On the Manly Virtues

THERE is no weight of name behind these opinions, to give them momentum. If they go at all, it must be by their own impetus, for I am a person of no importance whatever.

Two things will be suspected before I am through, which might just as well be admitted and confirmed at once. I am not a man, and it is quite true that I have been by turns amused and irritated by man’s insistent efforts to compare the two sexes as supporters of civilization and, more especially, as artists; amused because he has been so nagging and uneasy about the whole subject; irritated because even when, like Mr. Traquair, he has told the truth, he has told such an extremely small part of it.

It is impossible not to wonder at times what can be the source of this constant attempt on man’s part to classify and discuss us. Even Mr. Traquair has not denied that women are analytical, yet they have allowed men to retain a decent privacy as to their spiritual and emotional processes. There is no great flood of female writing on the subject of masculine psychology; and the march of English authoresses coming over to write and to lecture upon American manhood has not. yet started. It seems unlikely that it will start; the mere idea is too ridiculous. We have borne it very patiently, in silence for the most part, save for an occasional feeble protest, like this one of mine. We have smiled, we have read, we have listened; we have gone without our lunch, if necessary, to buy the magazines exploiting our more or less negative charms and our very positive failings. Are men so bitterly dissatisfied with us that they must dwell upon our weaknesses in the hope of effecting a reform? Or dare I suggest that they are merely worried?

Now comes a Canadian to tell us that we are not great artists, that we are not philosophers, or scientists, or religious leaders, or builders of big business. He tells us that we are more practical than men, that we are more material, that we are less mystical, that above and beyond all we are infinitely inferior as artists. All of this is perfectly true. A few gallant men will perhaps withhold their affirmation, but only a very foolish woman would attempt to deny the statement. It is quite true, and Mr. Traquair has been both clever and courageous in the saying of it. It is only with his failure to tell all that I quarrel. In all probability he told all he knew. But there is a great deal more.

As he has obviously written from the academic point of view, I shall attempt to use the academic manner, though in doing so I shall probably fail, as it is a manner repugnant to me.

Mr. Traquair has been misled by a syllogism. Shall we repeat it for him? He says: —

(1)The fine arts are the product of imagination, intuition, and the abstract qualities.

(2) Women are markedly inferior to men in the production of great works of art.

(3) Women are therefore inferior to men in imagination, intuition, and the abstract qualities.

If Mr. Traquair cannot see the hole in this argument, surely any of his colleagues in the department of English can point it out to him. If, in the effort to make his syllogism watertight, he should recast it, —

(1) The production of works of art is the sole and the inevitable outlet for the attributes of imagination, intuition, and the abstract qualities.

(2) Women have been almost negative in the field of art, whereas men have produced all the masterpieces.

(3) Women are therefore inferior to men in imagination, intuition, and the abstract qualities, —

If he should rewrite it so, I think that almost anyone with eyes not yet enfeebled by the dimness of university lighting could point out to him the fallacy in his major premise.

Great statues, great symphonies, great paintings, and great poems are not the only channels for the outlet of imagination and intuition, and if women have not made signal achievements in these fields, it is not because they have lacked these virtues. It is rather because, quite unabashedly, they are vastly more interested in the art of living than in the art of expression.

And, in saying that, I have said all. But in case some violently sex-conscious man should be unable to see the point, I shall explain it ahead of time.

A man’s loyalty, if he is an artist, is to his muse; a woman’s is first of all to the human beings whom she loves. She merits neither praise nor blame for this. It is simply her nature, and only at great risk to herself can she attempt to change it. The woman is rare indeed who will not harness Pegasus if there be need of going to market to bring home the family bread. The necessity may sicken her, but it will not break her heart. She is quite aware that she has made a free choice, and that in securing comfort for those dear to her she has merely been gaining happiness for herself. So clear is the issue in her own mind that generations of ridicule and censure have been unable to shake her position.

