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Page 27
her spirit must have rejoiced when she saw her brilliant descendant
appearing in England two years ago as representative of a mighty
colony.
What shall I say about the literary shrew? Let no one be mistaken--we
have a good many of them, and we shall have more and more of them.
There are kind and charming lady-novelists in plenty, and we all owe
them fervent thanks for happy hours; there are deeply-cultured ladies
who make the joy of placid English homes; there are hundreds on
hundreds of honest literary workers who never set down an impure or
ungentle line. I am grateful in reason to all these; but there is
another sort of literary woman towards whom I pretend to feel no
gratitude whatever, and that is the downright literary shrew, who
usually writes, so to speak, in a scream, and whose sentences resemble
bursting packets of pins and needles. She is what the Americans would
call "death on man," and she likes to emphasize her invectives by
always printing "Men" with a capital "M." She is however rigidly
impartial in her distribution of abuse, and she finds out at frequent
intervals that English women and girls are going year by year from bad
to worse. That the earth does not hold a daintier, purer, more
exquisitely lovable being than the well-educated, well-bred English
girl, is an opinion held even by some very cynical males; but the
literary shrew rattles out her libels, and, in order to show how very
virtuous she is, she usually makes her articles unfit to be brought
within the doors of any respectable house. Not that she is ribald--she
is merely so slangy, so audacious, and so bitter that no "prudent" man
would let his daughters glance at a single article turned out by our
emphatic shrew. As to men--well, those ignoble beings fare very badly
at her hands. I do not know exactly what she wants to do with the poor
things, but on paper and on the platform she insists that they shall
practically give up their political power entirely, for women, being
in an immense majority, would naturally outvote the inferior sex.
Sometimes, when the shrew is more than usually capricious and enraged
with her own sex, she may magnanimously propose to disfranchise huge
numbers of women; but, as a rule, she is bent on mastering the
enemy--Man. If you happen to remark that it would be rather awkward if
a majority of women should happen to bring about a war in which
myriads of men would destroy each other, we rather pity you; that
argument always beats the shrew, and she resorts to the literary
equivalent for hysterics. If the controversialist ventures to ask some
questions about the share which women have had in bringing about the
great wars known to history, he draws on himself more and more
hysterical abuse. What a strange being is this! Her life is one long
squabble, she is the most reckless and violent of fighters, and yet
she is always crying out that Men are brutal and bloodthirsty, and
that she and her sisters would introduce the elements of peace and
goodwill to political relations. We may have a harmless laugh at the
literary shrew so long as she confines herself to haphazard
scribbling, because no one is forced to read; but it is no laughing
matter when she transfers her literary powers to some public body, and
inflicts essays on the members. Her life on a School Board may be
summarised as consisting of a battle and a screech; she has the bliss
of abusing individual Men rudely--nay, even savagely--and she knows
that chivalry prevents them from replying. But she is worst when she
rises to read an essay; then the affrighted males flee away and rest
in corners while the shrew denounces things in general. It is
terrible. Among the higher products of civilisation the literary shrew
is about the most disconcerting, and, if any man wants to know what
the most gloomy possible view of life is like, I advise him to attend
some large board-meeting during a whole afternoon while the literary
shrew gets through her series of fights and reads her inevitable
essay. He will not come away much wiser perhaps, but he will be
appreciably sadder.
And so this long procession of shrews passes before us, scolding and
gibbering and dispensing miseries. Is there no way of appealing to
reason so that they may be led to see that inflicting pain can never
bring them anything but a low degree of pleasure? No human creature
was ever made better or more useful by a shrew, for the very means by
which the acrid woman tries to secure notice or power only serves to
belittle her. Take the case of a vulgar schoolmistress who is
continually scolding. What happens in her school? She is mocked,
hated, tricked, and despised; real discipline is non-existent; the
bullied assistants go about their work without heart; and the whole
organisation--or rather disorganisation--gradually crumbles, until a
place which should be the home of order and happiness becomes an ugly
nest of anarchy. But look at one of the lovely high schools which are
now so common; read Miss Kingsley's most fervent and accurate
description of the scholars, and observe how poorly the scolding
teacher fares in the comparison. Who ever heard of a girl being
scolded or punished in a good modern high school? Such a catastrophe
is hardly conceivable, for one quiet look of reproach from a good
teacher is quite sufficient to render the average girl inconsolable
until forgiveness is granted. This illustrates my point--the shrew
never succeeds in doing anything but intensifying the fault or evil
which she pretends to remove. The shrew who shrieks at a drunkard only
makes him dive further into the gulf in search of oblivion; the shrew
who snaps constantly at a servant makes the girl dull, fierce, and
probably wicked; the shrew who tortures a patient man ends by making
him desperate and morose; the shrew who weeps continually out of
spite, and hopes to earn pity or attention in that fashion, ends by
being despised by men and women, abhorred by children, and left in the
region of entire neglect. Perhaps if public teachers could only show
again and again that the shrew makes herself more unhappy, if
possible, than she makes other people, then the selfish instinct which
is dominant might answer to the appeal; but, though I make the
suggestion I have no great hope of its being very fruitful.
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