Her Royal Highness Woman

CHAPTER XXX

THE WOMAN I HATE

Ernest Renan, whom nobody would dream of charging with frivolity, said that the first duty of woman was to look beautiful. Victor Hugo once said that it was to look pleasant. In mythology we find that the gods fell in love with Venus, but never with Minerva.

The functions of woman are to inspire and to guide, not to lead or command, and I think that the saddest spectacle of the latter end of the nineteenth century was the supremely ridiculous efforts made by some women to usurp functions which by Nature were intended for men to perform. Poor women's-righters! They cannot be men, and they want to cease to be women. Men and women are like electric fluids. When of the same name, they repel each other; when of different kinds, they attract each other. Now, women's-righters are seldom beautiful, very seldom attractive. A manly woman is as objectionable a sight as an effeminate man. The blue-stockings are mostly of the 'unclaimed blessing' sisterhood, and very few of them set up for professional beauties. The blue-stocking fascinates me as much as the bearded lady of a Chicago dime museum.

When a woman is beautiful, she is generally satisfied with playing a woman's part. The tedious women's-righters embrace the thankless career of exponents of women's grievances because they have never found anything better to embrace. And, for that matter, these excellent ladies must not put it into their heads that they have created the part, for it existed in the days of Aristophanes. Praxagora was neither more nor less ridiculous than most of the present champions of women's rights.

I hate the woman who appears in public. I hate the woman who lectures in public or in private. I hate the woman who rises to make a speech after dinner. I hate the woman who speaks about politics, and would like to sit in Parliament so as to transform it into a Chatterment. I hate the scientific woman who lectures on evolution or writes on natural philosophy. I hate the lady physician, the lady lawyer, the lady member of the School Board, the lady preacher, the lady president, the lady secretary, the lady reciter, even the lady who conducts an orchestra. I hate the prominent woman. And, although I don't see her, I hate the woman who writes a book, and feel almost ready to exclaim with Alphonse Karr: 'One book more and one woman less!'

Compared to all these, how I love the pretty woman who dresses well, smiles pleasantly, parts her hair in the middle, and has never done anything in her life! 'Ah!' will exclaim the hateful woman, 'but see, she wears the collar of servitude.' Nonsense! The marks that you see on her neck are not those of a collar of servitude, but those made by the arms of the husband and the children that clasp her round it.

Women, priests, and poultry have never enough, but in wishing to extend her empire woman will destroy it.

Now, ladies, what do you want? I hear you constantly loudly demanding the emancipation of your sex. You say you can do without us, and as for our protection, you'll none of it. For you, in times past, have we drawn the sword; to-day you hold us scarce worthy to draw cheques at your bidding. You would be man's equal, as if you ought not to be content with being incontestably his superior. You have graces of body and mind, and men pay you a homage that falls little short of worship. Your first duties are to be tender, sweet, and beautiful. You have every intention of continuing to be the latter, we have no doubt, but you mean to be tender and sweet no longer. In a word, you mean to strike, as your sisters did in the good old days of Aristophanes.

'You want to be learned? But you are learned in the heart's lore by Nature. You want to be free? But we are your slaves confessed. You want to make the laws? But your lightest word is law already. And, besides, between ourselves, do you not practically make your husbands vote pretty much as you please in all the parliaments of the world? You want to have more influence in the higher councils? But are you not satisfied with knowing that it was a woman who was the cause of the fall of the human race? that a woman has been the cause of every great catastrophe, from the Siege of Troy down to the Franco-Prussian War? that, in a word, woman has ever inspired our noblest actions and our foulest crimes? The rights of woman! What a sonorous platitude!'

You are proud of saying that to your sex belonged Joan of Arc, Charlotte Corday, George Sand, George Eliot, Charlotte Brontë, Madame Roland, Madame de Staël. Quite true; but could you find many men who would have been happy by taking to wife any one of the ladies I have just mentioned?

If you give a boy the education of a girl, or a girl the education of a boy, the result will be an unsubmissive or degraded being. It is always this result which must be reached by all who, believing that they are protesting against laws and usages, are really in rebellion against Nature. 'I dream of a society,' said Jules Simon, 'where women would be the mistresses in their own household, and would figure in public affairs only through the intermediary of their fathers and their husbands. I would like to sacrifice myself for woman, but not to obey her. I repel her domination, but I crave for her influence.'

The name of woman will ever be glorious so long as it is synonymous with beauty, tenderness, sweetness, devotion, all the sacred troop of virtues. It will be glorious, thanks to the Lucretias, the Penelopes, the Cornelias, ancient and modern, the devoted daughters, the loving wives, the adorable mothers, to the thousands of obscure heroines, who remind us, in the words of the great poet of antiquity, that the best women have been those whom the world has heard least of.