And let it be admitted at once that at this business of harnessing Pegasus she is infinitely more skillful than her brother. When you read a man’s books, or see his pictures, or listen to his music, whether the product is good or bad, you may usually be certain that it is his best. But with a woman you are never sure. She may, with a twinkle in her eye, be quite brazenly writing or painting down to you, with a definite motive in the back of her head — a college education, perhaps, for little son, or music lessons for daughter.

All this will seem to prove Mr. Traquair’s contention that women are more material than men, and it probably does. Certainly they are, if materialism is the antithesis of mysticism. Women are by no means mystical. If, however, it is to be compared with idealism, the issue is not so clear; there is a nice little question of idealism here, and the conflicting opinions of, say, a Tolstoy and a Jane Addams might be illuminating.

There is another point, obvious enough but apparently unrecognized, which has been mentioned before by two or three women; but so mild has been their protest, that men have either forgotten it or felt safe in ignoring it. A woman positively has not the power of taking for herself, ruthlessly, the time, the quiet, and the leisure necessary for the creation of a masterpiece. If the living creatures for whom she feels responsible, — and her sense of responsibility goes far, — are ill, or unhappy, or overworked, or in trouble, she cannot shut herself up and turn all her energies to the production of a work of art. It is simply impossible. There may be times when she would do it if she could, but she cannot — not unless she is a monster, and of course a monster is never an artist. Should she attempt it, should she lock her door and close her ears, her imagination — what vestige of it Mr. Traquair has left to her — would immediately be busy with the human problems she had tried to leave behind her. She would have none left to give to art. Her mind would work in circles, until she had first gone out and settled the affairs of her household. By that time would she have much creative freshness left? Would any man?

But here exactly is the difference. A man may turn his back upon the creatures dearest to him; he may leave them in pain, in despair, in misery, in dirt; he may shut his door and give his attention to his chosen work without being a monster. He may do it and still remain the tenderest, the kindest of sons, or husbands, or fathers. Normal human beings have a habit of living up to what is expected of them, and it is expected of a man that he do his work and provide for his family. Consequently, in most cases, he does it. If the channel of his provision is business, he will work early and late at the office if need be; if it is art, then his first energy goes to art, and who would dream of blaming him? To be sure, there are cases where men have both forgotten and forsaken their families to follow their muse. They — and I will call them exceptions — have carried my initial argument much further than I myself would dream of pushing it.

A woman, too, in the daily choice that she is forced to make, is simply fulfilling what is expected of her. She shall make her husband comfortable; she shall care for her children; she shall, if it is humanly possible, achieve happiness for any or all of the living creatures of whom she is fond or for whom she feels responsible. Well and good; she proceeds to do it. If there is any energy left at the end of the day, then it is permitted her to paint a picture or to write a novel. It is to her everlasting credit, I should say, that under these circumstances the quality of her work has been as high as it is. Is it likely that men, under the same restrictions, would have done better?

At this point it is impossible not to remember the thousands of women who are engaged in work other than domestic, and to wonder why their success has been greater in executive than in artistic fields. But the reason, after all, is simple. It is somewhat difficult to be, at the same time, creatively intuitive in more than one direction. A worried or a heartsick woman may more easily run a typewriter for someone else than write a poem for herself. An overzealous club-woman is much more likely to neglect her children for civic welfare work than for sculpture. Seeing a vast amount of work to be done in the world, she tries to do some of it, even if her private affairs are pressing. But art, in her estimation, would be a personal luxury for herself which she would have no right to unless her personal duties were first performed. A woman can be executive even though her mind and heart are very busy in another place. No one can be creative unless his imagination and intuition are strongly centred on the thing created.

Mr. Traquair has noted the fact that in literature women have achieved more creditably than in the other arts. Surely he must know the reason. It is because writing may more readily be sandwiched in between domestic duties; because it may more easily be tucked into spare moments; because it is more possible to make of it a ‘ part-time job.’ It is also true that literature is somehow closer to the human living that is a woman’s chief concern; nevertheless, her comparative success in it is due first of all to the fact that it does not so ruthlessly demand of her an irrevocable choice. With literature she compromises a little, always taking care, of course, that it never comes first. In the really great feminine careers of history there has been no compromise. Be sure that Joan of Arc did not leave little children behind her when she went from her fields to lead the armies of France; and Queen Elizabeth had no family to interfere with her achievements.

