CHAPTER XIII.

HESTER GODFREY IN SEARCH OF PERFECTION.

"Papa,"' said Hester one morning, as she passed from the lawn into the library, and threw her arms round her father's neck, "papa, I am thoroughly resolved never to be married."

"Time enough, my darling, to think of that; but why this sudden resolved?"

"Because married women are so unhappy. Adelaide and Annie were has merry as crickets when they were single, and now how serious and unhappy they appear."

"Seriousness is not unhappiness. Age makes one sedate."

"Nay, but I am sure they are miserable, and I tell you I will not marry; so do not promise my hand to any one". And she put a very lovely one into her father's hand as she spoke.

"I will not, my dear Hetty; but you may live to alter your mind."

"I shall not, and I will tell you why. I have considered this matter very closely and I have discovered that a married woman is but a slave to a man. She must have no will of her own, no purse of her own, and though she has all the trouble and anxiety with the children, they are his--not hers--as soon as they begin to reason. I love freedom, papa; I will be no mere tool to any man. No art, no science, no refinement, no practical improvement can flourish in slavery; and the reason women have shown less aptitude for intellectual cultivation than men is, that they are mere slaves--domestic drudges, for the most part--with no higher interest than to procure food and clothing."

"Where did my Hester pick up Mary Wolstonecroft's writings?"

"Mary Wolstonecroft--who is she, papa?"

"A lady who advocates woman's rights, my love. I thought you had been reading her book."

"There is no need if all she says is that which I feel, namely, that all women are slaves. I learned this from simple observation. I wonder all women do not feel it so."

"Women are supposed to live in their affections; and those whom we love we serve willingly."

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"Yes, but you know that soon becomes a mere supposition, even if it be not so at first. How snappish wives usually are! I notice it in the cottagers, in the tradesfolks; everywhere, where manners are not taught to enable one to _sham_ before company. And the husbands are surly, unmanageable bears; there must be something wrong in marriage to produce these effects so frequently."

"And what remedy do you propose?" asked Mr. Godfrey, greatly amazed.

"Nay, that I have not considered. I only know that something is wrong now, and that I will not marry 'till it is set right."

"Wait 'till you fall in love, my dear."

"Fall in love, indeed! What a ridiculous thing to do! No, papa, I intend no fall; that is just why I will not marry. I might admire and respect a man as my equal; I might even venerate him as my superior, if he were my superior in mind; but bind myself to him as a slave I would not. No Grecian hero in all antiquity could inspire me with love enough to commit a moral suicide."

"The Grecian women claimed no equal rights," said Mr. Godfrey.

"No; I marked that well, papa. History is a treatise on men--on their deeds, their daring, their wisdom, their improvement or retrogression. Now and then, as if by accident, a woman's deeds were recorded, but very rarely. Why this has been, I cannot divine. Woman ought, could, should, and must rebel. This is the age of freedom. Does freedom concern only half of the human race?"

"No; it concerned the horde of women who forced their way into the royal apartments at Versailles. My Hester should have headed the procession?"

"Now, papa, that is not fair. You know well I do not wish to countenance rude and vulgar proceedings. Only I do not see why woman should not cultivate her intellectual and moral powers, and march onward in the career of perfectibility as well as man."

"What is that long word you used, Hester?"

"Now, papa, how provoking you are! Have you not yourself taught me to cultivate every faculty to perfection, as a duty? Have you not often said that the world has yet to learn the results of an equipoised, many-sided development? That hitherto too strong a bias has been given, and that a one-sided training has made a one-sided character?"

"I have said this. Hester, but what is this to the purpose?"

"Why, perfectibility must mean the tendency toward perfection produced by this equipoised, by this many-sided development; and woman must be the chief operator in effecting this equipoised development, because woman is the exclusive educator of the young of either sex; and it is when young, when very young, that the germs are laid of ideas which perish not. Physiologists say that though character is modified afterward, the form is, for the most part, given ere the seventh year has been attained."

"It may be so, but what of that?" asked the father.

