The Arena. Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891

“Beat dat, Mr. Grundy!” he said, in a low, if enthusiastic, whisper, “beat dat, sar.” And Mr. Grundy pranced down again to “beat” the master in the “swing with the right” movement of the old-fashioned dance.

Promptly the general followed, meeting “Miss Rachel” half way with a second courtesy over the tips of her fingers, just visible under the lace ruffles at her wrists.

“Try dat, now, Mr. Grundy!” And this time Cæsar forgot his whisper so that a burst of applause followed the challenge, to Mr. Grundy’s extreme chagrin; for he, alas! had forgotten his bow before swinging the lady.

It was then the dancing assumed something of the appearance of real rivalry.

Down the line galloped Mr. Grundy again, stopped, bowed, “swung with the left,” and bowed again.

The general had been outdone, even Cæsar had to admit it, and the dancers laughed aloud and clapped their hands at the pretty little gallantry.

But the master was equal to the emergency. Again the stately figure met “Miss Rachel,” the couple bowed, swung with the left, bowed again, hands still clasped, and then the powdered head of the master dropped for an instant over the lady’s hand, that was lifted to his lips, and the dancers parted.

Amid the spirited confusion of “chasing the fox,” passing under the gates held “high as the sky,” and passing back again into line, Cæsar’s voice could be heard still sounding the challenge:—

“Beat it, if you kin, Mr. Grundy. Chassay to yer best, Mr. Grundy! Back yerse’f to de lead, Mr. Grundy!”

Clearly, Mr. Grundy was not the favorite. Cæsar’s “backing” had inspired confidence in the general.

However, if Mr. Grundy was, as he said, “a cock,” he was nevertheless a game one. Down the centre he tripped again, flushed and determined, courtesied exceeding low, swung “with both” hands, then dropped for an instant upon one knee while the lady tripped back into line. There was a murmur of quick appreciation and all eyes were turned on Jackson. Would he, could he, think of anything so delightfully graceful?

Cæsar’s mouth stood wide open. His confidence in his beloved and stately master never once faltered. He knew he would never suffer Felix Grundy to outdo him in the simple matter of a bow; but how? What?

Straight on came the general; bowed, extended his arms, when, as ill luck would have it, he set the toe of his shoe upon the front hem of “Miss Rachel’s” silken gown, and, rising from her courtesy, there was nothing to do but drop forward into the arms extended, amid the shouts of the assembled guests, emphasized by Cæsar’s emphatic—

“Dar!”

He had done a very awkward thing. One of those happily awkward things which crown a man conqueror more surely than all the tricks of art can do.

Nobody attempted to surpass that feat, and when the couples had each in turn passed their parade, for such is the old Virginia reel, and the dancers filed into the supper room, General Jackson was still, in the judgment of his servant at all events, the master of grace and chivalry.

A sumptuous supper and worthy the mistress who planned it. At the head of the table sat Jackson; at the foot, the young statesman and guest, Mr. Grundy.

When the company had all been seated, the master rose, his right hand resting upon a tiny tumbler of red wine, such as stood at every plate. He motioned Mr. Grundy, and lifted the tumbler. “The man honored by fate, and fostered by fortune. The man chosen and set apart for the service of the nation. A man whose name shall go down the years as the synonym of courage and of honor. The foremost man of the age,”—and the voice ever strong for the friend, absent or near, pronounced the name of one at that moment tottering upon the brink of ignominious destruction and disgrace—“Aaron Burr.”

There was an instant of intense silence, but not a tumbler was lifted. Insult to the host, or insult to conviction? was the thought which held each guest; when quick into the breach stepped Mr. Grundy. With one palm pressed upon the rim of his tumbler, and with head proudly lifted in a half defiant sternness, wholly belying the careless voice in which he offered the compromise, “No absent heroes,” said he. “In lieu of that I offer Andrew Jackson! the future President of the United States of America.” It was said in jest, yet not one but understood that Mr. Grundy refused to drink to the man with whose name one stinging, startling word was already cautiously whispered,—traitor.

