Unfortunately for this book it is written by a male, and these two qualities, if not hateful to a man, are at least hateful in a man. But if we are to settle the sex question at all fairly, all males must make an imaginative attempt to enter into the attitude of all good women toward these two things. The difficulty exists especially, perhaps, in the thing called thrift; we men have so much encouraged each other in throwing money right and left, that there has come at last to be a sort of chivalrous7 and poetical9 air about losing sixpence. But on a broader and more candid10 consideration the case scarcely stands so.
Thrift is the really romantic thing; economy is more romantic than extravagance. Heaven knows I for one speak disinterestedly11 in the matter; for I cannot clearly remember saving a half-penny ever since I was born. But the thing is true; economy, properly understood, is the more poetic8. Thrift is poetic because it is creative; waste is unpoetic because it is waste. It is prosaic12 to throw money away, because it is prosaic to throw anything away; it is negative; it is a confession13 of indifference14, that is, it is a confession of failure. The most prosaic thing about the house is the dustbin, and the one great objection to the new fastidious and aesthetic15 homestead is simply that in such a moral menage the dustbin must be bigger than the house. If a man could undertake to make use of all things in his dustbin he would be a broader genius than Shakespeare. When science began to use by-products; when science found that colors could be made out of coaltar, she made her greatest and perhaps her only claim on the real respect of the human soul. Now the aim of the good woman is to use the by-products, or, in other words, to rummage16 in the dustbin.
A man can only fully17 comprehend it if he thinks of some sudden joke or expedient18 got up with such materials as may be found in a private house on a rainy day. A man’s definite daily work is generally run with such rigid19 convenience of modern science that thrift, the picking up of potential helps here and there, has almost become unmeaning to him. He comes across it most (as I say) when he is playing some game within four walls; when in charades20, a hearthrug will just do for a fur coat, or a tea-cozy just do for a cocked hat; when a toy theater needs timber and cardboard, and the house has just enough firewood and just enough bandboxes. This is the man’s occasional glimpse and pleasing parody21 of thrift. But many a good housekeeper22 plays the same game every day with ends of cheese and scraps23 of silk, not because she is mean, but on the contrary, because she is magnanimous; because she wishes her creative mercy to be over all her works, that not one sardine24 should be destroyed, or cast as rubbish to the void, when she has made the pile complete.
The modern world must somehow be made to understand (in theology and other things) that a view may be vast, broad, universal, liberal and yet come into conflict with another view that is vast, broad, universal and liberal also. There is never a war between two sects25, but only between two universal Catholic Churches. The only possible collision is the collision of one cosmos26 with another. So in a smaller way it must be first made clear that this female economic ideal is a part of that female variety of outlook and all-round art of life which we have already attributed to the sex: thrift is not a small or timid or provincial27 thing; it is part of that great idea of the woman watching on all sides out of all the windows of the soul and being answerable for everything. For in the average human house there is one hole by which money comes in and a hundred by which it goes out; man has to do with the one hole, woman with the hundred. But though the very stinginess of a woman is a part of her spiritual breadth, it is none the less true that it brings her into conflict with the special kind of spiritual breadth that belongs to the males of the tribe. It brings her into conflict with that shapeless cataract28 of Comradeship, of chaotic29 feasting and deafening30 debate, which we noted31 in the last section. The very touch of the eternal in the two sexual tastes brings them the more into antagonism32; for one stands for a universal vigilance and the other for an almost infinite output. Partly through the nature of his moral weakness, and partly through the nature of his physical strength, the male is normally prone33 to expand things into a sort of eternity34; he always thinks of a dinner party as lasting35 all night; and he always thinks of a night as lasting forever. When the working women in the poor districts come to the doors of the public houses and try to get their husbands home, simple minded “social workers” always imagine that every husband is a tragic36 drunkard and every wife a broken-hearted saint. It never occurs to them that the poor woman is only doing under coarser conventions exactly what every fashionable hostess does when she tries to get the men from arguing over the cigars to come and gossip over the teacups. These women are not exasperated37 merely at the amount of money that is wasted in beer; they are exasperated also at the amount of time that is wasted in talk. It is not merely what goeth into the mouth but what cometh out the mouth that, in their opinion, defileth a man. They will raise against an argument (like their sisters of all ranks) the ridiculous objection that nobody is convinced by it; as if a man wanted to make a body-slave of anybody with whom he had played single-stick. But the real female prejudice on this point is not without a basis; the real feeling is this, that the most masculine pleasures have a quality of the ephemeral. A duchess may ruin a duke for a diamond necklace; but there is the necklace. A coster may ruin his wife for a pot of beer; and where is the beer? The duchess quarrels with another duchess in order to crush her, to produce a result; the coster does not argue with another coster in order to convince him, but in order to enjoy at once the sound of his own voice, the clearness of his own opinions and the sense of masculine society. There is this element of a fine fruitlessness about the male enjoyments38; wine is poured into a bottomless bucket; thought plunges39 into a bottomless abyss. All this has set woman against the Public House—that is, against the Parliament House. She is there to prevent waste; and the “pub” and the parliament are the very palaces of waste. In the upper classes the “pub” is called the club, but that makes no more difference to the reason than it does to the rhyme. High and low, the woman’s objection to the Public House is perfectly40 definite and rational, it is that the Public House wastes the energies that could be used on the private house.