"Why, I think, then, that woman's especial vocation is to the study of this perfectibility: that is, how to procure a due development--how to teach the race to aspire. It seems to me that, generally speaking, the aims of the world are very grovelling and sensual. If we could once fire the race with the desire of reaching the utmost perfection of which there nature is capable, methinks a glorious work would be begun, and after ages might be brought almost to doubt of the misery that now exists, their own position would be so different."

"It is a glorious project," said the father turning to the animated girl, "but a difficult one; the world is large, and every one thinks his own ideas the right ones."

"I know it; but I know, too that that thought must not check an inspiration. Individuals have changed the face of nations before now. Had they suffered their enthusiasm to be checked by dwelling on how little one {475} person can do, nothing would ever have been done. An individual who feels an intense interest in any subject, and a full conviction that such a subject is likely to benefit his co-patriots, is bound to carry forward his views to the utmost of his power."

"You may be right--nay, the principle is right; but what can my little Hester do?"

"She can study and think and experimentalize and observe and have the benefit of her father's advice through all, if only he will give it her, if only he will put it out of his head that every girl is born to be married, and that a girl cannot think and act for herself, and cherish ideas of philanthropy and work for the public good."

"Lycurgus would not sanction this, my little Spartan girl."

"Perhaps not, papa; but times have altered. Legislators used to seek for a numerous population. Now, Dr. Malthus says the world is over-peopled."

"Why, Hester, I did not think these were subjects that you cared for at all."

"But I do care for them, papa--more, much more than you think; and what I ask of you is to forget that I am a girl, and let me think and study everything--political economy, social economy, natural philosophy, ethics, and aesthetics. I want to know how each of these bears upon the condition the race, to see what man might be. I want to know why man is created--to what he tends."

"Man is created to enjoy life, my child."

"Then why are so many miserable? Why have we disease, plague, famine, war, and bloodshed?"

"'These are partly the result of man's ignorance."

"And yet man has existed nearly six thousand years, and every kind of experience and teaching has been his; and philosophers, sages, religionists, lawgivers have been trying to instruct him, and he is ignorant still."

"You forget, Hester, that every individual that is born into the world is born ignorant and helpless; and yet every individual must realize instruction ere ignorance can be banished. Where you have an educated people to work upon, you may propound improvements and be understood, and then you will find instruments who will co-operate with you; but now look at the population. Occupied in daily toil, as the price of life, how can they comprehend high theories, or study experimental philosophy. If they go into it at all, it must be to take upon trust a few ideas, and they are as likely to take the wrong ideas as the right ones, by that means."

"And is there no remedy for this? Is all this toil necessary? It seems to me as if a great deal of unnecessary work is always being performed. Spartan frugality would disapprove of much of modern luxury; and is not half the toil for luxury merely?"

"Some of it is; but Spartan pride refused all toil, even for necessaries. The laborers of the present day do the work of the helots in Sparta. To work was beneath the dignity of a Spartan."

"And we have no helots in England now," said Hester.

"Would you wish to have?" asked Mr. Godfrey.

"No! Why should one part of mankind be sacrificed to the happiness of the other? I would have no men slaves, no women slaves. Let all be free and equal. If there is work to be done, let all do a portion, and let all have a portion of rest, or rather of leisure, for the improvement of the mental faculties."

"No man will work, unless compelled, at hard, daily labor. Those who have property are not compelled. How will you compel them? For instance, my neighbor, the blacksmith, has a wife and six children to support. He works from twelve to fourteen hours daily. His wife keeps no servant; she scrubs, washes, cooks, and attends to all herself. Now, you {476} and I, being people of leisure, should do half their work for them. Suppose you go and help the wife, and I go and help the blacksmith half of every day; they might then study perfectibility the other half."

Hester laughed. "We might do worse than that," she said; "but that would only be helping two individuals, whereas I wish to place society on a right principle. I no longer wonder at the French revolution. Had I to toil hard and to live hard, seeing all the while some few privileged beings do nothing at all but revel in luxury, I should be a revolutionist too; only I should not know how to set the matter right. One thing is clear from all history, luxury is an injury to the individual who uses it, and all states have been weakened when luxury has become common; therefore, father, I will make myself hardy, that I may not be corrupted in my own proper person."

