, with kindness presented on every side. Even the dogs fawned upon him and the birds came at his call. An accomplished gentleman, considerately mannered—queer, as becomes a foreigner, yet possessing the touchstone of universal sympathy. Another man with crime to commit almost certainly would have dispatched it with ruthless coldness; but how kindly and gently Count Fosco administered the cord of necessity. With what delicacy he concealed the bowstring and spoke of the Bosphorus only as a place for moonlight excursions. He could have presented prussic acid and sherry to a lady in such a manner as to render the results a grateful sacrifice to his courtesy. It was all due to his corpulence; a "lean and hungry" villain lacks repose, patience and the tact of good humor. In almost every small social and individual attitude Count Fosco was human. He was exceedingly attentive to his wife in society and bullied her only in private and when necessary. He struck no dramatic attitudes. "The world is mine oyster!" is not said by real men bent on terrible deeds. Count Fosco is the perfect villain, and also the perfect criminal, inasmuch as he not only acts naturally, but deliberately determines the action instead of being drawn into it or having it forced upon him.

He was a highly cultivated type of Andy Johnson, inasmuch as crime with him was not a life purpose, but what is called in business a "side-line." All of us have our hobbies; the closely confined clerk goes home and roots up his yard to plant flower bulbs or cabbage plants; another fancies fowls; another man collects pewter pots and old brass and the millionaire takes to priceless horses; others of us turn from useful statistics and go broke on novels or poetry or music. Count Fosco was an educated gentleman and the pleasure of life was his purpose; crime and intrigue were his recreations. Andy Johnson was a good business man and wealth producer; murder was the direction in which his private understanding of personal disagreements was exercised and vented. Some men turn to poker playing, which is as wasteful as murder and not half as dignified. Count Fosco is the villain par excellence of novels. I do not remember what he did, because "The Woman in White" is the best novel in the world to read gluttonously at a sitting and then forget absolutely. It is nearly always a new book if you use it that way. When the world is dark, the fates bilious, the appetite dead and the infernal twinges of pain or sickness seem beyond reach of the doctor, "The Woman in White" is a friend indeed.

* * * * *

But the man of men for villains, not necessarily criminals; but the ordinary, every-day, picturesque worthies of good, honest scoundrelism and disreputableness is Sir Robert Louis Stevenson. You can afford conscientiously to stuff ballot boxes in order that his election may be secured as Poet Laureate of Rascals. Leaving out John Silver and Billy Bones and Alan Breck, whom every privately shriven rascal of us simply must honor and revere as giants of courage, cunning and controlled, conscience, Stevenson turned from singles and pairs, and in "The Ebb Tide," drove, by turns, tandem and abreast, a four-in-hand of scoundrels so buoyant, natural, strong, and yet each so totally unlike the others, that every honest novel reader may well be excused for shedding tears when he reflects that the marvelous hand and heart that created them are gone forever from the haunts of the interestingly wicked. No novelist ever exposed the human nature of rascals as Stevenson did.

Now, lago was not a villain; he was a venomous toad, a scorpion, a mad-dog, a poisonous plant in a fair meadow. There was nobody lago loved, no weakness he concealed, no point of contact with any human being. His sister was Pandora, his brother made the shirt of Nessus, himself dealt in Black Plagues and the Leprosy. The old Serpent was permitted to rise from his belly and walk upright on the tip of his tail when he met Iago, as a demonstration of moral superiority. But think of those three Babes-in-the-Wood villains, skipper Davis, the Yankee swashbuckler and ship scuttler; Herrick, the dreamy poet, ruined by commerce and early love, with his days of remorse and his days of compensatary liquor; and Huish, the great-hearted Scotch ruffian, who chafed at the conventional concealments of trade among pals and never could—as a true Scotchman—understand why you should wait to use a knife upon a victim when promptness lay in the club right at hand—think of them sailing out of Honolulu harbor on the Farallone.

Let who will prefer to have sailed with Jason or Aeneas or Sinbad; but the Farallone and its precious freight of rascality gets my money every time. Think of the three incomparable reprobates afloat, with one case of smallpox and a cargo of champagne, daring to make no port, with over a hundred million square miles of ocean around them, every ten lookout knots of it containing a possible peril! It was simply grand—not pirates, shipwrecks or mutinies could beat that problem. And the pathos of the sixth day, when, with every man Jack of them looking delirium tremens in the face and suspecting each the other, Mr. Huish opened a new case of champagne and—found clear spring water under the French label! The honest scoundrels had been laid by the heels by a common wine merchant in the regular way of business! Oh, gentlemen, there should be honor in business; so that gallant villains can be free of betrayal.

The keynote of these gentlemen is struck in the second chapter, where all three of them writing lies home—Davis and Herrick, sentimental equivocations, Huish the strongest of brag with nobody to send it to. In a burst of weakness Davis tells Herrick what a villain he has been, through rum, and how he can not let his daughter, "little Adar," know it. "Yes, there was a woman on board," he said, describing the ship he had scuttled. "Guess I sent her to hell, if there's such a place. I never dared go home again, and I don't know," he added, bitterly, "what's come to them."

"Thank you, Captain," said Herrick, "I never liked you better!"

Is it not in human nature to cuddle to a great sheepish murderer like that, who groans in secret for his little girl—if even the girl was truth? I think she turned out a myth, but he had the sentiment.

Was there ever a more melancholy, remorse-stricken wretch than Cap'n Davis? Or a gentler and seedier poet than Herrick? Or a more finely sodden and soaked old rum sport than Huish (not—Whish!) But it was not until they fell in with Attwater that their weakness as scoundrels was exposed. Attwater was so splendidly religious! He was determined to have things right if he had to have them so by bloodshed; he saved souls by bullets. Things were right when they were as he thought they should be. And believing so, with Torquemada, Alexander Sixtus and other most religious brethren, he was ready to set up the stake and fagot and cauterize sin with fire. One thing you can say about the religious folks that are big with cocksureness and a mission—they may make mistakes, but the mistake doesn't talk and criticise.

