Sweet Cicely — or Josiah Allen as a Politician, Marietta Holley [best books to read ever txt] 📗

railways into death, by drunken engineers; they go up on the scaffold, and die of crimes committed by the direct aid of this agent of hell.

“Wimmen had ruther be a flyin' round than to do all this, but they can't. If men really believe all they say about wimmen, and I think some of 'em do, in a dreamy way—if wimmen are angels, give 'em the rights of angels. Who ever heard of a angel foldin' up her wings, and goin' to a poorhouse or jail through the fault of somebody else? Who ever heard of a angel bein' dragged off to a police court by a lot of men, for fightin' to defend her children and herself from a drunken husband that had broke her wings, and blacked her eyes, himself, got the angel into the fight, and then she got throwed into the streets and the prison by it? Who ever heard of a angel havin' to take in washin' to support a drunken son or father or husband? Who ever heard of a angel goin' out as wet nurse to get money to pay taxes on her home to a Government that in theory idolizes her, and practically despises her, and uses that same money in ways abomenable to that angel?

“If you want to be consistent—if you are bound to make angels of wimmen, you ort to furnish a free, safe place for 'em to soar in. You ort to keep the angels from bein' meddled with, and bruised, and killed, etc.”

“Ahem,” says he. “As it were, ahem.”

But I kep' right on, for I begun to feel noble and by the side of myself.

“This talk about wimmen bein' outside and above all participation in the laws of her country, is jest as pretty as I ever heard any thing, and jest as simple. Why, you might jest as well throw a lot of snowflakes into the street, and say, 'Some of 'em are female flakes, and mustn't be trampled on.' The great march of life tramples on 'em all alike: they fall from one common sky, and are trodden down into one common ground.

“Men and wimmen are made with divine impulses and desires, and human needs and weaknesses, needin' the same heavenly light, and the same human aids and helps. The law should meet out to them the same rewards and punishments.

“Dorlesky says you call wimmens angels, and you don't give 'em the rights of the lowest beasts that crawls upon the earth. And Dorlesky told me to tell you that she didn't ask the rights of a angel: she would be perfectly contented and proud if you would give her the rights of a dog—the assured political rights of a yeller dog. She said 'yeller;' and I am bound on doin' her errent jest as she wanted me to, word for word.

“A dog, Dorlesky says, don't have to be hung if it breaks the laws it is not allowed any hand in making. A dog don't have to pay taxes on its bone to a Government that withholds every right of citizenship from it.

“A dog hain't called undogly if it is industrious, and hunts quietly round for its bone to the best of its ability, and wants to get its share of the crumbs that fall from that table that bills are laid on.

“A dog hain't preached to about its duty to keep home sweet and sacred, and then see that home turned into a place of torment under laws that these very preachers have made legal and respectable.

“A dog don't have to see its property taxed to advance laws that it believes ruinous, and that breaks its own heart and the hearts of other dear dogs.

“A dog don't have to listen to soul-sickening speeches from them that deny it freedom and justice—about its bein' a damosk rose, and a seraphine, when it knows it hain't: it knows, if it knows any thing, that it is a dog.

“You see, Dorlesky has been kinder embittered by her trials that politics, corrupt legislation, has brought right onto her. She didn't want nothin' to do with 'em; but they come right onto her unexpected and unbeknown, and she feels jest so. She feels she must do every thing she can to alter matters. She wants to help make the laws that have such a overpowerin' influence over her, herself. She believes from her soul that they can't be much worse than they be now, and may be a little better.”

“Ah! if Dorlesky wishes to influence political affairs, let her influence her children,—her boys,—and they will carry her benign and noble influence forward into the centuries.”

“But the law has took her boy, her little boy and girl, away from her. Through the influence of the Whisky Ring, of which her husband was a shinin' member, he got possession of her boy. And so, the law has made it perfectly impossible for her to mould it indirectly through him. What Dorlesky does, she must do herself.”

“Ah! A sad thing for Dorlesky. I trust that you have no grievance of the kind, I trust that your estimable husband is—as it were, estimable.”

“Yes, Josiah Allen is a good man. As good as men can be. You know, men or wimmen either can't be only jest about so good anyway. But he is my choice, and he don't drink a drop.”

“Pardon me, madam; but if you are happy, as you say, in your marriage relations, and your husband is a temperate, good man, why do you feel so upon this subject?”

“Why, good land! if you understand the nature of a woman, you would know that my love for him, my happiness, the content and safety I feel about him, and our boy, makes me realize the sufferin's of Dorlesky in havin' her husband and boy lost to her, makes me realize the depth of a wive's, of a mother's, agony, when she sees the one she loves goin' down, goin' down so low that she can't reach him; makes me feel how she must yearn to help him in some safe, sure way.

