Facts and Fictions of Life. Gardener Helen Hamilton
is a school of critics who will say this is not the province of fiction. Fiction is to entertain, not to instruct. With this I do not agree – only in part. But accepting the standard for the moment, I am sure that a picture of life as it is, is far more entertaining than is that shadowy and vague photograph of ghosts taken by moonlight, which "safe stories for the young" generally present.
But to enumerate the fictions of fiction would be to undertake an arduous task – to comment upon them all would be impossible.
How much remorse – how many heartbreaks – have been caused by the one of these which may be indicated briefly in a sentence thus – "Stolen pleasures are always the sweetest."
"She sullied his honor," "He avenged his sullied honor," and all the brood of ideas that follows in this line have built up theories and caused more useless bloodshed and sorrow than most others. No wife can stain the honor of her husband. He, only, can do that, and it is interesting to note the fact that he who struts through fiction with a broken heart and a drawn sword "avenging" said honor (in the sense in which the word is used), seldom had any to avenge, having quite effectively divested himself of it before his wife had the chance.
"She begged him to make an honest woman of her." What fiction of fiction (and, alas, of law) could be more degrading to womanhood – and hence to humanity – than the thought here presented? The whole chain of ideas linked here is vicious and vicious only. Why sustain the fiction that a woman can be elevated by making her the permanent victim of one who has already abused her confidence, and now holds himself – because of his own perfidy – as in a position to confer honor upon his victim? He who is not possessed of honor cannot confer it upon another. "The purity of family life" is another fiction of fiction which never did and never can exist, while based upon a double standard of morals. That there ever was or ever will be a "union of souls" in a family where a double standard holds sway, or that women are truthful or frank with men upon whom they are dependent, are fictions which it were time to face and controvert with facts. Dependence and frankness never co-existed in this world in an adult brain – whether it were the dependence of the serf or of the wife or daughter, the result is ever the same. The elements of character which tend to self-respect and hence to open and truthful natures, are not possible in a dependent – or in a social or political inferior. Do the peasants tell the lord exactly what they think of him, or do they tell him what they know he wishes them to think?
Did the black men, while yet slaves, give to the master their own unbiased opinion of the institution of slavery? Not with any degree of frequency. The application is obvious.
Another of the fictions of fiction upon which the vicious build, and which has disarmed thousands before the battle, is the insistency with which the idea is presented that a man (or woman) who is honestly and truly and conscientiously religious, is therefore necessarily moral or honorable; that he is a hypocrite in his religion if he is a knave in his life. Observation and history and logic are all against the theory. Some of the most exaltedly religious men have been the most wholly immoral. It was honest religion that burned Servetus and Bruno. They were not hypocrites who hunted witches. It is not hypocrisy that draws its skirts aside from a "fallen" sister, and immorally marries her companion in illicit love to purity and innocence. Do you know any religious father (or many mothers) in this world who would refuse to allow their son, whom they know to be of bad character, to marry a girl who is as pure and spotless and suspicion-less as a flower? "She will reform him," they say. "It will be good for him to marry such a girl." And how will it be for her? Does the religious man or woman not take this view of morals? Has right and wrong, sex? Is honor and truthfulness toward others limited in application? Have you a right to deceive certain people for the pleasure or benefit of other people? If so where is the boundary line? Would the girl marry you or your son if she knew the exact truth – if she were to see with her own and not with your eyes —all of your life? Would you be willing to take her with you, or for her to go unknown to you, through all the experiences of your past and present? No? Would you be willing to marry her if she had exactly your record? No? You truly believe then that she is worthy of less than you are? Honor does not demand as much of you for her as it does of her for you? You would think she had a right – you would not resent it if her life had been exactly what yours was and is, and if she had deceived you? Is that which is coarse or low for women not so for men? Why is it that men will not submit to, if it comes from women, that which they impose upon women whom they "adore" and "truly respect?"
Would women accept this sort of respect and adoration if they were not dependents? Does literature throw a true or a fictitious light on such questions as these?
To whose advantage is it to sustain such fictitious standard of morals, of justice, of love, of right, of manliness, of honor, of womanly dignity and worth? To whose advantage is it to teach by all the arts of fiction that contentment with one's lot – whatever the lot may be – is a virtue? Yet it is one of the fictions of fiction that the contented man or woman is the admirable person. All progress proves the contrary. To whose advantage is it to insist that virtue is always rewarded – vice punished? We know it is not true. Is it not bad enough to have been virtuous and still have failed, without having also the stigma which this failure implies under such a code? We all know that vicious success is common – that often vice and success are partners for life and that in death they are not divided; that the wicked flourish like a green bay-tree – why blink it in fiction? Why add suspicion to failure and misfortune, and gloss success with the added glory that it is necessarily the result of virtue? To those who know how false the theory is, it is a bad lesson – to those who do not know it, it is a disarmament against imposition.
Some of the fictions of fiction have their droll side in their nâive contradictions of each other. These examples occur to me:
"Women are timid and secretive." "They can't keep a secret." "They are the custodians of virtue." "They are the 'frailer' sex." "Frailty, thy name is woman." "With the passionate purity of woman."
"Abstract justice is an attribute of the masculine mind." "Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn."
"No class was ever able to be just to – to do justly by another class – hence the need of popular representation." "Women should take no part in politics."
"Women are harder upon women than men are." "He disgraced his honored name by actually marrying his paramour."
"We are happy if we are good."
"He was one of the best and therefore one of the saddest of men."
But why multiply examples. Many – and different ones – will occur to every thinking mind, while illustrations of the particular fictions of fiction, which have gone farthest to cripple you or your neighbor, will present themselves without more suggestions.
A DAY IN COURT
I. CRIMINAL COURT
To those accustomed to the atmosphere and tone of a court room, it is doubtful if its message is impressive. To one who spends a day in a criminal court for the first time after reaching an age of thoughtfulness, it is more than impressive; it is a revelation not easily forgotten. The message conveyed to such an observer arouses questions, and suggests thoughts which may be of interest to thousands to whom a criminal court room is merely a name. I went early. I was told by the officer at the door that it was the summing up of a homicide case. "Are you a witness?" he asked when I inquired if I was at liberty to enter. "Were you subpoenaed?"
"No," I replied, "I simply wish to listen, if I may, to the court proceedings. I am told that I am at liberty to do so."
He eyed me closely, but opened the door. Just as I was about to pass in he bent forward and asked quickly:
"Friend of the prisoner?"
"No."
He said something to another officer and I was taken to an enclosed space (around which was a low railing) and given a chair. I afterward learned that it was in this place the witnesses were seated. He had evidently not believed what I said.
There was a hum of quiet talk in the room, which was ill-ventilated and filled with men and boys and a few women. Of the latter there were but two who were not of the lower grades of life. But