* * * * *

The only rascal worthy to travel in company with Stevenson's rascals is the Chevalier Balibari, of Castle Barry, in Ireland, whose admirable memoirs have been so well told by Mr. Thackeray. The Baron de la Motte in "Denis Duval," was advantageously born to ornament the purple and fine linen of picturesque unrighteousness—but his was a brief star that fell unfinished from its place amidst the Pleiades. Thackeray's genius ran more to disreputable men than to actual villains. But he drew two scoundrels that will serve as beacon lights to any clean-souled youth with the instinct to take warning. One was Lord Steyne, the other, Dr. George Brand Firmin; one the aristocratic, class-bred, cynical brute, the other the cold, tuft-hunting trained hypocrite. What encouragement of self-respect Judas Iscariot might have received if he had met Dr. Firmin!

Dr. Chadband, Mr. Pecksniff, Bill Sykes, Fagin, Mr. Murdstone, of Dickens' family—they are all strong in impression, but wholly unreal; mere stage villains and caricatures. A villain who has no good traits, no hobbies of kindness and affection, is never born into the world; he is always created by grotesque novel writers.

The villains of Dumas, Hugo, Balzac, Daudet are French. There may have been, or may be now such prototypes alive in France—because the Dreyfus case occurred in France, and no doubt much can happen in that fine, fertile country which translators cannot fully convey over the frontiers; but they have always seemed to me first cousins to my friends, the ogres, the evil magicians and the werewolves, and, in that much, not quite natural.

For heroes of the genuine cavalleria type, plumed, doubleted, pumpt and magnificent, give me Dumas; for good folks and true, the great American Fenimore Cooper; but for the blessed company of blooming, breathing rascals, Stevenson and Thackeray all the time.



VII

HEROES

THE NATURE AND THE FLOWER OF THEM—THE GALLANT D'ARTAGNAN OR THE GLORIOUS BUSSY.

Let us agree at the start that no perfect hero can be entirely mortal. The nearer the element of mortality in him corresponds to the heel measure of Achilles, the better his chance as hero. The Egyptian and Greek heroes were invariably demi-gods on the paternal or maternal side. Few actual historic heroes have escaped popular scandal concerning their origin, because the savage logic in us demands lions from a lion; that Theseus shall trace to Mars; that courage shall spring from courage.

Another most excellent thing about the ideal hero is that the immortal quality enables him to go about the business of his heroism without bothering his head with the rights or wrongs of it, except as the prevailing sentiment of social honor (as distinguished from the inborn sentiment of honesty) requires at the time. Of course, there is a lower grade of measly, "moral heroes," who (thank heaven and the innate sense of human justice!) are usually well peppered with sorrow and punishment. The hero of romance is a different stripe; Hyperion to a Satyr. He doesn't go around groaning page after page of top-heavy debates as to the inherent justice of his cause or his moral right to thrust a tallow candle between the particular ribs behind which the heart of his enemy is to be found—balancing his pros and cons, seeking a quo for each quid, and conscientiously prowling for final authorities. When you invade the chiropodical secret of the real hero's fine boot, or brush him in passing—if you have looked once too often at a certain lady, or have stood between him and the sun, or even twiddled your thumbs at him in an indecorous or careless manner—look to it that you be prepared to draw and mayhap to be spitted upon his sword's point, with honor. Sdeath! A gentlemen of courage carries his life lightly at the needle end of his rapier, as that wonderful Japanese, Samsori, used to make the flimsiest feather preside in miraculous equilibration upon the tip of his handsome nose.

No hero who does more or less than is demanded by the best practical opinion of the society of his time is worth more than thirty cents as a hero. Boys are literary and dramatic critics so far above the critics formed by strained formulas of the schools that you can trust them. They have an unerring distrust of the fellow who moves around with his confounded conscientious scruples, as if the well-settled opinion of the breathing world were not good enough for him! Who the deuce has got any business setting everybody else right?

Some of these days I believe it is going to be discovered that the atmosphere and the encompassing radiance and sweetness of Heaven are composed of the dear sighs and loving aspirations of earthly motherhood. If it turns out otherwise, rest assured Heaven will not have reached its perfect point of evolution. Why is it, then, that mothers will—will—will—try, so mistakenly, to extirpate the jewel of honest, manly savagery from the breasts of their boys? I wonder if they know that when grown men see one of these "pretty-mannered boys," cocksure as a Swiss toy new painted and directed by watch spring, they feel an unholy impulse to empty an ink-bottle over the young calf? Fauntleroy kids are a reproach to our civilization. Men, women and children, all of us, crowd around the grimy Deignan of the Merrimac crew, and shout and cheer for Bill Smith, the Rough Rider, who carried his mate out of the ruck at San Juan and twirls his hat awkwardly and explains: "Ef I hadn't a saw him fall he would 'a' laid thar yit!"—and go straight home and pretend to be proud of a snug little poodle of a man who doesn't play for fear of soiling his picture-clothes, and who says: "Yes, sir, thank you," and "No, thank you, ma'am," like a French doll before it has had the sawdust kicked out of it!

* * * * *

Now, when a hero tries to stamp his acts with the precise quality of exact justice—why, he performs no acts. He is no better than that poor tongue-loose Hamlet, who argues you the right of everything, and then, by the great Jingo! piles in and messes it all by doing the wrong thing at the wrong time and in the wrong manner. It is permitted of course to be a great moral light and correct the errors of all the dust of earth that has been blown into life these ages; but human justice has been measured out unerringly with poetry and irony to such folk. They are admitted to be saints, but about the time they have got too good for their earthly setting, they have been tied to stakes and lighted up with oil and faggots; or a soda phosphate with a pinch of cyanide of potassium inserted has been handed to them, as in the case of our old friend, Socrates. And it's right. When a man gets too wise and good for his fellows and is embarrassed by the healthful scent of good human nature, send him to heaven for relief, where he can have the goodly fellowship of the prophets, the company of the noble army of martyrs, and amuse himself suggesting improvements upon the vocal selections of cherubim and seraphim! Impress the idea upon these gentry with warmth—and—with—oil!

