GIVING.
BT HILDA EEANE.
Englishwomen are not givers. Boused by sense of duty, a sense often stirred to life by their men, Englishwomen give their husbands and eons to war. But more than any of the earth's nations they give them tearfully and reluctantly. Englishwomen are not less generous' in their impulses, but they give less freely of their men, of their money, of their possessions than- Scottish women, and certainly less than Irishwomen. And yet the {Scotch are often foolishly named as mean and the Irish as unreliable, which may bear the interpretation that the former are cautious and sensible, and their sisters across the water are heart-swayed first before reason comes to give balance.
How comes it that one may make this statement of the Englishwoman? Examine this also!
An Irishman rarely grows rich: it is more his part to lose : and the part of his wife to lose with him and continue through life smiling at povertv, except, of course, in -the days when the black dog pays his visit. A Scotchman and his wife, given any kind of opportunity, grasp it together, and secure a competence. But the Englishman becomes rich in spite of bis wife, seldom because of her, and most rarely of all with her. And the same holds good of his poverty. But tie English wife does not bear her poverty with tho hopeful equanimity of the Scotch nor with the debonair cheerfulness of the Irish. . Ihere must be some essential difference in the nature of these three women, and when sifted it probably turns out to be one 01 race. Leave out all the intermediate women—those we may consider later—and the typical Englishwoman is the Anglian, Norwegian, Saxon, or Dane, whose husband, after preparing the way, transplanted her across that foggv, stormchoked North Sea!
-After preparing the way ! History may provo me in error : history can prove anything which it wishes. But conviction assures me that the blackhairea Pictish, or Gaelic, or Cymric— every Celtic woman with fire in her heart and hardihood.written in her face was not left behind, would not be left, when her man went forth on foray and raid.
Instinct in the Celtic just could not endure being out of sound of the fight. And just as surely does English ancestry speak in the shrinking from the horrors of war which we note now in women.
There are women among us'whose hearts seem to drop a beat when they read of a cruiser gone down with hundreds of brave British men, to whose tongues no words will come, in whose brains no thought is born— great is their agony ! This is not affectation. Numb pain, something too great for expression, is a positive physical and mental experience of many of our women; and, in my mind, it is the reflection of the fair-haired, soft-skinned Anglo-Saxon, and not that of the Celt, i'he Celt will snap her lips together and kick at the conventions which are holding her to home and the place of modern woman. I see the Irishwoman's eyes fire up and her mouth harden. I hear the Scotchwoman talk of the cruelty of it, and I sense her fine desire to be there helping.
But the Englishwoman is wounded. Her lips sometimes part, sometimes compress; the muscles of her face drag; and her eyes hold the weariness of centuries of sorrow.
Now,' why? And, to come back to the beginning, why is she not the reckless or generous giver that I say her Celtic sister is? • *
I believe it to be that she comes of a people whose men have always taken on themselves the double burden. They have lived for their women, while others have Jived with them. They have fought for, ana protected, their mothers equally with their wives, where many races have been confident in the woman's power to protect herself. Englishmen make no pretence to ( ancestor worship. But— you know how we laugh at the mother-in-law : Her authority still holds with uer son. Even against his wife he protects her, and it is very hard for him to deny anything to his chosen mate. The Viking launched his graceful galleys and dared the mist-strewn seas, He attacked and slew, packed the loot in his vessel, and took it back to throw at tfte leet of his woman. Then he sailed again. When he found a land where fields were lair he said, "This will be a good land for my wife." So he cast eyes of desire upon it, determined to get it for her, and one day returned to his fiord or his bay. His shapely boat was leaking, his billowing sail was patched and torn, his body bore wounds, and he longed for rest awhile. But the vessel beached, he staggered with his glory and his loot towards the woman, tihe who had patiently, day after day, strained her eyes to the horizon stood now, with hand to brow, unsure that he whom she discerned was really her man come home. ' Her arms are round his neck and the plunder falls between them. For the love of an Englishwoman, in its own silent way, is one of God's wonders. Then to her he outpoured his tale of the nome that was to be hers across the sea. And 60 great was her confidence in him that she trusted to his judgment in a- way those reliant sisters of hers never would have done. , And thus have his kith and kin continued to do. They have snatched the nome from the enemy that their women might be enthroned in it. They have planted trees for the women, brought them overs from afar, scoured the ends of the earth for gems and gold, and laid them in my lady's lap. 1 cannot think that a successful Scot or an Irishman who " strikes his lucky" has ever felt the same lasting joy of feasting his eyes upon his wife adorned, that one knows to bo in englishmen. The Celt is so much, great soul ! in the fighting line with her man that she really helps as much as he to get her own comfortable homo or her own diamond tiara.
But the woman's gift is dear because lie went forth and thought of what he might bring back to her. And this, my British sisters, is why Englishwomen—those of that fine, pure typeare not good givers. How can one Dc both? Wo have said bitter things in our modern struggle, which, after all, was a struggle not against men, but against commercial conditions. Men would not give their Englishwomen the right to vote. But the poor, dense fellows, ready to work, ready to plunder others for their fair women, were ready also to do all the disagreeable business of making laws to protect—try to remember this ! —to protect iiieiv women. They do not always see clearly, and certainly not quickly. 1 love the directness and the slowness of men. it is so finely primitive, so indicative of tile same spirit of guarding us. No, they are slow and we confuse them, especially if we haw a drop of that impulsive Irish or that vigorous Scotch blood in us. But they cannot see—bless their stupid hearts —il they bring us the loot why on earth we women wish to go down into the bloodstained arena.
Our men have done the giving, and Englishwomen have been badly trained, spoilt if you will, by them. Can you not realise it now, in times of war, when you hear them curse over the. morning's news, when you see them in Uie cars clutching their papers and draining them dry of items? • And don't you know how you like to hear them say they want to give their guineas? Why, would not we aii go without new summer frocks and see our allowance cut down that they may havo more to subscribe ? And we don't want personally to give. We are so wed to letting them do it. All the same, you know, there are still a few odd shillings in our purses! And very few of us out here are spoilt Englishwomen. Women in the dominions are British and composite, and they have, perforce, .faced the storm and stress a little more than the women of England. Bo' let us for awhile obey our impulses and: help, our men. to givej ]
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Bibliographic details
New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15766, 14 November 1914, Page 1 (Supplement)
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1,404GIVING. New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15766, 14 November 1914, Page 1 (Supplement)
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