As it is about feminine thrift against masculine waste, so it is about feminine dignity against masculine rowdiness. The woman has a fixed41 and very well-founded idea that if she does not insist on good manners nobody else will. Babies are not always strong on the point of dignity, and grown-up men are quite unpresentable. It is true that there are many very polite men, but none that I ever heard of who were not either fascinating women or obeying them. But indeed the female ideal of dignity, like the female ideal of thrift, lies deeper and may easily be misunderstood. It rests ultimately on a strong idea of spiritual isolation42; the same that makes women religious. They do not like being melted down; they dislike and avoid the mob. That anonymous43 quality we have remarked in the club conversation would be common impertinence in a case of ladies. I remember an artistic44 and eager lady asking me in her grand green drawing-room whether I believed in comradeship between the sexes, and why not. I was driven back on offering the obvious and sincere answer “Because if I were to treat you for two minutes like a comrade you would turn me out of the house.” The only certain rule on this subject is always to deal with woman and never with women. “Women” is a profligate45 word; I have used it repeatedly in this chapter; but it always has a blackguard sound. It smells of oriental cynicism and hedonism. Every woman is a captive queen. But every crowd of women is only a harem broken loose.
I am not expressing my own views here, but those of nearly all the women I have known. It is quite unfair to say that a woman hates other women individually; but I think it would be quite true to say that she detests46 them in a confused heap. And this is not because she despises her own sex, but because she respects it; and respects especially that sanctity and separation of each item which is represented in manners by the idea of dignity and in morals by the idea of chastity.
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1
intoxicating
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| a. 醉人的,使人兴奋的 | |
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fortify
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| v.强化防御，为…设防；加强，强化 | |
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autocrat
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| n.独裁者；专横的人 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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tenacious
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| adj.顽强的，固执的，记忆力强的，粘的 | |
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thrift
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| adj.节约，节俭；n.节俭，节约 | |
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chivalrous
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| adj.武士精神的；对女人彬彬有礼的 | |
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poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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disinterestedly
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prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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aesthetic
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| adj.美学的，审美的，有美感 | |
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rummage
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| v./n.翻寻，仔细检查 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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expedient
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| adj.有用的，有利的；n.紧急的办法，权宜之计 | |
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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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charades
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| n.伪装( charade的名词复数 )；猜字游戏 | |
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parody
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| n.打油诗文，诙谐的改编诗文，拙劣的模仿；v.拙劣模仿，作模仿诗文 | |
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housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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sardine
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| n.[C]沙丁鱼 | |
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sects
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| n.宗派，教派( sect的名词复数 ) | |
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cosmos
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| n.宇宙；秩序，和谐 | |
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provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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cataract
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| n.大瀑布，奔流，洪水，白内障 | |
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chaotic
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| adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的 | |
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deafening
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| adj. 振耳欲聋的, 极喧闹的 动词deafen的现在分词形式 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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antagonism
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| n.对抗，敌对，对立 | |
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prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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exasperated
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| adj.恼怒的 | |
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enjoyments
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| 愉快( enjoyment的名词复数 )； 令人愉快的事物； 享有； 享受 | |
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plunges
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| n.跳进，投入vt.使投入，使插入，使陷入vi.投入，跳进，陷入v.颠簸( plunge的第三人称单数 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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anonymous
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| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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45
profligate
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| adj.行为不检的；n.放荡的人，浪子，肆意挥霍者 | |
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46
detests
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的第三人称单数 ) | |
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