The Revolt of Man

‘What did she reply?’

‘He, not she, my lord, replied that science could go no further; and so he goes on building the same shaped hill.’

The crowd gathered at the foot of the stairs of the Academy and made a lane for Lord Chester quite to his carriage. It was a crowd of the best people in England, composed of ladies and gentlemen. Yet was it no insignificant sign of the times that many a handkerchief was waved to him, that all hats were lifted, and that one girl’s voice was heard crying, ‘Young men for young wives!’ at which there was a general murmur of assent.

In the evening there were the usual engagements of the season, beginning with a lecture on the Arrival at the Highest Level. The lecturer – a young Oxford woman – was learned and eloquent, though the subject was, so to speak, wellnigh threadbare. Yet the discontent of the nation was so great, that it was necessary continually to raise the courage of the people by showing that if the Ministries failed, it was only because the right Cabinet had not yet been found. On this night, however, no one listened. All eyes were turned to the young lord, who, it was everywhere stated, had announced his rebellious intention not to obey the law if Lady Carlyon’s appeal went against her. The men whispered; the elderly ladies assumed airs of virtuous indignation; the younger ones looked at each other and laughed.

Then there was a dance, at which Lord Chester was seen, but only for a quarter of an hour, because the rush made by all the girls who could get an introduction for his name on their cards was almost unseemly. The Professor therefore took him home.

In the Park the next afternoon, at the theatre in the evening, the same curiosity of the multitude. Indeed the play, as happened very often in those days, was entirely neglected. Glasses were levelled at Lord Chester’s box; the whole audience with one consent fell to talking among themselves; the actors went on with the piece unregarded, and the curtain fell unnoticed.

Perhaps the perfection of the drama was the thing on which the new civilisation chiefly prided itself, unless, indeed, it was the perfection of painting and sculpture already described. The old tragedies, in which women played the secondary part, were long since consigned to oblivion. The old style of farce, which was simply brutal, raising laughter by the representation of situations in which one or more persons are made ridiculous, was absolutely prohibited; the once favourite ballet was suppressed, because it was below the dignity of woman to dance for the amusement of the people, and because neither men nor women wished to see men dancing; the comic man naturally disappeared with the farce, because no one ever wrote anything for him. It was resolved, after a series of letters and discussion in the Academy, the only literary paper left – it owed its continued existence to the honourable associations of its early years – that laughter was for the most part vulgar; that it always rudely disturbed the facial lines; that to make merriment for others was quite beneath the notice of an educated woman; and that the drama must be severe, and even austere – a school for women and for men. Such it was sought to make it, with as yet unsatisfactory results, because the common people, finding nothing to laugh at, came no more to the theatre; and even the better class, who wanted to be amused, and were only instructed, ceased to attend.

When, therefore, the curtain fell, the scanty audience rushed to the doors of the house, and there was something very much like a demonstration, a report of which, the Professor felt with pleasurable emotion, could not fail to be carried to the Duchess.

The next day there came a letter to Lady Boltons – who was still confined to her room with gout – from no less a person than the Duchess of Dunstanburgh, suggesting that the publicity thrust upon Lord Chester through the unconstitutional action of his cousin might produce an injurious effect upon a mind so young. In other words, her Grace was already sensible of the sympathy which was growing up for what was believed to be a love affair, cruelly blighted by herself. If Lord Chester was kept in retirement until the case was decided, he would, perhaps be forgotten. As for Lady Carlyon, the Duchess rightly judged that the sympathy which one woman gets from another in such cases is generally scant.

