dreadfully hard up, but it has been luxury compared to what is in store for his family if he comes to grief. I fancy I can see them, settled in some small country town, a picture of old Swaby in full uniform the only ornament left remaining, and the poor mother telling the children what a splendid soldier their father was (which won't put food into their little bellies however), and besieging the court of directors continually for an appointment for her eldest boy. No, if I were a married man I should be an awful coward."
Yorke laughed as Braddon finished his outburst, knowing that his friend could afford to play with the subject of bravery; but he could not help thinking that although the hope of winning the fair prize now before him was a source of strength and courage at present, what a hard wrench it would be to leave her side to go campaigning again, although he felt sure enough that, once in the field, a wife at home would make no difference in his conduct any more than it would in that of Braddon or any other soldier. But these reflections were interrupted by an order to mount. The infantry were now coming up in force, and advancing to the attack of the enemy's position, and Kirke's horse were ordered off to the right to guard the flank.
Passing through a grove of trees, the regiment came on to a piece of barren ground, some half a mile wide, and extending right up to the town, the left end of which was from this point clearly exposed to view, a wall surrounding the flat-roofed houses and huts within; while still further to the left could be made out a considerable body of the enemy, both horse and foot. It was to guard against any counter-attempt from this force that Kirke's horse had been detached to the right, while the main attack was made in front under cover of the high crops.
"Ehret die Frauen," says Schiller in one of his best-known poems: "Sie flechten und weben himmlische Rosen ins irdische Leben;"
- (Honour to women! To them it is given
- To garland the earth with the roses of heaven;)
and in a key of fervent exhortation, he proceeds to contrast in changing metre, and terms certainly not advantageous to the "superior," the characteristics of the two sexes.
By the "superior" we of course mean the stronger sex: the style esclave still obtain in Germany. No John S. Mill has as yet arisen with quixotic enthusiasm on the social horizon of Teutonia, nor has, so far, the voice of the emancipated been heard in the fatherland.
It has somewhere been rashly asserted by some one, that every woman not born an Englishwoman, could she have had a choice in the matter, would have chosen to be so born. No greater error could be made as regards the German woman. She, taking her all round, is absolutely contented with her lot, and supremely disregardful of the estate of other women. The day of small things not only suffices for her, but is to her as a crown of glory; she despises the frivolity of the French, the freedom of the English, the fearless strides and absolute independence of the American woman. Do not believe that you will be able to sit long in the seat of the scornful: you will have to come down and go out, for towering high above you, on her pedestal of homebaked virtues, and looking down upon your ornamentalness and uselessness with the fear and dislike virtue assumes in gazing upon vice, stands the traditional Hausfrau. That she should have anything to learn of her neighbours (outside the fatherland) is impossible; there is only one country in the world, and that is Germany; there is only one woman and that is the German woman. In the face of such convictions as these, it would be daring to hint at the state of mind that has been characterized as a mean satisfaction with a mean position. The "coming" woman, as yet, casts no shadow across the dead level of German home life. The "platform woman" and the "medical woman" are still only known by evil report; beings that cause the virtuous matron to draw her imaginary skirts shudderingly around her ample form, and to pass by, with mentally averted eyes, on the other side.
When, in Germany, the (so-called) chivalry of the Middle Ages fell dead, and the romantic period came to a timely end, woman seems to have disappeared into indefi-
- ↑ The publication of these papers — which another chapter will conclude — has been interrupted by illness.