The loveliest picture in the world is that which represents a soldier lying on the battlefield with a woman kneeling by his side tending his wounds. Let the field be that of the everyday battle of life.

CHAPTER XXXI

THE KIND OF WOMAN I LOVE

I once wrote an article on 'The Woman I Hate,' which brought me an avalanche of letters, not all very pleasing reading. Many of them conveyed to me the wrath of viragos, women's-righters, petticoated males, trousered females, misunderstood and unclaimed women, ripe, spectacled spinsters, cockatoos of all sorts and conditions, who happened by the irony of fate and freaks of nature to be born of a sex of which they failed to be an ornament.

One of these correspondents accused me of 'possessing a nasty mind' for sneering at lady doctors. 'You insult women,' she says. 'Can you imagine, for instance, a respectable woman submitting to an examination by a man?' My dear lady, I am afraid I must return you the compliment. Let me assure you that, just as an artist will see nothing in a female figure beyond beauty and perfect harmony of lines, and will admire her with as cool a mind as he would a statue, just so a doctor will examine a woman as he would a piece of anatomy, and your mind must be fearfully distorted and impure, if you imagine for a moment that a single objectionable thought will pass through the mind of this man of science.

If you really do think so, let me assure you that I pity you, or even must despise you, from the bottom of my heart. And, while on this subject, allow me to remind you that an eminent American man exclaimed only the other day: 'In our country we have a great many female doctors, female lawyers, female journalists, female orators, female preachers, and females in all classes and professions and trades, but what we want is a good many more female women.'

The woman I love is the female woman that I would protect and cherish in return for all the sweet attention she would pay me, and which would enable me to cheerfully fight the battle of life. How to describe her I hardly know.

Should she be beautiful? Not necessarily. Pretty? Yes, rather. Good figure? Decidedly. Clever? H'm – yes. Cheerful? By all means. Punctual? Like a military man. Serious? Not too much. Frivolous? Yes, just a little. Of a scientific turn of mind? B-r-r-r! no; I should shudder at the idea of it. Of an artistic nature, then, with literary tastes? Yes, certainly. But, above all, a keen, sensible, tactful little woman who would make it the business of her life to study me, as I would make it the business of my life to study her; a woman who could be in turn, according to circumstances, a housewife, a counsellor, a 'pal,' a wife, a sweetheart, a nurse, a patient, the sunshine of my life, and always a confidante, a friend, and a partner.

In a little Normandy town I have a dear lady friend, Parisienne to the core, whom I have known and loved from childhood. She is not far from sixty, but, upon my word, I think she is still very beautiful. She was in succession a loving, devoted daughter, an excellent wife, and an adorable mother. She has now lost all she loved in the world, and she devotes her time cultivating a lovely garden of flowers and attending all the church services of the parish. A beggar never passes her without receiving a little contribution, and she helps many a poor family. In a word, the gay life of Paris is all forgotten, and you would imagine that my recluse friend was a hermit, a sort of lay nun, as it were.

Well, yes, she is all that; but isn't she a woman still, though! 'Do you see,' she was saying to me one day, 'I have renounced all my worldly ideas? My flowers, my books, my poor friends, that's the only thought of my life now. I am old; I don't care how I dress or how I look. Anything does for me now. The Parisienne that you used to know, my dear friend, is dead and buried.'

'What a charming dress you have on!' I remarked. 'I do admire the material and the colour, and the cut, too. And how beautifully made and finished! Did you have that made in this town?'

The expression of her face was a study.

'My dear friend,' she exclaimed, 'you do not imagine I would get a dress made in this stupid little hole of a town. They make bags here, not gowns.' And she almost looked indignant, the dear! at the idea that I could suppose she had not her dresses made in Paris. I smiled, and said nothing.

And, as I looked at the book-shelves in her boudoir, I saw 'L'Imitation de Jésus-Christ.' The volume next to it was 'Les Secrets du Cabinet de Toilette.' I could not help making a little sarcastic remark to my dear old friend.

'Well, mon cher ami,' she said, 'do you think the bon Dieu would give me a better reception if I presented myself with a face covered with wrinkles? By the way, what is that stuff they make in England which you told me is so good for the skin?'

Those little contradictions in a good and delightful woman make her lovable. So I think, at any rate.