* * * * *

The ideal hero of fiction, you say, is Capt. D'Artagnan, first name unknown, one time cadet in the Reserves of M. de Troisville's company of the King's Guards, intrusted with the care of the honor and safety of His Majesty, Louis XIV. Very well; he is a noble gentleman; the choice does honor to your heart, mind and soul; take him and hold the remembrance of his courage, loyalty, adroitness and splendid endurance with hooks of steel. For myself, while yielding to none who honor the great D'Artagnan, yet I march under the flag of the Sieur Bussy d'Amboise, a proud Clermont, of blood royal in the reign of Henry III., who shed luster upon a court that was edified by the wisdom of M. Chicot, the "King's Brother," the incomparable jester and philosopher, who would have himself exceeded all heroes except that he despised the actors and the audience of the world's theater and performed valiant feats only that he might hang his cap and bells upon the achievements in ridicule.

Can it be improper to compare D'Artagnan and Bussy—when the intention is wholly respectful and the motive pure? If a single protest is heard, there will be an end to this paper now—at once. There are some comparisons that strengthen both candidates. For, we must consider the extent of the theater and the stage, the space of time covering the achievements, the varying conditions, lights and complexities. As, for instance, the very atmosphere in which these two heroes moved, the accompaniment of manner which we call the "air" of the histories, and which are markedly different. The contrast of breeding, quality and refinement between Bussy and D'Artagnan is as great as that which distinguishes Mercutio from the keen M. Chicot. Yet each was his own ideal type. Birth and the superior privileges of the haute noblesse conferred upon the Sieur Bussy the splendid air of its own sufficient prestige; the lack of these require of D'Artagnan that his intelligence, courage and loyal devotion should yet seem to yield something of their greatness in the submission that the man was compelled to pay to the master. True, this attitude was atoned for on occasion by blunt boldness, but the abased position and the lack of subtle distinction of air and mind of the noble, forbade to the Fourth Mousquetaire the last gracious touch of a Bayard of heroism. But the vulgarity was itself heroic.

* * * * *

Compare the first appearance of the great Gascon at the Hotel de Troisville, or even his manner and attitude toward the King when he sought to warn that monarch against forgetfulness of loyalty proved, with the haughty insolence of indomitable spirit in which Bussy threw back to Henry the shuttle of disfavor on the night of that remarkable wedding of St. Luc with the piquant little page soubrette, Jeanne de Brissac.

D'Artagnan's air to his King has its pathos. It seems to say: "I speak bluntly, sire, knowing that my life is yours and yet feeling that it is too obscure to provoke your vengeance." A very hard draught for a man of fire and fearlessness to take without a gulp. But into Bussy's manner toward his King there was this flash of lightning from Olympus: "My life, sire, is yours, as my King, to take or leave; but not even you may dare to think of taking the life of Bussy with the dust of least reproach upon it. My life you may blow out; my honor you do not dare approach to question!"

There are advantages in being a gentleman, which can not be denied. One is that it commands credit in the King's presence as well as at the tailor's.

It is interesting to compare both these attitudes with that of "Athos," the Count de la Fere, toward the King. He was lacking in the irresistibly fierce insolence of Bussy and in the abasement of D'Artagnan; it was melancholy, patient, persistent and terrible in its restrained calmness. How narrowly he just escaped true greatness. I would no more cast reproaches upon that noble gentleman than I would upon my grandmother; but he—was—a—trifle—serous, wasn't he? He was brave, prompt, resourceful, splendid, and, at need, gingerish as the best colt in the paddock. It is the deuce's own pity for a man to be born to too much seriousness. Do you know—and as I love my country, I mean it in honest respect—that I sometimes think that the gentleness and melancholy of Athos somehow suggests a bit of distrust. One is almost terrified at times lest he may begin the Hamlet controversies. You feel that if he committed a murder by mistake you are not absolutely sure he wouldn't take a turn with Remorse. Not so Bussy; he would throw the mistake in with good will and not create worry about it. Hang it all, if the necessary business of murder is to halt upon the shuffling accident of mistake, we may as well sell out the hero business and rent the shop. It would be down to the level of Hamlet in no time. Unless, of course, the hero took the view of it that Nero adopted. It is improbable that Nero inherited the gift of natural remorse; but he cultivated one and seemed to do well with it. He used to reflect upon his mother and his wife, both of whom he had affectionately murdered, and justified himself by declaring that a great artist, who was also the Roman Emperor, would be lacking in breadth of emotional experience and retrospective wisdom, unless he knew the melancholy of a two-pronged family remorse. And from Nero's standpoint it was one of the best thoughts that he ever formulated into language.

To return to Bussy and D'Artagnan. In courage they were Hector and Achilles. You remember the champagne picnic before the bastion St. Gervais at the siege of St. Rochelle? What light-hearted gayety amid the flying missiles of the arquebusiers! Yet, do not forget that—ignoring the lacquey—there were four of them, and that his Eminence, the Cardinal Duke, had said the four of them were equal to a thousand men! If you have enough knowledge of human nature to understand the fine game of baseball, and have at any time scraped acquaintance with the interesting mathematical doctrine of progressive permutations, you will see, when four men equal to a thousand are under the eyes of each other, and of the garrison in the fort, that the whole arsenal of logarithms would give out before you could compute the permutative possibilities of the courage that would be refracted, reflected, compounded and concentrated by all there, each giving courage to and receiving courage from each and all the others. It makes my head ache to think of it. I feel as if I could be brave myself.

Certainly they were that day. To the bitter end of finishing the meal; and they confessed the added courage by gamboling like boys amid awful thunders of the arquebuses, which made a rumble in their time like their successors, the omnibuses, still make to this day on the granite streets of cities populated by deaf folks.

There never was more of a gay, lilting, impudent courage than those four mousquetaires displayed with such splendid coolness and spirit.