No doubt she was right, but unfortunately she was too late. The young Earl had been seen everywhere; his story, much altered and improved, was in everybody’s mouth; his likeness was in all the shop windows, side by side with that of Lady Carlyon, or, as if to give emphasis to the difference between the two suitors, he was placed with the Duchess on his left and Lady Carlyon on his right. The young men envied him because he was so rich, so handsome, and so gallant; the young ladies looked and sighed. He was nearer the Ideal Man than any they had ever seen; his bold and daring eyes struck them with a kind of awe, which they thought was due to his rank, ignorant of the manhood in those eyes, which attracted and yet daunted them. They bought his photograph by thousands, and spent their leisure hours, or even the hours of study, when they ought to have been ‘mugging bones,’ or drawing contracts, or reading theology, in gazing upon that remarkable presence. Older ladies – those who had established positions and could think of marriage – wished that such young men were within their reach; and very old ladies, looking at the photograph with admiring eyes, would wag their heads, and tell their grandsons how their grandfather, dead and gone, had been just such another as Lord Chester – so handsome, so strong, so brave, and yet withal the most dutiful and obedient of husbands. They did not explain how the virtue of submission was compatible with such frank and fearless eyes.

The mischief, therefore, was done. So far as the sympathies of the people were concerned, Constance could rest content. There remained, however, the House.

Lord Chester appeared no more in public. He went to none of the cricket-matches and athletics which made the season so lively; nor was he seen at any balls or dinners; nor did he ride in the Row. He was kept in almost monastic seclusion, a few companions only being invited to play tennis on his own lawns. But the Professor was with him constantly – Lady Boltons continuing to be laid up with her gout – and they had long talks in the gardens, sitting beneath the shade of the trees, or walking on the lawns. During these conversations the young man would clench his fist and stamp his foot with rage; or his eyes would kindle, and he would stretch out his right hand as if moved beyond control. And he became daily more masterful, insomuch that the women were afraid of him, and the men-servants – whom he had cuffed until they respected him – laughed, seeing the dismay of the women. Never any man like him! ‘Why,’ said the butler, a most respectable old lady, ‘if he goes on like this, he’ll be like the Duchess of Dunstanburgh herself. She’ll have a handful, whichever o’ their ladyships gets him. Beer, my lord? At twelve o’clock in the morning! It isn’t good for your lordship. Better wait – oh dear, dear! Yes, my lord, in one minute.’

One afternoon, towards the end of June, a little party had been made up for his amusement. It consisted of half a dozen young men of his own age, and a few ladies whose age more nearly approached that of the Professor. The young men played one or two matches of tennis, changed their flannels for morning dress, and joined the ladies at afternoon tea. The one topic of conversation possible at the moment was forbidden in that house: it was, of course, that of the great Appeal, and how some said that the Countess wanted it pushed on, so as to take advantage of the public sympathy, and the Duchess wanted it delayed, so as to give this feeling time to cool down; but the Duchess had sworn by everything dear to her that she would marry the young lord whether the House gave a decision in her favour or not; how Lady Carlyon declared that she would carry him off under the very nose of the Duchess; with a thousand other canards, rumours, little secrets, whispers on the best authority, and so forth. As, of course, that could not be entered upon in Lord Chester’s own house, the afternoon was dull to the ladies. They pumped the Professor artfully, but learned nothing. She was enthusiastic in her praises of her pupil, but was reticent about his previous relations, if any, with either of his suitors; nor would she reveal anything, if she knew anything, about his inclinations – if he had any preference. As for his character, she spoke openly; he was certainly, – well, say masterful – that could not be denied – in a way which would be unbecoming in a man below his rank; as for his religion, no one could more truly love and revere the Perfect Woman than did Lord Chester; as for his abilities, they were far beyond the common: and for his reading, ‘I have always considered,’ said the Professor, ‘his rank as of more importance than his sex; and though I have, perhaps, given him a wider and deeper education than is generally considered prudent for the masculine brain, I believe it will be found, in the long-run, a course productive of great good. In fact,’ she whispered, ‘I believe that Lord Chester is a man likely to be the father of daughters, illustrious not only by their birth, but also by their strength of intellect and force of character.’

‘No man,’ said one of the guests – one of those persons who always know how to find the right commonplace at the right time, – ‘no man can have a more worthy object of ambition. To sink himself in the family, to work for them, to reproduce his own virtues in their higher feminine form in his own daughters, – I hope his lordship will obtain this happiness.’

‘But he can’t,’ cried another – one of those persons who always say the wrong things, – ‘he can’t if he marries the Duc – ’

‘Hush!’ said the Professor. ‘My dear madam, we were talking, I think, about Lord Chester’s character. Yes, he is in many respects a most remarkable young man.’