Our Canadian friend may argue that, if genius did indeed burn very brightly, women would not be content with a compromise. They would give everything to art (and if I constantly speak of art it is only because that has been the point of the sharpest attacks; the same considerations would apply to women’s share in science, business, or religion); they would grasp art firmly; and, fundamentally unable to place humanity second, they would simply strike humanity out of their scheme altogether. But we do not expect this drastic measure from a man. He is allowed the compensation of domesticity for his lighter moments; or, if he does not care for domesticity, he is at least allowed a compensation. He is not expected to devitalize himself in order to become an artist. Those of us with any insight, or foresight, or even ordinary sight, realize perfectly that, if he devitalizes himself, he cannot be an artist.

Do not regard this picture as too pitiful. Women are not patiently sacrificing themselves for the preservation of the race. They are doing the thing that they prefer to do, and they deserve no compassion for their choice. They are infinitely more interested in the art of living than in the art of expression. But let it not be forgotten that both living and expression are arts, and that the one calls for as large an amount of intuition, imagination, idealism, and finesse as the other. If, having achieved a reasonable success in one, a woman turns the remainder of her attention to the other, she should not, I think, be too sharply criticized if in the more spectacular profession her achievement is less glittering than her brother’s.

This was not meant to be a debate. I have no wish to be cheaply controversial. But there are two minor points which, with that traditionally feminine concern for small matters, I cannot pass.

First, Mr. Traquair says: —

The scientist is concerned with pure knowledge only. He neither knows nor cares what use man may make of his researches. They may end in supplying bandits with bombs and motor-cars, or in supplying armies with poison gas; his business is simply to investigate nature, so far as he can, and to tell the truth, as it appears to him. He is not aware of consequences, or of utility, in so far as he is a scientist.

The philosopher similarly is concerned with pure thought. His thought, when published, may result in a revolution, but he is not concerned with this. The scientist and the philosopher have no concern with the application of their knowledge; the one investigates matter, the other thought, in the search for pure knowledge.

In the light of his own paragraphs, can Mr. Traquair still claim that imagination and intuition are exclusively manly virtues? Perhaps they are; it is not for me to say. But 1 can assure you that no woman could prepare a bomb, mental or chemical, without being keenly aware of its ultimate use. Her imagination and her intuition would be extremely busy around that phase of it from the first.

And, lastly, is it not permissible to ask Mr. Traquair where, in the immaculate Asiatic civilization that has been preserved intact from woman’s materializing influence, are the masterpieces of art, music, and science which, in the light of his thesis, we have a right to expect in their highest perfection? Mysticism there is, admittedly, and abstraction; but would he go so far as to advocate abstraction for abstraction’s sake?

This is not a debate. I am not disputing any facts, however much I may be inclined to quarrel with their alleged causes. I am merely trying to complete Mr. Traquair’s argument because he gave only half of it, and because I think he is not quite at home in the field of a posteriori reasoning.

And I should like to ask, out of a real respect for pure thought and pure knowledge, that there be less careless thinking on the subject of feminine psychology and achievement, and still more urgently that there be vastly less talk. If men will not help us, if they will not voluntarily make things easier for us, as for centuries we have made things easier for them; if they will not give us the sympathy, or comprehension, or encouragement that would speed our progress along the shining way, can they not at least remove the searchlight for a little time, and let us, gropingly if need be, find our own road to grace? They will never give us leisure, I suppose; won’t they please allow us a little privacy — privacy to work out our own artistic processes in our own way? A watched pot, you know, never boils.

We may be flattered by the position thrust upon us in the centre of the stage; we are interested, sometimes complacent, and always secretly amused. But we are intensely curious. We cannot understand why men should be so much more concerned with us than we seem to be with them. Perhaps some man will give an answer similar to that of the gallant sea-captain when asked why men, unlike women, never kissed each other. ‘It is,’ he said, ‘because men have something better to kiss.’