Page:Such Is Life.djvu/90

76 simple pronouncement aimed at by innocents who deceive no one by denouncing Socialism, Trades-Unionism, &c., over the signature of "A Working Man." But the Essay. I am debarred from transcribing it, not only because of its length, but because

"Rory, you must let me take a copy of this."

"Well, Tammas, A'm glad it plazes ye; right glad, so A am; but A thought till—till"

"Spring it on the public—so to speak?"

"Yis."

"Well, I'll faithfully promise to keep the whole work sacred to your credit. And if ever I go into print—which is most unlikely—I'll refer to this essay in such a way as to whet public curiosity to a feather edge. Again, if anything should happen to this copy, you'll have mine to fall back upon."

"A'll thrust ye, Tammas. God bless ye, take a copy any time afore ye go."

The object of the essay was to prove that, at a certain epoch in the world's history, the character of woman had undergone an instantaneous transformation. And it was proved in this way:

The two greatest thinkers and most infallible authorities our race has produced are Solomon and Shakespear.

Solomon's estimate of woman is shockingly low; and there is no getting away from the truth of it. His baneful evidence has the guarantee of Holy Writ; moreover, it is fully borne out by the testimony of ancient history, sacred and profane, and by the tendency of the Greek and Roman mythologies. Examples here quoted in profusion.

The fact of woman's pre-eminent wickedness in ancient times is traceable to the eating of the apple, when Eve, being the more culpable, was justly burdened with the heavier penalty, namely, a preternatural bias toward sin in a general way.

On the other hand, Shakespear's estimate of woman is high. And justly so, since his valuation is conclusively endorsed by modern history. Examples again quoted, in convincing volume, from the women of Acts down to Mrs. Chisholm and Florence Nightingale.

Now how do you bring these two apparently conflicting facts into the harmony of context? Simply by tracing the Solomon-woman forward, and the Shakespear-woman backward, to their point of intersection, and so finding the moment of transition. It is where the Virgin says:

"My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden; for, behold! from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed."

This prophecy has not only a personal and specific fulfilment, as pointing to the speaker herself, but a transitive and general application, as referring to her sex at large. There you have it.

But no mere abstract can do justice to the sumptuous phraseology of the work, to its opulence of carefully selected adjective, or to the involved rhetoric which seemed to defeat and set at naught all your petty rules of syntax and prosody. Still less can I impart a notion of the exhaustive