But compare it with the fight which Bussy made, single-handed, against the assassins hired by Monsereau and authorized by that effeminate fop, the Due D'Anjou. Of course you remember it. Let me pay you the affectionate compliment of presuming that you have read "La Dame de Monsereau," often translated under the English title, "Chicot, the Jester," that almost incomparable novel of historical romance, by M. Dumas. If, through some accident or even through lack of culture, you have failed to do so, pray do not admit it. Conceal your blemish and remedy the matter at once. At least, seem to deserve respect and confidence, and appear to be a worthy novel-reader if actually you are not. There is a novel that, I assure you on my honor, is as good as the "Three Guardsmen;" but—oh!—so—much—shorter; the pity of it, too!—oh, the pity of it! On the second reading—now, let us speak with frank conservatism—on the second reading of it, I give you my word, man to man, I dreaded to turn every page, because it brought the end nearer. If it had been granted to me to have one wish fulfilled that fine winter night, I should have said with humility: "Beneficent Power, string it out by nine more volumes, presto me here a fresh box of cigars, and the account of your kindness, and my gratitude is closed."

* * * * *

If the publisher of this series did not have such absurd sensitiveness about the value of space and such pitifully small ideas about the nobility of novels, I should like to write at least twenty pages about "Chicot." There are books that none of us ever put down in our lists of great books, and yet which we think more of and delight more in than all the great guns. Not one of the friends I've loved so long and well has been President of the United States, but I wouldn't give one of them for all the Presidents. Just across the hall at this minute I can hear the frightful din of war—shells whistling and moaning, bullets s-e-o-uing, the shrieks of the dying and wounded—Merciful Heaven! the "Don Juan of Asturia" has just blown up in Manila Bay with an awful roar—again! Again, as I'm a living man, just as she has blown up every day, and several times every day, since May 1, 1898. There are two warriors over in the play-room, drenched with imaginary gore, immersed in the tender grace of bestowing chastening death and destruction upon the Spanish foe. Don't I know that they rank somewhat below Admiral Dewey as heroes? But do you suppose that their father would swap them for Admiral Dewey and all the rainbow glories that fine old Yankee sea-dog ever will enjoy—long may he live to enjoy them all!—do you think so? Of course not! You know perfectly well that his—wife—wouldn't—let—him!

I would not wound the susceptibilities of any reader; but speaking for myself—"Chicot" being beloved of my heart—if there was a mean man, living in a mean street, who had the last volume of "Chicot" in existence, I would pour out my library's last heart's blood to get it. He could have all of Scott but "Ivanhoe," all of Dickens but "Copperfield," all of Hugo but "Les Miserables," cords of Fielding, Marryat, Richardson, Reynolds, Eliot, Smollet, a whole ton of German translations—by George! he could leave me a poor old despoiled, destitute and ruined book-owner in things that folks buy in costly bindings for the sake of vanity and the deception of those who also deceive them in turn.

Brother, "Chicot" is a book you lend only to your dearest friend, and then remind him next day that he hasn't sent it back.

* * * * *

Now, as to Bussy's great fight. He had gone to the house of Madame Diana de Monsereau. I am not au fait upon French social customs, but let us presume his being there was entirely proper, because that excellent lady was glad to see him. He was set upon by her husband, M. de Monsereau, with fifteen hired assassins. Outside, the Due D'Anjou and some others of assassins were in hiding to make sure that Monsereau killed Bussy, and that somebody killed Monsereau! There's a "situation" for you, double-edged treachery against—love and innocence, let us say. Bussy is in the house with Madame. His friend, St. Luc, is with him; also his lacquey and body-physician, the faithful Rely. Bang! the doors are broken in, and the assassins penetrate up the stairway. The brave Bussy confides Diana to St. Luc and Rely, and, hastily throwing up a barricade of tables and chairs near the door of the apartment, draws his sword. Then, ye friends of sudden death and valorous exercise, began a surfeit of joy. Monsereau and his assassins numbered sixteen. In less than three moderate paragraphs Bessy's sword, playing like avenging lightning, had struck fatality to seven. Even then, with every wrist going, he reflected, with sublime calculation: "I can kill five more, because I can fight with all my vigor ten minutes longer!" After that? Bessy could see no further—there spoke fate!—you feel he is to die. Once more the leaping steel point, the shrill death cry, the miraculous parry. The villain, Monsereau, draws his pistol. Bessy, who is fighting half a dozen swordsmen, can even see the cowardly purpose; he watches; he—dodges—the—bullets!—by watching the aim—

"Ye sons of France, behold the glory!"

He thrusts, parries and swings the sword as a falchion. Suddenly a pistol ball snaps the blade off six inches from the hilt. Bessy picks up the blade and in an instant splices—it—to—the—hilt—with—his— handkerchief! Oh, good sword of the good swordsman! it drinks the blood of three more before it—bends—and—loosens—under—the—strain! Bessy is shot in the thigh; Monsereau is upon him; the good Rely, lying almost lifeless from a bullet wound received at the outset, thrusts a rapier to Bessy's grasp with a last effort. Bessy springs upon Monsereau with the great bound of a panther and pins—the—son—of—a—gun—to—the—floor —with—the—rapier—and—watches—him—die!

You can feel faint for joy at that passage for a good dozen readings, if you are appreciative. Poor Bessy, faint from wounds and blood-letting, retreats valiantly to a closet window step by step and drops out, leaving Monsereau spitted, like a black spider, dead on the floor. Here hope and expectation are drawn out in your breast like chewing gum stretched to the last shred of tenuation. At this point I firmly believed that Bessy would escape. I feel sorry for the reader who does not. You just naturally argue that the faithful Rely will surely reach him and rub him with the balsam. That balsam of Dumas! The same that D'Artagnan's mother gave him when he rode away on the yellow horse, and which cured so many heroes hurt to the last gasp. That miraculous balsam, which would make doctors and surgeons sing small today if they had not suppressed it from the materia medica. May be they can silence their consciences by the reflection that they suppressed it to enhance the value and necessity of their own personal services. But let them look at the death rate and shudder. I had confidence in Rely and the balsam, but he could not get there in time. Then, it was forgone that Bessy must die. Like Mercutio, he was too brilliant to live. Depend upon it, these wizards of story tellers know when the knell of fate rings much sooner than we halting readers do.