The woman I love is the woman who possesses all the womanly virtues and qualities – sweetness, devotion, reliability. The little failings I forgive in her are those of her sex – frivolity and the divine right of changing her mind. If in any way woman apes man, she is intolerable and hateful.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN IN THE WORLD

If I were asked to name the spots of the earth where my eyes had the privilege of beholding the most beautiful specimens of womanhood, I think I would name the streets of Buda-Pesth and the drawing-rooms of Ireland. If, on the other hand, I were asked to say whether there is not, perchance, a spot of the earth where no woman is absolutely, helplessly plain, where she always has a redeeming feature to speak in her favour, I would unhesitatingly answer: 'Yes, the United States of America; for in that country, let a woman have as unpleasant a face as possible, as bad a figure as "they make them," there is an air of independence, a deliberate gait, a pair of intelligent eyes, that will go a long way towards making you forget or overlook the shortcomings of the body.'

On the whole, I think the Hungarian women are the most beautiful in the world. They have the faces of Madonnas and the figures of Greek statues; both Raphael and Phidias would have chosen them for models. They are not languishing, diaphanous creatures; they are the embodiment of health and strength. They stand erect and straight, are hearty and vigorous to the core, perfect pictures of abounding vitality. Yet their limbs and features are full of delicacy. They have large eyes and small feet, full arms, plump hands with small, tapering fingers, and delicious ankles. The inclination of the shoulders is perfect, and the bosom absolutely classical. No curve is exaggerated, but every one is there, the right size in the right place. The sun has spread a reddish golden tint, like the colour of a beautiful ripe peach, over her complexion.

She seldom presents a riddle to the psychologist, and effeminate ethereal poets do not sing of her. She is the vigorous embodiment of sensible womanhood. As her exterior, so her whole character is enchantingly fresh and matter-of-fact. She eats well and heartily, and is an athlete. She swims, dances, rides, walks. In England, you find very pretty faces among the lowest class people; in France, you seldom do. In Hungary, grace and beauty know no difference between high and low, and often bestow upon a poor, barefooted, short-skirted peasant girl (with her beautiful oval face framed in a kerchief tied under her chin) the same ravishing form, the same graceful carriage, the same magically attractive glance as upon her more favoured sister.

But who can touch – even approach – the Irish woman with her dark hair, her blue, sometimes light purple large eyes, her glorious complexion, her soft, velvety skin, her beautiful, graceful form? Sometimes the lower portion of the face is a little too long, but her brow is beyond competition. The Irish woman is a symphony in white satin. Add to these physical attractions the brightness of her expression, the amiability of her smile, and you will come to the conclusion that her charm is unapproachable.

There is so much patriotism in the world, or, I should rather say, so much provincialism, that men all over the earth give the palm for beauty to the women of their own country. Now, dear American friends, you know this is true. Would any of you deny that the American women are the most beautiful women in the world?

I am sorry to say that the beauty of French women is praised by my compatriots only.

I am such a cosmopolitan that I have no biassed mind. I have been a traveller for thirty years. In 1870 I shed a pint of blood and lost the use of my right arm (for military purposes at any rate), so that France and myself are quits, and I feel I have a right to express myself on French topics quite as freely and independently as on any other country. I thoroughly believe that the French women are the most charming and certainly the most sensible women (where would France be now but for the women?), but they are far from being beautiful. They have not the eyes of the Spanish women, nor the complexion and shapely figures of the English, nor the brilliant faces of the American women; but what makes them charming is that they have a little bit of everything, of which they know how to make the best. The French woman is an ensemble.

It must be admitted that, after praising the women of their own country, most men award to Spanish women the palm for beauty. The conclusion must naturally be that the Spanish woman is very beautiful; but, to my mind, it is a kind of beauty that does not appeal to the heart or the soul as it does to the senses. Her large eyes, veiled by thick lashes, her delicate nose and well-formed, ever-moving nostrils, her undulating form, the suppleness, almost boneless, beautifully moulded limbs and figure, her vigour, her languor – every fibre of the Spanish woman's body, I say, appeals to the senses. She does not make you dream of sentimental walks by moonlight, much less still of a quiet, happy life in some retired, secluded little cottage. In her company, you would never dream of being mayor of your city and father of a numerous family. No, the Spanish woman strikes you as a bewitchingly beautiful creature, jealous, sensitive, proud, a sort of mixture of lioness and tigress that would suggest to you the idea of spending your life sailing on a stormy sea. On looking at her, you would almost like to start an acquaintance with a quarrel. If I were married to a fair woman of Andalusia, I would feel that the best moments of my life would be 'making it up' with her.

If the law of my country made polygamy compulsory, I would make love to an English woman or a fair daughter of Virginia; I would have my house kept by a German wife; my artistic inclinations I would trust to a French woman; my intellectual ones to an American one. Then, when life got a bit dull and I wanted my blood stirred up, I would call on my Spanish wife. I would get it.

