The Delicious Vice by Young E. Allison
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Young E. Allison >> The Delicious Vice
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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.
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