Bessy drops from the closet window upon an iron fence that surrounded the park and was impaled upon the dreadful pickets! Even then for another moment you can cherish a hope that he may escape after all. Suspended there and growing weaker, he hears footsteps approaching. Is it a rescuing friend? He calls out—and a dagger stroke from the hand of D'Anjou, his Judas master, finds his heart. That's the way Bessy died. No man is proof against the dagger stroke of treachery. Bessy was powerful and the due jealous.

Diana has been carried off safely by the trustworthy St. Luc. She must have died of grief if she had not been kept alive to be the instrument of retributive justice. (In the sequel you will find that this Queen of Hearts descended upon the ignoble due at the proper time like a thousand of brick and took the last trick of justice.)

* * * * *

The extraordinary description of Bussy's fight is beyond everything. You gallop along as if in a whirlwind, and it is only in cooler moments that you discover he killed about twelve rascals with his own good arm. It seems impossible; the scientific, careful readers have been known to declare it impossible and sneer at it with laughter. I trust every novel reader respects scientific folks as he should; but science is not everything. Our scientific friends have contended that the whale did not engulf Jonah; that the sun did not pause over the vale of Askelon; that Baron Munchausen's horse did not hang to the steeple by his bridle; that the beanstalk could not have supported a stout lad like Jack; that General Monk was not sent to Holland in a cage; that Remus and Romulus had not a devoted lady wolf for a step-mother; in fact, that loads of things, of which the most undeniable proof exists in plain print all over the world, never were done or never happened. Bessy was killed, Rely was killed later, Diana died in performing her destiny, St. Luc was killed. Nobody left to make affidavits, except M. Dumas; in his lifetime nobody questioned it; he is now dead and unable to depose; whereupon the scientists sniff scornfully and deny. I hope I shall always continue to respect science in its true offices, but, brethren, are there not times when—science—makes—you—just—a—little—tired?

Heroes! D'Artagnan or Bessy? Choose, good friends, freely; as freely let me have my Bessy.



VIII

HEROINES

A SUBJECT ALMOST WITHOUT AN OBJECT—WHY THERE ARE FEW HEROINES FOR MEN.

Notwithstanding the subject, there are almost no heroines in novels. There are impossibly good women, absurdly patient and brave women, but few heroines as the convention of worldly thinking demands heroines. There is an endless train of what Thackeray so aptly described as "pale, pious, and pulmonary ladies" who snivel and snuffle and sigh and linger irresolutely under many trials which a little common sense would dissolve; but they are pathological heroines. "Little Nell," "Little Eva," and their married sisters are unquestionable in morals, purpose and faith; but oh! how—they—do—try—the—nerves! How brave and noble was Jennie Deans, but how thick-headed was the dear lass!

These women who are merely good, and enforce it by turning on the faucet of tears, or by old-fashioned obstinacy, or stupidity of purpose, can scarcely be called heroines by the canons of understood definition. On the other hand, the conventions do not permit us to describe as a heroine any lady who has what is nowadays technically called "a past." The very best men in the world find splendid heroism and virtue in Tess l'Durbeyfield. There is nowhere an honest, strong, good man, full of weakness, though he may be, scarred so much, however with fault, who does not read St. John vii., 3-11, with sympathy, reverence and Amen! The infallible critics can prove to a hair that this passage is an interpolation. An interpolation in that sense means something inserted to deceive or defraud; a forgery. How can you defraud or deceive anybody by the interpolation of pure gold with pure gold? How can that be a forgery which hurts nobody, but gives to everybody more value in the thing uttered? If John vii., 3-11, is an interpolation let us hope Heaven has long ago blessed the interpolator. Does anybody—even the infallible critic—contend that Jesus would not have so said and done if the woman had been brought to Him? Was that not the very flower and savor and soul of His teaching? Would He have said or done otherwise? If the Ten Commandments were lost utterly from among men there would yet remain these four greater:

"Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you."

"Suffer little children to come unto me."

"Go and sin no more."

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

My lords and ladies, men and women, the Ten Commandments, by the side of these sighs of gentleness, are the Police Court and the Criminal Code, which are intended to pay cruelty off in punishment. These Four are the tears with which sympathy soothes the wounds of suffering. Blessed interpolator of St. John!

There are three marvelous novels in the Bible—not Novels in the sense of fiction, but in the sense of vivid, living narratives of human emotions and of events. A million Novels rest on those nine verses in John, and the nine verses are better than the million books. The story of David and Uriah's wife is in a similar catalogue as regards quality and usefulness; the story of Esther is a pearl of great beauty.

* * * * *

But to return to heroines, let us make a volte face. There is an old story of the lady who wrote rather irritably to Thackeray, asking, curtly, why all the good women he created were fools and the bright women all bad. "The same complaint," he answered, "has been made, Madame, of God and Shakespeare, and as neither has given explanation I can not presume to attempt one." It was curt and severe, and, of course, Thackeray did not write it as it would appear, even though he may have said as much jestingly to some intimate who understood the epigram; but was not the question rather impudently intrusive? Thackeray, you remember, was the "seared cynic" who created Caroline Gann, the gentle, beautiful, glorious "Little Sister," the staunch, pure-hearted woman whose character not even the perfect scoundrelism of Dr. George Brand Firmin could tarnish or disturb. If there are heroines, surely she has her place high amid the noble group!