And true to her resolution, Hester, regardless of public opinion, became simple in her habits. A hard bed, plain diet, an uncarpeted room, with singular plainness of dress, distinguished this young aspirant after perfectibility. Her mother would willingly have seen her dress in a manner becoming her station; but Hester "did not choose to make herself a peg on which to hang dressmakers' fancies. Clothes were for two purposes," she said, "for warmth and decency; when these two objects were attained it was enough." Her mother's remonstrances availed nothing, and her father laughed: the eccentricities of the spoiled child amused him, and daily he became more accustomed to gratify every wish that she expressed.

Hester was in earnest. She founded schools, she formed societies in which adult laborers might receive instruction in the evenings; she established libraries and promoted the scientific associations afterward more fully developed under the name of "Mechanics' Institutes." Hester visited the lowly that she might form an estimate of their real position, observe their improveable points, and cultivate these latter to good purpose; but the intricacies thickened upon her. She heard complaints that the poor were improvident and wasteful.

"How can that be," said she, "when a man pays rent, and provides fuel, clothing, and food for himself, his wife, and four children, out of wages at twelve shillings a week? How much does our mere board cost? twenty times that sum at least, and mamma is called economical. Oh! it must be a miserable life they lead on such a poor pittance as that! Papa, a man must have food; he gets it from the ground: he must have shelter; a few trees chopped down will give him that: he must have clothes; these also he can grow: why not place man on land where they can get these, rather than let them half starve at home?"

"It is being done in or colonies; but an emigrant's life, my Hester, would scarcely assist your perfectible theories. Every moment is employed in drudgery of some kind. A large proportion of the emigrants die of hardship."

Hester turned round impatiently, "Ever, ever an obstacle! Yet I will not give up. There must be a way of improving mankind, and I will find it yet."

These discussions were frequently renewed, but with little better success. On one occasion Eugene was present, and he said with a smile, "So you, too, are seeking the philosopher's stone, sister? I doubt you will not find it in exterior relationships or in material circumstance; evil is in the world--evil to a larger amount than you have any conception of, and no exterior arrangement will suffice to banish it. Set man free, as you term it, from the restraint of overlabor, without awakening the interior impulse to realize a higher life, and the chances are that the ale-house or gin-shop will be his school."

"But will not education affect this awakening?"

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"Education on a right basis would undoubtedly do much, but not education on a selfish basis; not if the highest aim is to improve in temporalities, not if virtue is proposed as the best policy to forward earthly views. This would be merely teaching a system of selfish calculation that would make man neither wiser nor better, and consequently not happier."

"And what other motive would you suggest, brother?"

Eugene glanced at his father and hesitated. After a moment's pause, he said: "Some philosophers, and among them the divine Plato, have thought that within man dwelt an essence called a soul, and that its culture furnished motives superior to all others in enlightening man. There are other theories respecting the soul worth studying too, I think. That which has influenced Europe during eighteen hundred years has been the religion of Christ. Have you ever studied that, Hester?"

"No! I thought it was a superstition akin to, though distinct from, the ancient pagan mythology."

"You will not find it so." rejoined her brother, "or rather you will find it the opposite. Paganism is the worship of self, of sensuality, of self-aggrandizement, and of physical power. Christianity is the worship of spirituality; it triumphs over selfishness by divine love, and elevates the soul by the same influence above the paltry views emanating from an exclusive adhesion to man's lower nature."

Mr. Godfrey's lowering brow betokened a rising storm. Eugene made his escape, and Hester laid her hand on her father's shoulder, and said coaxingly, "Did you not say I might study every influence, papa, that has affected humanity? Why not study this of which Eugene speaks?"

"Hester, there is a serpent in the East which has the power of fixing his eye on the bird he marks for his prey, and his fascination is such that by merely continuing to gaze he draws his victim straight into his mouth."

"What of this, father?"

"It is so of superstition also; it strikes a chord in the human heart, which, once awakened, becomes restless evermore. Let it but once attract your notice, it fascinates, monopolizes every faculty, and the strongest minds have fallen victims to its baneful power of concentrating the attention. Let it alone, my child."