‘But is he,’ asked another lady, ‘is he quite – are you sure of what you say, Professor, about his orthodoxy?’

Professor Ingleby smiled. All smiled, indeed, because her own faith had been greatly suspected, as everybody knew.

‘As sure,’ she said, ‘as I am of my own. Oh! I know what wicked people have hinted at Cambridge. But wait; have patience; I will before long prove my religious convictions, and satisfy the world once for all, in a way that will perhaps astonish, but certainly convince everybody, what my faith really is, and how truly orthodox – and I will answer for my pupil.’

Then the young men appeared, and they began to talk about the games over their tea. Presently they pressed Lord Chester to sing. No one had a better voice, or sang with greater expression. He refused at first, on the ground of being tired of the words of all his songs, but gave way and sang, with a laughing protest at the sentiment of the song and the inanity of the words, the following ballad, just then popular: —

‘Through sweet buttercups, through sweet hayRolled in swathes by the southern wind;Side by side they wended their way;The sloping sun on their faces lay,And dragged long shadows behind.‘Eighteen he, and stalwart to see;Muscles of steel and a heart of gold.Cheeks hot-burning, and eyes down-dropped, —What did he think when she suddenly stopped,And gave him her hand – to hold?‘She was but thirty; her lands aroundLay with orchards and cornfields spread;Meadow and hill with the sunlight crowned,Wealth and joy without stint or bound,And all for the lad she would wed!‘He listened in silence, as young men should,While she pictured the life to come;In tangled copse, in the way of the wood,With new spring flowers and old leaves strewed,She spoke of a love-lit home.‘Only a year: and the hay againLies in swathes, like the weed on the shore;Lone he wanders with troubled brain,Crying, “When will she come again?”Poor fool; for she comes no more.Forgotten her troth; and broken her oath;His love will return no more.

‘The air is not bad,’ said the singer, when he had finished, rising from the piano,’ but the words are ridiculous. As if he were likely to care for a woman eighteen years his senior!’

These words fell among them like a bomb. There was a dead silence. No one dared raise her eyes except the Professor, who looked up in warning.

Presently an old gentleman, who had been half asleep, shook his head and spoke.

‘The songs are all alike now. A young fellow gets made love to, and is engaged, and then thrown over. Then he breaks his heart: In real life he would have called for his horse and galloped off his disappointment.’

‘Come, Sir George,’ said the Professor, ‘you must allow us a little sentiment – some belief in man’s heart, else life would be too dull. For my own part, I find the words touching and true to nature.’

‘How would it do?’ asked Lord Chester, smiling, ‘to invert the thing? Could we have a ballad showing how a young lady – she must be young – pined away and died for love of a man who broke his promise?’

They all laughed at this picture, but the young men looked as if Lord Chester had said something wonderful in its audacity. Most certainly, thought the Professor, his words would be quoted in all the clubs that very day. And what – oh! what would the Duchess say? And although she had no legitimate power over the ward of Chancery, she could do what she pleased with the Chancellor.

There was one young fellow present, a certain Algy Dunquerque, who entertained an affection for Lord Chester amounting almost to worship. No one was like him; none so strong, so dexterous, so good at games; no one so clever; no one so audacious; no one so gloriously independent.

They were talking together in a low whisper, unregarded by the ladies, who were talking loudly.

‘Algy,’ said Lord Chester, ‘you said once that you would come to me if ever I asked you, and stand by me as long as I asked you. Are you still of the same mind?’

‘That kind of promise holds,’ said Algy. ‘What shall I do?’

‘Be in readiness.’

‘I am always ready. But what are you going to do? Shall we run away together?’

‘Hush! I do not know, – yet. All that a desperate man can do.’

CHAPTER VI

WOMAN’S ENGLAND

THE next day was Sunday, and of course Lord Chester went to church with the Professor, who was always careful to observe forms.

The congregation was large, and principally composed of men. The service was elaborate, and the singing good. Perhaps the incense was a little too strong, and there was some physical fatigue in the frequent changes of posture. Nothing, however, could have been more splendid than the procession with banners, which closed the service; nothing sweeter than the voices of the white-robed singing-girls. It was a large and beautiful church, with painted glass, pictures having lights burning before them; and the altar, on which stood the veiled figure of the Perfect Woman, was heaped with flowers.