General Jackson’s fine eye flashed; but courtesy could unsheath no sword against a guest. And after all, it was nothing. A mere flash of words. Aye! yet something whispered that the flash carried a meaning, was, indeed, a spark from that mightier flash of arms that would, ere long, blaze out at the very mention of that name.

The ball was over; still wearing their evening finery the master of the Hermitage and his wife sat over the fading embers, smoking their “last pipe” before retiring.

Cæsar had bowed the last guest from the door, and was about to close it for the night, when the sound of galloping hoofs attracted his attention. It was a single horseman, and he was making straight for the Hermitage. The servant waited under the low piazza, curious but not uneasy. The horse stopped at the block, and into the long line of light streaming from the open doorway, came the figure of a man, hurrying as if to reach the door before it should close. He had ridden hard, and had barely arrived in time.

“Is General Jackson at home?” he asked. “I must see him to-night, at once. Tell him so.”

The servant bowed, and silently ushered the late arrival into the deserted banquet room.

His keen eye took in the surroundings with a half-amused, half-bewildered expression. The banquet table, despoiled of its beauty, the half-emptied wine glasses, the broken bits of cake, crumbled by beauty’s fair fingers; the odor of dying roses, smothered in their bloom, mingled with the scent of the undrunk wine; all told the story of revelry and its inevitable destiny.

The stranger crossed the room to the pillaged sideboard, and with the air of a man thoroughly at home, lifted a decanter and poured a tumbler full of wine, lifted it carelessly to his lips, drained it, and with the emptied vessel still in his hand turned to meet the master of the house.

He still wore the finery in which he had decked himself for the ball. In one hand he carried his pipe, over which he had been dozing with Rachel. But the eye was alive now; the quick, eagle eye. The ball had become a thing of the past. And as he stood for one brief moment in the doorway, himself, in his gala dress, seemed but another illustration of that indomitable grimness which hangs about a forsaken banquet room. At that moment the stranger lifted his face. It was a face stamped with the cunning of a fox, the courage of a lion, the simplicity of a child, the ambition of a god.

The master met the cool, fixed eye, and into his own leaped the smothered fire of outraged dignity. He lifted his hand, as if to curse.

“Do you know, sir, that the world is branding you a traitor? And that Felix Grundy refused to drink your health in my house to-night?”

A sneer flitted across the handsome features, but the low, rich voice only said, “Let him.”

It was the voice of Aaron Burr.

EDITORIAL NOTES

THE ERA OF WOMAN

The constantly broadening sphere of woman’s influence is to me the most hopeful and important sign of our times. The era of woman has dawned, bearing the unmistakable prophecy of a far higher civilization than humanity has ever known. It is an incontestable fact that woman is ethically, infinitely superior to man; her moral perceptions are firmer and stronger, her unselfishness far greater, her spiritual nature deeper and richer than that of her brothers. She is to-day foremost in the great social, philanthropic, humanitarian, and ethical reforms, in which selfishness has no place. In her widening influence, growing liberty, and freedom, I see impearled a prophecy of an altruistic era—a civilization triumphant—rising against to-morrow’s purpling dawn.

In the fields of intellectual and scientific research she has grandly won her way, and that despite the marshalled forces of conservatism, which have stubbornly contested every step that has looked towards a broader, more independent and purposeful life. For centuries relegated to the rear, compelled to take thought second-hand, denied a healthful freedom and the right of a liberal education, so highly prized by man, her marvellous attainments since she has in a measure broken the bonds of conservatism and trampled under foot the baleful heritage of ancient thought, have been so splendid in their reality and so pregnant with prophecies of future triumph, that I confidently expect to find in her the one invincible ally of the forces warring for a higher, purer, more just and humane condition of life. In her epoch-marking victories she has lost none of her old-time charms, the wonderful refinement of sentiment, the delicacy of thought, the rich soul life, the deep emotional nature, the strong moral character, pure as the glistening snow-clad peaks in the midst of the moral degradation which taints manhood. These have remained in their pristine beauty since she has emerged from her age-long retirement into a more influential sphere; in truth they have been strengthened and made more impressive by the fuller development of her nature.