There are plenty of intelligent persons sacramentally wedded to mere conventions of good and bad. You could never persuade them that Rebecca Sharp—that most perfect daughter of Thackeray's mind—was a heroine. But of course she was. In that world wherein she was cast to live she was indubitably, incomparably, the very best of all the inhabitants to whom you are intimately introduced. Capt. Dobbin? Oh, no, I am not forgetting good Old Dob. Of all the social door mats that ever I wiped my feet upon Old Dob is certainly the cleanest, most patient, serviceable and unrevolutionary. But, just a door mat, with the virtues and attractions of that useful article of furniture—the sublime, immortal prig of all the ages, or you can take the head of any novel- reader under thirty for a football. You may have known many women, from Bernadettes of Massavielle to Borgias of scant neighborhoods, but you know you never knew one who would marry Old Dob, except as that emotional dishrag, Amelia, married him—as the Last Chance on the stretching high-road of uncertain years. No girl ever willingly marries door mats. She just wipes her feet on them and passes on into the drawing room looking for the Prince. It seems to me one of the triumphant proofs of Becky as a heroine that she did not marry Captain Dobbin. She might have done it any day by crooking her little finger at him—but she didn't.

Madame Becky, that smart daughter of an alcoholic gentleman artist and of his lady of the French ballet, inherited the perfect non-moral morality of the artist blood that sang mercurially through her veins. How could she, therefore, how could she, being non-moral, be immoral? It is clear nonsense. But she did possess the instinctive artist morality of unerring taste for selection in choice. Examine the facts meticulously—meticulously—and observe how carefully she selected that best in all that worst she moved among.

In the will I shall some day leave behind me there will be devised, in primogenitural trust forever, the priceless treasure of conviction that Becky was innocent of Lord Steyne. I leave it to any gentleman who has had the great opportunity to look in familiarly upon the outer and upper fringes of the world of unclassed and predatory women and the noble lords that abound thereamong. Let him read over again that famous scene where Becky writes her scorn upon Steyne's forehead in the noble blood of that aristocratic wolf. Then let him give his decision, as an honest juryman upon his oath, whether he is convinced that the most noble Marquis was raging because he was losing a woman, or from the discovery that he was one of two dupes facing each other, and that he was the fool who had paid for both and had had "no run for his money!" Marquises of Steyne do not resent sentimental losses—they can be hurt only in their sportsmanship.

You may begin with the Misses Pinkerton (in whose select school Becky absorbed the intricate hypocrisies and saturated snobbery of the highest English society) and follow her through all the little and big turmoils of her life, meeting on the way of it all the elaborated differentials of the country-gentleman and lady tribe of Crawley, the line officers and bemedalled generals of the army (except honest O'Dowd and his lady), the most noble Marquis and his shadowy and resigned Marchioness, the R—y—l P—rs—n—ge himself—even down to the tuft-hunters Punter and Loder—and if Becky is not superior to every man and woman of them in every personal trait and grace that calls for admiration—then, why, by George! do you take such an interest, such an undying interest, in her? You invariably take the greatest interest in the best character in a story—unless it's too good and gets "sweety" and "sticky" and so sours on your philosophical stomach. You can't possibly take any interest in Dobbin—you just naturally, emphatically, and in the most unreflecting way in the world, say "Oh, d—n Dobbin!" and go right ahead after somebody else. I don't say Becky was all that a perfect Sunday School teacher should have been, but in the group in which she was born to move she smells cleaner than the whole raft of them—to me.

* * * * *

Thackeray was, next to Shakespeare, the writer most wonderfully combined of instinct and reason that English literature of grace has produced. He has been compared with the Frenchman, Balzac. Since I have no desire to provoke squabbles about favorite authors, let us merely definitely agree that such a comparison is absurd and pass on. Because you must have noticed that Balzac was often feeble in his reason and couldn't make it keep step with his instinct, while in Thackeray they both step together like the Siamese twins. It is a very striking fact, indeed, that during all Becky's intense early experiences with the great world, Thackeray does not make her guilty. All the circumstances of that world were guilty and she is placed amidst the circumstances; but that is all.

"The ladies in the drawing room," said one lady to Thackeray, when "Vanity Fair" in monthly parts publishing had just reached the catastrophe of Rawdon, Rebecca, old Steyne and the bracelet—"The ladies have been discussing Becky Sharpe and they all agree that she was guilty. May I ask if we guessed rightly?"

"I am sure I don't know," replied the "seared cynic," mischievously. "I am only a man and I haven't been able to make up my mind on that point. But if the ladies agree I fear it may be true—you must understand your sex much better than we men!"

That is proof that she was not guilty with Steyne. But straightway then, Thackeray starts out to make her guilty with others. It is so much the more proof of her previous innocence that, incomparable artist as he was in showing human character, he recognized that he could convince the reader of her guilt only by disintegrating her, whipping himself meanwhile into a ceaseless rage of vulgar abuse of her, a thing of which Thackeray was seldom guilty. But it was not really Becky that became guilty—it was the woman that English society and Thackeray remorselessly made of her. I wouldn't be a lawyer for a wagon load of diamonds, but if I had had to be a lawyer I should have preferred to be a solicitor at the London bar in 1817 to write the brief for the respondent in the celebrated divorce case of Crawley vs. Crawley. Against the back-ground of the world she lived in Becky could have been painted as meekly white and beautiful as that lovely old picture of St. Cecilia at the Choir Organ.

Perhaps Becky was not strictly a heroine; but she was a honey.

* * * * *

Men can not "create" heroines in the sense of shadowing forth what they conceive to be the glory, beauty, courage and splendor of womanly character. It is the indescribable sum of womanhood corresponding to the unutterable name of God. The true man's love of woman is a spirit sense attending upon the actual senses of seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling. The woman he loves enters into every one of these senses and thus is impounded five-fold upon that union of all of them, which, together with the miracle of mind, composes what we call the human soul as a divine essence. She is attached to every religion, yet enters with authority into none. She is first at its birth, the last to stay weeping at its death. In every great novel a heroine, unnamed, unspoken, undescribed, hovers throughout like an essence. The heroism of woman is her privacy. There is to me no more wonderful, philosophical, psychological and delicate triumph of literary art in existence than the few chapters in "Quo Vadis" in which that great introspective genius, Sienkiewicz, sets forth the growth of the spell of love with which Lygia has encompassed Vinicius, and the singular development and progress of the emotion through which Vinicius is finally immersed in human love of Lygia and in the Christian reverence of her spiritual purity at the same time. It is the miracle of soul in sex.

