HEROES AND HEROINES.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3036, 19 March 1881, Page 4

HEROES AND HEROINES.

During a long course of reading I L;i. i , made the acquaintance of the more noteworthy characters of fiction, and most of the so-called heroes and heroines of history, and I must confess that, for tho purposes of example and instruction, I consider the creations of the novelists by far the more worthy, for scarcely two narrators of history agree in their estimate of tho different characters.'

For instance, we once upon a timo fondly "believed that Mary, Queen of Scots, was a persecuted angel and martyr ; now _we are tanght, on indisputable evidence, that she was a woman with all the weakness common to Eve's daughters, very vain, rather mendacious, and with a decided proclivity for Italian musicians and gentlemen of that description. In the face of producible evidence it can scarcely be clonied that she was an accessory to the murder of her husband, nnd it is certain that she would have gladly countenanced the assassination of her royal sister. As for Queen Elizabeth, everybody nowadays is aware that she was nothing better than a vain, imperious, avaricious, termagant. Wo were also disposed to believe that Henry VIII. did not behave quite as a gentleman to all his wives ; but Mr Froudo has shown U3 that if he did cut off their heads they deserved it, and that in other respects he was a model ruler. So Mr Corlyle has elevated Cromwell into a horo, and Macaulay has performed tho same kind office for William the Dutchman. For my part, I am quite willing to believe any historian who shall say that Nero was a most mild and beneficient emperor, or that Cleopatra was a quiet, proper, lady, who only took a decent, sisterly interest in Mark Antony when the ' married woman ' made his life at home unbearable; or that the chaste Lucretia was „no ■ better that she ought to have been, and told her own story about poor Tarquin. So I have lost all faith in historial personages ; but the creations of the novelist never change. As they were when iheir author drew them first, such will they always remain—

