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СКАЧАТЬ anything new? The jests of all journalism, English, French, and American, anent the mannishness of the modern woman's dress? Surely, in these days of bicycles and outdoor sports, this at least is a fresh satiric development. But a hundred and seventy-five years ago just such a piece of banter was leveled at the head of the then new and mannish woman, who, riding through the country, asks a tenant of Sir Roger de Coverley if the house near at hand be Coverley Hall. The rustic, with his eyes fixed on the cocked hat, periwig, and laced riding-coat of his questioner, answers confidently, "Yes, sir." "And is Sir Roger a married man?" queries the well-pleased dame. But by this time the bumpkin's gaze has traveled slowly downwards, and he sees with dismay that this strange apparition finishes, mermaid-fashion, in a riding-skirt. Horrified at his mistake, he falters out, "No, madam," and takes refuge from embarrassment in flight. Turn the horse into a wheel, the long skirt into a short one, or into no skirt at all, and we have here all the material needed for the ever-recurring joke presented to us so monotonously to-day.

      ​The belligerent sex, Mr. Lang has called us, and we are not stouter fighters now than we have been through all the centuries, albeit the methods of warfare have changed somewhat, and changed perchance for ill. It is pleasant to think that in the days when muscle was better than mind (which days, thanks to our colleges, are fast returning to us), and the sword was very much mightier than the pen, women held their own as easily as they do now. Not only through the emotions they inspired, as when the fair Countess of Salisbury, beautiful, courageous, and chaste, heartened the little garrison besieged at Warwick, so that, as it is quaintly chronicled, "every man was made as valiant as two men, by reason of her kind and loving words." Not only through the loyalty they evoked, as when the heroic Countess of Montford defended her husband's cause through twelve years of well-nigh hopeless struggle, until, by her invincible bravery and determination, she placed her unheroic son upon the ducal chair of Brittany. Not only through their astuteness in diplomacy, as when the crafty Duchess of Brabant, "a lady," says Froissart, "of a very ​active mind," duped England, cajoled France, and united the great houses of Burgundy and Hainault in a double marriage, overcoming the well-nigh insuperable obstacles by her woman's wit and her resistless resolution. But when it came to downright fighting, these hardy dames were not much behind their husbands and brothers in the field. In that sharp warfare which the Black Prince carried into the heart of Spain, it chanced that Sir Thomas Trivet at the head of an English force laid siege to the Castilian town of Alaro. Its garrison made a rash sortie, were trapped in an ambuscade, and nearly every man was slain or taken prisoner. Elated by this success, and deeming the town an easy prey, the English marched joyously to occupy it. But behold! the women had closed the gates and barriers, mounted the battlements, and were ready to defend themselves against all comers. Their men might be foolish enough to fall into the enemy's snares, but they would look after their homes. Sir Thomas, like the gallant Englishman he was, refused to make the attack. "See these good women," he said, "standing like wolf-dogs on their walls. Let ​us turn back, and God grant our English wives to be as brave in battle."

      The ludicrous, side of female belligerency has seldom been lacking in history. It is admirably illustrated by the story, at once absurd and tragic, of the unfortunate William Scott of Harden, whose wife, an aggressively pious woman, insisted on attending the forbidden meetings of the Covenanters. Scott was called before the Council, and told to keep his lady at home. He answered, frankly and sadly, that he could not. The Council, arguing after the fashion of the Queen in "Alice in Wonderland," insisted that if he had a wife he could oblige her to obey him, and dismissed him with a serious warning. Off to the Eildon Hills went Madam Scott, and prayed as hard as ever. Her husband received a second summons from the Council, and was fined a thousand pounds for her obstinate recusancy. Madam Scott, who now occupied the proud yet comfortable position of a martyr for the faith whose sufferings were borne vicariously by another, clung more insistently than before to her religious rights. Scott was fined another thousand pounds. ​Madam Scott merely denounced the persecutors of the righteous with redoubled vehemence at the next gathering of the elect. The luckless man was then actually imprisoned in the Bass Fortress, where he remained three years, while his triumphant spouse, secure from molestation, trod her saintly path, and prayed whenever and wherever she desired. The revolting wife is not invariably a thing of beauty, but it is hard to see how she could carry her spirit of independence any farther.

      For indeed all that we think so new to-day has been acted over and over again, a shifting comedy, by the women of every century. All that we value as well as all that we condemn in womanhood has played its part for good and for evil in the history of mankind. To talk about either sex as a solid embodiment of reform is as unmeaning as to talk about it as a solid embodiment of demoralization. If the mandrake be charmed by a woman's touch, as Josephus tells us, the rue, says Pliny, dies beneath her fingers. She has made and marred from the beginning, she will make and mar to the end. The best and newest ​daughter of this restless generation may well read envyingly Sainte Beuve's brief description of Mme. de Sévigné, a picture drawn with a few strokes, clear, delicate, and convincing. "She had a genius for conversation and society, a knowledge of the world and of men, a lively and acute appreciation both of the becoming and the absurd." Such women make the world a pleasant place to live in; and, to the persuasive qualities which win their way through adamantine resistance, Mme. de Sévigné added that talent for affairs which is the birthright of her race, that talent for affairs which we value so highly to-day, and the broader cultivation of which is perhaps the only form of newness worth its name. Since Adam delved and Eve span, life for all of us has been full of labor; but as the sons of Adam no longer exclusively delve, so the daughters of Eve no longer exclusively spin. In fact, delving and spinning, though admirable occupations, do not represent the sum total of earthly needs. There are so many, many other useful things to do, and women's eager finger-tips burn to essay them all.

      ​

      "Cora's riding, and Lilian 's rowing,

      ⁠Celia's novels are books one buys,

       Julia 's lecturing, Phillis is mowing,

      ⁠Sue is a dealer in oils and dyes;

       Flora and Dora poetize,

      ⁠Jane is a bore, and Bee is a blue,

       Sylvia lives to anatomize,

      ⁠Nothing is left for the men to do."

      The laugh has a malicious ring, yet it is good-tempered too, as though Mr. Henley were not sufficiently enamoured of work to care a great deal who does it in his place. Even the plaintive envoy is less heart-rending than he would have it sound, and in its familiar burden we catch an old-time murmur of forgotten things.

      "Prince, our past in the dust-heap lies!

      ⁠Saving to scrub, to bake, to brew,

       Nurse, dress, prattle, and scandalize,

      ⁠Nothing is left for the men to do."

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