Every clean-hearted youth that has had the happiness to marry a good woman—and, thank Heaven, clean youths and good women are thick as leaves in Vallambrosa in this sturdy old world of ours—every such youth has had his day of holy conversion, his touch of the wand conferring upon him the miracle of love, and he has been a better and wiser man for it. Not sense love, not the instinctive, restless love of matter for matter, but the love that descends like the dove amid radiance.

* * * * *

We've all seen that bridal couple; she is as pretty as peaches; he is as proud of her as if she were a splendid race horse; he glories in knowing she is lovely and accepts the admiration offered to her as a tribute to his own judgment, his own taste and even his merit, which obtained her. There is a certain amount of silliness in her which he soon detects, a touch of helplessness, and unsophistication in knowledge of worldly things that he yet feels is mysteriously guarded against intrusion upon and which makes companionship with her sometimes irksome. He feels superior and uncompensated; from the superb isolation of his greater knowledge, courage and independence, he grants to her a certain tender pity and protection; he admits her faith and purity and—er—but—you see, he is sorry she is not quite the well poised and noble creature he is! Mr. Youngwed is at this time passing through the mental digestive process of feeling his oats. He is all right, though, if he is half as good as he thinks he is. He has not been touched by the live wire of experience—yet; that's all.

Well, in the course of human events, there comes a time when he is frightened to death, then greatly relieved and for a few weeks becomes as proud as if he had actually provided the last census of the United States with most of the material contained in it. A few months later, when the feeble whines and howls have found increased vigor of utterance and more frequency of expression; when they don't know whether Master Jack or Miss Jill has merely a howling spell or is threatened with fatal convulsions; when they don't know whether they want a dog-muzzle or a doctor; when Mr. Youngwed has lost his sleep and his temper, together, and has displayed himself with spectacular effect as a brute, selfish, irritable, helpless, resourceless and conquered—then—then, my dear madame, you have doubtless observed him decrease in self-estimated size like a balloon into which a pin has been introduced, until he looks, in fact, like Master Frog reduced in bulk from the bull-size, to which he aspired, to his original degree.

At that time Mrs. Youngwed is very busy with little Jack or Jill, as the case may be. Her husband's conduct she probably regards with resignation as the first heavy burden of the cross she is expected to bear. She does not reproach him, it is useless; she has perhaps suspected that his assumed superiority would not stand the real strain. But, he is the father of the dear baby and, for that precious darling's sake, she will be patient. I wonder if she feels that way? She has every right to, and, for one, I say that I'll be hanged if I find any fault with her if she does. That is the way she must keep human, and so balance the little open accounts that married folks ought to run between themselves for the purpose of keeping cobwebs and mildew off, or rather of maintaining their lives as a running stream instead of a stagnant pond. A little good talking back now and then is good for wives and married men. Don't be afraid, Mrs. Youngwed; and when the very worst has come, why cry—at—him! One tear weighs more and will hit him harder than an ax. In the lachrymal ducts with which heaven has blessed you, you are more surely protected against the fires of your honest indignation than you are by the fire department against a blaze in the house. And be patient, also; remember, dear sister, that, though you can cry, he has a gift—that—enables—him—to—swear! You and other wedded wives very properly object to swearing, but you will doubtless admit that there is compensation in that when he does swear in his usual good form you—never—feel—any—apprehension—about—the—state—of—his—health!

This natural outburst of resentment has not lasted three minutes. Mr. Y. has returned to his couch, sulky and ashamed. He pretends to sleep ostentatiously; he—does—not! He is thinking with remarkable intensity and has an eye open. He sees the slender figure in the dim light, hanging over the crib, he hears the crooning, he begins to suspect that there is an alloy in his godlikeness. He looks to earth, listens to the thin, wailing cries, wonders, regrets, wearies, sleeps. At that moment Mrs. Y. should fall on her knees and rejoice. She would if she could leave young Jack or Jill; but she can't—she—never—can. That's what sent Mr. Y. to sleep. It is just as well perhaps that Mrs. Y. is unobservant.

A miracle is happening to Mr. Y. In an hour or two, let us say, there is a new vocal alarm from the crib. Almost with the first suspicion of fretfulness or pain the mother has heard it. Heaven's mysterious telepathy of instinct has operated. Between angels, babies and mothers the distance is no longer than your arm can reach. They understand, feel and hear each other, and are linked in one chain. So, that, when Mr. Y. has struggled laboriously awake and wonders if—that—child—is—going— to—howl—all——. Well, he goes no further. In the dim light he sees again the slender figure hanging over the crib, he hears the crooning and the retreating sobs. It is just as he saw and heard before he fell asleep. No complaints, no reproaches, no irritation. Oh, what a brute he feels! He battles with his reason and his bewilderment. Had he fallen asleep and left her to bear that strain; or has she gone anew to the rescue, while he slept without thought? Up out of his heart the tenderness wells; down into his mind the revelation comes. The miracle works. He looks and listens. In the figure hanging there so patiently and tenderly he sees for the first time the wonderful vision of the sweetheart wife, not lost, but enveloped in the mystery of motherhood; he hears in the crooning voice a tone he never before knew. Mother and child are united in mysterious converse. Where did that girl whom he thought so unsophisticated of the world learn that marvel of acquaintance with that babe, so far removed from his ability to reach? It must be that while he knew the world, she understood the secret of heaven. She is so patient. What a brute he is to grow impatient, when she endures day and night in rapt patience and the joy of content! She can enter a world from which he is barred. And, that is his wife! That was his sweetheart, and is now—ah, what is she? He feels somehow abashed; he knows that if he were ten times better than he is he might still feel unworthy to touch the latchet of her shoes; he feels that reverence and awe have enveloped her, and that the first happy love and longing are springing afresh in his heart. It is his wife and his child; apart from him unless he can note and understand that miracle of nature's secret. Can he? Well, he will try—oh, what a brute! And he watches the bending figure, he hears the blending of soft crooning and retreating sobs—and, listening, he is lost in the wonder and falls under the spell asleep.