" Afife cannot wither them, Nor custom stale tbeir infinite .variety. But of all the. names'famous in history or romance, I do not recollect one which so thoroughly deserves the title of hero as that of Mr Job Candle. True, he was only a hvtmble toy-shop keeper; true, he did no one tremendous deed which might suffice to trumpet his name to the four corners of the . -world ; and it is also true that he did not lay down his life in any great achievement. But the difficulty which besets most men is not "to die bravely, but to live so ; neither are those the truest heroes who acquire fame by one grand net, but rather who endure all troubles unflinchingly and gallantly. ■ Let the worjd cry up the mighty deeds of a a Nelson, or a Buonaparte, but Yt fades and pales beside the patient their gi,.. long-suffering of Mr Cauile. endurance a... f hirty years, 1500 weeks, Consider how for .. ' 10,800 nights, or—oh appallingcaloulau. ' : * wif e •' Tlien he endured the Lectures of r" n d cccl of say. if a man who does some sudat. -nclubrayery can in any way compare with t. ranee such as this. And Mrs Caudle—may shb rest in peace ! —is only the portrait of a very common type of wife. She was fond of her children, managed her household excellently, "but she had a temper of her own—ehe was addicted to nagging. Any incident, howeves trivial, was sufficient to cause her to complain. If Mr Caudle lent the family umbrella, or obliged a friend with £5, or hinted that his shirt wanted a button, or looked ■ admiringly at the pretty servantmaid (in this particular instance Mr C. may have had some excuse), each was quite sufficient. . In short, all readers of that most instructive and sad little chronicle may well admire the indomitable endurance of that man who could go through thirty yeai'3 of euch torture and live. Sometimes, indeed, Mr Caudle let discretion take the better part of valour, and ran away to sleep with the children, and once or twice we read that he swore ; but, considering the provocation, I rentui'e to hope that Sterne's 'recording angel' also blotted out these oaths with a pitying tear. It would be a terrible ■ surprise, at least to bachelors, if all the Mrs Caudles in the world were to become known. 'Ah! sad and strange , to think how many of our most prosperous citizens, our loudToiced dogmatic males, our bishops, and merchants, and grave judges, and astute lawyers, are in reality slaves. What is the authority of king or kaiser to the power of that domestic ruler whose garment of state is only a frilled robe de mat, with a nightcap for a crown ? And how few persons suspect which are these despotic wives, for often they are low-voiced, tender-eyed, gentle creatures to all the rest of the world. Still an astute observer can sometimes detect signs Which betray the well-governed married men, A quick glance of hie wife's eyes ■will stir him. like a loud command, an eager solicitous'attention awaits her movements, •while a seemingly innocent " Now, my dear, 1 wish it,' will startle him like a trumpet blast. These wives, invariably call their husbands "My dear." Oh, brother bachelor, dreaming by yoiu- lonely hearth, and yearning for some domestic fireside, with a ■woman's.gentle form opposite you, and little children crowding in between, pause and consider if your are quite ready to pay the full price of tqese sweet joys. You love your cosy dinner, with its soups and gravies, its entremets and sweets, are you you prepared to dino twice a week on cold meat and be thankful ? If your landlady should allow your shirts to be rumpled or buttonless, don't you send 'fierce messages to the laundress ? How then will you bear to be told that you are a wretch to mention bo slight a mistake to the overworked wife, who is slaving from daylight to dark to keep you and the children tidy ? You know you have bestowed more than one adrnmng glance npon that very pretty parlour-maid who tidies iip your room ; but how will it be when, if you happen to look a little closely at the servant, your good lady favours' you with a sharp reproof, and ends .by bursting into tears and wishing she were dead, so that you might marry whom you choose ? Yet is is not that these women do not love their husbands—after a fashion ; bnt they have got so much into the habit of finding fault, of being exacting and mistrustful, of making every little evil into a causa . for complaining, that nagging and querulousuess have almost turned their lives into bitterness. If their husband should fall Bick, doubtless they will attend him with all assiduity, though they will nag at him for being ill at all. And if he chance to foolishly die of worry and care, they will repent themselves, and be sorry until they bogin to nag to number two. ]Mor have these Tifoineh the oxcuse of sickness or sori'ow as a cause of their complaining. Very often they are pictures of glowing health, scarcely knowing an ache or pain, and as for sorrow, their husbands are careful to shield that off. • Yet, in spite of manly tenderness, of gentle observances, of household comforts, of daily labouring, daily attempts to concilate and please, the only reward the unfortunate husbands obtain is a sneer, a complaint, or a tear. It matters not though a woman be as highly accomplished a3 governess and masters can make her ; though she he an excellent housewife ; though her face and form be perfect ; though

" You could not light upon a sweeter thing : A body Blight and round, and like a pear In growing ; modest eyes, a hand, a foot lessening in perfect cadehce, and a skin Afl clean and white as privet when it flowers. Ay, though she were Aphrodite and Pallas in one —yet this fatal habit of nagging ■would overshadow and destroy them all. Bub if this failing be not uncommon amongst wives, there is surely some deep and well-spread reason for it; and this also is a pleaeant certainty ; that there are hunelreds of women who bear all life's trials and sorrow with that quiet patience and endurance which constitutes true heroism. Of course, it is nllowablo to masculine dignity that whatever work a husband has to do, however varied, however easy, or pleasant, or interesting, yet there is some-