It must not be supposed, however, that her struggles are over. Before she can or will attain an influence commensurate with her work, she must emancipate herself from the bondage of fashion, which as seriously reflects on her good judgment as it wrecks her health and menaces the life and happiness of her offsprings. She must also repudiate the age-hallowed insult dwelt upon in the old Edenic legend of the fall of man, which for centuries has been brandished in her face to teach her humility, and make her feel degraded in the presence of her “lords and masters.” An essentially barbarous conception, born of a cowardly and brutal childhood age, and as unworthy of our day and generation as is the hideous, old-time conception of God, in which He was pictured as an angry and jealous Being, counselling the wholesale slaughter of men and little children, and the prostitution of daughters, wives, and mothers, by hordes of brutal invaders, whom He chose to designate his peculiar people.

Again, womanhood must refuse to heed the admonitions of Paul, which have for almost two thousand years been thundered from the pulpit, and persistently preached from the fireside as though they were oracles from heaven, rather than the natural expressions of a mind imbued with Grecian thought and ideals concerning womanhood. There is nothing surprising in Paul’s observations on the sphere of woman; they were the reflex of the conservative and prevailing thought among the civilizations with which he was familiar. But the world has outgrown this ancient conception, and it is worse than folly to attempt to fasten the corpse of the past to the living body of the present. The evolution of society, a growing sense of justice in man, and the exigencies of life are rapidly diminishing the old-time reverence for the Pauline theory of woman’s sphere. This is nowhere more significantly illustrated than in the expressed declaration of tens of thousands of pious, Christian women, and the active participation of a smaller number in public affairs, who would indignantly resent any intimation that they did not accept the plenary inspiration of the Bible.[16 - The hundreds of earnest organizers in the great reform movements of to-day; the sincere and profoundly religious women who preach the Christian gospel every Sunday; the leaders in the great temperance organizations who are also leaders in various Orthodox churches, have, in spite of their prejudices and the old-time faith which is often more a legacy from the past than the result of a many-sided investigation, yielded to the demands of their age, the crying needs of the hour, and in defiance of the dogmatic injunctions of Paul, have entered the vineyard of practical reform, while still maintaining the anomalous position of defending the verbal inspiration of the New Testament. This singularly illogical position, however, is always met with in a transition period, when a larger and more purposeful life is struggling with time-hallowed traditions and the memories and teachings made almost sacred by the childlike acceptation, of loved parents, and teachers who have vanished down the vale.] The declarations of Paul, while in harmony with accepted ideas in his day, are absurd, and inapplicable to our age and generation, and as such are being discarded by enlightened public sentiment, as was the old theory of a flat earth finally given up after science fully exposed its falsity. Another duty of woman is to unitedly contend for the right of suffrage for those who wish to exercise it. There may have been a time when there was no pressing duty involved in this question, but that day has passed. Recent statistics show that there are in the United States to-day millions of women who earn a livelihood by their own individual exertions;[17 - It has been variously estimated by careful statisticians that we have from 2,500,000 to 3,000,000 girls and women in the United States who are making their own livings. The Commissioner of Labor, in his report for 1885, estimated that in New York City alone, there are over 200,000 employed in various wage-earning vocations. Mr. Carroll D. Wright’s fourth annual report in the U. S. Bureau of Labor gives the results of statistics gathered from twenty-two cities of women engaged in manual labor, not including the great army engaged in professional and semi-professional vocations, as something near 300,000, but the glaring discrepancy in the figures as they relate to the Empire City, shown by Helen Campbell, discredits the report. Certain it is that in the cities mentioned if one begins at the scrub women and passes through the various occupations, such as boarding-house keepers, millinery, dressmaking, cash girls, clerks, sales-women, stenographers, type-writers, book-keepers, teachers, factory girls, and slaves of the clothing trade, as well as the artists, musicians, actresses, public speakers, physicians, lawyers, and the many other professions or vocations filled by women, that the number would be swelled to the millions. The last census returns for New York City reveal the fact that there are twenty-seven thousand married men in New York who are supported by their wives, who are mainly dressmakers, milliners, boarding-house keepers, artists, teachers, musicians, and actresses. Here we have an army of shiftless, dependent men, more than a quarter of one hundred thousand strong, having each a vote to cast or perchance to sell to the highest bidder, while the real bread-winners, the actual wealth-producers, in this case have no voice in the legislative halls.] tens of thousands of these women are working for starvation wages, with the awful alternative ever before them “starve or sin.” This condition will remain until women have a voice in the government equal to man’s, and their numbers are so organized as to challenge the consideration of law-makers. The infamous “age of consent laws” which place the age of consent to her own ruin from seven to twelve years for girls could only be enacted in man-governed States. A noteworthy illustration of this is found in the fact that Wyoming, the only State where woman enjoys full franchise, has placed the age of consent at the legal age of majority, eighteen years, while Kansas, the State which more than any other approaches Wyoming in bestowing on women the rights of franchise, and where she exercises a greater influence in politics than any other American commonwealth save her younger sister, has also placed the age of consent at eighteen years. All the other States trail the banner of morality in the dust before the dictates of man’s bestiality.