Mrs. Y., you are happy henceforth, if you will disregard certain small matters, such as whether chairs or hat-racks are for hats, or whether the marble mantelpiece or the floor is intended for polishing boot heels.

* * * * *

Of course, such an incident as has been suggested is but one of thousands of golden moments when to the husband comes the sudden dazzling recognition of the mergence of that half-sweetheart, half-mistress, he has admired and a little tired of, into the reverential glory and loveliness of wifehood, motherhood, companionhood, through all life and on through the eternity of inheritance they shall leave to Jacks and Jills and their little sisters and brothers. In that lies the priceless secret of Christianity and its influence. The unspeakably immoral Greeks reared a temple to Pity; the grossest mythologies of Babylon, Greece, Rome and Carthage could not change human nature. There have been always persons whose temperament made them sympathize with grief and pity the suffering; who, caring none for wealth, had no desire to steal; who purchased a little pleasure for vanity in the thanks received for kindness given. But Christianity saw the jewel underneath the passing emotion and gave it value by cleansing and cutting it. In lust-love is the instinctive secret of the preservation of the race; but the race is not worth preserving that it may be preserved only for lust. Upon that animal foundation is to be built the radiant home of confident, enduring and exchanging love in which all the senses, tastes, hopes, aspirations and delights of friendship, companionship and human society shall find hospitality and comfort. When it has been achieved it is beautiful, a twin to the delicate rose that lies in its own delicious fragrance, happy on the pure bosom of a lovely girl—the rose that is finest and most exquisite because it has sprung from the horrid heat of the compost; but who shall think of the one in the presence of the pure beauty of the other?

Nature and art are entirely unlike each other, though the one simulates the other. The art of beauty in writing, said Balzac, is to be able to construct a palace upon the point of a needle; the art of beauty in living and loving is to build all the beauty of social life and aspiration upon the sordid yet solid and persisting instincts of savagery that lie deep at the bottom of our gross natures.

* * * * *

Now, it is in this tender sacred atmosphere, such as Mr. and Mrs. Youngwed always pass through, that the man worthy of a woman's confidence finds the radiant ideal of his heroine. He may with propriety speak of these transfigured personalities to his intimates or write of them with kindly pleasantry and suggestion as, perhaps, this will be considered. But, there is a monitor within that restrains him from analyzing and describing and dragging into the glare of publicity the sacred details that give to life all its secret happiness, faith and delight. To do so would be ten times worse offense against the ethics of unwritten and unspoken things than describing with pitiless precision the death beds of children, as Little Nell, Paul Dombey, Dora, Little Eva, and, thank heaven! only a few others.

How can anybody bear to read such pages without feeling that he is an intruder where angels should veil their faces as they await the transformation?

"It is not permitted to do evil," says the philosopher, "that good may result."

There are some things that should remain unspoken and undescribed. Have you never listened to some great brute of a sincere preacher of the gospel, as he warned his congregation against the terrible dangers attending the omission of purely theological rites upon infants? Have you thought of the mothers of those children, listening, whose little ones were sick or delicate, and who felt each word of that hard, ominous warning as an agonizing terror? And haven't you wanted to kick the minister out of the pulpit, through the reredos and into the middle of next week? How can anybody harrow up such tender feelings? How can anybody like to believe that a little child will be held to account? Many of us do so believe, perhaps, whether or no; but is it not cruel to shake the rod of terror over us in public? "Suffer little children to come unto Me," said the Master; He did not instruct us to drive them with fear and terror and trembling. Whenever I have heard such sermons I have wanted to get up and stalk out of the church with ostentatiousness of contempt, as if to say to the preacher that his conduct did—not—meet—with—my—approval. But I didn't; the philosopher has his cowardice not less than the preacher.

But there is something meretricious and cheap in the use of material and subjects that lie warm against the very secret heart of nature. The mystery of love and the sanctity of death are to be used by writers and artists only in their ennobling aspect of results. A certain class of French writers have sickened the world by invading the sacredness of passion and giving prostitution the semblance of self-abnegated love; a certain class of English and American writers have purchased popularity by the meretricious parade of the scenes of death-beds. Both are violations of the ethics of art as they are of nature. True love as true sorrow shrinks from exhibition and should be permitted to enjoy the sacredness of privacy. The famous women of the world, Herodias, Semiramis, Aspasia, Thais, Cleopatra, Sapho, Messalina, Marie de Medici, Catherine of Russia, Elizabeth of England—all of them have been immoral. Publicity to women is like handling to peaches—the bloom comes off, whether or not any other harm occurs. In literature, the great feminine figures, George Sand, Madame de Sevigne, Madame de Stael, George Eliot—all were banned and at least one—the first—was out of the pale. Creative thought has in it the germ of masculinity. Genius in a woman, as we usually describe genius, means masculinity, which, of all things, to real men is abhorrent in woman. True genius in woman is the antithesis of the qualities that make genius in man; so is her heroism, her beauty, her virtue, her destiny and her duty.

Let this be said—even though it be only a jest—one of those smart attempts at epigram, which, ladies, a man has no more power to resist than a baby to resist the desire to improve his thumb by sucking it—that: whenever you find a woman who looks real—that is, who produces upon a real man the impression of being endowed with the splendid gifts for united and patient companionship in marriage—whenever you find her advocating equal suffrage, equal rights, equal independence with men in all things, you may properly run away. Equality means so much, dear sisters. No man can be your equal; you can not be his, without laying down the very jewels of the womanliness that men love. Be thankful you have not this strength and daring; he possesses those in order that he many stand between you and more powerful brutes. Now, let us try for a smart epigram: But no! hang the epigram, let it go. This, however, may be said: That, whenever you find a woman wanting all rights with man; wanting his morals to be judged by hers, or willing to throw hers in with his, or itching to enter his employments and labors and willing that he shall—of course—nurse the children and patch the small trousers and dresses, depend upon it that some weak and timid man has been neglecting the old manly, savage duty of applying quiet home murder as society approves now and then.

THE END