tiling in it, that makes it more important, Uioro necessary to the world at large, than a vite's quiet round of labour. Men wonder very often what more a woman can want than home, and children s and dress. To hint that the whole of life is not made up of these, that there is an intellectual hunger that needs satisfying, that change and recreation are as needful to a woman as to her lord and master, may sound absurd ; and yet I venture to say that there are more heroines in our homes, greater martyrs, toiling with their hands and wornout hearts, than husbands are apt to suppose. How many men would caro to undertake—and, if they undertook, how many would be able to carry out —the hundred small details and unavoidable duties that make up a woman's existence ? Why, the worry of household labour, the continual annoyance of tho children, the forgetfulness and carelessness of servants, would drive a man mad in a week. l?or merely this, but women manage to carry out the same dull round from month to month, from year to year, without thought or hope of change. The toughest thing in the world is a woman's patience. It may be stretched to the utmost, but it will not break ; it is elastic enough to recoil under the heaviest pressure. There are men who actually have succeeded in breaking their wife's back, but they could not break her heart ; it would not even crack. There are sons and daughters—God help them!— who will try a mother's patience, will insult her with unkind words, will forget her wishes, or laugh them to scorn ; yet she will have asmile and a kind word for them, and her last breath will be a prayer for their happiness. Oh, neglected wives ! oh, mothers, gray-haired, alighted, forgotten, yet always loving ! surely when God makes tip the roll of earth's true heroines, you will stand amongst the first and worthiest. There are men—fortunately but few—who really hold their wives merely as ' something better than their dog, a little dearer than their horse' —a something to be treated a little less brutally than either, for the animals are dumb, and a woman unfortunately can and does cry and resist, and will not take kindly to a knock-down blow or a kick from a heavy boot. But there are men who would be insulted by being placed in the same category as these —men of genial nature, of kindly ways—who yet do not treat their wives with tho same care that they do their oxen and horses. The animals are given frequent rest—' spells,' as wo Colonials phrase it; but how many men take the trouble 'to ascertain when their wife needs a'spell. . They seem to think that a woman can go on all her life long without a rest, and are surprised when she does so absurd and iinexpected a thing ns to break down. It is remarkable also that many husbands can discern how much other men's wives are overworked, but do not see how their ownare burdened, And it is so pleasant for a - 'wife who feeL that she is overworked, and that a little rest would do her good, to hear her husbaud remark in tones of feeling—'How ill poor Mrs So-and-so does look! What a brute her husband must be not to her for a change !' We have constant agitations for the workman's eight hours' labour system, for the hard-toiling shop-girls and seamstresses; but I wonder when anyone will think it • f h while to take pity on overworked wox. marry, it is said, to better wives, v. • but how many really do so ? their position , "wants have short hours, In these Coloniee bi-. "Hr pay, occasional not too much work, iv. -w and then ; Sundays out, with a visitor ti\>. ■"'ives of but can all mothers of families, >.. - o t. working men, have such times ? I fear v. It is a constant struggle, from weary morn« ing till evening, to do the washiug, cooking, ironing, &c, &c. Then at night there are stockings to make or mend, and clothes to patch ; there are the children to make decent every day; there are hard time 3 and low wages to fend against; and too often there is a drunken, thriftless husband to comfort and care for. But to hundreds of women in the Colonies this is the course of life, and they fulfil its conditions —forgetting nothing, blaming no one, loving, cheerful, brave-hearted to the end. ' The exigencies of our Colonial life serve •'to develop much that is noble, beautiful, and truly heroic in woman. Many a girl who has been tendei'ly nurtured, well educated, with all a lady's gentle tastes, all a lady's prejudices and dislikes to vulgarity or menial work, has, when a wife, been obliged to endure the extremes of poverty, of sickness, and of sorrow. Some strange unforeseen calamity has suddenly deprived their husbands of home and business ; but these women meet sorrow with a smile, poverty without a murmur, hard work with a willing heart. Let those husbands who can count such a true helpmeet amongst their earthly blessings—let those men tell whether all the names of women that shine in history's pages were half as deserving the name of Heroines as these common every-day unassuming Wives ! " And do the hours slip fast or slow, And are ye sad or gay ? And ia your heart with your liege lord, Or is it far away ? The lady raised her proud, calm head, Tho' her tears fell one by one— ' We count not hours by joys or fears, But just by duties done. And when I lie in the green kirkyardj With the mould upon my breast, Say not that she did ill or well: Only ehe did her best!' "