CHAPTER XXXIII

BLONDES AND BRUNETTES

The ideal beautiful woman of the painters is a blonde.

Eve, Venus, Helen of Troy, all the celebrated beauties of antiquity and mythology, are invariably represented as blondes.

Only Cleopatra escaped it.

The reason is no doubt that the very colouring of the blonde, her fair white skin, her light blue or gray eyes, suggest in her the possession, the embodiment of all that is womanly. The blonde is the woman par excellence.

Some people declare that blondes appeal to the imagination, to the heart and to the soul, and brunettes to the senses – that the former are sentimental, sweet, modest, good-tempered, obedient, nay, angelical, whereas brunettes are strong-minded, assertive, conceited, quick-tempered, passionate, often revengeful, and sometimes devilish.

I have known brunettes to be perfect angels, and sweet blondes to be perfect little devils, and so have we all.

However this may be, most women desire to be blondes, and the proof of it is that, whereas a blonde never dyes her hair black, many brunettes dye theirs gold, blond cendré, light mahogany, and other hues of the blonde family.

On the stage the ladies of the ballet and the chorus wear blonde wigs, and the only possible reason to give for this is that managers believe they will look more attractive to the audience as blondes than as brunettes.

In the modern melodrama, the ingénue is blonde and the adventuress or villainess is dark, especially in England and America, where every member of the caste has to be well labelled from the beginning. If the villainess were a blonde, the gallery would take her for the heroine, and things would get terribly mixed. The gallery would no more understand a blonde villainess than they could take for a villain a man who did not wear a chimney-top hat and patent leather boots, smoke a cigarette, squint all the time to the right and to the left, and hiss like a snake every time he took breath.

Poets are quite as partial as artists to blondes. Alfred de Musset sang of her who was blonde comme les blés. Petrarch's sonnets were addressed to the blonde and blue-eyed Laura. The ancient Greeks used to call young blondes 'children of the gods.' For that matter, blondes especially appeal to the men of the south on account of their rarity.

Large, dreamy blue eyes, fair and soft skin, dainty features, slender figure, such are the characteristics of the blonde which help to make her the ideal young girl; but there is another beauty besides that of the young girl, it is the beauty of the full-grown woman of thirty to forty, a beauty that you will find oftener in the brunette than in the blonde, a beauty more piquant, more solid, and more lasting; but I know brunettes of thirty who are passées, and blondes of forty who are beautiful. You cannot lay down any rule.

Did I hear you ask me which I prefer? How can you ask such a question? How can any man answer it? Good light sauterne is an exquisite wine; full-bodied Burgundy is a most excellent beverage.

I like both.

It is not every woman who can afford to be a blonde. If I were a rich woman of leisure, I think I would ask to be a blonde. The blonde requires much more care than the brunette. She has to avoid exposure, and her beauty will last only as long as her appearance remains youthful. The brunette does not suffer from exposure; on the contrary, the sun improves her beauty as it does peaches.

In northern countries you very seldom see a pretty woman among the working classes; they are faded, wrinkled or freckled, and lack expression.

In Italy and Spain you see, in the streets, flower-girls and fruit-sellers who could have given sittings to Raphael and Murillo.

But I will tell you what I like, although you do not ask me, and that is a blonde with brown eyes or, better still, a fine, tall brunette with dark-blue eyes and the fine delicate skin of a blonde; and, if you want to see the latter, go to Ireland, you will find her there in plenty.

CHAPTER XXXIV

FLIRTS AND COQUETTES

There is a great difference between the flirt and the coquette. The flirt accepts, even invites, your attentions, without expecting intentions. The coquette is a woman who gives you a promissory note with a firm intention of dishonouring her signature. Just as the prude often says No when she means Yes, the coquette whispers Yes all the time meaning No. The flirt promises nothing. She has nothing to refuse, because she does not allow you to ask for anything. She does not compromise herself in any way. She says neither Yes nor No. She encourages you to go on. You say to yourself, 'Will it be Yes or No? Who knows? Perhaps Yes, perhaps No.'

The coquette is generally a cold-hearted, cold-blooded woman, as perfectly sure of herself as those famous Mexican horsemen who can ride at full speed toward a precipice and stop suddenly dead on the edge of it. The coquette has no capacity for love; she does not seek love, but admiration and homage only. Unlike the flirt, she lacks cheerfulness and humour. To obtain admiration and boast of a new conquest she will risk even her reputation, compromise herself; yet her virtue is in safe keeping, for she has neither heart nor passion. In the comedy of love the coquette is the villain of the play.