The sermon was preached by the Dean of Westminster, whose eloquence and fervour were equalled by her scholarship. No one, except perhaps, Professor Ingleby, was better read in ecclesiastical history, or knew more about the beginnings of the New Religion. She had written a book, showing from ancient literature how the germs of the religion were dormant even in the old barbaric times of man’s supremacy. Even so far back as the Middle Ages men delighted to honour Woman. Every poet chose a mistress for his devotion, and ignorantly worshipped the type in the Individual. Every knight became servant and slave to one woman, in whose honour his noblest deeds were done. Even the worship of the Divine Man became, first in Catholic countries, and afterwards in England, through a successful conspiracy of certain so-called ‘ritualists,’ the worship of the Mother and Child. At all times the effigies of the virtues, Faith, Hope, Love, had been figures of women. The form of woman had always stood for the type, the standard, the ideal of the Beautiful. The woman had always been the dispenser of gifts. The woman had always been richly dressed. Men worked their hardest in order to pour their treasures into the lap of woman. All the reverence, all the poetry, all the imagination with which the lower nature of man was endowed, had been freely spent and lavished in the service of woman. From his earliest infancy, women surrounded, protected, and thought for men. Why, what was this, what could this mean, but a foreshadowing, an indication, a revelation, by slow and natural means, of the worship of the Perfect Woman, dimly comprehended as yet, but manifesting its power over the heart? The Dean handled this, her favourite topic, in the pulpit this morning with singular force and eloquence. After touching on the invisible growth of the religion, she painted a time of anarchy, when men had given up their old beliefs and were like children – only children with weapons in their hands – crying out with fear in the darkness. She told how women, at last assuming their true place, substituted, little by little, the true, the only faith – the Worship of the Perfect Woman, the Feminine Divinity of Thought, Purpose, and Production. She pointed out how, by natural religion, man was evidently marked out for the second or lower creature, although, by the abuse of his superior strength, he had wrested the authority and used it for his own purposes. He was formed to execute, he was strong, he was the Agent. Woman, on the other hand, was the mother – that is to say, the Creative Thought; that is, the Sovereign Ruler. In the animal creation, again, it is the male who works, while the female sits and directs. And even in such small points as the gender of things inanimate, everything of grace, usefulness, or beauty was, and always had been, feminine. Then she argued from the natural quickness and intelligence of women, and from the corresponding dullness of men, from the lower instincts of men compared with the spiritual nature of women; and she showed how, when women took their natural place in the government of the nation, laws were for the first time framed on sound and economical principles, and for the benefit of man himself. Finally, in a brilliant peroration, she called upon her male hearers to defend, even to the death if necessary, the principles of their religion; she warned the women that a spirit of questioning and discontent was abroad; she exhorted the men to find their true happiness in submission to authority; and she drew a vivid picture of the poor wretch who, beginning with doubt and disobedience, went on to wife-beating, atheism, and despair, both of this world and the next.

The sermon lasted nearly an hour. The Dean never paused, never hesitated, was never at a loss. Yet, somehow she failed to affect her hearers. The women looked idly about them, the men stared straight before them, showing no response, and no sympathy. One reason of this apathy was that the congregation had heard it all before, and so often, that it ceased to move them; the priestesses of the Faith, in their ardour, endeavouring constantly to make men intelligent as well as submissive supporters, overdid the preaching, and by continual repetition ruined the effect of their earnest eloquence, and reduced it to the level of rhetorical commonplace.

The Professor and her pupil walked gravely homewards.

‘I think,’ said Lord Chester, ‘that I could preach a sermon the other way round.’

‘You mean – ’

‘I mean that I could just as well show how natural religion intended man to be both agent and contriver.’

‘I think,’ said the Professor, ‘that such a sermon had better not be preached, at least, just yet. It was rather a risky thing to make that remark of yours about the ballad which you sang yesterday. Such a sermon as you contemplate would infallibly land its composer – even Lord Chester – in a prison – and for life.’