In the various spheres of activity in which woman has engaged, her influence has been that of a purifying, refining, and ennobling power, and barring rare instances where the spirit of intolerance has flashed forth,[18 - At times woman has shown a spirit of intolerance born of the intensity of her conviction which has led many thoughtful men and women to seriously question whether the right of suffrage might not prove a curse rather than a blessing, ending in repressive legislation and religious persecutions. I do not, however, fear these evils. The intensity of convictions is a compliment to her heart; and her innate love of justice and fair-play, would, I think, in a reasonably short time, expand the intellectual vision which prejudice and ancient thought has long obscured. Let the outcome, however, be it what it may, we have no right to argue on lines of policy, when a question of right or justice is involved. It is simple justice for every woman to exercise the right of franchise who desires to so enjoy it, and this should be sufficient to settle the question in the minds of those who believe in according to others what is demanded for themselves.] her presence in public affairs has been uniformly beneficent.

For womanhood I cherish the deepest love and reverence. Her exaltation means the elevation of the race. A broader liberty and more liberal meed of justice for her mean a higher civilization, and the solution of weighty and fundamental problems which will never be equitably adjusted until we have brought into political and social life more of the splendid spirit of altruism, which is one of her most conspicuous characteristics. I believe that morality, education, practical reform, and enduring progress wait upon her complete emancipation from the bondage of fashion, prejudice, superstition, and conservatism.

notes

1

“L’Allemagne lepnis, Leibniz. Essai sur le Développement de la Conscience Nationale en Allemagne.” By Prof. Lévy Brühl, Paris. 1 vol. Hachette, 1890.

2

“History of the Creation of United Germany.” 5 vols. Heinrich v. Sybel, Berlin, 1890.

3

Few events since the deceptions and catastrophes of the war itself ever produced the sudden impression of Lévy Brühl’s boldly outspoken, utterly impartial book. Published in the first days of last September (1890), in one week it was famous throughout all France where serious literature does not reap renown quickly. M. M. Lairesse De Vogüé, Bourdeau, Sorel, all welcomed it as a revelation, in the Débats, Revues des Deux Mondes, and elsewhere, and its real title was awarded it in the Temps, by M. Albert Sorel, whose experience and competence as an historical critic has never been denied, and who unhesitatingly proclaimed it, Le Fuit et l’Idée, namely, the announcement of the ruling national idea whence the fact of German unity was immediately derived.

4

“Le Temps,” 9th September, 1890.

5

Life of Monckton Milnes, first Lord Houghton, by Wemyss Reid. 2 vols. London, 1891.