DISTEMPERS
WHAT they have in their Heads, Hearts, Stomachs, Pockets, Flaps, Tabs and Plackets, have one and all been some and severally commented on, by way of hint or harsh Harangue, praised, blamed, epicked, poemed and pastoraled, pamphleted, prodded and pushed, made a Spring-board for every sort of Conjecture whatsoever, good, bad and indifferent.
Some have it that they cannot do, have, be, think, act, get, give, go, come, right in anyway. Others that they cannot do, have, be, think, act, get, give, go, wrong in any way, others set them between two Stools saying that they can, yet cannot, that they have and have not, that they think yet think nothing, that they give and yet take, that they are both right and much wrong, that in fact, they swing between two Conditions like a Bell’s Clapper, that can never be said to be anywhere, neither in the Centre, nor to the Side, for that which is always moving, is in no settled State long enough to be either damned or transfigured. It is this, perhaps, that has made them too fine for Hell and too swift for Heaven.
Be that as it may, say we, ’tis a gruesome thing when a Woman snaps Grace in twain with a bragging Tongue, for truly such have clack in our City, and run about like mad Dogs, as if Love and its doings were a public Smithy, where all Ears are shod with: “She is so large, so wide, and said she, when we went down to Duty, thus and so, and so she did!” Or as if Love were a Saw-mill whose Dust must be cast in every Eye, or as if it were meet to discuss in public assembly that which by Nature was hidden between two Pillars. The very lowest Ruffian, the most scabby Pimp, or the leanest Wittold would blush and scrape his Shins for Shame of her. Presently then it appears and seems and is in verity, sad chronicling this that all Women are not tidy and neat of Perch, for when a Woman is sick she is sicker sick than any Man, as a rotten Plover is more stincking than a rotten Stick. Even the Cat scratches to make Hide of his Intimacies and whispers to the Earth his Secrets, dunging apart not to shame that grave Necessity which was born in the Penumbra, and goes to the Shades.
Nay, not so shy are all Women with their Loves, but doss aloud, and cackle and crow over the last to Bed as if she were an Egg and not a Darling, and run about the streets after hawking her about, wriggling and alive, for all to see and piss against! Oh fie! Oh shame! She fouls everything she touches with the Droppings natural to her lost Condition!
She is shameless and shameridden! She is haggard at both Ends, and is the greater shamed that she bleat of twice one and both the same. And while many a Man speaks no better, nay often and ever far more naturally in this Vein, it is but his Nature whining. For that which is a Mystery, which amazes, terrifies, is sought after and raised high, that will a Man hound, spring against and befoul, for very Chagrin. But, doth the Hand tell of the Palm, the Eye of the Iris, the Tongue of the Mouth? Nay, ’tis a foul Bird that fouls its Finch!
Again, just as there are some Fellows who will brag that they can teach a Woman much and yet again, and be her all-in-one, there are, alike, Women, no wiser, who maintain that they could (had they a Mind to) teach a taught Woman; thus though it is sadly against me to report it of one so curing to the Wound as Patience Scalpel, yet did she (on such Evenings as saw her facing her favorite Vintage, for no otherwise would she have brought herself to it,) hint, then aver, and finally boast that she herself, though all Thumbs at the business and an Amateur, never having gone so much as a Nose-length into the Matter, could mean as much to a Woman as another, though the gentle purring of “Nay! Nay! Nay!” from the Furs surrounding Dame Musset continued to bleed in her Flank.
“What,” said that good Dame, “can you know about it, who have gentlemaned only? Recall, and remenber, my Love, that the Camel is forever facing a Needle, but cannot go through it, and a Woman is much nearer the needle’s proportion in her probabilitities than a Man.”
“Still and nevertheless!” said Patience.
At this moment entered the two Doxies, High-Head and Low-Heel, the opposites that one often meets in this World of Women. One (Low-Heel) protesting that women were weak and silly Creatures, but all too dear, the other (High Head) that they were strong, gallant, twice as hardy as any Man, and several times his equal in Brain, but none so precious.
“I hold,” said High-Head, “that she is Voltairian of Breath, that she sheds a sharp Aroma, that her mind is so webbed and threaded with Thought and Fancy that the World sees little of either, for the two are in a Thrall, skull-bound and head-hampered. A man can tell you what he thinks, for it comes spinning, a thin and little Thread, from one and a single Bobbin.
“And I hold,” said Low-Heel, “that for just that reason she should not declare herself in possession of her own Opinion, for an Opinion is a single and a nice thing, not two Creatures sitting in Skull, sulking away their Days.
“Yet sometimes,” broke in her Companion, “she thinks of new things, my lass, and how do you account for that?”
“She must come on something, since they untied her Bib and altered the size of her Breech-cloth,” said the other, “but what of it? She is nothing but nice!”
“She is everything but!” cried High-Head. “Is she not the spinning Centre of a spinning World? Do not the Bees belly and blow, hone their Beaks and hoard their Honey to make her Negus and Nectar? The Worm, from Head to Heel, one long contriving inch that she may be wrapped in Silks and Satins, the Seal well suppled for her Coat, and the Seed in the Dirt, fattening and bursting for her Delight? Why, does not Nature, that old Trot, weave Day and Night the Threads of human Destiny whereto these Damsels hold, Chin and Shank, sky-swimming up the Tree that has plotted an hundred Years to coffin her! Great Mother of Geese, how she crawls!” she added.
“Nine Pins and ten Pins and Crows to a Cock!” exclaimed her Bride, “How you wander! such Women as you describe are only seen in Books, or are raked up with the Plough, or are written of in Tomes with the Quill of the Goose that has, with her, been dead a million years, and is Dust with her doings! And even at that, what have These Scriveners said of her but that she must have had a Testes of sorts, however wried and awander; that indeed she was called forth a Man, and when answering, by some Mischance, or monstrous Fury of Fate, stumbled over a Womb, and was damned then and forever to drag it about, like a Prisoner his Ball and Chain, whether she would or no.”
“Because, sweet Fool,” said her Companion, “they cannot let her be, or proclaim her just good Distaff Stuff, but will admit her to sense through the masculine Door only, nevertheless, I’ve noticed, belabouring her the while they admire, with Remarks to the effect that she be unwieldy, gander-gated, sprung at Hip, unlovely, disenchanting, bearded, hoop-chested, game of Leg, out at Elbow, double-jointed, hook-toothed, splay-footed, wattled, hamstrung, mated with nothing, high-bridged and loose-lipped, no-woman’s Meat the length of her Bones, fit for no diddling, dallying Tom, white-eyed and no Wind in her Nostrils but such as blows down her Bellows to make her a neither, and so forth and so on. In no wise worth their pains. For near to a Man or far from a Man, she will not be of him!” She paused “And from where, say you, come such Women? Up from the Cellar, down from the Bed of Matrimony, under Sleep and over come. Past watching Eye and seeking Hand and well over Hedge. From Pantry and Bride’s-sleep, in Mid-conception and in old Age, from Bank and Culvert, from Bog’s Dutch and Fen’s marrow, from all walks and all paths, from round Doors and drop Lofts, from Hayricks and Cabbage-patch, from King’s Thrones and Clerks’ Stools, from high Life and from low. Some dropping Teapots and Linens, some Caddies and Cambric, some Seaweed and Saffron, some with Trophy Skulls and Memory Bones, gleanings from Love’s Labour lost. Some in Nightgowns and some in Fashion, some hot with Home work and some cool with Decisions. Indeed, some of all sorts, to swarm in that wide Acre where, beside some brawling March, the first of shes turned up a Hem with the Hand of Combat.