Lord Chester was silent.

‘Do you speculate often,’ asked his tutor, ‘in these theological matters?’

‘Of late,’ he replied. ‘Yes, this perpetual admonition about Authority worries me. Why should we accept statements on Authority? I have been looking through the text-books, and I conclude – ’

‘Pray do not tell me,’ she interrupted laughing. ‘For the present, let me not know the nature of your conclusions. But, Lord Chester, for your own sake, for every one’s sake, be guarded – be silent,’ She pressed his arm; he nodded gravely, but made no reply. When they reached home they learned that the Chancellor herself was waiting to see Lord Chester. She wished to see the Professor as well.

The Chancellor was in a great worry and fidget – as if this unhappy business of the Appeal was not enough for her – because, whatever decision was arrived at by the House, she would have to defend her own, and there was little doubt that her enemies would not lose so good a chance of attacking her; and now the boy must needs get saying things which were repeated in every club in London.

‘I must say, Lord Chester,’ she began irritably, ‘that a little respect – I say a little respect – is due to a person who holds my office. I have been waiting for you a good quarter of an hour.’

‘Had I known your ladyship’s wish to see me, I would have saved you the trouble of coming here, and waited upon you myself. I have but just returned from church.’ ‘Church!’ she repeated in mockery; ‘what is the good of people going to church if they fly in the face of all religion? Do not answer me, pray. Your lordship thinks yourself, I know, a privileged person. You are to say, and to do, anything you please. But I am the Chancellor, remember, and your guardian. Now, sir, I learn that you make dangerous, revolutionary remarks – you made one yesterday – openly, on the impossibility of a young man marrying a woman older than himself.’

‘Pardon me,’ said Lord Chester; ‘I did not say the impossibility of marrying, but of loving, a woman twenty years his senior.’

‘The distinction shows the unhappy condition of your mind. To marry a woman is to love her. What would the boy want? what would he have? Professor Ingleby, have you anything to advise? He is your pupil. You are, in fact, partly responsible for this deplorable exhibition of wilfulness.’

‘With your ladyship’s permission,’ replied the Professor softly, ‘I would venture to suggest that, considering recent events, it would be much better for Lord Chester to be out of London as soon as possible.’

‘What is the use of talking about leaving town when Lady Boltons is ill?’

‘If your ladyship will entrust your noble ward to my care,’ continued the Professor, ‘I will undertake the charge of him at my own house for the next three months.’

The Chancellor reflected. The plan seemed the best. Since Lady Boltons was ill, there was really no one to look after the young man, while, at the present moment of excitement, it seemed most desirable that he should be out of town. If the boy was to go on talking in this way about old women and young men, there was no telling what might not happen; and the Duchess would be pleased with such an arrangement. That consideration decided her.

‘If you really can take charge of him – you could draw on Lady Boltons for whatever you like, in reason, – it does seem the best thing to do. Yes – he would be safer out of the way. When can you start?’

‘To-morrow.’

‘Very good; then we will settle it so. You will accompany Professor Ingleby, Lord Chester; you will consider her as your guardian – and – and all that. And for Heaven’s sake, let us have no more folly!’

She touched his fingers with her own, bowed slightly to the Professor, and left them.

‘My dear boy,’ said the Professor, when the door was shut, ‘I foresee a great opportunity. And as for that sermon you spoke of – ’

‘Well, Professor?’

‘You may begin to compose it as soon as you please, and on the road I will help you. Meantime, hold your tongue.’

With these enigmatic words the Professor left him.

There was really nothing very remarkable in Lord Chester’s leaving London even at the height of the season. Most of the athletic meetings were over; it was better to be in the country than in town: a young man of two-and-twenty is not supposed to take a very keen delight in dinner-parties. Had it not been for the Appeal and the way in which people occupied themselves in every kind of gossip over Lord Chester – what he said, how he looked, and what he hoped – he might have left town without the least notice being taken. As it was, his departure gave rise to the wildest rumours, not the least wild being that the Duchess, or, as some said, the Countess, intended to follow and carry him off from his country house.