“High trees cast long shadows. The happier and more blessed a woman's life is, the more does she feel for them who are less blessed than she. Highest love goes lowest, if need be. Witness the love that left Heaven, and descended onto the earth, and into it, that He might lift up the lowly.

“The pityin' words of Him who went about pleasin' not himself, hants me, and inspires me. I am sorry for Dorlesky, sorry for the hull wimmen race of the nation—and for the men too. Lots of 'em are good creeters—better than wimmen, some on 'em. They want to do jest about right, but don't exactly see the way to do it. In the old slavery times, some of the masters was more to be pitied than the slaves. They could see the injustice, feel the wrong, they was doin'; but old chains of custom bound 'em, social customs and idees had hardened into habits of thought.

“They realized the size and heft of the evil, but didn't know how to grapple with it, and throw it.

“So now, many men see the great evils of this time, want to help it, but don't know the best way to lay holt of it.

“Life is a curious conundrum anyway, and hard to guess. But we can try to get the right answer to it as fur as we can. Dorlesky feels that one of the answers to the conundrum is in gettin' her rights. She feels jest so.

“I myself have got all the rights I need, or want, as fur as my own happiness is concerned. My home is my castle (a story and a half wooden one, but dear).

“My towers elevate me, the companionship of my friends give social happiness, our children are prosperous and happy. We have property enough, and more than enough, for all the comforts of life. And, above all other things, my Josiah is my love and my theme.”

“Ah! yes!” says he. “Love is a woman's empire, and in that she should find her full content—her entire happiness and thought. A womanly woman will not look outside of that lovely and safe and beautious empire.”

Says I firmly, “If she hain't a idiot, she can't help it. Love is the most beautiful thing on earth, the most holy, the most satisfyin'. But which would you like best—I do not ask you as a politician, but as a human bein'—which would you like best, the love of a strong, earnest, tender nature—for in man or woman, 'the strongest are the tenderest, the loving are the daring'—which would you like best, the love and respect of such a nature, full of wit, of tenderness, of infinite variety, or the love of a fool?

“A fool's love is wearin': it is insipid at the best, and it turns to viniger. Why! sweetened water must turn to viniger: it is its nater. And, if a woman is bright and true-hearted, she can't help seem' through a injustice. She may be happy in her own home. Domestic affection, social enjoyments, the delights of a cultured home and society, and the companionship of the man she loves, and who loves her, will, if she is a true woman, satisfy fully her own personal needs and desires; and she would far rather, for her own selfish happiness, rest quietly in that love—that most blessed home.

“But the bright, quick intellect that delights you, can't help seeing through an injustice, can't help seeing through shams of all kinds—sham sentiment, sham compliments, sham justice.

“The tender, lovin' nature that blesses your life, can't help feelin' pity for those less blessed than herself. She looks down through the love-guarded lattice of her home,—from which your care would fain bar out all sights of woe and squalor,—she looks down, and sees the weary toilers below, the hopeless, the wretched; she sees the steep hills they have to climb, carry in' their crosses; she sees 'em go down into the mire, dragged there by the love that should lift 'em up.

“She would not be the woman you love, if she could restrain her hand from liftin' up the fallen, wipin' tears from weepin' eyes, speakin' brave words for them who can't speak for themselves.

“The very strength of her affection that would hold you up, if you were in trouble or disgrace, yearns to help all sorrowin' hearts.

“Down in your heart, you can't help admirin' her for this: we can't help respectin' the one who advocates the right, the true, even if they are our conquerors.

“Wimmen hain't angels: now, to be candid, you know they hain't. They hain't better than men. Men are considerable likely; and it seems curious to me, that they should act so in this one thing. For men ort to be more honest and open than wimmen. They hain't had to cajole and wheedle, and spile their natures, through little trickeries and deceits, and indirect ways, that wimmen has.

“Why, cramp a tree-limb, and see if it will grow as straight and vigorous as it would in full freedom and sunshine.

“Men ort to be nobler than wimmen, sincerer, braver. And they ort to be ashamed of this one trick of theirn; for they know they hain't honest in it, they hain't generous.

“Give wimmen 2 or 3 generations of moral freedom, and see if men will laugh at 'em for their little deceits and affectations.

“No: men will be gentler, and wimmen nobler; and they will both come nearer bein' angels, though most probable they won't be angels: they won't be any too good then, I hain't a mite afraid of it.”

He kinder sithed; and that sithe sort o' brought me down onto my feet agin (as it were), and a sense of my duty: and I spoke out agin,—

“Can you, and will you, do Dorlesky's errents?”